During the 1990s, in Russia, and as if in a parallel dimension, children experienced miseries that seemed copied from those we suffered across Latin America. What could we tropical kids have in common with those punished by cold and blizzard, with completely different idiosyncrasies? Simple: we all inhabited poor countries, where Nintendo never officially launched its 8-bit console and where cheap Chinese Famicom clones rained down.
This is a niche article, forgive us. A super niche one, actually! To enjoy it, you need to be over 30 and have lived in some impoverished Latin American country during the late 1980s and early 1990s. Those of my generation, at least those who liked video games, have this story written in fire: Here, Nintendo never officially released its 8-bit console, and the ones that were available were very expensive, imported, and without compatible games sold in local stores. So, like in Russia, pirated Chinese Famicom clones dominated, the Japanese version of the super popular Nintendo NES. That's what "La Maldición del Elefante Gris" is about, the Russian documentary that follows.
These pirated clones, although illegal, were much cheaper and compatible with game cartridges (also bootlegs) sold in every store in the trade. In Argentina, for example, having a Nintendo NES was stupid, even if you had the money to buy it. It was limiting the availability of games, paying much more for it! So, despite the problems these Chinese copies caused, you could even say it was a stroke of luck that Nintendo wasn't interested in doing business in our countries. we even had exclusive games that never came out for NES!
But these clones, although super affordable for almost any working family, did not come without problems. That's what this Russian documentary, titled "La Maldición del Elefante Gris", is about, narrated by a young Russian who suffered the same design flaws in the consoles as we did, but on the other side of the world. His story seems like ours, and in his frustration we can identify ourselves.
Integrated gamepads (which could not be removed if they broke), controllers without Start or Select buttons, cartridges with unlikely illustrations that had nothing to do with the game inside, overheating consoles and transformers, old televisions without audio and video inputs where you had to "tune" the game just to see it in black and white, among many other things, including the infamous 1000 games in 1 cartridges.
The "Grey Elephant" thing comes from the color of the console and even more from the Dendy logo, the company that distributed the clones in Russia. In Latin America, they came in red and white, and are affectionately known as "el Family" (because of the text "Family Game" read on the front of the console). Do you remember? What brand did you have at home? At mine, we first had a "Froggy" and then an "Electrolab". I loved them!
"La Maldición del Elefante Gris" is an amateur documentary, recorded by an ordinary guy like us, who lived, suffered and enjoyed the famiclones of those years. It has subtitles in "Spanish" and is full of juicy and recognizable details for all of us who had one of these machines in our home. If after watching it you are attacked by nostalgia, I recommend this article and this other one, to drive it away by playing.
