Unboxing the Nintendo Famicom Classic Mini Edition - Importing The Nintendo Classic into the USA

In this video, we unbox and check out the Nintendo Famicom Mini Classic Edition, brought back from Japan by Adrian from Live Action Games.

Ever since I bought my Retron 5 in January of 2015 I have been a huge fan of the Nintendo Famicom. Yes, I knew it existed before then, but I had never really researched or dove into what makes this such an amazing system. I loved everything about the system, the design, styling, player 2 microphone, it is just a great nostalgic console.

One of the things I discovered early on was just how inexpensive Famicom games were compared to their NES Counterparts, at least for the most part. I have a decent, but not huge, collection of Famicom and Famicom Disc System games and when I heard that there was going to be another production run of the Famicom Mini Editions I definitely wanted one.

I had seen these systems on Ebay for anywhere from $75-$200. They are cool but I did not want to pay more than retail. Then, Adrian from Live Action Games, our local retro game store, told me he was going to Japan and Akihabara for some retro game shopping. Well, that's all I needed to know and asked him to bring me back a system and he did!

The Famicom Mini is in the same vein as the NES and Super NES Classic Editions we got here in the states, but instead of the NES-styling, it had the Famicom styling. Additionally, the line up of games was slightly different. The games in the Famicom Mini are:

Donkey Kong
Pac-Man
Excitebike
Balloon Fight
Ice Climber
Galaga
Yie Ar Kung-Fu
Super Mario Bros.
The Legend of Zelda
Atlantis no Nazo
Gradius
Makai Village (Ghosts n' Goblins in the US)
Solomon's Key
Metroid
Castlevania
Adventure of Link
Bumping Sumo
Super Mario Bros. 3
Ninja Gaiden
Mega Man 2
River City Ransom
Double Dragon Ⅱ The Revenge
Super Tamashito Luo (Super C in the US)
Final Fantasy Ⅲ
Dr. Mario
Downtown Nekketsu March Soreyuke
Mario Open Golf
Super Mario USA (Super Mario Bros. 2 in the US)
Kirby's Adventure

The build quality is amazing on this system. The designers were painted into a corner with the Famicom Mini design as they needed controllers that were scale to the main system but still had to be functional. The controllers are small, but they're surprisingly usable. The two things you'll need to get the most out of the Famicom Mini is a USB power supply, Nintendo doesn't include one, and a LOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG HDMI cable since the included controller cables are pretty short.

The system uses the same menu music as the NES Classic, no need to change here. I was surprised to see some games had the Famicom Disc System loading screens, this was a nice touch. While Castlevania was the FDS version it did not have the enhanced audio, which was pretty disappointing.

I love that this is now in my collection, for a reasonable price, and I was able to get it from someone I know who got it in Japan. Thanks to Adrian for bringing it back for me and not charging me an arm and a leg for it.

The footage used in this review are used under the Fair Use laws, referenced below:

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/107

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The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors.
(Pub. L. 94–553, title I, § 101, Oct. 19, 1976, 90 Stat. 2546; Pub. L. 101–650, title VI, § 607, Dec. 1, 1990, 104 Stat. 5132; Pub. L. 102–492, Oct. 24, 1992, 106 Stat. 3145.)