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Thread: Yobo FC3 NES/SNES/Genesis hands-on mini review (for now)

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    Default Yobo FC3 NES/SNES/Genesis hands-on mini review (for now)



    Got my FC3 today at the Digital Press store (thanks Joe!).

    I'm not sure if I'm going to do a huge, blow-out review with pictures and video like I did with the Retro Duo ... because as nice as this unit is (I DO like it) there really isn't much, other than the fact that it plays all three cartridge types to say about it.

    So, here are my thoughts in broad strokes.

    The unit is slightly longer than the Yobo FC Twin and shaped a bit more like the Super Famicom than anything else I can think of. Matte black plastic, it has a nice weight to it, likely from all the hardware inside of it.

    It outputs in standard composite AV only. The on-screen colors are a bit over-saturated. Not horrible, but not as crisp as the Retro Duo.

    The controllers are proprietary, much like the Gen X system. They look very similar to Genesis 9-pin inputs, but are not shaped the same and you can not use a real Genesis 6 button controler in place of them. The controllers have a nice shape and have an a,b,c - x,y,z button layout like a Genesis pad, as well as an L and R button like a SNES pad. While I find the D-pad to be functional/passable in games like Street Fighter II, it feels dangerously "weak". I'm certainly not going to break it, but I wouldn't be surprised if other people do. The system comes with a light gun modeled after the NES Zapper. It's not the same mold, but it's very amusing and a nice extra. It ONLY works for NES games.



    The NES portion of the system is like every other Yobo system on the market. No Castlevania III compatiblity. In fact, you should be able to reference any Yobo NES clone compatibility chart on this one to find out what does and doesn't work. Much like the Gen X, and every other clone coming out of Hong Kong these days, it suffers in most cases from backwards A/B button syndrome. In games like punch out it's alleviated by the fact that button C is wired up to function as A+B but it ALWAYS triggers A a millisecond sooner.

    The Genesis portion of the system seems to have superior sound output to the Gen X system (I recall Sonic having issues with dropping volume when rings were picked up, no sign of that here) but one very strange thing I noticed was a "rolling" on screen during any period of the game where the on-screen display would read as "nothing" or total black. Hard to explain really. If I do make a video I'll show it. It didn't interfere with any GAMEPLAY portion of any game I tried ... but it was certainly strange to say the least. There's also a region code switch on the back for Japanese/Euro Mega Drive games.

    The SNES portion looked and sounded good ... unfortunately that damned "backwards button syndrome" really stuck out in Super Mario World / All Stars with no way around it as buttons c/z don't function in SNES mode.

    Final verdict?

    This is NOT the be-all-end-all of clone systems by any means. For every thing Yobo does right, they do something bone-headed. The bacwards button thing CONTINUES to baffle me ... there must be at least ONE person involved in the development of these things that realizes that they're not doing it right (and haven't been for quite some time now) ... the "convenience" factor of this unit is nice. If you're a fan of saving space (as well as amusing people with novel devices like this) it's a winner ... and if you have a standard CRT TV set, the included Zapper is a nice touch.

    Of course, there is NO substitute for the REAL THING. An NES, SNES and a Genesis are the best way to play your old cartridges if authentic compatibility and accuracy is your thing. I don't argue with that.

    AND if you're looking for a high-end NES clone the Retro Duo is STILL the way to go in my clone-system-collecting-book.

    however, this thing surely is "NEAT" there's no other system on the market that will allow you to have a copy of River City Ransom in the NES slot, a copy of Super Mario World & All-Stars in the SNES slot and the Nomad 6-in-1 cartridge in the Genesis slot all at the same time.
    "And the book says: 'We may be through with the past, but the past ain't through with us.'"


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    Moving this to Classic Gaming.

    -GAC-
    #vbender

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    Very interesting, but I'll stick with my RetroDuo.

    Does the Genesis portion work with Virtua Racing?

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    I picked up one of these 3-in-1 systems for some younger cousins as a Christmas present bundled with a ton of games for all three platforms, and decided to try it out first to make sure everything I included actually played on it. I'm glad I did, because Super Empire Strikes Back freezes before you can even start the game, and there were a handful of NES carts that just refused to boot up no matter what I tried.

