Shopping at Goodwill is an interesting experience. Everyday I find yet another new toy or trinket to play around with. Today I found my third famiclone there, and boy is it an interesting find. Enter the Power Joy Navigator.
This is the part where I would show you the package still in the box, but being the cold that I am, I couldn't wait to open it up. It was actually new, too - still in the shrink-wrap. So let me just tell you why I bought it: its a famiclone with a crappy LCD game built on it.
As amazing as the design is, the build quality is utterly crap. There's no missing buttons or anything, but the plastic cover over the LCD screen is cloudy even though I took off a plastic protector that on top of it when it was still packaged. The screen itself is damaged- most of the corner "blocks" don't come on and the numbers don't show properly. You can even hear the buttons rumbling around when you shake it. At least I hope it's just the buttons.
The system is designed to be portable. That being said, there is a compartment for 4 AAA batteries. I haven't bother testing if it works since I don't keep AAAs around the house. The manual insists both the LCD and NES games are playable with batteries. The wall wart worked nicely.
The manual is kind of cute. It is a manual for a device that shouldn't really need one. So just to waste paper, it includes short descriptions and directions to each nes game.
The lcd games are not really worth mentioning in any detail. I almost feel sorry for the guy who invented the original this is based on since it is an oft-stolen design. You know the type. Its where the display is made of large-ish blocks in a vertically-oriented rectangle. There is more than one game, and the type is often hyperbolically called 101(or more)-in-1. Every kid had one growing up in the 90s until they broke by accidentially exposing it to sunlight. Or oxygen.
underneith the system, in the very middle is a port for connecting the external controllers. This isn't really required since you can actually use the buttons on the system itself. The external controllers are of an inspired design. Inspired by the playstation controller, that is. it actually is unique, though; controller one has a light gun on it (seriously). The second controller has what is supposed to be like an analogue joystick, but it sits above digital buttons. It has no fulcrum, so playing with it may not actually be possible since you will be too busy accidently hitting all of the direction buttons at once.
Unlike all the other famiclones I've collected, this one doesn't have a built-in ROM. The par-for-the-course multi-ROM is contained in a seperate cartridge. This would be a good thing if it were a standard famicom or NES cart port, but they were too busy making it look like the original gameboy to fit that in there. The cartridge doesn't even fit right, instead sticking up about a centimeter and a half. To my knowledge they have not created any other cartridges for the 84-in-1 that comes with it.
Despite what I said earlier, the actual famiclone part of the system is solid. This is the first famiclone I have perchased where the audio and video wasn't muddled and unusable. The picture was rather pristine and the sound crystal-clear. They even went a step ahead with the a/v cable that comes with it (although it is still monaural). The controllers are actually surprisingly good, even if still a little cramp-inducing. The light gun even works with my LCD TV.
The game choices in this system are actually noteworthy. In most nes multicarts, they tend to just throw in whatever was the most popular games of the time along with whatever is related and maybe a couple of PD games. This one is notable for rom hacks where all of the graphics are changed so we get to believe that the piracy is less illegal, I guess. Pole Position has creatively been changed into boat race; mario is now Pandamon. Of course a majority of the games are straight rips such as city connection and the like.
The best feature of the cart is the selection made available. It isn't just popular games on there; they also include some kusoge. Spelunker, the game notable for making you die if you fall further than waist-deep, is on there, as well as several bad space shooters such as B-Wings. There are also several more obtuse japanese classics such as The Tower of Druaga, Chack n Pop, and Son Son, which are definately worth playing.
The most notable addition to the collection is a few games which I have never encountered before, a number of them relatively innovative. Baltron is a space shooter where thes speed increases depending on how far forward you are on the screen. Bird Day is a game where you are a bird trying to feed her chicks. Gotcha is a lightgun paintball capture the flag game. Sqoon is a submarine shooter. Othello is othello the board game.
The variety of the games makes the collection altogether a very good deal. Its honestly not all that bad that I won't be playing any other games on it. Overall, it the system was worth getting, especially because it only cost me $9.
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