Famichatting is all about hearing what the Famicast crew have to say about the big gaming topics. We usually have this banter behind the scenes, but here it is for all to see.
Today's topic that got us all a quiver was the announcement of the Super Nintendo/Famicom Classic Mini!
Danny:
I was just perusing the internet late the other night when I came across this info on Twitter. I thought it was a joke, but soon saw that Nintendo wasn’t kidding around! I thought that maybe, just maybe, NCL would announce the thing for Japanese territories in the morning, but had my doubts as it took the company nearly a month and a half before they announced the Famicom Classic Mini for the motherland.
But here we have it. The product was officially announced just hours after it was in the West. Basically at the start of business hours in Japan. This wasn’t exactly a surprise, but perhaps the timing of it was. Pretty much everyone figured that this would be a thing, but it was only a matter of time. 21 games. 21 freaking games are going to be available on this thing and none of them are on the level of Urban Champion or anything like that. There are some solid games, including the unreleased Star Fox 2! When it boils down to it, I’m intending to pick this thing up on day one - probably via pre-order. Ideally, as I would have liked to do with the NES Classic, I hope to pick up both the US (to scratch the nostalgia itch) and the Japanese versions. We’ll see how the market handles guys like me with my hopes and desires!
The SNES was my first home console, so many of these games hit me in feels much more than the NES Classic ever could. A large number of the carts that I owned back in the day are there; Donkey Kong Country, Zelda, Super Metroid, Mario World, Mario Kart, Yoshi’s Island, Starfox, Secret of Mana, even the one version of Street Fighter 2 that I owned is in there! As a European, the joy-tears are swiftly followed by the rage-tears as I see that Nintendo of Europe just casually toss Earthbound, Final Fantasy 3 (6), and Super Mario RPG in there like they were a big part of their history. Snap out of it assholes, you didn’t release those games until several decades later, I will never forget, never forgive, and I will have my vengeance in this life or the next. Oh, but we do get the lovely Euro Super Nintendo (basically Super Famicom) design system and controllers, so it’s not all bad! If I can get this thing for regular price, I think it’d be a great way to relive these games, and maybe even introduce my son to them in a semi-authentic way!
Ty:
Even I'm impressed by the game lineup in the SFC Mini. Yo, Starfox 2??
I don't think the differences in game lineups between the regions are that dramatic. Though, USA getting SF2 Turbo and JPN getting SSF2 is another hilarious example of how Capcom USA and Capcom JPN have been trying to pull Street Fighter in different directions for decades. Protip: Turbo has the best balance and game mechanics, even though it has less characters.
I might have bought one just for Secret of Mana, but it occurred to me that it's impossible to attach a third controller. Too bad. FF6, though! Best JRPG of all time!
Overall, the package is so good and hype that it's easy to forget that emulation exists for a minute. I'd still like to have a bunch of these in my investment portfolio, though. I'm looking forward to the release and a bunch of people showing up on Scrubquotes when they play these games for the first time.
The SNES was actually the first console I ever owned personally. My brother secretly entered a competition on my behalf and so when a gigantic box with a Gameboy and SNES arrived unexpectedly on a Saturday morning I was decidedly excited. The SNES has always had a pretty special place in my heart and still holds a lot of my all time favorite games - many of which are in this collection! (Megaman X is best game ever made. Fight me.)
As a package, this is a pretty amazing lineup. There’s only a handful of games from the entire SNES library I feel are missing to make this a genuinely perfect collection (Seriously, where the heck is Chrono Trigger? And Donkey Kong 2?). Starfox 2 getting an official release is an absolutely amazing feature too and had me briefly considering picking this thing up! The additional touches like the console’s design matching each region’s original release is just icing. It’s only fair that after hoarding FF6 and friends that the US gets to have their garbage purple blob.
However, despite all those great points in its favor, this reveal absolutely does not excite me. After the horrendous stock issues that plagued the Famicom Mini I just discounted this release out of hand. Regardless of how Nintendo claims they will ramp up production on this release I have no doubt it will still be a rare sight in stores. I have already dealt with Nintendo stock shortages on amiibo for years and more recently with the Switch. I’m tired of having to spend days and weeks just trying to give Nintendo my money for things like this.
Even setting aside all that, I don’t want another home system like this to play 25 year old games. I want these on the Switch, or on the 3DS. If they released a SNES Classic ROM pack on the eStore with all of these games for $70 I’d pick it up in a heartbeat. As it stands, this is just a cool idea for a product that I will absolutely never try to buy.
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