Topic: The SNES 20

[UltimatePartyBear]

Ah, Super Mario Kart.  In all my life of gaming, it was probably the game I was best at.  A friend and I got to where we could dodge red shells so well that we became more dangerous to each other with green shells, with which we could hit a moving target across the level and around a corner or two.  I was working on my aim with forward thrown banana peels by the end, but we moved on to the sequel with its less precise aim and all that went away.  I never got as good at MK64.  For a while, I killed myself with red shells half the time in MK64 by shooting them while he passed me going the other way.  Instead of looping around me like in the original game, they'd go straight out and then straight back at me.  That was a hard habit to break.

[Ras]

After all this time, I'm surprised how good the SNES Turtles looks.  I remember A/Bing the arcade and SNES versions relentlessly from magazine articles back then.  The XBox Live remake doesn't score very well, but it's decent.  It does point up the fact that the SNES version makes more sense--instead of just randomly being sent back in time in a sewer, you get sent back in the Technodrome.

Anyway, these beat-em-ups don't hold up as well as I wish they did, but TMNT4 was always tops.  The Hyperstone Heist on the Genesis was pretty cool, too.  Some recycled levels, some new.  Some enterprising company should put out a TMNT Arcade pack and include a newly redrawn (to match the arcade level) TMNT3.  That was a cool game.

[Ian Sane]

Street Fighter II Turbo (or any variation of the game really) was THE game when it was current.  There was no title that was more talked about or more played.  A kid in my grade had a strategy guide from Gamepro magazine.  This was seperate from the magazine itself.  Sometimes you would get a seperate guide with it's own cover and everything shrinkwrapped to the mag.  It was two parts, covering all the characters and their moves, plus combos and strategies.  My Dad worked from home at the time so my family had a photocopier.  Once the other kids found out about it the plan was in place for me to borrow the strategy guide and make photocopies of it for everyone.  I don't think my Mom was pleased since I had not asked permission beforehand.  That photocopied guide was nearly daily reading for the next year or so.  I think I still have it somewhere.

The funny thing is that today with the internet this would be completely unnecessary.  Every if you had a physical guide SCANNING it would make more sense.  This was black & white, blurry photocopies.  No one would ever do it that way today and yet at the time it was cutting edge.  Someday I'll tell my kids this story and they'll think I'm a total dinosaur.  I might as well be talking about riding around in a horse drawn carriage and lighting a room using candles.

[NWR_insanolord]

It would be awesome if I'd managed to knock Super Mario World off the list or kick LTTP down this low. Unfortunately, those games are very popular for some reason, and I wasn't able to get the rest of the staff to accept the truth.

Do you like SMB3? My friend also doesn't like Super Mario World that much, mainly because he is so used to how Mario controlled in 3.


I can't understand the hate for ALTTP though. :S

SMB3 is my favorite game of all time, and I'd been playing it for over a decade before I first played World. I'm fairly certain the negative comparisons to Mario 3 are why I don't care for it.

As for LTTP, I don't get it either. I do prefer the 3D Zeldas, but I really enjoy the original and Link's Awakening is my second-favorite Zelda game.

[Shaymin]

Secret of Mana... all I remember was wanting to kill that f**king Sprite, and Flammie. That right there was the pinnacle of Mode 7.

[Cyrian]

Why Street Fighter II Turbo and not Super Street Fighter II?

[Discostew]

Nostalgia again. Secret of Mana was one of my most favorite SNES games. I remember paying a whopping $80 for it when I was a kid, yet I only had it for a couple of minutes in the store as my mom found out I bought it before I bought presents for the family for Christmas, so she scorned me and I had to take it back. I did borrow it from my cousins many a time, and I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it.

[Chocobo_Rider]

Just wanted to say...

I didn't have a SNES growing up (yay SEGA!) but I got a Secret of Mana poster from some magazine and thought the artwork (the stuff on the box cover) was so beautiful that I hung it up on my bedroom wall.  It stayed there until my room was made into more of a guest room after college!!

Eventually I played SoM in college and it was great!!

Then I went and played some of the other games in the series......... yuk =\
... just my opinion.

