The NES brings back a lot of memories for me.
In retrospect, some are nice and sweet—the hours I spent playing video games with my brother, who was 6 years older than me and, I imagine, not always thrilled to have his baby sister around bothering him—and others are just frustrating—I’m looking at you, Game Genie that didn’t always work forcing me to really work on my lung capacity trying to blow into the games that got dusty.
But no matter what your exact memories of the NES were, I can promise you if you were a fan of it, you need this new NES Classic Edition from Nintendo. Like, need.
Here’s how it’s similar: First of all, it looks like the darn thing. Although it’s a much more miniature version of that old school blocky gray console that used to sit on the floor in front of your TV, it looks identical to the OG. The controller is the same size as the original, making it comically around the same size as the new console itself. On this console you can play 30—yeah, that’s right, 30—of your favorite classic NES games. Final Fantasy, Tecmo Bowl (!!!), Mega Man, Kid Icarus, The Legend of Zelda, etc. Of course, all three Super Mario Bros. games are also included. All of the games are exactly how you remember them, which just piles on the nostalgia even more. Guys, I cannot.
Here’s what makes this baby better than the original though: The games are all built-in to the system. Farewell, Game Genie. I hate you.
The system comes with all 30 of these classic games packed inside of that tiny little console, because the future is now. Everything also hooks up with USB and HDMI ports, so like, no worries on all that complicated circuitry it used to take to hook up a video game. However, the set does only come with one controller, so if you wanted to play multiplayer, you’d have to purchase a second separately. The good news? That’s only $10.
But wait, there’s more! In addition to being able to play all of these games conveniently stored in this mini blast from the past, each game contains four open windows for you to save your game where you’re at, and then continue on playing later. So, for instance, if you are me and my brother, he could share his video games with his kid sister, but still save his own progress so he doesn’t have to keep going back to level one every time that I finally make it through that underground World 1-2 only to fail miserably on World 1-3. (Sorry, Matt.)
This NES Classic Edition is the ultimate #tbt. Of course, it’s near impossible to track down, but if you are so lucky to get your hands on it, cherish it—and introduce this Game Genie-free version to a new generation of kids. (They’ll never know my pain.)
