Sunset Riders was developed and published by Konami for the SNES in 1993 in North America and Europe (where it was published under the Palcom label). It is a port of the 1991 Arcade game with the same name, and a port also exists for the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis. The SNES port didn’t get a Japanese release, however.
Sunset Riders is a Wild West-themed run and gun game, somewhat similar to the Contra series. You can fire in eight directions, but the gameplay moves at a slower pace, and the character sprites are much bigger. Your character also isn’t quite as agile as in Contra, and the huge size makes you a huge target, which adds to this game’s difficulty, especially since you die in one hit. There’s four characters to choose from, with some slight differences, Billy and Steve uses revolvers, Bob uses a rifle, and Cormano uses a shotgun.
There’s 8 stages, each ending with a boss fight against an outlaw. Two of the stages have you riding on the back of a horse. Otherwise, it features your typical Western settings, such as trains, towns, deserts, mountains and forts.
As already mentioned, this game is incredibly difficult, and continues are limited, but I think it should be possible to get quite far in this game, at least if you are playing on an easier difficulty setting. I could personally not beat the final boss though. It is possible to play through the game with two players, and a second player can join in on the action at any point.
The biggest flaw of this game is that it is incredibly short. You could probably beat it in 20-30 minutes if you are good enough, and the gameplay also does get a bit repetitive after a while. But with that said it was still fun. It even features some quite amusing voice clips, which sound quite impressive for SNES standards. It is quite surprising how many of them there are in this game.
Graphically, the game looks very nice and colourful, and manages to capture the western motive magnificently. The music really sounds like a mix between what you would expect from a western game, combined with the typical sound of a 16-bit era Konami game. While I don’t think the music is that special, it certainly fits the game well.
Overall, Sunset Riders is a good game, although it is very short. It is fun for a playthrough, but it isn’t a game I would feel like returning to soon, at least for a single-player experience. It is however a really fun multiplayer game.
Is it worth Playing?
While it isn’t perfect, I certainly think it is worth playing, especially if you enjoy run and gun games or shoot ‘em ups, and I also recommend it to any Western fan, who should surely enjoy it. It is certainly a perfect game to play with two players, but the short length, and the huge sprites making you such a huge target keeps this game from being a top-tier experience.
Nigel Mansell’s World Championship Racing was developed by Gremlin Graphics for the SNES in 1993. It was published by GameTek in North America, while Nintendo themselves published it in Europe. It was originally released for the Amiga in 1992, but apart from the SNES, ports also exists for consoles such as the NES, Sega Mega Drive, Amiga CD32 and Game Boy, as well as on home computers such as the Atari ST, MS-DOS, Amstrad CPC and even the ZX Spectrum.
First of all, there might be some people who have no idea who Nigel Mansell even is. For those who don’t know, I will tell you, being a Formula 1 fan myself. He was one of the best Formula 1 drivers during the 1980s and early 1990s, although he only won one season, in 1992, and was not as successful as his contemporaries Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna. Still, Mansell, with his moustache was still a top driver during this golden age of Formula 1 racing.
However, games being endorsed by real life people can be of quite uneven quality. So naturally this might not be a game that will catch people’s attention, especially if you are not interested in Formula 1 to start with. But this game was developed by Gremlin Graphics, who had previously made the three Lotus games on Amiga, as well as the brilliant game Top Gear for the SNES. So there might actually be a chance that this is a great game.
This game is based on the 1992 Formula 1 season, the year that Nigel Mansell won. It features all 16 tracks from that year, and you race against real drivers. Although you only race against 11 other drivers, so all teams and drivers from the 1992 season are not present. The ones who are present are the real drivers and teams, and the game even features real sponsors on the tracks. You can only choose to play as Nigel Mansell himself in the Williams team, although you can change the name and country.
You can choose to either play a single race, a practice session where Mansell gives you tips, or choose to tackle a full season. The game uses quite long passwords to save your progress though. Before each race you get the opportunity to qualify, which is recommended since it makes it easier to win the race if you do a good qualifying lap. Before the race you also get the opportunity to customize your car slightly, such as choosing which tires, spoilers and gearbox to use.
As you begin to race, you will notice that the game takes a more realistic approach than something like Top Gear. You have to play from a cockpit perspective, similar to Sega’s Super Monaco GP series, of which the second game was ironically endorsed by Mansell’s rival Ayrton Senna. You have to manage your tire wear, and might have to take pitstops, since if the tires wear out completely it will force you to retire from the race. You will also have to deal with rain, making the car more difficult to handle. If you crash into obstacles or other cars too much, it will also force you to retire, meaning that you have to drive less reckless than in Top Gear. The races are also longer than in Top Gear, generally spanning 7 laps, although a bit more or less depending on the length of the track in total.
