Any old run-and-gun shooter game can cast war-hardened soldiers or shirtless commandoes as its heroes, but it takes real guts to design a hardcore shooter with happy, smiling, cutesy characters instead. That's the direction the Pocky & Rocky series took, as it first showed up in Japanese arcades in the '80s and then began to be localized for America with its '90s SNES sequels. Pocky & Rocky 2 is the best of the bunch, as Shinto shrine maiden Pocky proves to be much more fearsome than her diminutive demeanor suggests – and she can partner with the huggable powerhouse Rocky the Tanuki or six other cute-but-deadly allies to bring the pain to any and all evil-looking enemies. It was a clash of softened style and hardcore action that still gets us nostalgic to this day.
...The third old-school Blizzard title we're featuring from the company's pre-WoW era is Rock 'N Roll Racing, an isometric vehicular battler that had you cruising around wild tracks while blaring heavy metal music blasted out of whatever tinny speakers you had your old SNES hooked up to. Though Super Mario Kart had brought weaponry and racing together already in the previous year, Rock 'N Roll Racing's in-race combat felt more brutal and realistic – with land mines blowing up your opposition, oil slicks spinning them out of control and nitro boosts to blast past all your enemies' many traps.
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Years before Activision's crazily popular Call of Duty: Modern Warfare games made defending U.S. soil from terrorists such a mainstream game scenario, EA had already explored that territory – from the pilot's seat of a helicopter. Jungle Strike was the chopper-focused sequel to Desert Strike, the game that let you fly the skies of the Persian Gulf. This game, though, had you taking to the air to defend our home capital of Washington, D.C. from invading South American drug runners – and then take the fight to them in the titular jungles.
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The name Peter Molyneux is well known across the gaming industry today, as the humble British designer has become an icon of design for his groundbreaking Black & White god games and the Xbox-exclusive Fable series. He first started on the path to those more modern success stories with one big 16-bit hit, though – Populous. Essentially establishing the "god game" as a genre, Populous cast you as an omniscient being in full command of a world of virtual people. You could remake the terrain around them, trigger natural disasters and fight back against rival deities for the right to claim worshipping subjects as your own. It sold millions, established Peter's creative mind and kickstarted the chain of events that got him to where he is today.
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Ten spots back at position #79, we said that the cinematic platformer Flashback was unlike almost anything else available on the SNES – this game is why that "almost" had to be in there. Out of this World is a similar experience to Flashback, with its usage of rotoscoped live-action animation and general style of gameplay. They were so similar, in fact, that many people thought Flashback was an Out of this World sequel. It wasn't. The two stand alone as their own separate experiences, and Out of this World's story of the unfortunate physicist Lester who gets accidentally teleported to an alien world is still a tale worth experiencing today.
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This one's always been an interesting situation, since it's Nintendo's version of a puzzler that also saw a Sega-branded edition launch for the Genesis. Over there it was Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine, starring Sonic the Hedgehog's arch-nemesis in the title role. For Nintendo players, though, it became a Kirby game – as the happy pink puffball headlined the action. Both games were American localized versions of Super Puyo Puyo, an excellent and addictive puzzler that deserved to be played by both sides of soldiers in the '90s 16-bit wars. But you can't help us if we're just a little biased toward Kirby's edition. He is so much cuter than that old fool Eggman, after all.
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The last traditional side-scrolling Mega Man game to come to a Nintendo console before the franchise migrated away for over a decade, Mega Man X3 was a solid send-off for the 16-bit era. Like its immediate predecessors X and X2, it cast players as a more futuristic, modern Mega Man living further into the future relative to his NES predecessor – and the faster pace, emphasis on exploration and suit upgrades for the hero continued to distinguish X from the original Mega Man. X3's major claim to fame, though, didn't come from Mega Man at all – it came from Zero. This was the first game to ever make the pony-tailed sword-wielding sidekick into a full-on playable hero. Zero's actually gone on to outshine X several times since, getting his own spin-off series and getting picked for playability in fighting games like Marvel vs. Capcom 3. His solo career started here!
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Hakuna Matata! What a wonderful phrase. And if any of you were worried about this game getting included in our countdown, allow us to reassure your problem-free philosophy by proudly shouting from the rock top that The Lion King was a surefire Super Nintendo success. The game adapted the popular Disney movie into a challenging side-scrolling platformer that, like the film, started off presenting our hero Simba as a young cub and concluded with him as a full-grown king-in-the-making. The gameplay differences between the two versions of Simba kept things varied throughout the adventure, while comic relief pair Timon and Pumbaa also popped up a time or two to share some foul-smelling jokes about the nastiness of Pumbaa's... oh, sorry. Not in front of the kids.
...The early '90s was an era that saw the release of some sensational forced-scrolling shooters, and the SNES was lucky enough to receive an exclusive sequel in one of the most popular series of the time. R-Type III: The Third Lightning gave Super Nintendo owners a refined, updated installment in the franchise that skipped over the Big N's consoles for its first two games (though we did get black-and-white Game Boy versions.) The gameplay evolved and gave players a choice between multiple Force options – the Force being that floating, extra pod thing that accompanies your ship in R-Type games. The variety offered by the new Shadow and Cyclone options gave this particular assault against the Bydo Empire a lot of replay value too. Which is a good thing, because we're still playing it to this day.
