Mike's Review Saga #1 Yobo FC Twin Game Console

[MikeReiner]

The Yobo FC Twin, as the name implies, is a system that can play two cartridge formats: Super Nintendo and Nintendo.

The price? $34.95. At such a price, could a retro enthusiast pass this up? I couldn't.

I bought mine on amazon, and it took less than 3 days for UPS to deliver it. Rather impressive delivery time I'd say.

The system comes with a rather nice A/V output system: RCA.
(Example picture, not taken from a real FC Twin)

You don't have to use Nintendo's proprietary plug, which is pretty nice.

The Yobo comes with two snes-clone controllers.

The material is a different type of plastic (feels cheap, the system it's self is made of the same plastic) and feels much lighter than the originals. Also, the cord is roughly 3/4 the length of the original, which is really an inconvenience for those of us who prefer to keep our systems on a stand of sorts. Also, the D-Pad is not as responsive as the original, so I played using a real SNES controller.

The system has two power settings: 8 bit and 16 bit. Green for 16, red for 8.

I started out by playing a few of the games I enjoyed most: Donkey Kong Country, Super Mario World, Super Mario All Stars, and even a little Earth Bound.

No problems.

I tried to play a few NES games, but only Dr. Mario worked. This may be that most my cartridges are worn out, so that is more my fault than the system's.

I decided to give this system a real test run with Donkey Kong Country, and as it turns out, I have played the game way too much. It took less than 40 minutes to beat it.

At this point I felt the system was rock solid, it played completely identical to my real SNES.
I feel as though I may have jinxed it, for it didn't take long for this system to start malfunctioning.

I was playing Super Mario All Stars, more specifically Super Mario 3.
On level six, I was hit with a control problem. All the buttons except "B" had quit responding, and for some reason it was performing the task that "START" should.
Puzzled, I restarted the system. No change. I swapped games. No change. I swapped controllers, no change. I tried using the other controller port, viola, works.

So this means, that with less than three hours of total game play time, the first controller port has died.
The good news is, the first port still worked for NES games, but I didn't buy this system for it's NES support.

As one could imagine, I'm less than impressed by this. I have never seen a real SNES console do this, so why should this? Regardless, I'm going to get a refund for this product.

This system is a very cool idea by design, but personally, I'd rather pay Nintendo $80 for a fully functional refurbished SNES than $35 on a faulty clone.

I realize that defective systems do happen, and that I might just be unlucky, but browsing around the amazon reviews I've found I'm not alone.

From complete system failures to games sporadically freezing, issues abound with this gizmo.
I thought perhaps those negative reviews were only the people who had problems, and that others who did not just didn't post a review.
Also, according to wikipedia, there are games that do not work on the FC Twin.

This teaches a lesson that applies to 99% of all other hardware: Cheap price, cheap quality.
I can't recommend this to anybody, anywhere, for any reason.

1/5 Eggs/Cows/Stars/Whatever.

Thanks for reading!