In general, this is much less of a pick-up-and-play experience than Top Gear. If you are new to this game, you will most likely not win every race, and winning the season on your first try will probably be quite difficult. It really requires some time and patience to really memorize the tracks and really knowing when to let go of the gas, break, and accelerate.
While the game doesn’t look very impressive for SNES standards, the tracks look a bit more realistic than Top Gear. The game also manages to have a really great sense of speed, which must have been quite impressive for its time, even if it looks dated today.
As for music, there isn’t really much of it here. There’s some music in the menus, which is decent, but nothing special. There’s no music when you race, only the sound of the car engines, which honestly doesn’t sound that great.
Overall, for a Formula 1 game of its time, it is a fairly solid game. It might not be the most realistic racing game, even for its time, but it does manage to create a good simulation experience on the SNES. With that said, this game just isn’t as fun as something like Top Gear, and while Top Gear does feel quite timeless in many ways, this game feels very dated. You do race against real drivers, but in terms of fun, it is fairly lacking. That said, it certainly isn’t bad, and can even get a bit addicting once you get into it.
Is it worth Playing?
The thing with older games going for a more realistic approach is that they tend to get dated and surpassed by other games improving, and this is the case here as well. The game is a fine F1 game for its time, but F1 games have come a long way since. Therefore, it isn’t really worth playing for the target audience of a game like this, since there are better, more modern alternatives available. It then boils down to the gameplay, which is good, simply lacks the fun of something like Top Gear. Therefore I can’t recommend it, even if it is a decent game. Unlike Top Gear, this game takes much longer to get into, and it is also single-player only, so you can’t race against a friend either.
Asterix was developed and published by Infogrames for the SNES in 1993. It was only released in Europe, although an American release was planned it ended up being cancelled. It is based on the popular French comic book of Asterix. Infogrames did release an Asterix game on the NES but that one is different, and is also a lot shorter than this one. There is also an Asterix game by Infogrames for Game Boy, which seems to be similar to the NES version.
I do remember seeing this game advertised in several mail order catalogues back in the day, but it was never a game I across otherwise. It must be noted that my knowledge of Asterix is quite limited, since Asterix isn’t very popular in Sweden, at least it was not popular when I grew up, so I can’t really say how well it follows its source material.
Obelix has been kidnapped by the Romans and it is now up to Asterix to rescue him. The game plays like your standard platformer. Asterix can run and jump, and his only attack is to punch enemies. However, the punch has a very short range meaning it can be quite easy to take a hit since you need to get very close in order to be able to punch an enemy. You can also collect coins like in Mario, gathering 100 coins gives you an extra life. There are also some temporary power-ups to find, such as an invincibility potion and a potion that gives you the power to fly for a limited time. You can also find a dog bone which summons Idefix, the dog of Asterix, to take out an enemy on the screen.
The levels take place around the world, such as in the Gaul, Switzerland, Egypt, Greece and finally Rome. The levels are fairly well-designed and there’s usually some secrets, similar to a Sonic game. Some levels take place on “Minecarts” or “Rollercoasters” and these feel less well-designed than the rest of the game. Also, while some levels are quite short, some just go on for what feels like an eternity. The longer levels do at least have checkpoints, and you start at the checkpoint even if you get a Game Over.
You do have to make some blind jumps, and even if you can control the camera with the L and R buttons, it can be quite frustrating at times. The level design can also feel outright cheap at times, at least during the final few levels. You don’t get unlimited continues, and there’s no passwords, but there is a level select cheat if you don’t feel like finishing it in one sitting or run out of continues.
The game generally controls well, jumping can feel a bit slippery but it isn’t that bad and is fairly easy to get used to. The “minecart” controls however just feel really strange and unintuitive. Most of my deaths in those levels were due to the controls rather than challenge.
Graphically, Asterix looks quite good and pretty much like you would expect for a SNES game based on a comic book. It might not be the most visually impressive game on the system, but it certainly looks better than some of the earlier SNES games.
The music is decent, although somewhat forgettable. Apart from the Switzerland and Greece music that sounded quite funny in a way, nothing really stood out too much, either in a good or bad way.
Overall, Asterix is a decent platform game. There isn’t really anything unique here, but for being a licensed game, this is quite good actually. It does seem to follow its source material fairly well, and while it has some flaws, such as blind jumps, an attack with a bit too short range and some cheap difficulty in later levels, it is still a quite fun playthrough.
Is it worth Playing?
If you really like side-scrolling platformers, this could be a decent game to play, even if you are not a fan of Asterix. Sure, it’s not a great game, but it isn’t bad either. Apart from featuring the Asterix license, there isn’t really anything unique with this game, everything is quite okay, but not more than that. But for a licensed platformer, it is certainly one of the better ones I have played that wasn’t made by Capcom or Konami. So check it out if you really want another platform game to play, just be aware that there are tons of better platformers for the SNES.