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Soccer wasn't exactly America's mostly widely popular sport back in the days of the SNES, and years later here in 2011 it hasn't gained much ground – it's a pastime still much more fervently supported as "football" throughout the rest of the world. The proud few who declared themselves as both soccer fanatics and Super Nintendo supporters in the U.S., though, got one heck of an amazing game bringing their two passions together in one grey cartridge. International Superstar Soccer was an incredibly thorough, detailed and accurate conversion of its sport of choice, even going so far as to base its playable teams on the active international teams of the era – drawing them straight out of the 1994 World Cup tournament. ISS was done so well, in fact, that it inspired an entire line of sequels that have continued to this day – though now you'd know them under the Pro Evolution brand.
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Though the battle for home console supremacy was mainly fought by three factions – the SNES, the Genesis and the TurboGrafx-16 – one fourth competitor, SNK's Neo Geo, was also active in that same era. Neo Geo games were so prohibitively expensive compared to the other options, though, that few young fans could ever hope to afford them – meaning owning incredible fighting games like Fatal Fury was like an unattainable dream. Shockingly, though, that impossibility became a lot more possible with the release of two Fatal Fury ports to the Super NES. It was an unexpected but welcome turn of events, as Nintendo loyalists could now experience the fighting styles of Terry and Andy Bogard on their system of choice, and without having to shell out the hundreds upon hundreds of dollars the Neo Geo home machine demanded.
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Kirby's kind of got a thing for being the last guy left at the party. His debut console game, Kirby's Adventure, didn't ship for the original NES until 1993 – well after its Super successor had been introduced. His upcoming Wii game, too, is currently positioned to be one of the last notable first-party game released in America for Nintendo's current console. Back in 1997, after everyone had already migrated over to the N64, Kirby hit the aged SNES with this platformer sequel. Kirby's Dream Land 3 was pretty tried-and-true Kirby, pairing the little pink guy up with an array of animal buddies both old and new. He also got a slack-tongued, doe-eyed sidekick named Gooey who's never been seen again – probably because the Kirbster wisely just left him behind on the Super when he finally turned the lights out there and moved on to the next gen.
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Incredible single-player action was widespread across the SNES library, but there were a couple of great two-player co-op classics to come from the system too – like this cartoonish adventure starring a pair of cavemen. Not just cavemen, though. Cavemen ninja. Joe and Mac are Jurassic-era, club-wielding shinobi who flip out and bash the snot out of any and all dinosaurs they see. And they do in wildly colorful environments, all while wearing big, silly grins – grins that attract the attention of some prehistoric hotties. Yes, Joe & Mac 2 is the world's online co-op caveman ninja game that lets you take a break between levels to head home to your hut and get busy with your cavewife. Groundbreaking stuff, people.
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Because of some complicated circumstances surrounding the rights to Disney intellectual properties around the time of Aladdin's film release, the movie adaptation that SNES players got was entirely different than the game of the same name launched for Genesis owners. Luckily, though, both games were amazing. Capcom's Nintendo take was a tight and focused platformer that put Al through his paces in Agrabah, the Cave of Wonders and beyond – and featured inventive hand-spring, ledge-grabbing and slow-falling mechanics. It also looked absolutely amazing, faithfully translating the film's over-the-top magic into magical 16-bit form.
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Home to hockey gaming's most devastating one-timers, NHL '94 was the game that truly defined hockey adaptations in the 16-bit era. And even beyond then – this game was so well-received and refined its predecessor's gameplay so thoroughly that many modern versions of the sport are still trying to clear the bar it set. Four-player gameplay was the huge draw, as you could finally play simultaneously against more than just one of your friends. Even as a single-player experience, though, the fast and frantic pace of skating and slap-shotting here felt utterly unrivaled. (Though, sadly, this sequel did remove the ability to brawl with opposing players.)
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The last and most overlooked of the original Donkey Kong Country trilogy, DKC3 was a late SNES release that unfortunately went ignored by a lot of Nintendo fans – since it first shipped to stores two months after the N64 had debuted. People were too busy jumping Mario around in 3D to pay much attention to the old 2D fare any more. Those who did stick with the SNES long enough to own Dixie Kong's Double Trouble got an incredible conclusion to Rare's cycle of 16-bit platformers. More varied environments, a new playable character (the roly-poly Kiddy Kong) and a deeper amount of side quest content kept true Kong aficionados busy here for hours on end.
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You can't get too deep into digging up memories of the 16-bit era before you unearth the age's most amazing annelid, the mutated, cyber-suited superhero Earthworm Jim. His debut was the stuff of perception-altering legend, as his game was filled with off-the-wall environments, mind-bending music and enemies with really, really odd names. Psy-Crow. Professor Monkey-for-a-Head. Queen Pulsating, Bloated, Festering, Sweaty, Pus-filled, Malformed, Slug-for-a-Butt. Seriously, that was the main villain. They really don't make 'em like Jim any more, and though subsequent generations have tried to revive him, it's always been with limited success – his unique brand of oddness was just more at home back in the oddball '90s.
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A movie-licensed tie-in game that ended up being a whole lot cooler than most every other movie-licensed tie-in game released in the same era, Alien 3 for the SNES was the definitive playable version of Ellen Ripley's quest for xenomorph xenocide. It paired the appeal of Nintendo's Metroid series with the mature sensibilities of its source material and wrapped the whole thing up in a dark, frightening presentation that expertly evoked the atmosphere of the films.