[BeautifulShy]

Secret of Mana I played for the first time on the Wii virtual console. It can be a pretty good game. I still need to work on beating it. I really like the way the battles happened. I really didn't have any issues with the AI of the CPU teammates.

[MagicCow64]

I could never quite get into Secret of Mana, despite having a friend who owned it and was obsessed with it. But years later I played an English translation of Seiken Densetsu3 through. . . certain means, and loved it. The customization of characters and ensuing story branching is still pretty damn impressive. Something about the combat was tweaked to make it more satisfying as well. Secret of Mana always felt like an RPG that was made extremely difficult by making it real-time, but Seiken Densetsu 3 made the combat feel a bit more like Final Fight somehow.

[Ian Sane]

I remember getting into arguments about kids that it was Mega Man "Ex" and not Mega Man "Ten".  The most sound argument is that Mega Man is named X in the damn game.  So Zero is calling him "Ten" the whole time?  Fuckin' idiot kids.  Same morons were convince there was a code in Street Fighter to turn it into Mortal Kombat.

[Ian Sane]

One thing I really like about Super Metroid that is not normally focused on is that it is not immediately identifiable as a Nintendo game.  Well obviously Metroid is a well-known Nintendo franchise but from appearance alone it does not instinctively look "Nintendo".  In that time period you had cutesy looking games like Mario, Mega Man and Sonic.  Then you also had a more realistic look like Shinobi, Metroid and Castlevania.  I would also say there was an in-between look that games like Zelda, Final Fantasy and Donkey Kong Country had.  The NES was the last time Nintendo could ever be considered cool.  Although the kiddy label didn't really stick until the N64 years, Sega made sure to point out how lame Nintendo was at every chance.  I like Super Mario World a lot but there is no denying that it is not "cool" in any way shape or form.  It's an awesome game but its look could at best be described as inoffensive.

But Super Metroid was a title that at first glance might more resemble a Sega or Konami game.  It was an example of Nintendo not falling in to the hands of their superfiscial detractors.  I always liked how it stood out like that and I think it adds to its legend.  Super Metroid is respected among almost all gamers, even those that normally are not interested in Nintendo.  Ocarina of Time and Goldeneye had a comparable level of respect in the N64 days.  Nintendo makes everything look like a children's cartoon to be accessible but it really only goes over well with Nintendo fans, casuals and kids.  The only time they truly expand beyond those groups is when they don't bend over backwards to make a game kid-friendly.  When they make something that actually appeals to adults or teens it usually goes over huge.  The true element of universal appeal is in gameplay, which Nintendo are the masters of.  But they often hide that gameplay behind an uncool exterior and just turn away thousands of gamers that would otherwise adore them.  Perhaps someday they'll figure that out.

[BeautifulShy]

Super Metriod came out when I was 14 on the SNES. I had never played any Metroid game that preceded it at the time. It was an interesting game to go though for the first time. I think I even had the Super Metroid players guide.I got it a little after I got the game as a gift for Nintendo Power Subscription. Anyway My first time through the game I think was 15 hours or so. Over time I got it down to 8 hours then 5 hours and then I can get it down to 2 hours and 30 mins nowadays.  It's the type of game that draws you in more you play it.You just get into the game and just get lost in the world of the game and just get better at it.  I think part of the games draw is the music. To this day the music is just great and it really draws you in.

[NWR_insanolord]

Super Metroid is the game I point to when people accuse me of hating the Super Nintendo. It's one of my favorite games ever.

[Pajamas]

To this day, Final Fantasy III for the SNES is still my favorite game of all time. I still play it through once or twice a year.

[oksoda]

Just to clear my name, Neal added that Twitter blurb about this Locke being better than the Locke of Lost, not me. I don't know that I'd make such a bold claim.

Neal, don't tell me what I can't do!

[Ian Sane]

Final Fantasy VII is more popular because it kickstarted an RPG boom in North America.  For a lot of people it was their first RPG so ALL of it was new, even the most barebone elements of the RPG experience.  Yes that means menu fighting and walking around town talking to NPCs was part of the thrill.  They associate those common conventions with FFVII and that adds to its legacy in their mind.

