What got you into famicom?

[rot]

Years ago I wanted to replace my PAL collection with NTSC and the choice between JP and US was pretty easy to make. Unaltered (often better) versions in compact form with more appealing artwork, wider selection, better sound, cheaper importing etc... not to forget the microphone!

<3 <3

[Salduchi]

To be honest, Japanese Super Mario Bros 2 back in the year 1998 when Mario Deluxe came out for the GBC. Wanted more info about the original and that led me to the Famicom.

[Bry89]

I first knew about it when I had a Famiclone called the Power Joy II, that I had for Christmas in 2001 and I remember that it came with its own cartridge of these x-in-1 games, and one of them was Twin Bee which I remembered very clearly, and was a lot of fun. However, I didn't really get into it until two years later where I got an odd 108-in-1 cart for the GBA, where several NES games were squished into it and do remember playing some classics on it, from Bomberman to Ice Climber.

And, the rest is history. Long live the Famicom

[SirCandle]

Well, I think I knew about the Famicom for a while, but once I started watching Vinesauce Joel do his NES/Famicom Madness and bootleg streams, it made me so much more aware of how much was kept locked up in the Land of the Rising Sun.

Soon enough, I saw just how good those games were. And through a bit more digging, I saw how many stupidly expensive NES games were affordable on the Famicom. At that point, it just snowballed and now I'm REALLY hoping to get one in the near future.

Gotta love that wacky Famicom.

[xIceMan]

I like the carts, the art and the console. It's smaller than our PAL monster and Famicom has some nice exclusive titles, too.
Also being cheaper than PAL, yep.

[ChloeTigre]

I was a SNES then NES person then got obsessed about picture quality and in France we only had the pseudo-AV-OUT version of the NES.

So I researched way to get a better picture for the NES games and saw that a Twin Famicom would be good for this.

The Twin being a little bulky, I started to research more and decided to buy a Famicom so I could enjoy the games on the original hardware they were intended to run on.

Happened that when I saw it I completely fell in love with the design. It's small, elegant, well-thought, much better than the VCR-style NES we have (never had top-loaders in Europe). Now I buy them boxed when I find them (nakameshi's store on eBay is neat for that), tested or untested. I try to restore their plastic to its nice original color and keep or sell them to video game addicts.

I'm crazy with the elegance of the Famicom.

[English Invader]

An N64 style Chinese Famiclone that was up for grabs at my local Cash Converters for £12.  It came with the lightgun, two controllers and an 84-in-1 cart with mostly old school arcade fare like Dig Dug and Galaga.  My favourite games on the cart are Route 16: Turbo, Arkanoid and Devil World.

I've since added several other multi-carts and a few individual games (Mario Bros, Route 16, Baseball Stars and a Chinese repro of Splatterhouse (the latter two were only recently ordered and are still on their way)).  The next thing on my hit list is an Everdrive N8.  I don't know for sure if my Famiclone will run it but it's handled everything I've thrown at it so far (apart from being a bit crash prone with NES games through an adapter).

I want to get an NTSC console at some point so I can run the games properly but I'm not really sure how to go about it.  The SNES was so much easier in that regard; £20 Super Famicom, old Mega Drive PSU I had lying around, csync RGB-Scart cable, job done. 

[JohnnyPhantom]

I JUST got into the Famicom.
I'm a hands on kinda guy, and love to tinker with electronics (solder/repair/improve). I also watch Jontron often and when I saw this, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6MIlJYiJUs I decided it was time to give the Family computer a try.
I found both a Non-Working/ Junk / Untested Famicom and Famicom Disk Drive (with the RAM adapter) on ebay and purchased them. I'm still waiting on them to arrive, but I'm already planning the repairs and restores for them. I made sure both were in a kinda yellow or dirty condition with minor (if any) cracks or blemishes. I wanted something I could restore to a like new state the best I could, retrobrite, maybe the vinyl dye, replacing capacitors, belts, modding the Famicom with a 3.5mm AV out port (mostly because I don't have any TV that supports RF/Coaxial any more).
Years ago, I used to make game reproductions for both myself, and in a few batches for sale, I'm already planning a few game reproductions to make for the Famicom once it arrives (Famicom games with english patches).

I'm kinda excited. So right now, this is the start of me getting into Famicom. I'll post more as I get more deep into it!
Wooo!!
~John

[reallybrett]

Basically arcade conversions we did not get here in the US (Galaxian and Space Invaders for example) fan translations and the Retron 5.  I currently collect NES arcade conversions and wanted to branch out in to titles that never left Japan, thusly my Famicom collection was born.  My Retron 5 also opened a lot of doors to exclusive Famicom games with its ability to use fan translations, which is awesome.

[Vinnk]

Reading Nintendo Power.  They always had an Import gaming section.

The fact that I couldn't play those games at the time made me want to play them more as I got older.

[kamowa]

I love the NES and when I was in highschool I took Japanese language class for 3 years. I was able to go on the senior year trip to Japan. This was back in 2003 and when I was in Japan I went into KB Toys. I saw a brand new AV Famicom in the case so I bought it. I thought at the time that Nintendo must have done some anniversary release or something but it wasn't until years later I learned Nintendo sold the Famicom up until 2003.

That made me happy that I got to buy a Famicom during its official production lifetime.

[conrat4567]

I think for me, it was the allure of owning a console that not that many people own in the UK but it also helped that it looks badass 

[boye]

My memories of it are fuzzy, but I got into the Famicom through a YouTube series called Famicom Dojo. (https://www.youtube.com/user/FamicomDojo)

[R_Leo_1]

My memories of it are fuzzy, but I got into the Famicom through a YouTube series called Famicom Dojo. (https://www.youtube.com/user/FamicomDojo)

Same here! I'm still watching that show to this day! It's cheesy but I like it 

[cyrix]

My wife had a famicom and really fond memories of it from the 80's, we got one last year with AV modification and have been collecting fun games ever since, also got a disk system and some games for that(what a wonderful little device, so tactile and mechanical, love it!), I grew up with Atari and ZX spectrum later Amiga in the UK in the 80's so this was a whole new world for me and a whole lot of fun