...Axelay was a visual stunner on the SNES. Using a unique application of the system's Mode 7 capability, the game rendered its environments in such a way as to make them look like they were rolling up over the horizon to meet you – a bold and memorable graphical technique. That technique was only employed in three of this shooter's six stages, though, as the other thing that Axelay did differently was alternate back and forth between perspectives. Like getting two games in one, half of the levels scrolled vertically while the other half displayed the action from the side. (Perhaps harkening back to an earlier shooter from Konami, Life Force on the NES.)
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Puzzle Bobble! This classic Taito puzzler took happy-go-lucky dinosaur twins Bub and Bob, and almost permanently retired from the action-oriented Bubble Bobble games, just so they could stand at the bottom of the playing fields of this puzzler franchise and just look cute. Bust-a-Move was one of the best new puzzle designs to come out of the SNES age, as it challenged players to line up and launcher that fired colored marbles and send them sailing into a crowd of similarly shaded spheres descending down the screen. Match three of the same color and smash, they all disappear. Don't move fast enough of make the right matches, though, and Bub and Bob just hang their little heads in shame at your incompetence.
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Though the Super Nintendo's role-playing genre was undeniably dominated by the efforts of Squaresoft, Capcom offered capable competition with its own JRPG franchise born on the platform – Breath of Fire. The series debuted in America is 1994, and late the next year we got this second installment. Breath of Fire II presented us with a young blue-haired mercenary named Ryu (not to be confused with Capcom's Street Fighter of the same name) and unfolded a story that revealed his dragon-born ancestry. The game offered a variety of unique supporting characters to fill out your fighting party, and traditional JRPG design choices like random encounters, turn-based battles and poorly translated text. Really poorly translated text.
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Did you know that Nintendo of America actually owned the Seattle Mariners' Major League Baseball franchise until 2016? It's true – they were only one of three current teams to operate under the umbrella of a company instead of an individual entrepreneur. And Nintendo's ownership actually dated back almost to the beginning of the SNES life cycle, so it's not too surprising that the company capitalized on their acquisition by publishing a couple of first-party baseball sims for their newest system. Winning Run was their second one, and offered arcade-style baseball action headlined by the Mariners' most popular player at the time, good old Ken Griffey Jr. He finally retired last year, though, so if Nintendo ever did move forward with another baseball game it might have to be promoted by another young superstar instead.
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It's usually the preceding 8-bit hardware era that is most remembered for its vicious and unrelenting difficulty levels in games, but some of that insane sensibility stuck around for the earliest wave of 16-bit titles – Super Ghouls 'N Ghosts is a case in point. This SNES sequel to the NES headache-inducer Ghosts 'N Goblins was, for its part, just as likely to send players reaching for the Tylenol and picking up the broken pieces of their shattered controllers from the ground. But at least things looked a whole lot prettier this time around. Arthur might have controlled like a wooden plank and the enemies might have felt unmercifully cheap, but the visual effects just kept us coming back again and again for more pain and punishment.
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We've crossed the threshold into the Top 50! We're over halfway through our countdown of the Top 100 SNES games of all time now, and kicking off this second half of our list is one of Nintendo's original first-party puzzlers. Yoshi's Cookie was built around the insatiable appetite of Mario's green dinosaur buddy, as the long-tongued, eat-anything sidekick took center stage for this design to munch on an endless stream of sugary snacks. Mario was there too, donning a chef's outfit and working the controls of a machine that lined up matching cookie shapes vertically and horizontally. When a full row or column was completely, down the hatch they went – they dashed off the playing field and straight into Yoshi's waiting mouth.
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Here it is – the first official four-player game for the SNES. Though we honored Super Bomberman 2 earlier in our list, we have to give greater credit to the game that Hudson used to first present four-way play to Super Nintendo owners, courtesy of their Super Multitap device. The game and peripheral were bundled together in an extra-large box, a rare and exciting sight for young players back in '93. The game itself was also superb, serving as one of the earliest appearances of the famous Bomberman Battle Mode that has gone on to become such a staple of party gaming since. There are still few multiplayer experiences as satisfying as successfully sandwiching your friends between a wall and your about-to-explode bomb. (And few experiences that feel as shameful as getting blown up by your own misplaced explosive.)
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Zombies have overrun pop culture by now, but back in the SNES age, one incredibly fun and funny game predated it all – Zombies Ate My Neighbors. Presented in a goofy, B-movie style with ridiculous stage names like "Chainsaw Hedgemaze Mayhem" and an array of enemies that included not just zombies, but spoofs of every kind of silver screen bad guy ever conceived (even a gigantic baby), the now cult-classic ZAMN set the standard for all zombie games to follow. You could even use a weed-whacker as a weapon.
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Why play just one Kirby game when you could play nine of them at once? That was the idea behind Kirby Super Star, a compilation game that brought together a ton of smaller Kirby adventures into one grand package. You had Spring Breeze, a 16-bit remake of Kirby's Dream Land. You had Gourmet Race, a hybrid racing/platformer where King Dedede challenged our hero to see who could simultaneously run and stuff their faces with food the fastest. You had The Great Cave Offensive, where Kirby became a treasure hunter and even found The Legend of Zelda's Triforce. And that's just three of the nine! Kirby Super Star was an incredible game and incredible value.
