A new Tower of Power just dropped.

It looks like we got a sneak peek at the Virtual Boy Nintendo Classics NSO app in handheld mode. Footage from Skill Up briefly shows the menu screen being displayed in "3D" and presumably there is currently no option to play in standard 2D. youtu.be/C7OLQoLtLv8?...

Was told on Discord to post this for "science" in order to see if anyone "gets the joke". Good luck to anyone attempting to figure this out.

Superbowl Sunday aint gonna stop me from video games, not that I am interested in sports myself. Anyways finished up Balloon Ki- I mean Balloon FIGHT GB!

speaking of: Console Archives Doraemon's getting a 40th-anniv code-in-a-box package, out June 25: replica boxes, manual & expanded reprint of the original strategy guide, ¥6980 https://www.shogakukan.co.jp/books/09943240 🇯🇵 do note that the code's specifically for OG Switch, not Switch 2 or PS5

According to the Famicom Complete Guide Deluxe, in Japan Doraemon for the Famicom sold 1.15 million copies making it the 32nd best selling Famicom game in the country (if you don't count Disk System it is the 27th best). So while this game is obscure to us, it is very familiar to Japanese players.

I am baffled that Console Archives is real but also the very first game they show for the line... is Doraemon for Famicom. But then again the original Famicom game sold over a million copies in Japan, it sold more copies than Mega Man III and Castlevania. So in that lens it makes sense I guess.

The recent Nintendo Classics NSO update has introduced Balloon Kid to the library and I consider it to be one of Nintendo's best but often overlooked Game Boy games. But there's actually a little more going on with this game than what most Nintendo fans realize.

glitch

A feedback form for FamiWiki has been created for users to fill out. It will be open for the entire month of February 2026. forms.gle/o8zeFTpmDoqV...

The recent announcement of two unreleased Virtual Boy games slated to release on the Nintendo Classics app for Switch and Switch 2 marks a first for the service, but it isn't the only time unreleased games made an appearance on Nintendo Classics so here's a thread going over prior releases. 🧵

I've updated my secret page (www.chrismcovell.com/secret.html) with two dozen new images of the 1988, 1989 prototype Super Famicom and its demonstration of Dragonfly and SMB4, and more! Thank you to Gaming Alexandria for their scanning a Sept 1989 Famimaga! bsky.app/profile/gami...

I've been thinking about Gimmick! again, particularly the arcade "remake" that was released a couple years ago that still to this day is arcade only. After experiencing it at PRGE 2024 I can say that you aren't missing too much if you've played the original. www.youtube.com/watch?v=stUd...

Bad translation aside, TIL there's a jajamaru on GBA, and this has made my day

So recently on the FamiWiki Discord user @gmestanley.bsky.social pointed out that the subtitle for the GBA release Jajamaru Jr. Denshouki: Jarekore Mo Ari Soro is often incorrectly translated as "Jaleco Memorial" but it actually should be "Jaleco Collection" instead. How the heck did this happen?

Went to a local toy show and it had a couple of video game items. They also had a Famicom for some reason which I only picked up since a friend of mine wanted one.

I've always wondered why the most popular method of opening Famicom cartridges outside of Japan is using a clamp to apply pressure meanwhile in Japan folks usually go with a literal screwdriver to open cartridges.

Alright got my import games fix for the month.

So recently I have been heavily relying on buying Japanese games locally instead of importing given I live in the USA. I was thinking about trying to order from J4U again, but not at that shipping price! My past orders were 20 bucks shipping at most...

Got myself a barcode scanner for six bucks and put it to good use.

I heard the hit anime tie-in DS game is going for big money at this moment but I value my copy too much to part with it. Wal-Mart stores were trying to get rid of unsold copies for a reason after all...

I'm kind of hungry for pizza...

Back in 2001, Dobutsu no Mori for the Nintendo 64 included 7 Famicom games in the form of furniture items. The only hurdle to playing these were obtaining them but they are playable without restrictions. Something like this will probably will never happen again unless with limitations like NSO.

A few days ago I purchased an old used Dell workstation PC for around 17 bucks at a local thrift store. After some fixing up and cleaning I got it up and running again with Linux Mint. I might end up using it as a multimedia machine but I did try out some light games.

Just got my Switch 2 back from Nintendo of America and they refurbished it under warranty! Keeping it on standby to apply a spare screen protector later but man I'm glad I was able to do this.

