Since the last Famiclone article, I’ve spent more time testing my handheld units and sadly I can confirm my Power Joy isn’t working, but its possibly an easy fix. I’ve also painstakingly compiled a list of what games are in my Super Joy III (I say my Super Joy because it seems the games vary from unit to unit), although it says 12000 it only has 120 difference choices and only 45 of those are unique games. Below is the list I have compiled, please note that I have been as careful as possible to spell everything according to the Super Joy, if anything is misspelled that is how it appears within the unit.

Whether they added all individual ROMs or they just used coding to achieve this many choices I’m not sure, but I would assume it would be easier to just use code. After the first 120 the list starts all over and continues to do so until you have the illusion of 12000 choices. While making the list I broke up the time by playing Super Man Bomb1 (aka Super C w/100 Lives), the game was still challenging but with 100 lives beating the game was extremely easy!

Since I don’t own a Famicom (yet!) I didn’t have any games to test in my Super Joy, but I was still pretty certain it would work if a real Famicom game were attached, being the unit is blank until you insert the ROM board into the slot. This lead me to checking around online for a Famicom game that wouldn’t require me to translate dialog and was something I knew I already enjoyed. So I ended up buying a Soccer Famicom cartridge, its a game I know I already like and there isn’t anything in Japanese, oddly enough.

After almost a whole agonizing day waiting for the game to arrive it finally did, but I was upset to find the Famicom cartridge was too big to fit within the unit, so I took my Super Joy apart. After attaching the Famicom game and powering up the unit, SOCCER flashed on the screen and the game music began! I played the game for a little bit to see if it would glitch out and everything seemed to work perfectly.

Knowing that my Super Joy can play Famicom cartridges gives me pretty good idea of what to do if I happen to find another one. Since I want to keep my current Super Joy complete, I need to find another Super Joy 3 or I might be able to use the Power Joy and transform it from a handheld into something more like a console with real NES controller ports. I’m thinking this might make a decent and cheap Famiclone system given the right parts and attention.