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On paper, Harvest Moon sounds like it would be no fun at all. It's a game where you have to wake up early, go out into the fields, work throughout the day tilling the land, planting seeds and harvesting crops and then crash back into your bed exhausted well after the sun's already set. It's the video game equivalent of work. And it's incredibly fun. Somehow, someway, Natsume's Harvest Moon series managed to make managing a farmstead in a video game feel exciting and rewarding – and this first game was so successful, in fact, that it spawned an entire franchise.
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Konami solidified a reputation as one of the gaming industry's best shooter developers in the 8-bit era with the release of both Gradius and Life Force on the NES. Then, when the SNES was released, they were there to support the new system on Day 1 with this incredible follow-up. Gradius III shipped to stores alongside Nintendo's launch day titles and supported them with a visual spectacle – the scope, grandeur and incredible graphical detail present in each of this sequel's environments and screen-filling boss enemies was a true sight to behold. The game offered hardcore players of the day a great challenge, too, and completing it quickly became a badge of honor for SNES players. (Though, if you needed some assistance in doing so, you could use a slightly-remixed version of the classic Konami Code.)
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Capcom's devilish hero Firebrand first appeared as an annoying, antagonizing enemy character in Ghosts 'N Goblins. After that memorable supporting role, someone at Capcom saw something more for the flying demon and decided to give him his own series – including Gargoyle's Quest on the Game Boy, Gargoyle's Quest II on the NES and this game, their 16-bit sequel Demon's Crest. This one, unfortunately, didn't do that well. Not because it was a bad game – we wouldn't be honoring it if it were. But because, for whatever reason, it bombed in sales. Maybe parents took offense to the creepy demonic art on its box? Maybe the game was too tough for players to handle? Who knows why, but Demon's Crest somehow managed to earn an interesting distinction among the entire SNES library – it became the only Super Nintendo title in history to actual register negative sales at one point. That means, in the course of one week, there were more people who returned the game to get their money back than there were others who actually purchased and kept it. Ouch.
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Breath of Fire was Capcom's original attempt at carving out their own piece of the 16-bit RPG pie, the first installment in a role-playing series that would go on to see four future sequels – including one we've already featured earlier on this list. It's hard to sum up this one when we've just talked about Breath of Fire II, too, because the games are similar in so many ways. Both of them feature a main character named Ryu whose ancestry dates back to a legendary Dragon Clan. Both of them have a cast of seven supporting heroes, many of whom are animal/human hybrids. And both of them have similar gameplay, with turn-based battles and random enemy encounters. But hey, this is the first one! That means it's more original and II was just copying it, right?
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Far and away one of the most brilliantly original game designs ever conceived, E.V.O.: Search for Eden is lovingly remembered by everyone who got the chance to play it for even just a few minutes back in the '90s – thanks to its thousands of different playable characters. The game started you off as the lowliest of lifeforms and tracked your evolution over time – an evolution you could entirely influence. If you wanted your fish to develop powerful jaws, or an angler's antennae – you could do that. When you made it to dry land you could evolve legs bred for hopping or running. You could grow bat wings or bird feathers. Have a giraffe's neck or an elephant's trunk. It was wild – the combinations were endless, and each choice had an actual effect on how your animal played too. It wasn't just cosmetic. Games like Spore continued the tradition of letting players craft weird, wild creatures to control. But E.V.O. had that idea first on the SNES.
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The franchise-launching first installments of long-running series continue to appear as our countdown continues, and Ogre Battle is the next to be honored. This in-depth tactical strategy game had so many different elements included in its design that you could play it for weeks and still not see everything inside – from forming parties of characters to marching across the world map looking for fights, from an alignment system that tracked the morality of your actions to a tarot card mechanic that could change that course of a battle, this game had it all. Ogre Battle would go on to inspire sequels on the N64, Game Boy Advance and beyond. Another great series that the Super Nintendo helped to start.
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How do you make a cybersuit-wearing mutated earthworm superhero even weirder? Give him a backpack stuffed full of snot. That was Shiny's big addition to this 16-bit sequel, as our hero Jim gained a sidekick whose name actually was Snott and who was, in function and form, just a giant sticky booger. Snott would assist Jim by helping him to stick to and swing from certain ceilings, while also blowing him into a parachute-like snot bubble to help our hero slowfall from precarious heights. The new dynamic, while gross, actually added a lot to the experience – and made us decide to give Earthworm Jim 2 a loftier position on the countdown than its predecessor.
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Turtle Power! You can't have a nostalgic look back on any part of the '90s without running into the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles at some point, and sure enough here they are clocking in at #39 on our countdown thanks to the SNES port of their incredible arcade brawler Turtles in Time. This game had it all – bright graphics that perfectly captured the look and personality of the classic cartoon, a cool Mode 7-utilizing throw attack that let you toss enemies into the screen and, best of all, time travel. Seeing Leo, Raph, Don and Mikey warp through history and pop up in the age of the dinosaurs, the wild west and the far-flung future was even more epic and awesome than we could have imagined.
