@@DVDfeverGames Many reviewers are overly positive since critical ones are less likely to get products from that company for review. I wish it wasn't like that but happens more often than you'd think.
Jesus is being a little nitpicky about the display and a couple other things but some reasonable complaints here. I guess at the price range there are probably better options. Still came off a little mean though.
Wanted to say that, just scrolled down to be sure somebody didn't said it before me. We KNOW it's the same NOAC that every clones have been using since the 90s, don't try to tell us it's to "keep cost down", you were just lazy and cheap. Those chips have been around for so long, they're probably paying like 10 cents for each, you can literally find 5$ handhelds on AliExpress with the same chip, selling those for 80$ is a disgrace, they could have used emulation for the same price.
I think for 80 dollars it’s still a cool device, despite the negative things he mentioned. The only thing my OCD wouldn’t be able to cope with is when part of the picture is not visible (what he showed with text/numbers falling off).
I love the honesty of your reviews. You're a very fair guy with your criticism, and I'm happy you don't use any theatrics or click bait with it either. I mean, I've been subbed for years now, but it's still refreshing to see haha.
Speaking as someone who works for a small company, I totally sympathize with these guys. They’re probably doing the best they can with the resources they have. Good review though!
LOL, I wonder if there is more to the story here. It almost seems like something that was tooled out and ready to produce cheaply in like 2003-2004ish, but the company folded, and then MyArcade bought the tooling and parts many years later and ran with it. It's simply bizarre for a modern device, even a dirt cheap one.
Thanks for the new uploads recently. They've been great reviews on products and your new place. I'm glad you were able to move and are happy at your new place.
16:9 screens are common and widely available. 4:3 screens are no longer common and would have to be custom ordered, so they'd likely be quite a bit more expensive.
While I get why most use widescreen displays, it would be nice if more of them would hide most of that behind a bezel or something. It may just be me, but when playing a 4:3 game on a 16:9 display the large amount of screen real estate that goes unused kind of bugs me to look at. I don't even mind leaving some more screen exposed than is needed to display the game, so that way there's room to make adjustment to settings and whatnot, but it would be nice if there were a little bit of it covered up.
7:50 In their defense, nobody uses handhelds on the bus. Well, not that thing anyway. I think the size alone says "home use and novelty". Handhelds are always advertised ad being used on the bus, in a waiting room, at the park with your friends, etc. The truth is that the OVERWHELMING use of all handhelds is in the home while laying on a bed/couch or taking a dump. I'd literally put it at about 95%. Nobody in their right mind sees that giant decide and thinks "I'll take this with me to the park! Yeah, I'll carry a bunch of old carts with me and play Mario Bros 3 while I wait for the bus!" Nobody haha All that said, I agree that many of those choices just don't make sense.
"Needs some sort of lever or button to release the cartridge" What's the "release" button right next to the cartridge slot? That looks like maybe if you push that it will "release" the cartridge from being locked? Or is that a release for something else? Edit: I went back and looked the release is to open the cleaning kit. My bad :) I'll leave my comment so I look dumb.
Thank you so much for reviewing this! I've been waiting a long time for a review of the Retro Champ. It's really a shame that it didn't turn out better. The NES is my favorite retro console.
I genuinely feel like there are a lot of hardware options popping up that don't really offer all that much in comparison to what we already have. It's a decent price and it's great that retro gaming is getting this kind of support but it's started to feel a bit saturated.
@@robertjames9547 @games made one a bunch of years ago, and they have a bunch in HK where I live that are mega drive ones. The Pandora boxes heavily out number any retro machine.
I LOVE the chris Cornell pic in your intro, it was the one they made for the tribute tour, was near tears at that when I realized it was the last time you will ever see soundgarden play on stage
@@grabbity 9bits makes the claim that "can't expect too much from this, it doesn't have the OG hardware" Which is a nonsense claim. It heavily implies that he believes OG hardware is required to accurately render NES games. If this were true, he'd have to either have low expectations for the NES mini, or believe that it had NES OG hardware in it. I'm not making a serious claim that he believes that. I'm pointing out the logicial conclusion of his statements and showing how nonsensical it is.
@@grabbity Why is it required for cartridge based systems? what about putting a cartridge reader on an emulator makes in inferior to an emulator without a cartridge reader? You telling me if I hook up one of those rom dump things to my computer and run the game directly off the cartridge it's gonna make nestopia suck?
When you did the side by side comparison with the NES Classic, I noticed that this actually looks a bit more like how the original NES looked on my TVs back in the day, so I got a bit of nostalgia from that, for what it's worth. My top-loader is in the cabinet though while my Classic is hooked up to the TV, so yeah...
