"I don't want to sit on the flooring while I play video games," my buddy Josh told me. "I'm non 7 anymore." My friend was parked just iv anxiety away from my 40-inch tv, playing Ninja Gaiden on the NES Classic Edition -- a tiny re-creation of Nintendo's original home game panel. The diminutive game organisation has everything a cornball gamer could want: an iconic design, a congenital-in drove of 30 classic games and pixel-perfect emulation. But for Josh, the ii-and-a-one-half-foot-long controller cables were a deal-breaker. It's a shame, too: Nearly everything else about the NES Classic is perfect.

Gallery: NES Classic Edition review | eleven Photos

In a lot of ways, the Classic is a product that feels long overdue, if merely because Nintendo'south longtime rivals have been selling officially licensed plug-and-play consoles for over a decade. These devices were relatively inexpensive and unremarkably came with a robust selection of each console's most popular games. They also had a reputation for bad sound emulation, blowsy video-output engineering and poor build quality. Nintendo'southward take on the mini-console is belatedly to the party, but at to the lowest degree information technology's fashionably belatedly: Non merely does the NES Archetype offer a hearty collection of the original console'southward virtually popular games, it delivers them to your television receiver in crisp, high-definition resolution over HDMI.

Just as y'all remember information technology, only smaller

If you've seen the original Nintendo Entertainment System, you've basically seen the NES Archetype Edition. The mini-console looks almost exactly like the gray and black box Nintendo released three decades ago, albeit at a much smaller scale. The NES Classic is, in a word, tiny -- it barely stretches beyond than the length of its ain gamepad at its widest point, only information technology'south still faithful to the device that inspired it. The same horizontal grooves achieve across the meridian of the console's chassis, leading down to a pair of controller ports that are exactly where you recollect them to be. To the left, you'll find a familiar red LED, too every bit power and reset buttons that wait identical to their progenitors. Around the back are two more connections: a micro-USB port for power, and HDMI output.

At showtime blush, the Archetype is a dead ringer for the original, only the modernization of the NES has wrought a few minor corrective changes. Instead of using the original NES's controller ports, the new console has opted for Wii Remote accompaniment connectors. These ports are uniform with Wii Archetype Controllers and a slew of tertiary-party accessories (more than on that later on), but their width cuts into the "gray" area of the NES Archetype front more than than the original console'south controller ports did.

Despite having a perfectly molded re-creation of the original panel'south cartridge slot, the Archetype's bedroom lid door is purely cosmetic -- it doesn't open. Even and then, the vestigial door lends itself to the cornball experience. It'due south the details that make the NES Archetype a joy to concord and play with. Even the power push button feels merely like the original, depressing with a deep, springy tactility that clearly defines where the "on" position is.

It doesn't have long earlier you can press that power button, either -- setting upwards the NES Classic Edition is as like shooting fish in a barrel as plugging a power cablevision into your TV'due south spare USB port (or the included wall adapter) and hooking up an HDMI cable. That's it.

Gaming like information technology's 1985 (but better)

Nintendo'south diminutive retro console boots upward in less than five seconds and presents users with what might be the about straightforward, easy-to-apply menu the visitor has ever created. Salvage for a few bells and whistles, the NES Classic Edition's carte is little more than a horizontal scrolling list of 30 of the arrangement'southward almost revered titles -- an alphabetical smorgasbord (see the full list below) that runs from Airship Fight to Zelda Two: Adventure of Link. Pressing select will sort the list past publisher, title, multiplayer, recently played, times played and release engagement, but there'south non really enough games on the list that it needs sorting options. Simply scroll left or right until you notice something you like, and printing offset.

The NES Archetype Edition game library
Balloon Fight Bubble Bobble Castlevania Castlevania Ii: Simon's Quest Donkey Kong Donkey Kong Jr.
Double Dragon II: The Revenge Dr. Mario Excitebike Concluding Fantasy Galaga Ghosts and Goblins
Gradius Water ice Climber Kid Icarus Kirby's Take a chance Mario Bros. Mega Man 2
Metroid Ninja Gaiden Pac-Human being Dial-Out!! Featuring Mr. Dream StarTropics Super C
Super Mario Bros. Super Mario Bros. ii Super Mario Bros. 3 Techmo Basin The Legend of Zelda Zelda Ii: The Adventure of Link

Playing classic Nintendo games on the mini-console is almost similar having a revelation -- if you lot've simply e'er played NES games on official hardware, you've never seen them look this good. Complex pixel patterns and shading that would traditionally be obscured past the blurry glow of a CRT television receiver merely pop with detail over the Classic's HDMI connexion. Colors that once blurred together are now distinct, pulling out details like the whites behind Megaman's eyes, or the expression on a zombie's face in Castlevania. The Archetype outperforms the Wii, Wii U and fifty-fifty the original NES in terms of visual quality. It'south about fourth dimension, too: Nintendo has been offer archetype NES games on its Virtual Console service for a decade, and until now they've always looked terrible.

It'due south truthful. For some reason, Virtual Console games on the Wii and Wii U suffer from muted colors, dim dissimilarity and a gross, blurry overlay. It's a trouble classic Nintendo fans have been aware of for years: NES games simply look better on PC emulators and third-party consoles like the Retron5 and RetroUSB AVS. The NES Archetype finally closes that gap, offering an official solution for playing archetype Nintendo games that tin compete with the best efforts of unofficial (and sometimes legally questionable) competitors.