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Man, Kirby is killing this countdown – this is his fourth featured game after Kirby's Avalanche, Kirby's Dream Land 3 and Kirby Super Star. (And, spoiler warning, it'll also be his last on the list. There aren't any SNES Kirby games left after all, we've included them all.) Kirby's Dream Course trumps all of the pink hero's other 16-bit efforts in our eyes for how amazingly inventive it was. Because it was, essentially, a mini-golf game with Kirby as the ball. As simple as that sounds, though, this design was deviously difficult to master – you had to use precision tactics and exacting timing to get the rotund hero to roll, hop and drop into the hole and make par. (While also dodging loads of Dream Land enemies, and occasionally absorbing their powers to help Kirby move along.)
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Proving that Konami's Gradius series wasn't the only shooter worth playing early on in the SNES library, Capcom also offered up an energetic port of their arcade game, U.N. Squadron. This game is nuts – a side-scrolling shooter starring real-world jet fighters instead of spaceships and featuring a cast of anime-styled characters, it packed in tons of power-up items, explosive boss battles and even a running cash total for your pilots. You could use that money to buy more planes and wilder weapons, of course. Even crazier was the fact that Capcom went the extra mile for this SNES port, actually infusing it with even more options and upgrades than the arcade original had. Home console ports usually go the other direction, sacrificing content in order to fit the home format. Not U.N. Squadron. It soared.
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Boom-shaka-laka! Professional basketball has never been as much fun as in NBA Jam, the '90s arcade great that took nearly every rule of the game and threw it out the window – replacing them with a vision of the sport where every contest is reduced to a two-on-two matched between superpowered superstars who can leap 50 feet into the air, drain jumpshots from the farthest reaches of the court and literally catch on fire without being burned. NBA Jam was an absolute blast in its coin-op cabinet, and when it came home to the SNES it got even crazier with a wide variety of secret codes and hidden playable characters – like President Bill Clinton.
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The game that made Will Wright a household name and really put the simulation genre on the map, SimCity had already been a success on home computers for a couple of years before the SNES was released – and Nintendo, liking what they saw, worked out a rare deal to develop their own version of the title for the new 16-bit console. Nintendo's SimCity launched alongside the Super Nintendo in 1991, and it supported its core gameplay of city management and construction with a generous helping of Nintendo fanservice – Bowser would rampage through your 'burg as a Godzilla-sized monster and a Mario statue was available as a unique city landmark. Dr. Wright, the new host character created for this game, even went on to become a minor Nintendo star himself with cameo roles in The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening and Super Smash Bros. Brawl.
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Contrary to its numbering, Lufia II is actually a prequel to the first Lufia released on the SNES – it's set 100 years earlier in the timeline and chronicles the events that led up to the first game's story. Those events? The rise of the Sinistrals, of course, a group of villainous would-be gods who appear suddenly on the planet and challenge any of the world's warriors to try to oppose them. Lufia II went a bit underappreciated in its original release, but Natsume had such faith in the game and its storyline that it recently released a remake on the Nintendo DS – there it's titled Curse of the Sinistrals instead, and changing the traditional RPG gameplay style into an action/RPG hybrid.
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Taking a rare break from adapting their Star Wars properties, LucasArts crafted a surprisingly original action/platformer for the SNES in the mid-'90s – most surprising for the fact that it's the sort of giant mech game you'd only expect a Japanese company to produce. The combination of Gundam-like mobile suits and Americans taking a break from the galaxy far, far away turned out to be a great one, though, as Metal Warriors was a total blast to play. The game also broke new ground by including a two-player split-screen versus mode, another rarity thrown into the already odd mix of uncommon elements.
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Ganbare Goemon! It's a bit upsetting to get to The Legend of the Mystical Ninja here on our countdown, because it reminds us how many different Goemon games have never been localized for American audiences. We've got to celebrate the ones we have received, though, and this SNES sequel served as the series debut for our audience – and it was a great first pick. Though it called him "Kid Ying" at the time, The Legend of the Mystical Ninja introduced us to Goemon's world – a wacky take on feudal Japan where cartoonish demons are just as likely to goof around and crack a joke as they are to attack you. This sequel was also supported by a variety of fourth-wall-breaking nods to other Konami properties, like a playable Gradius mini-game. Weird!
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Following up the explosive debut of the Mega Man X series was no small task, but Mega Man X2 accomplished the job admirably. This second X game gave our futuristic Mega Man a fresh set of animal cyborg foes, including such memorable bosses as Wheel Gator, Bubble Crab and Overdrive Ostrich. X2 also succeeded in bringing series sidekick Zero back to life. After his sacrificial death in the first X game, our hero Mega Man could complete a set of sidequests to restore his friend to working order. Good thing, too – otherwise Zero would have just been a one-and-done cameo character in a single game.
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Erik the Swift, Baleog the Fierce, and Olaf the Stout are a trio of time-traveling Norsemen who've gotten themselves into quite a puzzling predicament. They've been kidnapped by an alien emperor who wants to put them on display as part of his intergalactic zoo, and they've got to escape and make their way back home to good old Norway. The puzzle dynamics Blizzard created for The Lost Vikings were nearly perfect, as each level was a head-scratching brainteaser that you could only solve by taking full advantage of each viking's unique skills – Erik's speed, Baleog's bow and Olaf's ability to stand there and get stepped on. (OK, Olaf could do other things too.) This was an early masterpiece for Blizzard, and thankfully we also got a sequel, The Lost Vikings 2, before the company moved on from Nintendo development.