Vegas Stakes was developed by HAL Laboratory and published by Nintendo for the SNES in 1993. It is the sequel to the NES game Vegas Dream, but unlike Vegas Dream, this game was also released in Europe. Also, unlike Vegas Dream, this game was published by Nintendo themselves.
The premise of the game is that you and four friends travel to Las Vegas with $1000 and the goal is to win $10 million, by doing that you will see the game’s ending. However, if you lose all the money the game also ends.
The game begins with you and four friends in a car traveling to Las Vegas while talking about your hopes and dreams and stuff like that. Once you arrive, you are checking into the hotel and then end up in your hotel room. From there you can choose to go to the casino and to do that you need to call one of your friends in the game. It makes no difference on who you choose to come with you, it’s all cosmetic. The friend you bring are only really there for you so that you can ask for hints and tips, as well as for explaining the rules of the games if you need it.
Just like Vegas Dream, Vegas Stakes gives you the option of playing Blackjack, Roulette or Slot Machines. Keno is no longer available, but Craps and Seven-card stud Poker are available instead. Although I have no idea how Craps works pretty much, despite the in-game instructions trying to explain it.
You start out with four different casinos available. The default one you are taken to first is the Golden Paradise, a quite normal casino with fairly low maximum and minimum bets. The Hideaway is a run-down casino with the lowest bets in the game, and is the place you should go to if you are almost broke. There’s also Buffalo Head, a Wild West-themed casino with slightly higher bets, and The 2020, a futuristic sci-fi themed casino with the highest possible bets available at the start of the game.
Once you manage to win at least $100 000, you are taken to the Laurel Palace, an Ancient Roman/Greek-styled casino with the highest minimum bets, and no maximum limit to how high bets you can place. Should you go below $100 000 when you are in there, you will be kicked out and not allowed back in until you manage to win $1 million.
What made Vegas Dream unique were the random interactions which returns in this game. Sometimes, people will approach you, asking to just hang around to watch you play, asking if you recognize them, ask you to buy a lottery ticket, or even sell you a watch or other item that you can later sell for profit. Some of these interactions can be pick-pockets and steal half of your money or scammers trying to sell you worthless junk. While some of them can end up giving you money for different reasons. I must however say that the random interactions in this game weren’t as interesting as in Vegas Dream. For example, you can’t get married, go to a show or the bar, like you could in that game. In Vegas Stakes, all interactions just happen where you are currently gambling.
You can’t turn off the interactions like you could in Vegas Dream, but if you play multiplayer, there won’t be any interactions like this. This game is actually compatible with up to four players, although you can’t play Poker in multiplayer mode, which makes sense since you could see each other’s cards.
The game is also compatible the SNES Mouse, if you for some reason would prefer to use that. There is also a save function here, so no need to deal with long passwords.
Graphically, it does look quite good and manages to really create a good atmosphere, especially for the cheaper casinos. As for the music, I do love the music playing in the two cheapest casinos, but the rest of the music gets quite annoying pretty quickly, especially in Laurel Palace and Buffalo Head. The 2020’s music is less annoying but it makes me feel quite stressed. The first two casinos however, just have some really nice music that really gives you a casino atmosphere.
Overall, Vegas Stakes is a decent gambling game and it is probably the best gambling game for the SNES. But it simply lacks some of the things that made Vegas Dream for the NES so fun and unique, such as being able to get married or go to a show. Sure, those were very minor parts of the game, but still fun. This game still has random encounters, but I found them less amusing here. The game does have a nice atmosphere, and the games themselves are quite good representations of the games themselves. I guess it did feel a bit unnecessary to have five casinos, especially since not even The 2020 allows for particularly high bets.
Is it worth Playing?
If you are looking for a casino game on the SNES, this is what you are looking for. The atmosphere and random encounters might be a bit fun for some, but I really don’t think they make it worthwhile for checking Vegas Stakes out if you are not interested in the rest of the game. So if a gambling game isn’t what you are looking for, you might want to pass on this game.
The Lost Vikings was developed for the SNES by Silicon & Synapse (who now goes by the name Blizzard Entertainment) and published by Interplay in 1993. While the SNES version is the original version of this game, it would later be ported for MS-DOS, Amiga, Amiga CD32 and Sega Mega Drive/Genesis. There was also a release for the Game Boy Advance in 2003.
The story of this game is that the three Vikings get kidnapped by Tomator who wants to put them in his intergalactic zoo. The Vikings has to escape the ship and travel through different time periods before defeating Tomator and finding their way home.
At first glance, The Lost Vikings might look like a typical platform game, but this is far from the truth. In fact, it is more of a puzzle game at its core, with some platforming elements. You control three different Vikings, namely Erik the Swift, Baleog the Fierce and Olaf the Stout. You can only control one at a time but must constantly switch between them. It is possible to play the game with two players, which would mean less switching, but even then it would still be necessary.
