this post was submitted on 12 Mar 2024
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I think you should find games first. No point in owning an NES without finding something to play on it. But if you are looking for opinion on the hardware itself.
I own all 3 systems.
Atari 7800: isn't fare to compare it to a NES or Master System. Think of it as a suped up 2600. Great system if you use the European controller or a Sega 9pin controller. Game selection is good but limited. Best way to play 2600 games. Rf only sucks but can be modded. I'd get it if there are 2600 or 7800 games you wanna play. But the Atari 50th collection has pretty much everything you'd want to play on it.
NES: is a good system for the time, but hasn't aged well. Getting games to work has turned into a ritual for me. But when they work you'll have access to the best games from the late 80's and early 90's. Controller has aged like fine wine. Most of its non-nintendo library can be found elsewhere for cheap while the Nintendo games are behind a subscription service. Not many games exclusive these days but worth playing anyways
Master System: the NES we have at home. Mostly a similar library of games to the NES but are sometimes better, sometimes worse. Depends on the publisher. In north america it was forgotten and game selection was limited. Controller is mushy but a genesis controller can fix that.
Out of the 3 the master system is probably the best experience, but the NES has the best games.
Mushy controller and not as good a library as NES, whose controller aged like fine wine. Why is the Master System in your opinion the best system out of the 3 and not the legendary NES? Why are you having so much trouble getting games to work?
From my experience arcade ports and titles released for both are usually noticeably better on the Master System in both looks and sound. Rampage is one example. It also has less issues with the cartridge port. One caveat is the controller ports are prone to bent pins. Otherwise NES all the way.
In North America the NES isn't a top loader and due to the mechanism they used the pins ware out, especially after 35-40 years. On top of that there is very little in the NES Library that's only on the NES these days. If I hadn't already invested in an NES and games, I'd just get the NES Classic and be done with it. If I wanted extra games I'd get collections like the Castlevaina Collection, The Mega Man one, and Disney Afternoon. You can extract the ROMs from these collections and put them on the NES Classic if you are willing to fiddle.
Meanwhile the master system is often times forgotten, but has a similar library for third party games. And what unique games does have are rarely found elsewhere as the master system version. Let alone the European releases like Sonic the Hedgehog.
With that said, I prefaced this with "Find games first" for a reason. The master system has a smaller library of games, and if OP was looking for games more like Dragon ~~Quest~~ Warrior or Final Fantasy, then a system with only Phantasy Star would be a bad choice.