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This first-party puzzler is mostly known for the distinction of its NES edition, as it served as the last officially released game for that 8-bit system when it shipped to stores over 9 years after the NES first went on sale in America. A SNES version debuted that same day, though, and it was such a great game that it deserves this lofty placement on our 16-bit list – no boost from its NES version needed. While most other games in the genre just had you direct the falling blocks themselves, Wario's Woods innovated in the puzzler category by actually giving you a character to control inside the playing field – Toad from the Mario franchise, who's taking on the oddball Wario and trying to keep him from wreaking havoc in a friendly forest. It was a great design, and also served as Wario's first title role.
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Donkey Kong Country is the game that saved the Super Nintendo. When Sony's first PlayStation arrived, people started getting drawn to its modern media format and promise of 3D visuals. Many thought the 16-bit SNES just wouldn't be able to keep up anymore. But a little company called Rare shocked us all by developing such an amazing and eye-catching new graphical style that no one could imagine the Super was actually capable of such graphical feats. But it was, and CGI graphics burst onto the scene to redefine and redirect the entire industry. Donkey Kong was entirely reinvented in the process too, transforming from a girlfriend-napping arcade villain to a necktie-wearing headlining hero. He's been restored as one of Nintendo's most notable mascots ever since.
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Two great tastes that taste great together. Tetris & Dr. Mario at first appeared to be a simple 16-bit repackaging of Nintendo's two most popular 8-bit puzzler – the classic falling block puzzler from Russia, Tetris, and the color-matching capsule-dropper, Dr. Mario. But the most unique thing about this joint cartridge wasn't that you could play those games separately – it was that you could play them together. Tetris & Dr. Mario included a unique multiplayer mode that challenged you to play both games at the same time. You clear some lines in Tetris, jump over to zap some viruses in Dr. Mario, then head back over to Tetris to wrap things up. It was a great idea and a great way for two puzzler lovers to square off in a head-to-head challenge too.
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The last of the three installments released in the Super Nintendo's groundbreaking Super Star Wars series, Super Return of the Jedi featured the same tough-as-nails, action-heavy version of its adapted film as the two titles preceded it – but it eclipsed them in gameplay variety. The roster of playable characters grew to five different heroes here, as in addition to controlling Luke, Chewie, and Han, you also now got to step into the role of the rugged, bow-wielding Ewok Wicket and wear the gold bikini as slave-costumed Leia. Leia wasn't showing that much skin for the entire adventure, of course, as she also wore her bounty hunter disguise and Endor forest survival gear at the appropriate points in the story – which just added more variety to the gameplay, since each wardrobe change gave her all-new moves and abilities.
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Mortal Kombat II is considered by many to be the pinnacle of the series. The cast of characters got larger, the moves were expanded, and the fatalities got bloodier. Seriously, all the best character got introduced in MK II. Kung Lao, Kintaro… not to mention awesome locations like the acid pits and the living forest. Mortal Kombat II is still one of the most fun 16-bit fighters to play, and it looked awesome on the SNES, with huge, colorful characters, and lots of blood (unlike the previous censored Mortal Kombat).
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Konami used every trick up the Super Nintendo's sleeve to make Contra III: The Alien Wars the ultimate SNES shooter: Giant bosses, synthesized hard rock sounds, a crazy, spinning Mode 7 top-down mode and a boss fight where you freaking hang from flying missiles were just some of the things that made Contra III the most "extreme" game available at the time. While previous Contra games drew inspiration from action movies like Rambo and Aliens, Contra III features some suspiciously Terminator-like cyborgs, an evil Boba Fett wannabe and whole host of other blockbuster movie references that add to its distinct early 1990s charm.
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In the era of the NES and SNES, few made action/adventure games like Capcom. In fact, the company was so good that many of its licensed titles would rival even the efforts of Nintendo itself. DuckTales, anyone? The Magical Quest Starring Mickey Mouse was seemingly yet another title starring the iconic cartoon character, but it mixed spectacular platforming with costume-based action to great effect. To this day we'll never forget the Magician, Firefighter and Mountain Climber Mickeys attempting to thwart the evil Emperor Pete.
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While the SNES Mouse peripheral never really took off in the grand scheme of things, it did give us Mario Paint, a Nintendo themed creativity studio complete with drawing, animation, music composition modes... even mini-games! Dozens of familiar Mario shapes appeared in the forms of stamps and brushes and players could even recreate the tunes from popular Nintendo games using the sound effects from the games themselves, leading to hundreds of 1UP sound cover versions of popular songs that are still a blast to listen to today. Mario Paint had a little something for everyone and it’s no surprise that fans have been clamoring for a sequel since its original release in 1992.
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The Castlevania series has a long and distinguished legacy, and Super Castlevania IV is among the best it has to offer. A perfected and greatly expanded on reimagining of the first Castlevania for the NES, IV follows the trials of Simon Belmont as he and his legendary whip, The Vampire Killer, attempt to defeat Dracula and restore order to the world. Castlevania IV took the original premise and added five new levels (including ones that take place outside the castle), as well as tighter controls and a few additional gameplay mechanics (like enhanced whip functionality). All of these reasons make it one of the best the SNES has to offer.