However, all Vikings have their own abilities that you must take advantage of to solve the puzzle. Erik is faster than the other Vikings, can do a head-butt attack to take down certain walls and enemies and is also the only character who can jump. Baleog can use his sword as well as his bow and arrow to take out enemies and hit switches you otherwise couldn’t reach. Olaf has his shield which will block any enemy projectiles. His shield can also be used as a platform, and he can also use the shield to glide through the air. Mastering all of these abilities and knowing when to use which Viking is key to succeeding to the game. In the levels there are also certain items you can find that are either mandatory to progress, such as keys and bombs, or that are just helpful such as food that restores health and a clear-screen bomb.
There’s 37 levels to play through, and the game is fairly long. It personally took me more than 7 hours to beat it, but if you know the game and get everything right the first time, you could probably beat it in 2-3 hours judging by the length YouTube longplays. You get a password for each level and the password is only 4 letters long.
While you get unlimited tries, there’s no checkpoints in the levels, which can be extremely frustrating once you get to the later levels which can be really long at times. Most levels are fairly short, but some can seem a bit overwhelming at first glance.
Your Vikings do get a health bar, although there are some things which will instantly kill them, and you can also get stuck in places where you can’t progress from. You also take damage from jumping from a too great height. If one of the Vikings dies, the level doesn’t end, and you could technically finish it, but in order to progress to the next level you need to reach the exit with all three Vikings. This might seem annoying but it does give you the opportunity to explore the level a bit so you know what you have to do differently next time.
As for the difficulty, there is a lot of trial and error involved. Once you know what must be done, it does get quite easy, but the lack of checkpoints in the longer levels can make a simple mistake brutal. There’s also certain things you have to do that are quite unintuitive. I often got stuck in levels and consulted a YouTube walkthrough in order to figure out what I was missing. Rather than an “of course”, my reaction was more often than not “I could do that?”, which could certainly be quite frustrating at times. Otherwise, once you figure out the puzzles, the game gets fairly easy, but it can be tedious at times with certain tasks you have to do.
There is some funny writing involved, often breaking the fourth wall, but I don’t really think it is funny enough to make the game worth playing on the humour alone.
Graphically, the game looks quite good for its time and the graphics have aged fairly well. The music is unique to say the least. I personally find it awesome, but it does sound quite different from most other SNES games I have played. In fact the music sounds more like something you would expect from an Amiga game.
Overall, The Lost Vikings is a unique concept to say the least, I can’t really think of any other game that plays similarly to it. I personally don’t find it a great game, but it is decent. The puzzles can be fun to figure out, but some of them just feel very unintuitive, and there were certain sections where the game felt quite tedious. The final level where you end up fighting Tomator was really fun though.
Is it worth Playing?
This really depends, since this game is not for everyone. It requires some patience, and if you expect an action-platformer, this is not a game for you. This is mainly a game for people who like to figure out puzzles. While there is some basic platforming involved, it is a puzzle game at its core. I would imagine that you will like this game if you like the Adventures of Lolo series for the NES, even if they play quite differently, they are similar in the way that both games are puzzle game with some action elements.
Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars was developed by Square, most famous for the Final Fantasy series, and published by Nintendo for the SNES in 1996 in Japan and North America. It would not see a European release until 2008 when it was released on the Wii Virtual Console. This is the first Mario role-playing game. It would be Squares last game released for the SNES in North America, and one the last game made by Square released for a Nintendo home console until the Gamecube-era.
Despite that the game was never released here, I did know about this game quite early. The reason for that is because it was in a mail-order catalogue of a local video game store, and it was always something of a mystery to me. First of all they were selling it for 999 Swedish kronor, which I found to be a crazy high price, and you needed a converter in order to play it on a European SNES. It was also described as a Mario game that plays more like Zelda. Later, when we got internet in my home, I found some images from this game and was quite amazed by its graphics by SNES standards. I eventually tried out the game on an emulator and originally only got to Croco and then kept dying, because I had no idea of even the basics of an RPG, and generally tried to avoid enemies rather than fighting them to gain experience. I did eventually learn more about how to play it and ended up playing through it and it became one of my favourite games. So it was really fun to return to this one.
The game starts out with Bowser having kidnapped the Princess. As Mario comes to rescue her, a giant sword falls down into Bowser’s Keep and Mario, Bowser and Princess all end up in different places. The Sword belongs to the Smithy Gang wanting to take over the world. In order to stop them you must collect the seven star pieces and defeat the Smithy gang.
Super Mario RPG features many typical things you would expect from a SNES-era RPG. Battles are turn-based but the encounters are not random. Instead you can always see the enemies and avoid them as you see fit. You gain experience points to level up, and you do have Magic Attacks that costs “Flower Points”, as this game calls it. But a lot of the RPG aspects of this game has been simplified, which I will get back to.
