What got you into famicom?

[zmaster18]

You Can Play This was a nice, informative series. I was sad when I found out he shot himself. I especially like his Penguin games episode, as well as Densha De Go! episode.

[Great Hierophant]

Oh You Can Play This I liked it too. JewWario is sadly no longer with us however.

As I say above I purchased the one with the housing and I seperated the pins and put in resistors in place for extra audio

I'm in pal territory but the adapter is good for 1 game for me and that's lifeforce other than that all my games run too fast due to pal being a rubbish format.

I'm not the most knowledgeable person with soldering but the modification took less than 5mins to do.

Gauntlet, Rad Racer II and After Burner work with this modification applied. 
I have been unjust to the one with the housing.  I forgot that I actually have one and modded it some time ago to support games like Castlevania 3 and the PowerPak.  I did not think it worked because I saw some strange lines when I tried the PowerPak.  However, I tried it just now with Castlevania 3, After Burner, Gemfire and Laser Invasion.  They all worked once I cleaned the pins.  The PowerPak worked as well.  While the NES cartridge connector on that adapter is still a bit tight and the plastic is still cheap, once modded it is the best overall solution.  

I heard these adapters often bridge 48 and 49 instead of joining them to NES pins 57 and 58 so that MMC5 games work. Does After Burner and Gauntlet also use any extra pins?

Gauntlet and Rad Racer II and After Burner all work once this mod is done, they do not require any other pin mods. 

[P]

I see, so both MMC5 games and these mentioned games uses 57 and 58.

[lionplex]

I always had a fascination and appreciation for the Famicom and Super Famicon, it's only these days I have the resources to really put effort into starting a collection.  The original Japanese consoles always had more design sense and personality than the lifeless boxy versions released in the US, as well as the Famicom / Super Famicom cartridges and packaging.

[zxin]

I got into Famicoms while I was getting old consoles, starting with the NES. At the time I'd never really heard of the Famicom, but while I was reading up on the original Super Mario Bros. 2 (AKA The Lost Levels) I heard the names "Famicom" and 'Disk System", a lot of research later I got a copy of Super Mario Bros. 2 and I am now in the process of getting a Famicom and FDS. 
I've just heard it's a pain hooking up a Famicom to to a non-Japanese TV. 

[Kitouski]

All of the strange little curiosities of the console as viewed by a westerner always made me pretty interested in the Famicom as a general collector. The subtle changes from game to game and the Japan-only games were part of what always made it part of my "I want to collect for this" list and own that part of game history but the thing that officially made me pick up some hardware was actually how incredibly fascinating the disk drive was and the game Nazo no Murasamejo, which has become one of my most favorite games of all time.

[capnd77]

As it has been stated several times before, I'm getting into collecting and playing famicom games because I'm just tired of paying ridiculous prices for NES games I want to own and play. With these currently inflated prices I'm unable to attain some really fantastic games.  Famicom just makes perfect sense.  Not to mention the fact that I'll have access to many games that never saw a US release.  Or games with added sound or improved visuals.  I'm completely stoked.  This is just the perfect scenario for me, and I can't see myself reverting back.  I'm just bummed I didn't take this approach sooner.

[o.pwuaioc]

I'd say it was a combination of Nuts and Milk, Mappy, and Final Fantasy III that finally did me in. The ability to play the definitive versions of games I hold dear (Castlevania III, Contra, Super Mario Bros 3) was an added bonus.

[gendou_kun]

You might think that I'm crazy but I love the famicom because the multicolored cartidges ( The gray NES one seems a little boring to me) and the awesome Famicom Disk System which was the top technology of its era...

[FamicomFreak]

I grew up with the Famiclones and Famicom games alike...it's something that always gives me a warm feeling. It's just amazing..

[aguerrero810]

I grew up with a SNES in the house, man it was so much fun! But then we visited some family in Mexico and I don't remember seeing that thing after that. I didn't play retro games since. I went through the GameCube and the Wii. I saw some cool Virtual Console Games on there, so I checked them out. I think the first thing I downloaded was Super Mario Bros. man that was fun! (And Hard!) But from that point on, I loved retro gaming.

I went to a garage sale for like my 14th birthday, and there was this CIB Action Set. Papers and All, and she was letting it go for like $50! We went home and hooked it up and quickly figured out that it didn't really work on the Flat Screen. It was weird, we tried and tried but it wasn't having any of that. Eventually I had an epiffany and brought out the old CRT from the garage and fired up Super Mario Bros. / Duck Hunt. And it worked! Duck hunt was like nothing i've seen before! I was blown away at how the system knew where I was pointing! It was amazing, the controls were tighter, there was character in the blurryness of the CRT. It was genuine fun. But those same 4 games got boring after a while and I sold it. I think I let it go for $35. (Terrible idea).