    I'm not real familiar with Genesis clones out there but the Sega portion impressed me and seemed pretty spot-on visually and audibly. Not perfect, but the closest of the three imo. NES games seem to have a strange grid-like artifacting going on with the display, but I don't know if this is common among clone systems. It's not that distracting once the game gets moving though. I found the sound quality of the SNES partition to be the worse of the three, unable to handle most digitized speech and off-tune music. Still, for what I paid it was cheaper and easier than trying to get all three 'real' systems.

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    Looks good but like you said, ill stick with my 3 original consoles!
    Rarity guide addict. ASK For TRADES
    650+ different NES carts!

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    Quote Originally Posted by GrandAmChandler View Post
    Moving this to Classic Gaming.

    -GAC-
    Haha, whooooops!
    "And the book says: 'We may be through with the past, but the past ain't through with us.'"


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    That's a sweet looking piece of machinery. Now, will it play S/NES/Genesis games from any region or just US? Also, any link for a shop selling these and shipping to li'l ole Denmark?
    I would love one of these, just to be able to play Genesis/MD games. I have absolutely no luck trying to find a console here
    Denmark: Home of The Little Mermaid and heavy sarcasm.

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    Quote Originally Posted by bunnybum View Post
    That's a sweet looking piece of machinery. Now, will it play S/NES/Genesis games from any region or just US? Also, any link for a shop selling these and shipping to li'l ole Denmark?
    I would love one of these, just to be able to play Genesis/MD games. I have absolutely no luck trying to find a console here
    I would imagine that you could play games from any region on it, that's pretty standard for clone systems. There's a dedicated switch for US/Non US Genesis/MegaDrive games.
    "And the book says: 'We may be through with the past, but the past ain't through with us.'"


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    Yobo just keeps right on milking people. Obviously they have a business model similar to Nintendo and Capcom. This is basically the same product(s) over and over again in a different package.

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    Quote Originally Posted by bangtango View Post
    Yobo just keeps right on milking people. Obviously they have a business model similar to Nintendo and Capcom. This is basically the same product(s) over and over again in a different package.
    True enough ...

    ... but there is a genunine market for the stuff all over the world, so who can blame them.

    If you type in NES top-loader into eBay you'll find a heck of a lot more of these than actual top-loader NES systems, and I bet every last one sells.

    I only wish that they'd pay more attention to things like button placement.
    "And the book says: 'We may be through with the past, but the past ain't through with us.'"


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    IMO, these things are why its such a pain to sell old games on the internet

    People get suckered into buying these things with promises of "It will play all your old games, just like the old days!"

    You then have incompatibility issues, which in turn, causes ignorant buyers to blame you if the Castlevania 3 they bought from you won't work on their "nintendo" because "all their other games work" . Sure they do.

    Oh, and that compatibility list is a joke, I bought a yobo from a yard sale for 3 dollars, just to test it out. Games that supposedly work on that list and would work in my original toaster would not boot up at all on that crappy yobo.

    I didn't even resell it to anyone, it went right in the trash. Shame on me.

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    Quote Originally Posted by StakeRaiser View Post
    IMO, these things are why its such a pain to sell old games on the internet

    People get suckered into buying these things with promises of "It will play all your old games, just like the old days!"

    You then have incompatibility issues, which in turn, causes ignorant buyers to blame you if the Castlevania 3 they bought from you won't work on their "nintendo" because "all their other games work" . Sure they do.

    Oh, and that compatibility list is a joke, I bought a yobo from a yard sale for 3 dollars, just to test it out. Games that supposedly work on that list and would work in my original toaster would not boot up at all on that crappy yobo.

    I didn't even resell it to anyone, it went right in the trash. Shame on me.
    If they want absolute 100% compatibility, they should get the original system. It's that simple.

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    Quote Originally Posted by StakeRaiser View Post
    IMO, these things are why its such a pain to sell old games on the internet

    People get suckered into buying these things with promises of "It will play all your old games, just like the old days!"

    You then have incompatibility issues, which in turn, causes ignorant buyers to blame you if the Castlevania 3 they bought from you won't work on their "nintendo" because "all their other games work" . Sure they do.

    Oh, and that compatibility list is a joke, I bought a yobo from a yard sale for 3 dollars, just to test it out. Games that supposedly work on that list and would work in my original toaster would not boot up at all on that crappy yobo.