There’s five playable characters in the game, although you start out with only Mario. Mario is the all-round character, with strong physical attacks as well as some good magic attacks. Mallow has stronger magic attacks as well as some basic healing spells, but is weaker physically. Geno also relies mostly on magical attacks. Bowser is pure strength, and Princess Toadstool is mainly just there for healing. You can only use three characters at once in battle, and Mario must always be one of them. However, even the characters you are not using will gain experience points as you win battles.
The Flower Points are shared between all characters, which might seem annoying, but also makes it simpler to keep track of. Each character has one slot for a weapon, one for armor, as well as a slot for an accessory, making it much simpler than your typical RPG with several different armor pieces to keep track of. The armor in this game is generally just getting better, rather than being strong against different attacks, which would mean that you would need to choose different armor for different situations.
While the battles are turn-based, they aren’t your typical RPG battles. In fact, you can hit the attack button at the right moment to make your attack stronger, as well as hitting it when you are attacked by an enemy, to make their attack do less damage towards you. This makes the battles more interesting and you are not just pushing a button to do an attack. When defeating enemies in battle, you can sometimes get Bonuses, which will temporary increase your attack or defence, give you full HP or even let you attack one more time. Also, randomly when using an item in battle, you will get a freebie, which means you get to keep the item you just used.
The game also incorporates some elements from your typical Mario games. There are several platforming elements involved, some of which can get very frustrating due to the Isometric 3D perspective. It is mostly not too bad, but by the end of the game there are some really annoying sections. You can find question-mark boxes every now and then, sometimes containing coins, mushrooms or flower points, and even a Starman in a few chests. Getting one of those makes you invincible, just like your typical Mario game, and lets you take out enemies on the map screen and you even get experience points for it. In fact, there are a few sections where you can really abuse this by saving right before you get it, using the starman, and then getting yourself killed. Doing that will make you start at the save point, and all your progress you made after it will reset except that you get to keep your Experience points. There’s also a few minigames included, where you can usually win coins.
Throughout the game you will fight many familiar enemies such as Goombas, Koopas, Shyguys, Bloopers, Lakitu, Bob-Ombs and even Birdo makes an appearance. Square did however design a bunch of new and unique enemies who only appear in this game. Some of the enemies are just palette swaps, however, but there’s still quite a wide variety of enemies to fight.
While the story might be quite basic and not exactly award-winning, the game is full of funny moments and humorous dialogue. It might not be for everyone, but it certainly fits the game and makes it quite entertaining to play through.
As for the difficulty, it should be noted that this is an entry-level RPG. It is made for beginners of the genre. I remember finding this game quite challenging back when I first played it, and was completely unfamiliar with how an RPG even worked, but playing it now, after having played through Final Fantasy VI and EarthBound not long before, this game was a complete breeze. To make the game easier, your health and magic refills after defeating a boss, and your health also refills as you level up. Save Points are also plentiful and they appear even inside of the dungeons, so even if you die, you generally don’t get sent back very far. So if you are an experienced RPG player, this game will be a piece of cake for you. It should also be noted that while EarthBound took me over 30 hours to beat, and Final Fantasy VI took me more than 45 hours to beat, Super Mario RPG took me less than 15 hours to beat and that was including all the sidequests and minigames, meaning you could probably beat it in 10 hours if you are not a completist.
Graphically it looks really good by SNES standards. It uses similar pre-rendered 3D graphics to Donkey Kong Country, and everything looks really vibrant and colourful. It simply looks like a world I’d like to hang out in. Sure, it might look a bit outdated by today’s standards, but I still like the visual style of it.
The soundtrack, composed by Yoko Shimomura, is also really good, and it is one of the better SNES soundtracks, even though I might have said that many times before (the SNES had a lot of good soundtracks compared to other consoles). It still manages to sound very “Mario”, even using some remixed Koji Kondo tunes, but it is also really diverse and catchy soundtrack. The only thing that gets a bit repetitive is the battle theme, since there’s really only one of them, as well as two different boss themes.
Overall, Super Mario RPG is a fantastic entry-level RPG, and it is even a good game on its own. It might seem a bit too easy and simple for experienced RPG fans, but the overall fun gameplay and humorous writing makes up for that.
Is it worth Playing?
I would certainly recommend this game, especially for people who are new to RPG’s and want a good entry-level game. I think most Mario fans would enjoy this game as well, even if it play differently from your typical Mario game. Hardcore RPG fans will probably find it way too easy and simplified, but even they might get some enjoyment out of it.
Tecmo Super NBA Basketball was developed and published by Tecmo for the SNES in 1992 in Japan and 1993 in Europe and North America. It would later also be released for the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis with updated rosters.