One thing that I think makes the older 2D RPGs stand out is the limitations of the hardware.  Square has wanted to make an interactive movie for a long time.  FFVI would have all the pre-rendered backgrounds and FMV of FFVII if the SNES could do that.  There is a certain charm in Square going for broke within the limitations of a cartridge format, 2D graphics and chiptune music.  That's a big reason why 16-bit RPGs stand out.  The devs had enough graphic and sound capabilities to focus more on a story than they ever could on 8-bit consoles BUT they still couldn't go as nuts as they wanted to.  Ambitious games are often very enjoyable because they consistently wow us.  They bust out things we didn't think were possible.  The later titles that use the same conventions on more powerful hardware don't have the same impact.

I think this is a big reason why a lot of people consider this current gen to be underwhelming.  We've hit a point where games rarely have to fight the hardware to do what they want to do.  Now that we can do anything, nothing is impressive.

[Ras]

I just bought DKC on the VC last night.  It's still a pretty beautiful game.  I also had DKC2 back in the early '90s, but never DKC3.  I don't think I even knew about it, since I was deep into PC gaming at the time.  I think I'll play them all leading up to finally taking a crack at Returns, which I've had for a while unopened.

[Oblivion]

Just to clear my name, Neal added that Twitter blurb about this Locke being better than the Locke of Lost, not me. I don't know that I'd make such a bold claim.

Neal, don't tell me what I can't do!

Lost Locke is WAY better.

[alegoicoe]

Great Donkey Kong piece, i agree with everything, DKC trilogy stands as one of my favorite games of all time.

[Ian Sane]

You guys are cheating with this double entry.  It isn't like those games were available in a double pack or anything like that.  And it is odd that you excluded DKC3.  It is not as good as the other two but it is still a great game and if you're going to lump the first two DKC games together you might as well give the whole trilogy the entry.

You guys are right about the DKC2 level design.  One of my favourite DKC2 levels is the one where the water rises and lowers so you constantly switch between swimming and platforming.  In the first DKC there are no levels that mix the two.  Any swimming level is entirely swimming.  Mario would have levels that have both but they never had the water level changing.  That was such a cool idea and I never had seen that before.

[MegaByte]

Mario would have levels that have both but they never had the water level changing.

Mondo in Super Mario World.

[Mop it up]

I actually like DKC3 better than the first game. Yes, Kiddy Kong is a stupid character, but I felt it had better level designs. This reminds me, I still need to finish that one up. DKC2 was amazing though, I actually completed that one 100% (or 102%?) because I still wanted to play it after I got through all the stages.

[MagicCow64]

I never understand the poo-pooing of DKC3. It was easily my favorite of the trilogy. DKC2 was partially hobbled by the stupid banana coin system, that required you to pay to save or change worlds. Just unnecessary. I also really dug the open map portions of DKC3 and the even more arcane layers of secret collectibles involved. Speaking of which, that's the real shine of the trilogy for me. The platforming baseline might have been simple, but finding all of the secret areas and DK emblems added a lot of value.

I might just be saying this because I beat the speed record for completing DKC3 with 103% that was published in Nintendo Power at the time, and will be forever pleased about that (and I did it on Very Hard mode, so it was 105%)

[TrueNerd]

Super Mario World is one of my top 5 games of all time. There are days when it's number 1. Sure, it doesn't have the pure, old school platforming that the NES Marios had, but what it has is better. Super Mario World was headed in a direction that Nintendo would embrace whole-heartedly with Super Mario 64, in that most levels in Super Mario World have a playground element to them. The levels all invite you to ask, "What's up there? What's over there? What happens when I do this?" and then they reward you for finding out. Previous Mario games invited you to ask these things too, but not as much as Super Mario World.

In addition, Super Mario World feels better to me than any other game ever. The Mario franchise in general has the best character physics in all of gaming, but Super Mario World is the cream of the crop. The way Mario moves, jumps, and flies is just perfect. There's no other word for it. When I play Super Mario World, the controller disappears and Mario and I are one. And we make beautiful music together.

I probably got too gay there at the end...