Can you hook a Famicom Disk System ram adapter in the Famicom cartridge slot? I know it would be kind of redundant because you would have to carry a huge disk drive everywhere you go but I still think the idea would be kind of amusing.
This would be good for taking to flea markets and seeing if games worked before you buy them. Its almost like it came straight out of the 80s, with all the design problems. They built it like it was 1989.
I love this channel. Metal, video games, and a cool group of friends hanging out. I'm in my mid 30`s and in my area people in my age group laugh at my collecting games. So it's nice to see there are others still having fun.
I'm encouraged that they actually decided to attempt this, and the sub-$100 price point is the right idea, but they definitely need to go back to the drawing board for a second version. +Hire some time with the caliber of guys who work with RetroRGB, they're superb. +Improve the video output from the internal hardware to use better quality by whatever means necessary. +Improve the D pad along with the overall ergonomics. +Drop the Famicom slot and offer a $10 adapter instead. Use the bottom slot for Genesis instead :) +Improve the sound reproduction and speakers. +Add SD for cart to flash storage, this would make traveling with your library a thousand times easier, and safer than carrying valuable carts. +Have a multi-out port that gives Composite, Scart RGB, and S-Video, perhaps using the Genesis 2 mini port to make sourcing cables easier. +Other ideas? I mean it's cool that this company normally known for some cheap knockoff retro nostalgia junk at Walmart has decided to at least try more legit hardware capable of running actual carts, and I'd hate for this to be such a disaster that they simply don't try to improve it and give it a go with community feedback. If possible, give them some constructive feedback.
Back in the '90s this might have done well, but as much as I think Jesus was a tad too harsh, he is right. They should have went with better graphics and put the same d-pad that's on the controller in the console.
Something like this in the 90s would have cost a fortune though. I could see if it was just a console that had two slots for nes famicom and snes . Which may have existed by the 90s cause by ps1 n64 days. Plug and play nes systems existed
I just got mine and I have no complaints. The d-pad I started getting use to it where I got comfortable with it. I think there is a release button switch that makes it a little bit easier to pull carts out. Then noticed I pulled carts out easier when I lock device with my knees then pull cart out. The sound wasn’t off on mine at all. You can even use headphones. I also tried out a 150 in one was cool. Then tested out Transformers on Famicom. That Silver Surfer was hard. Maybe the hardest game on Nes. I think noticed some cars on Spy Hunter look a tad darker than I think they should be.
All moved in, and now we get a new intro and vids resume upload. NOICE! And the tower with Sega CD, Genesis, 32X, Japanese Sonic & Knuckles wit foreign Sonic 1 locked in was a gaming testament of epiclesian proportions!! Only thing to make it more epic would have been a Game genie though. :P EPIC!
BUt yah, no surprise of the thing being disappointing. Unless I can get a handheld to play any genesis and other cartridges at 1440p and connect to a Tv like a switch, I am not game.
7:24-8:24 Okay, watching this segment made me want to puke, not as a gamer, but as somebody who grew up with a father who studied and made engineering his entire life's career. Like, who the---Who would design ANYTHING like that!? Like, I mean, my god!
I think the real purpose of that design is to make sure you can't have two carts plugged in at the same time(signal conflicts and whatnot). That peice of plastic they included was just somone's silly idea and completely unneccessary.
This is intriguing, most of the negatives I could live with but the d pad could be a deal breaker. Though for $80 might give it a shot. Looking forward to a sega version of this for sure.
😂 Duuuude, I feel ya. I felt that way for years and sometimes still do even now. The handful of people in my circle are all into games but we like different stuff besides a few commom games, and so no one will talk about the same stuff for more than a few moments. It's sad.
First impressions, thing looks way too bulky for any real portability . There's a list of reasons why I wouldn't purchase this but number one would that I'd be scared to damage any of my more collectable games. Great video and thanks for reviewing this giant hunk of plastic but it's a definite no for me haha.
Even if they aren't collectible, you still wouldn't want them damaged. This is like having a CD-Rom drive that slightly scratches your disks every time you press the eject button.
@@txcforever lol. not that bad and nowhere near that relatable. CDs are way too fucking easy to fuck up. My Double Dragon 2, ninja turtles, all the Mega Man cartridges plus some more, have all lasted since I got them as a kid. Falls, stepped on. Having to wedge two in the nes because it doesn't seat right and that's the only way I could get it to read properly. Many light frisbee throws to the game box..since I was a kid to recently...at age 35. As long as you aren't literally trying to break it, your cartridge will be fine from the snug little spot it's sliding in and out of for this thing.