I was looking through Nintendo Classics - NSO box artwork again and I forgot that TwinBee has custom box art for what an NES physical release could have looked like. Strangely there isn't an official Nintendo seal, perhaps Konami wasn't allowed to use it for this? Who knows.

Hey uh, wiki pages are not a source themselves? Oh who am I kidding no human actually wrote this down...

On one hand I really miss this western localization but on the other hand they were baffling representations of the games in question. It is probably easier to just use the same cover worldwide anyways.

The AVS is genuinely a really cool clone console and was my introduction to FPGA-based retro hardware. It sucks that there currently isn't an affordable HDMI console that plays Famicom and NES cartridges (and no the Retron does not count). Here's hoping we get something new very soon.

I don't usually complain that much but holy heck YouTube let me watch things from other channels good lord. Their default recommendations have gotten so bad in recent years. Seeing this makes me want to close YouTube and do something else.

A screenshot had recently surfaced of the unreleased Famicom game Heri Fighter which was set to be published by Nintendo in January 1986 with a retail price of 4,900 yen. It is basically a clone of the arcade game Tiger-Heli by Toaplan. It is still unknown why this went unreleased.

About a year ago, I was skimming through the UK's Nintendo Magazine System and issue 10 from July 1993 had an interesting blurb regarding a Doraemon game being released for the SNES by Kemco. Presumably this likely would have been a localization of the first Super Famicom game by Epoch.

I posted about this on Discord and unintentionally became the first* underground meme of 2026. So here's a thread of some of my favorites starting with the original.

I am going to be holding a Marble Madness (NES) tournament at GameOnExpo 2026 in Phoenix, Arizona. Highest score wins 100 bucks. This will be held as a side tournament for the Retro Championships 2026. retrochampionships.com

2026 is hopefully going to be the year that I get over 700 Famicom cartridges. There's still a dozen or so "cheap" ones I have left but I am starting to spend a tad bit more on each new cart. Current count is 573 as of writing.

I've been at this five years and it was unlikely that I'd ever give Sega platforms their due. So I took a look at every 8-bit console game on a Sega platform that was released in Japan and put it all in one video. youtu.be/yjBdqGMCO-g

Just got done building the Lego Game Boy, pretty fun build that I would recommend for those wanting to kill a few hours and have a neat decoration.

Since we're approaching the end of 2025 I thought I would lay out plans for next year for FamiWiki, specifically some goals I want to achieve with the site. So here are 10 things I want to see improved to some degree.🧵

I would have loved to hear more people mention this before my Switch 2 screen scratched. I'm actually in the process of getting a replacement system cause said scratch is noticeable to my eyes. So please spend an extra couple bucks (not sponsored) instead of a couple hundred like I am.

It's a Christmas miracle. Merry Christmas 2025!

I ended up getting another game card case this Christmas, so now I can fit another 80 Switch cards which by the time I hit that limit we'll probably be out of the Switch 2 era of Nintendo.

Merry Christmas! If you'd like to spend 45 minutes celebrating video game history with me, we're about to debut The Untold Story of the Nintendo Entertainment System. I worked on his ALL YEAR, and I genuinely think it will reshape how we all think about the system. www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJvp...

こんにちは、日本のファミコンプレイヤーの皆さん！

In 2019, a prototype ROM of this game was being auctioned in Japan and there was an attempt by western players to win and preserve the data. Unfortunately they were outbid by a Japanese collector who claimed that they only won the item in order to prevent "copy sales and dumps".

I found the worst baseball game. Major Dream: Major Wii: Perfect Closer is one of the most notorious video games ever released in Japan and there's more things wrong with it than you can imagine. youtu.be/KQc0cxbsehE

Thank god this game is now playable in current year.

So I may have spoke too soon... I couldn't help it, I was in the Phoenix area and took the opportunity to visit that Book-Off location. At least it was worth it!

I'm predicting in some eventual future that the term Metroidvania dies not because people stop using it, but rather Nintendo wanting to protect their Metroid trademark from being used in a genre name for things like marketing. Probably won't stop nerds from using it though.

Ah, the Mexican prototype forger returns! This is the latest in a series of similar forgeries that rip off game collectors around Mexico City. The scammer peels labels off retail games to make them kinda look like prototypes to the untrained eye. www.reddit.com/r/retrogamin...

Anyone else find it strange that we have not seen a single re-release of an older Bomberman game since 2017 for Wii U Virtual Console? It's especially strange that out of all the collections Konami has released in recent years none of them involve Bomberman, why is that?