Got my gray proto case in today, and there's some very good, and some things I personally think need to be addressed before they are sold to everyone. I'll get pics up later. Here are my initial thoughts:
- It has a great build quality as expected. The sleeve is nice and clean, similar to Shadowfox's GB cases. I only have regular gray NES cartridges and they seem to fit snugly. The manuals I have seem to fit nicely as well. Generally speaking (minus what I'll bring up below), the build quality is great.
- I put in one of my covers that fits a UGC perfectly and it is only very slightly too small due to the width of the spine. For some this won't be a problem, but for others I think simply stretching the cover by a mere fraction will fix it. I honestly don't think it'll be necessary to create all-new covers or spines just to fit these cases.
- I think you could easily put these alongside UGCs if you wanted to. They sit together nicely, and are practically the same dimensions.
That being said, here are a couple things I think could be tweaked:
- Putting in an NES game is simple enough, but getting it out is difficult. I think the 4 clips do such a good job keeping them in place, almost to the point of making it hard to remove. Looking at it, I wonder if the top 2 clips are even necessary? I might have to defer this one to others who got cases who have more types of NES carts.
- Just one minor gripe/preference - the gray case is kind of a shiny glossy gray plastic - I'm curious why it isn't the textured (less glossy) gray plastic that Shadowfox's GB cases, official DS cases and most multi-disc DVD cases use. I get that the clear cases wouldn't look as good with that texture, but I think the gray ones might look and feel even better, and would hide potential case scratches a lot better. Not major, but curious if this could be an option.
Unfortunately, while the case is overall very nice, I'm afraid there is one thing which I feel is a somewhat major problem:
I'm honestly not that big a fan of where the case opens, and it causes some problems with opening and closing. (for the purposes of this, I'll refer to the left side of the case when opening, where the manual goes, as the "front", and the right side with the cartridge as the "back"). The front part is so thin, I think it's prone to breaking. The snaps/connectors to the back side are very thin and small, and also prone to breaking easily I feel. It's similar to a UGC, but with much smaller connector tabs. When I open the case, it takes a lot of force to open, and at the same time, I feel like if I pull too hard I'll break the front of the case. I can see the front side bending pretty noticeably, which concerns me for repeated use. Likewise, when closing the case, it's difficult to close easily as the front is so thin that it's difficult to line up to the back side on the first go. It tends to want to overshoot the back of the case, like an over-bite, and a couple times I've closed it only to find that it only lined up on the outside edges, and not the middle where your thumb goes to open the case - I have to push it into place. This also occurs as soon as I'm starting to open it - the recessed thumb area of the case pushes in behind the front part of the case because the connection between the two parts is so thin.
A side effect of where the case opens is that when standing up a case by itself, it kind of wobbles and leans to one side, caused by the "seam" of where the case opens. Not a problem when on a shelf with others, but still a side effect of where the split is. I'm curious why the case couldn't open right down the center, like on the GB cases, as that would be much more comfortable and more stable, and is exactly how larger DVD multi cases open. When I open one of Shadowfox's GB cases, it also can sometimes take a little force to get open, but I feel like the two halves of the case are built equally sturdy enough to take that kind of force for years to come, and the same goes for DVD multi cases. Honestly, I think this is a big enough thing that it may need to be altered, especially if this case will be the basis for SNES and N64 cases later on. If nothing else, the connectors and the interior rim of plastic that goes behind the back side when closed need to be thicker/bigger, and additionally, I wonder if a third connector right at the center of the thumb area might prevent it from being pushed in accidentally.
If those things can be addressed, this will definitely be the preferred NES case. Despite my last point, this is shaping up to replace UGCs.
EDIT: Having read LarryInc64's thoughts, I agree about the clips potentially damaging the carts, especially at the top. I can also confirm that SNES games fit surprisingly well, and that SNES and N64 manuals fit perfectly.
Honestly, minor changes to the interior design where the cart goes could make this an NES/SNES case in one, and you wouldn't have to design a SNES case at all!