    I didn't even resell it to anyone, it went right in the trash. Shame on me.
    Well, I don't buy clone systems with the expectation that they'll have 100% compatibility, I know better, and as far as people getting "ripped off", it's tough to really know where to direct the anger.

    Most of the eBay sellers that have these things up in bulk wouldn't know a copy of Castlevania III from a copy of Combat for Atari2600, it's not like they're classic gaming techies like us, I'd venture to guess that most of them are just bulk eBay sellers that don't know any better. (I bet if you check their other auctions you'll find bulk NON-classic gaming items.)

    AND most of the people who buy the things and EXPECT them to have 100% compatibility ... well, it's not hard to google "Yobo NES" and find a wiki or a thread that details the fact that they're NOT 100% compatible.

    Caveat Emptor. If something sounds too good to be true, it usually is.

    In any case ... there's absolutely no denying that there is NO substitute for the real thing ... BUT remember, even in the case of the "real thing" there are STILL issues of software compatibility between hardware revisions. That's been the case LONG before clone systems started rolling off the assembly lines.

    As far as your experience with the Yobo compatibility list, those things are usually compiled by users like myself who have a lot of experience with the stuff ... there's all sorts of reasons why you might have had problems with the games. Personally I wouldn't have thrown the system away ... but, hey, to each their own.
    Last edited by Frankie_Says_Relax; 12-21-2008 at 09:25 PM.
    "And the book says: 'We may be through with the past, but the past ain't through with us.'"


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    A ton of people that buy these things aren't smart enough to google a compatibility list, and have no idea how to clean a game. They are used to PS2 - PS3 disc games. They end up getting shoddy clone systems and blame whoever sells them the copy of Castlevania 3.

    Anyways, I decided when that Yobo wouldn't even play a mint clean Metroid or River City Ransom that boot up perfectly in both an NES toaster and top loader, it was ready for the trash.

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    sounds like it was broken/defective, as both of those titles do work on all manner of clone system. Trash may have been the right option. Probably a bent pin or broken solder point.
    "And the book says: 'We may be through with the past, but the past ain't through with us.'"


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    Hey Frankie,
    Any chance of taking a pic of the guts?......For technical overview.....
    §ø Ï ζ Ξ Δ φ Ψ ς ώ ☆ ¿ ∞ ♪ ξ

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    Quote Originally Posted by Frankie_Says_Relax View Post
    True enough ...

    ... but there is a genunine market for the stuff all over the world, so who can blame them.

    If you type in NES top-loader into eBay you'll find a heck of a lot more of these than actual top-loader NES systems, and I bet every last one sells.

    I only wish that they'd pay more attention to things like button placement.
    I do agree with everything after the "... but."

    You think it would have been worth it for Nintendo themselves to try and tap into this hardware market (by manufacturing and reissuing certain quantities of an NES model) before Yobo flooded it?

    About the button placement thing, why not write an impassioned letter or email to someone? I am sure there is a mailing address or contact form of some sort, even if these things are manufactured on the other end of the world. The absolute worst that could happen is that it'd be ignored and you'd be out a stamp and/or ten minutes of your time.

    I am grateful that you do such a good job of staying on top of these clone systems with informative reviews. I'm planning on buying the FC Mobile for a birthday gift and while it isn't perfect, your review did help me to decide it would be "good enough" for the gamer I am getting it for. So your critique helped me make up my mind, which is the measure of a good, well-written review.
    Last edited by bangtango; 12-22-2008 at 11:15 AM.

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    Thanks Bang!!

    ooXxXoo I might be able to take a pic of the internals ... just give me some time on that one.
    "And the book says: 'We may be through with the past, but the past ain't through with us.'"


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    Is this thing available at Play N Trade yet like the Retro Duo?
    Currently catching up on PSN, WiiWare, Wii U E-Shop and Xbox Live Arcade exclusives I missed.

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    Frankie, what would you recommend for someone that already owns a Retro Duo, but wants a FC3 or a GenX to play a import Japanese Genesis title? Which handles Genesis titles the best and has the best controllers?

    Don't care about the NES or SNES capabilities since I have the RetroDuo and original consoles for those (As well as a Genesis, I just don't want to mod it to play 1 game).

    Thanks!
    Last edited by Leo_A; 12-23-2008 at 02:00 PM.

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