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One of the greatest games on the SNES just happens to be an upgraded compilation of Nintendo's best NES efforts. Crazy, right? Still, when you're talking about the first three Super Mario Bros. games, it's hard to protest too much. Before remakes and upgrades were common, Nintendo pulled together some of Mario's grandest adventures, included the original Super Mario Bros. 2 from Japan (it's a long story, just go with it) and boosted the graphics to SNES standards. In some ways these games are so good that it was hard not to make this compilation #1 on our list.
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How do you sell the usually PC-centric building simulation genre to a generation of console gamers? Easy, you just sandwich those parts inside of an awesome action game. Half sidescrolling platformer, half godly action game, ActRaiser manages to juggle both genres brilliantly and with excellent pacing to boot. Throw in some incredible boss fights and you’ve got one of the most unique games available on the platform.
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Way back when the racing genre was still finding its bearings, F-Zero came along and set the standard. This futuristic racer was hard and fast, with mind-bending Mode 7 graphics and an impressive variety of tracks to challenge even the most seasoned racing fan. The game also introduced Captain Falcon, a talented driver and mysterious bounty hunter who came to be the poster boy for the series, and we'll never forget when he first showed us his moves 20 years ago.
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As awesome as it was fighting Mike Tyson, the more surreal and exaggerated characters of Super Punch-Out!! made for a more exciting, and in some ways better, challenge several years later. The gameplay of Super Punch-Out!! is nothing fancy. It's the same hooks, uppercuts and super punches as always. However the precision-based action of each match is truly spectacular, boiling down to studying each outlandish opponent for weaknesses. Best of all was finding a boxer's instant KO point. While it was certainly possible to wear an enemy down, even taking advantage of low defenses, most of your foes featured openings that would instantly take them down.
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Bigger, badder, and more barrel-filled than the original, Donkey Kong Country 2 took the DKC recipe and pumped it up with gorilla steroids. This time around, Donkey Kong himself is captured by Kremlings and it’s up to Diddy Kong and newcomer Dixie Kong to hop and bop their way through dozens of beautiful and challenging levels to save him. Along the way they enlist a wacky cast of ride-able animal buddies (like a spider and a rattlesnake) to kollect koins, kill kreatures, kartwheel over kanyons and… do other things that inexplicably start with the letter K.
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Tetris Attack is an early entry in a series of puzzle games that began with the Japan-only Panel de Pon. This game was localized by adding the cast and settings of Yoshi's Island in the US, and then remade again as Pokemon Puzzle League for the Nintendo 64. If you've played any of these games, you know how addicting and clever the dual panel-switching mechanic is. What really makes Tetris Attack stand out is its competitive mode in which you can send evil blocks raining down on your opponent's game. Back in 1995, the term "rage-quit" hadn't been coined yet, but many SNES controllers suffered, nonetheless.
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Final Fantasy IV bore little resemblance to its predecessor on the NES. While the original game adhered pretty closely to the pen-and-paper/Dragon Warrior formula, Final Fantasy IV ditched common role-playing elements that dated back to Dungeons & Dragons — like starting with blank-slate characters. Final Fantasy IV is all about character development, with copious amounts of dialogue and back stories for each of the wildly different fighters on your team: the young wizard twins, a kung-fu master, a girl who can summon crazy gods to kick butt. Characters like Cecil, Rydia, and Kain are memorable not only for their varying ability to beat up dragons, but as tiny, pixelated actors on a digital stage.
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The only entry in the Mother series to see a North American release, EarthBound was met with poor sales in the U.S. However, its hilarious commentary on American culture, psychedelic premise, and unique take on the RPG genre instantly cemented it as a cult classic. The story follows Ness, a character who grew to know greater popularity than his game thanks to his inclusion in the Super Smash Bros. series of fighting games. A prophetic alien bee named Buzz Buzz changes the course of the young boy's life, setting him on an adventure that those of us who have experienced it would never forget.
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The evolution of the original series, Mega Man X changed the game by introducing new mechanics, new characters, and a new take on the Blue Bomber. The addition of wall jumping and dashing propelled X into a class of its own, allowing the player to interact with practically every square inch of the entire game. Rousing rock tunes offset the frantic, fast-paced gameplay. Killer bosses (like Chill Penguin and Sting Chameleon) give you ample motivation to perfect your skills. X was the first — though certainly not the last — reinvention of Mega Man. It somehow managed to build upon the brilliant foundation of the original, and for that alone it more than deserves a spot on this list.
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This delightful action RPG shook up the genre with its fun and deep battle system, incorporating real-time action with a brilliant use of timed attacks. Players are required to know just when to evade and when to go in for the kill, and the depth only increases as the story progresses. There are also plentiful characters and weapons to equip, making for a highly strategic, and highly satisfying, RPG experience. Secret of Mana, which is actually the sequel to Final Fantasy Adventure for the Game Boy, also allows for co-op gameplay, which was highly unique for an RPG at the time. Throw in beautiful music and a timeless story and you have a delightful mash between Final Fantasy and The Legend of Zelda that shouldn't be missed.