Let’s just get one thing clear before reviewing this game. I am not a fan of basketball. Mainly because it ranks quite low on the list of popular sports in Sweden, so my exposure to it is quite limited. Sure, I know the basic rules, got to play it during PE back in school, and I do know who some of the players are such as Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Kobe Bryant and so on. For some reason I always associate basketball with the 90s, maybe because of the movie Space Jam? Although I am not a big fan of a sport, I am always open to trying a videogame based on it. I did enjoy Double Dribble for the NES for example, so let’s see how I like this game.
This game got the full NBA license, with all 27 teams appearing, as well as all the real players who played in the NBA in the 1991-1992 season, despite this game being released in 1993 in the west. This is also only one of few basketball games where Michael Jordan actually appears.
However, this game is something of a mess. First of all it is way too easy to foul, it happens way too frequently. The controls are also somewhat strange and takes some time getting used too. Although once you get used to them they are decent for the most part. I do however feel that sometimes it just refuses to change control to the player you want to have control over when defending. It is also quite hard to see what’s going on sometimes. Sometimes I had no idea who was even in control of the ball.
Apart from this, the game plays good enough and is fairly predictable. Sometimes the game will show a cutscene when dunking or shooting from a longer distance. But it doesn’t happen often enough to feel annoying, in fact it didn’t even happen in every game I played. There’s also a halftime show but it isn’t as interesting to watch compared to the one from Double Dribble.
I didn’t try it out, but there is also a coach mode in this game. You can also play a full season if you would want. However, you can’t change the difficulty setting when playing a full season, so I ended up getting destroyed when trying it out. You can even watch the CPU play against itself if you’d want to do that for some reason. There’s also a save feature in this game, so you don’t have to deal with any passwords.
Graphically, the game looks decent for the SNES. Nothing spectacular, but it isn’t bad either. The cutscenes must have been amazing for its time and still hold up well to this day. There’s some very basic commentary, limited to simple words like “Foul”, “Two”, “Three”, and “Steal”. It sounds quite muffled, but was pretty good for its time.
The music on the other hand is completely rubbish. It sounds like some crappy Midi from a 90s website. There’s just something about that horn sound in it that sounds terrible. The game playing when you are playing a match gets old after just a few games, but thankfully you can turn that one off and just listen to the crowd noises.
Overall, Tecmo Super NBA Basketball is okay. It was a decent basketball game for its time, and having played it now, I did find it quite enjoyable once I got used to its flaws. Playing against the computer does get old quickly, but the multiplayer mode could extend the time you’d want to play this game. The music is awful, the controls takes some getting used to and it’s just too easy to foul. Otherwise it is a pretty good basketball game.
Is it worth Playing?
Probably not, but it depends what you are looking for. For a 16-bit basketball game it is decent, but I am no authority in this genre, so there’s probably better basketball games out there. I did personally prefer Double Dribble to this game, but as for other basketball games, I haven’t really played any. But on its own, Tecmo Super NBA Basketball is fun, but flawed.
EarthBound was developed by Ape and Hal Laboratory and was published by Nintendo for the SNES in Japan in 1994 and in North America in 1995. It was originally not released in Europe. The first official European release of this game was in 2013 when it was released on the Wii U Virtual Console. It is the second game in the “Mother” series, the first one which was only released in Japan for the Famicom, and wouldn’t be released outside of Japan until 2015 when it was released on the Wii U Virtual Console as EarthBound Beginnings.
My first contact with anything EarthBound related was playing Super Smash Bros. Basically what I thought was “Who the hell is Ness?” which isn’t that strange considering the game was never even released here. Later I would check out EarthBound on an emulator, and played it until I got to Frank and got killed because I basically did not know anything about RPG’s at the time, or at least didn’t have the patience to play one. So I wasn’t that impressed and just ignored it. Now, being older and knowing a bit more about how RPG’s work, I decided to check this game out.
EarthBound takes place in the year 199X in the country of Eagleland. You play as a young boy named Ness who investigates a meteorite crash and find out that an alien force, Giygas has enveloped and consumed the world in hatred and turned animals humans and objects evil. It is now up to Ness, who later meets Paula, Jeff and Poo to help in, to collect the eight melodies in a sound stone to stop this evil force.
Gameplay-wise, EarthBound plays a lot like your typical RPG. There’s turn-based battles, you gain experience points which will level up your characters, there is a system of magic attacks called PSI, you got your inventory system with healing items, there’s weapons and armor to find or buy. All in all it’s got what you would expect from your typical 16-bit era RPG. You start out playing with Ness, but you will encounter Paula, Jeff and Poo on your journey. Ness is your typical main character who is powerful physically but also learns some really strong magic attacks. Paula is weaker physically and is more of a healer. Jeff can’t use magic at all, but you can buy weapons for him such as bottle rockets. Poo is a bit like Ness. One thing that is annoying though is that when Paula and Jeff joins your adventure they start out at level 1, meaning that you have to do some grinding to get them to catch up. Poo on the other hand starts out on a higher level.