More important, the Classic'due south high-quality emulation shows that Nintendo is finally getting serious most its digital archive of sometime games -- if its cheap plug-and-play game console looks this adept, possibly Virtual Console games on the Nintendo Switch won't look half bad, either.

If crystal-articulate pixels aren't your thing, the Archetype can arrange. Pressing the "reset" button returns yous to the main menu, where you can select from 3 different display modes: a "pixel perfect" setting that draws games at their native resolution; a wider, simply nonetheless sharp, 4:3 presentation; or a robust CRT filter designed to simulate the mistiness and scanlines of an old television receiver fix. These are all pretty standard filter modes in the retro-gaming scene, only the NES Classic'south CRT way is specially impressive -- most emulators are content with overlaying a dim layer of scanlines and calling it a 24-hour interval, but the Archetype'due south subtle blurring and pixel-distortion effects really sell the illusion. Technically, this characteristic makes every game await "worse" -- only worse in a style that looks, well, sort of right.

Fifty-fifty more nostalgia can exist found in the menu's transmission department -- well, sort of. The game-manual icon doesn't really telephone call upwardly a list of video-game instruction booklets so much every bit it displays a QR code and URL that will have y'all to them. It feels a bit like a cop-out, but following the link is worth information technology. Not only does Nintendo's NES manual website feature full digital manuals, but it also has high-resolution scans of the original printed booklets that came with each game. They're pretty complete, too: The scanned manuals for Concluding Fantasy and The Legend of Zelda include original artwork and huge maps of each game's overworld. Information technology's only a shame this content isn't also built straight into the arrangement. Some games, like Startropics, can't be finished without special hints that were included in the game manual. Forcing players to access the web to crush a 30-year-old video game is a little weird.

The NES Classic's menu has i more than special feature, and it'south an important 1: Suspend Points. Recollect of it similar a bookmark feature -- Suspend Points (or "save states," as they're ordinarily known) allow you to pause the game at whatever moment and save it for later on. This tin be used to add save functionality to games like Metroid and Ghosts and Goblins, or to permit you replay a challenging part of a game over and over until you get it right. It'southward sort of like cheating, merely it's worth information technology: Some of these former games are really hard.

The fatal flaw

The NES Classic is about perfect, but there'southward a reason this review started with one of my oldest friends sitting on my floor, groaning. Josh and I (call up Josh?) marveled at the attending to detail in the Archetype'south chassis equally we hooked it up to my HDTV. We geeked out over its controller -- a dead ringer for the foursquare gamepad that shipped with the original Nintendo Amusement System. Nosotros were, frankly, abreast ourselves with the product -- until we noticed the NES Archetype controller's cable. At only 2.5 feet long, it was likewise brusque to accomplish the couch.

Josh stared at me in disbelief. "This is ridiculous," he told me. He's right. The NES Classic makes 8-flake Nintendo games look gorgeous on modern televisions, just its controller cables are too short to allow players to enjoy them from a comfortable distance. Maybe, we mused, it'due south office of the retro experience: the truncated wiring forced us to sit down cantankerous-legged on the floor, just like we did when we were kids -- but we weren't comfy, and were too shut to the 40-inch television to really take-in the whole screen.

Equally we played, the short cablevision seemed to be a compromise between inconvenience and historical accuracy. Because the NES Classic's controller is an most verbal reproduction of the original NES gamepad, it lacks a home button to call upwardly the carte. This means the player needs to be within an arm's reach of the console'south "reset" push at all times. If the controller had a longer cablevision, we would have had to stand up and walk beyond the room every time we wanted to load a Append Point, change the screen setting or switch to a new game. That'due south as ridiculous.

Without a doubt, this is the NES Classic Edition'due south greatest flaw -- but what makes it worse is how entirely avoidable it was. The mini-console'southward controller uses the exact same connector as the Wii Remote accessory port, which means it supports the Nintendo Wii Classic controller. That gamepad actually has an fifty-fifty shorter cable, merely that's non the point: The Classic controller has a habitation button, and that dwelling button works on the mini NES. By choosing not to add a home button (and a longer cablevision) to the NES Classic Edition gamepad, it made the entire experience bad plenty to spoil the system for a lifelong Nintendo fan. "I really desire this affair," Josh told me. "But, man, that controller cable."

Adamant fans can close the gap with cable extenders and third-political party controllers, but for Josh, it was merely too much. At $sixty, the NES Archetype offered a smashing value. At $60 plus the price of a bunch of accessories to make information technology like shooting fish in a barrel to play in his flat, the NES Classic was suddenly kind of a pain in the donkey.

Wrap-up

The NES Classic Edition is everything it promised to be -- it's a tiny version of Nintendo'due south most iconic habitation video-game system, complete with 30 fantastic games, fantabulous emulation and more than than plenty nostalgia to satisfy any developed who grew up in the '80s and '90s. Still, it's not perfect. Frustratingly short controller cables make information technology hard to utilise comfortably in a modernistic living space, and its nonexpandable library means that you're stuck with the drove of games it comes with. If your favorite NES game isn't already on the console, you're out of luck.

If y'all can deal with those issues, even so, the Archetype is an incredible value -- and a slap-up gift for the 30-something geek in your life.