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Thanks to its clever RPG gameplay that featured action commands and even some platforming, Super Mario RPG is one of those SNES titles that is often touted as one of Nintendo's all-time greatest games. With just one entry, Square and Nintendo created a game that is not only noteworthy for its crisp gameplay and clever JRPG innovations, but also for its ability to let Mario work side-by-side with his nemesis Bowser. That might seem fairly standard today, but back then Nintendo fans across the globe were blown away. Mario RPG also added two cult favorite characters, Mallow and Geno, to the Mushroom Kingdom roster. Adding Mario or not, Nintendo and Square pulled out all the stops, creating an RPG that stands alongside some of the best products from either company. Now if only we could get a true sequel…
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Long before Fox McCloud barrel rolled into our lives, his father, James, was already facing off against Andross with his fellow furry flyers. In addition to fast-paced, frenetic gameplay, this action-packed flight simulation game was also distinguished as being the first Nintendo title to feature three-dimensional graphics, back when this was still incredibly rare. Throw in some beyond memorable characters (Falco, Slippy, and Peppy, for instance), and you have a title that is worthy of being remembered.
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Mario has visited many established genres and franchises, but with Super Mario Kart he started something new. Prior to Kart, racing games were fairly straightforward, leaning towards simulation or arcade, but rarely deviating too much from either path. Kart took racing through the jungle and off a cliff, imbuing players with power-ups and all sorts of crazy antics, including a highly addictive multiplayer mode. It's impossible to calculate how many hours we spent chasing each other around maze-like battlegrounds or avoiding ricocheting shells in an effort to pop balloons. Regardless, Super Mario Kart quickly became one of the most addicting SNES experiences ever, long after all of the races had been won and the shortcuts had been discovered.
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Yoshi’s Island finally put gamers in control of Mario’s pet dinosaur/steed/friend. As such, this Super Mario World sequel plays differently than all the other Mario games, and that’s a large part of why it’s so awesome. The game defined Yoshi as a character, giving him some of his most iconic moves like the flutter kick and egg throw. Yoshi’s Island had great puzzles, awesome powerups, and affected the canon of Mario’s games for the next decade and a half (you can thank Yoshi’s Island for Baby Mario).
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Another genre-defining masterpiece that is arguably still one of the best in its class. Super Street Fighter II Turbo was, for its time, the best fighting game available for a home console, and the pinnacle of evolution for this particular title. While it couldn't quite match what was available in the arcades, if you wanted to pit Ryu against Ken in the comfort of your own home, you couldn't do much better than this. Street Fighter had a certain elegance and simplicity back in the early '90s, something that no doubt contributed to its lasting appeal. To this day, it's hard to forget the first time we pulled off a Hadouken or when we fought M. Bison for the first time. Street Fighter was truly the beginning of a huge boom for the fighting game genre, and a trailblazer for dozens of other franchises.
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How do you follow up a masterpiece like Super Mario Bros. 3? That question no doubt lingered in the minds of many as the launch of the SNES approached. Super Mario World was given the impossible task of attempting to perfect platforming perfection -- finding power-ups, level designs, graphics, and music that would outdo or stand alongside what most consider to be the best NES game ever. Somehow, Nintendo managed to do just that. Mario World doesn't reinvent platform gaming, but it does find a way to make it seem fresh again, introducing ideas like Yoshi, expanding the Mushroom Kingdom's zany cast of characters and blowing our minds with some truly excellent visuals and audio. Upon its debut, the SNES managed to make the impossible somehow possible. That's mighty impressive.
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Final Fantasy VI raised the bar for JRPGs in the '90s on nearly every level. Visually, acoustically, and mechanically, FFVI was leaps and bounds ahead of the competitors. The item customization and battle mechanics are tight and intuitive, and the game is one of the most well balanced RPGs to date. What makes the game stand out to this day are the characters and storyline. FFVI touches on issues few games had the guts to, and presents a large casts of characters, all of whom are fleshed out and relatable. The opera scene is one of the most memorable moments in Final Fantasy history.
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Super Metroid is arguably the most influential game in the 2D action/adventure genre, and it’s easy to see why. With flawless action, impeccable level design, out-of-this-world atmosphere, a totally badass heroine, and an enormous overworld to explore, few games can hope to reach its rung on the ladder of pure gaming bliss. From the moment you set foot on Zebes to the moment you leave it exploding in your wake, every moment of this game is unadulterated fun, and it only gets better the further you get. As one of the best (if not the best) entry in the Metroid series, it’s no wonder Samus Aran’s SNES adventure made it so high on our list.
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Chrono Trigger wasn't the first Japanese RPG. It certainly won't be the last. But it's arguable that Square's masterpiece is the best. Remarkably, the action-packed story of a boy's quest through history stands the test of time, with almost flawless pacing and gameplay. Most notably, Chrono Trigger features 13 endings, a stunning feat for a lengthy RPG. It seems only fitting that three of Japan's most legendary creators — Hironobu Sakaguchi (Final Fantasy), Yuji Hori (Dragon Quest), and Akira Toriyama (Dragon Ball) — were part of the creative team responsible for Trigger's conception and development. Square's epic saga might have come towards the end of the SNES's life, but some things are best saved for last.
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The original Legend of Zelda for NES set the basic structure the series would continue to follow for the next quarter century. A Link to the Past made that series a legend. From the very outset of the game the player is thrown in the middle of the action. From the first swing of your sword to the final confrontation with Ganondorf, the game embodies pure SNES perfection. Perhaps it's the well-balanced enemies, the memorable bosses, or the brilliant light and dark world system that sets the game apart. Or maybe it's the tight controls, perfected item system, or the glorious soundtrack. Whatever the reason, A Link to the Past remains our choice for the greatest game of possibly the greatest system of all time.
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