But EarthBound certainly has a lot of things that makes it stand out from other RPG’s. First of all, the battles are not random encounters like you would expect. Instead you can see the enemies moving around on the world map, making it possible to avoid many of them if necessary, although few of them are impossible to avoid. If you encounter them you will enter the battle. It is possible to approach some enemies from behind which gives you the first strike, but if an enemy encounters you from behind, they get the first strike. To approach them from behind is easier if you are a bit overleveled or just beat the sanctuary boss. Then enemies will try to run away from you. Also, if you are really overleveled, just approaching an enemy will make you win by default, which is really a blessing so you don’t have to waste time battling underpowered enemies. Another unique feature is the rolling HP meter. This means that even if an enemy does mortal damage towards you, you still might survive if you manage to win the battle before the HP meter has reached 0.
Telephones plays an important part in EarthBound. You can use it to call your absent father who will save the game for you. He will also transfer money to your bank account, which I think depends on how many enemies you’ve fought. You can withdraw money by using ATMs but it is advisable to not withdraw more than you need, since you will lose half of the money you are carrying if you die. You will also need to call your mum as often as you can, otherwise Ness might begin to suffer from homesickness which will make his attacks miss more often (at least I think so) and sometimes makes him skip a turn completely.
One flaw is that your inventory is very limited. Especially early in the game. Each character has their own inventory so it will expand as more characters join your party but I still found it quite hard to manage. You can drop off items by calling your sister at Escargo Express, but it can still be a bit tedious. Another tedious thing is that you can only buy one item at a time, so if you want to buy several healing items you must buy them one by one which just takes so much unnecessary time.
But the most outstanding thing about EarthBound isn’t in its gameplay, but rather in the visual presentation as well as in the writing. EarthBound doesn’t take place in some far-away fantasy world in the past. Instead it takes place in a modern setting very reminiscent of the USA. Healing items are stuff like hamburgers or pizza, and the enemies you fight are more down to earth things like crows, runaway dogs, Unassuming local guys or annoying old party men. At least early in the game.
This whole game has a very weird tone to it, and is full of strange humour. Like how one attack is a hippie brushing his teeth which can solidify you. The funny dialogues and just general atmosphere is really what makes this game so good. There’s just so many wacky things here that makes you want to keep playing just to see what comes next. It even references things like The Beatles, and breaks the fourth wall on many occasions.
As for the difficulty, I personally found this game quite easy. I did need to grind a bit before beating the first boss, as well as when getting the new party members, but apart from that I could get through most of this game without much trouble and never really had to grind for experience, although I did fight pretty much every enemy I encountered. The only parts I found really challenging was fighting Ness’s Nightmare, as well as the section right before the final boss. If you die you also get to keep all the experience points you’ve gathered. You do however lose half of the money in your pocket.
Graphically, this game might not look that impressive. But I still like the artstyle, even if it is quite simplistic. The battles look quite static, while the enemy sprites look nice and everything is nice and colourful. There’s also some pretty cool psychedelic backgrounds for the battle sequences.
The music is amazing on the other hand. It is easily one of the best soundtracks on the SNES. There’s also around 20 different battle themes, which really helps, because a common thing about RPG’s is that you will get sick of the battle theme because there’s only one or two different ones.
Overall, EarthBound is a fantastic game and I would say it is one of the best games ever made. At its core it is an RPG, but it is different enough to feel like its own thing. It is certainly one of the funniest games I have played and I was always curious to see what was coming next. The music was also a strongpoint, and the only real fault was the inventory space and the fact that you must buy one item at a time. Apart from that, this is a great game.
Is it worth Playing?
Of course it is, I would recommend this to anyone who likes RPG’s, as long as you are ready for a different experience. Even if you are not into RPG’s, I think you can still find some enjoyment in this game as long as you enjoy this game’s story and sense of humour. I do understand that this game is probably not for everyone, but it is worth checking out.
Super Turrican was developed by Factor 5 and released for the SNES in 1993. It was published by Hudson Soft in Europe, by Seika in North America and by Tonkin House in Japan. The Turrican series originated on the Commodore 64 and Amiga home computers where it was really popular so naturally different Turrican games were ported to different consoles. Super Turrican for the SNES is not a port, but a completely unique game, even if it retains the same type of gameplay. It should be noted that there is also a game for the NES called Super Turrican, but that one is based on the first two Turrican games.
