The Super Nintendo Essays is a series of posts detailing my history with and passion for the SNES. It had a profound effect on my life as a gamer, and I wanted to share some of my most memorable stories about it with you!
Almost 30 years after the initial launch of the Super NES, Nintendo’s 16-bit gem returns in miniature form. Coming with two controllers, 20 classic games and one brand new game in the mythical Star Fox 2, this is about as good as it gets for a package like this. Unlike the NES Classic, where the novelty of it wore quickly when you realized that many of the games on it aren’t that good any more, the SNES Classic is filled to the brim with games that stand the test of time.
Part of this console’s lasting appeal has to be the graphics that many of these games possess. Most of these games feature beautiful 2D sprite-based graphics. While game developers and consumers ran away from the aesthetic to chase 3D visuals, the overall look of the games from this era have held up nicely. Much of the time, when modern games take on a 2D sprite-based aesthetic, they’re trying to mimic a look that evokes the brilliance of the SNES. Meanwhile, most of the games in the PlayStation One/Nintendo 64 era look awful with their primitive polygonal graphics.
Another big reason for its lasting appeal is due to how influential this era of gaming was to modern game design. Less concerned with porting arcade games over to home consoles, game designers made titles that understood you were gaming in the comfort of your own home. From the 90+ levels in Super Mario World, to the epic quest and multiple endings found in Chrono Trigger, these were games with depth that you could sink dozens, if not hundreds of hours into.
The brightest star in the development sky during this time was Nintendo, bar none. Their efforts on the Super Nintendo are astounding. In terms of sheer volume and impact, this may very well be Nintendo at its finest. Many of these games can be found on the Super NES Classic, but there’s even more in the catalogue if you’re willing to gran the original cartridges.
It sucks that this limited run Super NES Classic isn’t going to make it into everyone’s hands. However, if you are able to grab it at a reasonable price, do it. This slice of gaming is a shining glimpse of the medium blossoming into the juggernaut that it is today. Even if you missed out the Super NES in the 90s, odds are you will fall in love with these games for the first time in 2017 and beyond.
This concludes my Super Nintendo Essays series. If you missed any of them, check them out below!
In Third Person 