A couple years later, I stumbled across some hacks of Super Mario Bros. one of them was All Night Nippon Super Mario Bros. I had the worst time trying to play it on an emulator, so I did some research and found out about the Disk System. How Cool! Loading games from Disk Cards into the NES! That combined some extra cool points onto this whole thing. But then I found out that the NES over here was not the NES over there, overseas they have this cool, compact device with cute little controllers hardwired into the system, and cute little cartridges that never needed blowing on. It was so cool! (And Japanese, cause I have a thing for things from Japan.)

Just last Christmas I got some money and spent it on a Famicom. Getting it over here took a while (it was like March when I got it). And I remember the joy when I unwrapped it. It was so small! So Cool! So Dirty... I cleaned it. And it was awesome! I took it to school. Everyone was pumped to see Takeshi's Challenge. And I was cool. The cool kid with the imports. But I didn't get my disk system until recently, just for my 17th Birthday a couple months ago, I got some money, and got a FDS, SFC, and a couple of games for both. My childhood memories were remembered with Super Donkey Kong and Super Mario World. And Zelda no Densetsu gave a whole new experience of audio! That's what got me into it. It's pretty fun, and I just got into the programming scene. I'm mostly interested in FDS programming, as it allows you to run your code easily on original hardware.

Sorry this is pretty long...

[Cheetahmen]

I got into the Famicom through looking into the unlicenced/bootleg scene that was prevalent on the system in the late 80s-to-mid 90s (a little less so for everything that came afterwards) and wanting to find out who made them and which ones were unknown at the time as there really wasn't much info on those games on the internet when I got into them.

Even though the NES was sold here, few people bought one due to the booming PC market (among other reasons ) and with the system having basically run its course when I got into video games as a preschooler, I started with the 16-bit systems. Between the lack of nostalgia with the PAL NES and the lack of games (both official and unlicenced) compared to the Famicom, I decided to get the latter instead and I'm glad I did.

[chowder]

My first consoles were actually a Megadrive and SNES, I had computers before that (Amstrad CPC 464 followed by an Amiga 500), but I remember playing NES games on friends' systems, Contra, Punch Out and Dodgeball.  I got in to the NES when I ported an emulator to an obscure South Korean handheld (anyone remember the Gamepark GP2X?) - extensive play testing meant that I discovered what a treasure trove of games the system has.

I preferred the faster gameplay of NTSC systems, so I swapped the motherboard out with a US one and kept that console for years.  I remember looking in to the history of the NES and discovering the Famicom, such an interesting looking system in comparison to the boring NES, and the cartridges are cool looking and not massively oversized.  There's something iconic about the diminutive little Fami, it's just a classic.  Best console ever made

[disjaukifa]

I've wanted a Famicom since I got into the NES when I was in High School. I didn't have video games untilI was in my teens, my first system was the N64, but once I got a job in High School, I was curious about the consoles that came out before the N64, and well the games were much cheaper as well.

I really liked the NES but once I found out about the Famicom I really wanted on. It wasn't until this year that I finally got me hands on one. I really enjoy the system, especially for all the RPGs that came out on the system that weren't available for the NES.

Also I like the fact that the system in Japan seemed to be aimed towards a different audience, so the tone and writing in the game is more serious. I'd much rather play a translation of a NES or SNES games than the american version, purely because the NES and SNES of the late 80s and 90s seems to be aimed towards kids.

[evilsim]

since the mid 80's when i went to a junior school friends birthday party - he had SMW on Super Famicom and it completely blew my mind. 

i recently was in Taiwan and purchased a famiclone with 120 games built-in for ~$20AUD and realized it was all anti-aliased and super shit looking, so I looked into it more and basically had to have real hardware. since this realization only mid 2015 I am now the proud owner of multiple Famicoms, 1 PAL NES (as this was my first Nintendo back in the day), 1 super famicom, 1 megadrive, 1 megadrive 2, 2  Famicom AV's, 1 TwinFC, 3 FDS units. lots of games and lots of accessories and many many hours of fun and enjoyment have been had.

i've learnt a lot about the board level stuff with these units and have done many AV mods, stereo mods, one NESRGB mod and heaps of FDS belts and tuning, including some success re-writing some of the old wiped 2.8" nintendo disks i own all thanks to sites like this and the all the resources on the internets.

im totally re-addicted to zelda1 (only play FDS these days as the sounds are great) and love every minute of it (every day)