There is upscaling going on, it’s just not optimized for 240p gaming. Also, the composite video is because the original NES PPU is known for outputting composite-only. While there is a digital RGB signal, it is hard to convert it back to analog without heavy modding.
This thing was a not-so-portable solution to begin with, but why on earth does it have a 16:9 switch on a “portable” device? Isn’t the screen ment to be 4:3 by DEFAULT?
6:17 The way his friend uses the lower part of his thumb on the D-pad rather than the tip of his thumb is so unusual! Seems like it would be a lot less tactile.
Metal Jesus I think you're amazing! You're hard on things, but for all the right reasons. I think you're right in so many ways for us old gaming bucks. We know how the cartridges should look and play. The handheld needs work. The issue is, they cut costs, and it doesn't work right. If I already spent £40 - £50 on my favourite NES game cartridge, $80 is nothing. Should have just done it right... OMG! Imagine a portable gaming console compatible with Duck Hunt!?
Yeah, just about any 8- or 16-bit game first designed for home consoles (ie, not PC ports) has graphics that were designed specifically for "soft" CRT displays. The screen on this thing is definitely not great, but I'd be perfectly OK with something along those lines because it feels more authentic to me. Honestly, I sometimes have a hard time playing super-crisp/upscaled retro games, particularly Genesis, because they just look wrong in a "pixel perfect" presentation.
If you have the extra cash you should look at some pvm monitors. The 9 inch ones are only round $100usd if you just want a little tv that looks awesome. Or just get a 5 dollar crt tv off of Craigslist haha
Probably his preference of playing. I partake in fighting games and any time i've had to use a game pad I do "claw" style. Friends who were unfamiliar looked at me oddly until i explained why i do it.
Great Video MJR! Man... I totally laughed out loud when reggie went to use the tool to remove the game! 😂😂😂😂😂 I know you weren't trying to be funny but your reactions in this video was hilarious!
Bro, check out Geometry Wars for Wii. It’s an arcade shooter. But it’s insanely cool, and one of the biggest hidden gems I’ve come across. Great video btw! I just needed to tell you about this game.
Geometry Wars is a great game. But I wouldn't really call it a hidden gem. It's been ported to every machine under the sun, had several sequels, and sold millions of copies. Everybody I know that likes shooters has played GW on one machine or another.
I think I got it. They were marketing for the ACTUAL 90s kids. We didn't care back then. Low res? We didn't know. It was a game. press the buttons and make the ninja kick or the man jump. Cartridge stuck? Shit, my nes was in a way where I had to purposely wedge it in with another cartridge just so it could work properly. My sega, that I still use...as well as my n64..won't allow me to seat the cartridge all the way in. Have it barely touching ..so when my kids jump around too much in the area..I'm ready for the game to just cut off. Seems like they were making DAMN sure that the cartridge wouldn't just flop out. Get knocked loose or what not. And I can appreciate that. No matter how long you're on the bus...which if it's more than 3hrs, this thing won't last anyhow...So in those couple of hours..are you really just CONSTANTLY switching games? I agree that newer gamers would rather not deal with this. And I also would rather not..but eh. It's not really a big deal.
I have no skin in the game here but man, it seems like you guys were looking for every reason possible to hate this console. It’s $80.00! What do you expect for that price point?
I can see this as more of a tool for collectors to take along to conventions, flea markets or even resale game stores so that one would have a way to immediately test any games out. Its got the cleaning kit compartment to do some on the spot cleaning, and the screen quality wouldn't matter too much if you just plug the game in to see if it works. Idk if an $80 price point would be worth it just for that purpose, but yeah if the screen output, sound and controls were better then i would totally spend $100-$110 to play physical media on the go. Easier than setting up my consoles every time i want to play NES.
To be fair, you can find a lot of good Android consoles and they're all better than a PSP, especially for SNES and N64 (most can even emulate PSP and DS now), but is it worth it to replace a PSP with one of those? Not really, it's still good enough for a lot of people (and I'm one of those people, except I now use a Vita, its screen is so much better than my PSP Go and the joysticks are really nice for PS1).
