R.I.P. FC Dual

A LOOOONG time ago I bought a system called the FC Dual.  It's a Chinese made multi-system that plays NES and SNES games.  At the time I bought it I was quite happy with it, it played the games I wanted it to play and I didn't have to shell out 10k+ yen for both individual systems.  However, I made a mistake because this fucking piece of shit just died on me for no goddamn reason.  After taking a moment to reflect on the system I have concluded that it's a huge piece of shit and I would have been better off just spending extra on the original systems.  Here's why

1)  It looks like shit, feels like shit and the controllers suck

This thing is obviously made stupidly cheap because this thing has worse build quality than some of the children's toys at the school I work at.  It's probably the cheap build quality that caused it to die because one moment it was fine and then one cartridge swap later and BAM, no more video output.

The controllers are also fucking atrocious with a terrible D-Pad and shoulder buttons that hurt your fingers after a while.  Everyone knows that the Xbox 360 had a fucking awful D-Pad but the FC Dual somehow out-sucks even that.  Also the black wire covers were coming off the controller and I have no idea how THAT fucking happened considering I treat my gaming collection with the utmost care.

2)  It treats carts like a dog that doesn't want to let go of a tennis ball

More true for FC games than SFC games but HO-LY shit the FC Dual is the system that just doesn't want to let go.  When you are taking a game out you have to pull really fucking hard, almost to the point where you want to stop out of paranoia that you might break the fucking thing.  I found that you could take them out calmly but rocking them left and right out of the slot but that took about a minute and a half to do which is bullshit considering that the original systems have fucking eject buttons.

3) Compatibility

So a while ago I bought Dig-Dug 2 from a retro shop near my house.  I take it home, pop it in and the fucking thing wont load up.  So I take it back to the shop and ask for a refund where they promptly shove it in a normal Famicom and the thing works absolutely no problem.  I have a couple of other obscure Famicom games that don't work in the FC Dual but will work completely fine in a regular system.  Once I realised what was going on with Dig Dug I started getting paranoid every time I bought something that the fucking thing wasn't going to work.

So there you have it, 3 big reasons why the FC Dual is a massive piece of cock.  I know it seems really cool to be able to play 2 consoles worth of stuff in one system but they are so cheaply made that it's almost not worth it.  Just shell out for a original system and you have something more reliable and you don't have to contend with shitty controllers or comparability issues

March Retro Haul

I bought a bunch of old stuff! Enjoy the video

The January Retro Game Hunt

First of all, sorry I've not posted anything in the last couple of days.  On Friday I was busy and on Saturday I was sick with a hangover.  I was planning to make these Game Hunt things a series of videos, except my camera is complete arse so I'm hoping to get a new one, or at least a spare battery very soon.  So for now, here is the stuff I bought in text and picture format.

So just in case you missed it, here was the video with the initial 4 games that I purchased with my FC Dual system.

Except there's been a few more purchases since that video was uploaded, so allow me to share them with you

The first two I'm listing were actually donated to me by a friend, so big shoutouts to him.  First up we have Xevious!

I don't think there is anyone who doesn't know what Xevious is.  Released in 1983, Xevious is one of the big grandaddies of the whole scrolling shooter genre.  Great little game, fun way to kill an hour or so at home.  Sure, there are tons of better shmups than Xevious, but if you're in that retro mood then you can't go wrong with this one.

The second game that was donated to me was an RPG

Drakkhen is a game I know very little about.  In fact, I hadn't even heard of this game until yesterday, and for a mere 250 Yen what do I have to lose really?  From what I have read on the Wikipedia article, it's a port of an Amiga game and it's a 3D RPG where you wander around a big world and do missions for dragons....or something.  When I popped it in there was a cleared file with maxed out guys with the best equipment and I couldn't really figure out what the fuck I was doing so it's the kind of game I'm going to have to sit down with and properly figure out.

Next up is a strange space themed game called Daiva

Sorry about the picture being sideways, no matter how much I fuck with it, it keeps coming up sideways.

Anyway, Daiva is some kind of strategy space thing.  I couldn't really figure out what the fuck I was doing in the 5 minutes I gave to test it out, but it looks like you have to fly around a map and take over all the other planets and destroy all the other enemy ships or something.  I could be totally wrong, yet another game I'm going to have to spend a long afternoon with.

Then there is battle commander.

Yet another one that is just sideways for no reason, fuck my camera.

I have no idea what the fuck this game is aside from being some kind of strategy game.  I fired it up and as soon as I got in game, BAM!, wall of fucking Kanji, so it's on the pile of long afternoon games like Daiva and Drakkhen.  As far as I can tell it's some kind of Gundam game...or it least has giant robots in it and I know fuck all about Gundam so this one is really going to take some time to get going with.

Finally, the best find of the month!

Once again, fuck camera etc.

Chrono Trigger!  Do I really need to say any more than that?  Chrono Trigger for 350 yen (that's £2!).  Popped that sucker in and played it for a few hours, great RPG, absolutely classic.  There was also a file already on there from the previous owner with some really high level characters on it, so it was fun to muck around in that file as well.

So there you have it folks, that's all the retro stuff I got over January.  I'm not really going to have time to do another retro shop which is why this post is coming a little early but next time I hope to get this in video format.

Also let me know if there is anything I should look out for!  I'm hoping to get a PS2 in the next few weeks so I can start buying PS1 games!

(Just as a side note, yes, the price stickers do come off easy, I'm just lazy)