Blog - AdFami

AdFami

Recently I had been feeling the urge to find an adaptor that lets me play old Famicom (in North America the the corresponding game system was called Nintendo Entertainment System) cartridges using the GameBoy Advance. I remembered seeing such a thing on our trip to Bangkok last year, though at the time I wasn't yet interested in it, and recently on our trip to Hong Kong I couldn't find any trace of something similar.

Then one week ago I asked a friend about it, who's a real gamer and collector, and he told me that there were some of these in Japan, something that hadn't even crossed my mind, assuming that Nintendo wouldn't let that kind of device be sold.

A few searches later I found out about GameTech's AdFami, which is exactly what I was looking for. This one came out about a year ago at ¥8000 but that was then cut to below ¥3000 when CyberGadget released Cyber FamiVance (all have such creative naming) last November, a similar one that adds a TV output and the possibility to use an AC adaptor.

Since I didn't want to pay too much for this thing, as I'd prefer to get an actual Famicom if I decide to play it on TV, I got the AdFami from Amazon.

Having now played a few days with it (with games I bought for a few hundred yen, such as Flipull and After Burner), I'm happy to be able to say that it works as advertised and it's possible to play most Famicom games on the GBA's small screen, which is a lot of fun. The AdFami fits on both the old GBA and also on the GBA SP.
There are however a few points worth noting before getting one, most of which I knew before getting mine.

• The GBA's screen not having the same resolution as a TV, some lines are dropped, making some text (mostly small hiragana and kanji) completely unreadable (no exageration). Unfortunately, better forget about playing RPGs.
• There are 2 connections that must be very stable while you're playing: AdFami<->GBA, and Famicom cartridge<->AdFami. If either moves even just a little bit while playing, the game will hang. I guess you'd experience similar with a real Famicom if you'd be holding it in your hands while playing.
• 2-player-only games and any game requiring special peripherics can't be played.
• Be ready to blow in your cartridges and remove/re-insert several times, just like in the good old days.

I had also read that the sound was very bad, and there is indeed some constant buzz coming from the AdFami's speakers, but otherwise I don't think it's that bad, not much worse than I recall anyway. Still it may not be good enough for sampling.

The AdFami sure is good enough for its current price of ¥3000, but I'd definitely not pay its original price or buy a FamiVance which probably has the same limitations as above.

Another thing that kind of sucks is that most shops that have Famicom games here really over-price the good ones, so I'll probably end up getting most of what I want at flea markets and Yahoo! Auctions.

Posted on March 27, 2005 at 20:39 | Tweet |

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