I bought a Vita for a handheld emulation device and it was pretty terrible for various reasons, the emulators being bad and very limited and uncustomizable and not working correctly, apps just stopping working and needing to be installed again, not enough buttons to emulate some consoles like the PS1 or N64, the terrible and expensive proprietary SD cards and chargers that are only going up in price because they're no longer being manufactured, the whole rigmarole of installing all the jailbreaking stuff in the first place because I had a very awkward OS number, and how you install everything depends on which OS update number you have. It literally took months to jailbreak it, while making at least a couple of posts a week to /r/vitahacking and nobody there could work out what was wrong with my Vita and why it wouldn't connect to my pc, even when I bought brand new cables for it. Then it just stopped working entirely. It turns on but none of the apps open anymore, not the emulators, not the basic apps like the Internet app or any games etc So I bought a GPD XD+, and it's miles better. I was put off at first because of the price and that's why I got the Vita first but yeah. It's basically just an android tablet with physical buttons, and closes shut like a DS. Android emulation is by far my favourite, it's even better and simpler than doing it on a PC and the emulators are incredibly customizable with stuff like button configurations and adding a save state and load state button and altering the speed of the fast forward etc which the Vita emulators lacked, and I'd emulated a lot on my android tablet so I knew going in I'd be able to do anything I wanted on it, it can run any app on the Play store. And it has HDMI output which is one of my favourite things about it. So now it's a perfect complement to my switch. I can play games on the go and then plug them into my TV with both devices, and the GPD thing covers all the old games that haven't been re-released to the Switch yet or probably never will for various reasons. I buy games when they're available, like I have all the mega man collections, but for the stuff that isn't on the switch I can just emulate them on this instead. And GBA games look incredible on a big modern TV, and the GPD thing is cheaper than the GBA consolizer except it can also do all the other consoles on top of that too. I've been playing Warioland 4 on my big TV which is amazing because I always thought that game looked beautiful and so it's even better blown up. And I'm playing metroid zero mission for the first time, after having just beaten super metroid on my Switch for the first time, so there's some continuity there. And also GB and GBC and game gear games look so cool on a big screen, I've never had the chance to do that before. And I have a mega drive mini and SNES mini but I tend to use this thing instead now, plus of course playing PS1 games on the big TV is better than the PlayStation classic, and I can play n64 games on a TV for the first time (never played an actual n64 console before). Plus of course you can use standard micro sd cards, and standard charger cables cos it has micro USB. And the thing is faster than my shitty Samsung J4+ phone so I tend to use it for say browsing the Internet, buying stuff on amazon, quickly watching RU-vid videos etc because my phone is so damn laggy. It's expensive but it's one of the best purchases I've made in a while.
6:04 right there is a tale sign that the Retrocamp is just anothrer nes clone or faminclone. Why? Because of the sound of the coins on Super Mario they sound way off that's because most nes clones can't reproduce the sound correctly and I see this a lot of times.
Yeah my cousin got one of those genesis clones from at games. The second you boot up an old game and the music is garbage, all your nostalgia is ruined.
One thing I immediately noticed is the placement of the A and B buttons, both on the console and on the external controller, and I'm surprised that this wasn't brought up in the review nor in the comments. The angle that the A and B buttons are offset to makes it impossible to press both at the same time with the right thumb, and this is a problem in the Super Mario games when you need to hold B and the D-pad to run. Also, in SMB3 World 6-5, you need to hold onto a Koopa shell with B while repeatedly tapping A to fly to find the real exit, so unless you use your thumb at a very weird angle or lay the console flat and use two fingers, this button placement is actually a game breaker. Nintendo evidently understood this when making Super Mario All Stars, so when playing the NES Super Mario remakes, the SNES controller is mapped to make X/Y=NES B and A/B=NES A.
I don't know, having it set up and chilling on the bar top with that mini controller seemed like the most appropriate setup, if that makes sense. Like it was designed to be left alone just like that. Doesn't make the removing cartridges from either side of the thing any less awkward, though.
They should have had the NES carts insert flush with the bottom edge with FC carts protruding from the top since Famicom carts have so much variability in size and shape. Anything taller than the basic FC cartridge shape would cause issues with the kickstand.
This is a great video. Really never ceases to amaze me with how consistently entertaining and well done your vids are. You touch on all the right details so I get the perfect impression you and your buddies got from this uh...brick.
I suppose it’s a good device to take to retro gaming fair and shops to check games work before purchasing them (especially with the cartridge cleaning kit).
The only thing I don't like about the retro champ is that is freaking huge and that the NES cartridge is just sticking out and the screen is 16:9 which it makes it bigger -_-
Just save up for a switch. Plus, If you load CFW, you can play nes, snes, ps1, Dreamcast, gameboy etc, AND it’s actually portable/elegant. Ps, I find your videos so wholesome 😭😭