The game plays a whole lot like Contra or any other Run and Gun game like that. Although you can only shoot in front of you meaning you can’t aim your shots. Just like Contra, you can collect weapon power-ups to give you different upgrades. These include stuff like a spread shot and a shot that bounces off the walls. Apart from that you also get a freeze beam that you can actually aim in any direction although only when standing still, you also get a limited amount of clear screen attacks and you can even roll into a ball and drop bombs. As if that wasn’t enough, you can even jump on enemies and take them out Mario-style.
There’s four stages in the game, divided into three levels each. The levels are fairly long though and most of them are quite non-linear since there’s tons of hidden areas to find. There is a time limit however so you can’t waste too much time exploring every part of the level. It is still not a very long game though, and will take about an hour to beat.
Super Turrican is really hard, even on the easy setting and you only get three continues. Unlike Contra, you do at least get a life bar, but this game has more bottomless pits you can fall down. The train level later in the game is especially frustrating since it requires some pixel-perfect precision with your jumps. Be one pixel off and you won’t be able to make the jump. I always hated things like that in games.
Graphically, it looks quite good, but a big difference compared to games like Contra is that the graphics are more bright and colourful. It does give the game a slightly cartoony look, but it still manages to fit the game quite well, since everything looks very appealing.
The music might be one of the games strongest points. Composed by Chris Huelsbeck, it has a very bouncy and upbeat sound to it which is just so catchy. I really find it one of the better soundtracks on the SNES.
Overall, Super Turrican is a good game, but it is not perfect. The pixel perfect jumps you need to do is a huge flaw, and the difficulty might put some people off. The game is also quite short, which might not be the worst thing considering that the gameplay gets a bit repetitive after a while. While the game looks good, the level design is a bit bland at times, especially on the later levels where everything looks pretty much the same. Still, it is a fun game to play at times if you just feel like blowing a bunch of stuff up with an over-powered character.
Is it worth Playing?
Super Turrican is worth playing for fans of the Turrican series, as well as fans of games like Contra. The soundtrack alone also makes it a worthwhile playthrough. The fact that it is really freaking difficult might scare some people away but I still think it’s worth a try.
Tiny Toon Adventures: Buster Busts Loose! was developed and published by Konami in Japan in 1992 and in 1993 in North America and Europe for the SNES. It is the third main Tiny Toons game released for a home console and the first Tiny Toons game released for a 16-bit console.
This is a game I grew up playing a lot since my brother had it. I personally loved playing through it, even if I wasn’t the biggest Tiny Toon fan. Sure, I watched it if it was on, but it wasn’t among my favourites. This game, on the other hand, was something I really enjoyed.
There isn’t really much of a story in this game, at least not a cohesive one, as each level has its own story of sorts.
This game is mainly your typical platformer. Although you can’t just jump on enemies. Instead you have to use your kick attack, which acts sort of like a jump, and it is honestly a bit awkward to use. I would have preferred just jumping on enemies, but it’s easy enough to get used to. You can also use your dash attack to defeat enemies by literally running into them. The dash can also be used to climb walls.
There’s six levels in this game, with several sections each. It could take maybe up to an hour to beat this game. The levels are generally well designed and take place in different setting such a level at the university, a western level with a train section, a haunted mansion, a sky level and a space level. There’s also some nods to movies in certain levels, such as Back to the Future and Star Wars.
But there is one level in particular I absolutely hate. That is the American Football themed level. The reason is that it is completely based on luck. There is no set pattern of the defenders. You have to either jump over them or dive under them, but it is impossible to tell beforehand. You also need to progress at least 10 yards per four turns, otherwise you lose a life. You could try to pass but it’s just way too difficult to catch the ball that way. This should have been a minigame, not a level you actually have to beat, because it is purely based on luck.
After each level there is a minigame where you can win extra lives. Some of these are purely based on luck, such as the Bingo and the Guess the Weight minigames. Others are more skilled based such as the squash one. Which one you get is completely random however.
There’s three difficulty settings. Children, Normal and Challenge. If you choose Children you won’t experience the full game however. Challenge has one hit deaths, so I went with Normal, where you get three hits before you die. You can expand your health meter by finding hidden carrots, but when you get to the next level the health meter will reset. As for the difficulty on normal, I didn’t find most of the game to be particularly difficult apart from some parts of the train section of the western level and certain parts of the final level, the game was quite easy. The big exception to this was the luck-based American Football level which was just unfair.
The graphics look quite good for an early SNES game, and I remember being really amazed by the floor in the squash minigame as a kid. Otherwise, most things look quite good here. The levels are varied enough to not look boring, and everything is quite colourful. The music is decent, the Tiny Toon themes sounds great, and the rest of the music is pretty good but not anything specifically memorable.
Overall, Tiny Toon Adventures: Buster Busts Loose is a good platform game. It might not be the best game on the system, but it is a solid licensed game of the same quality as a Capcom Disney game. It might be a bit generic, and the annoying American Football level almost ruins the game, but apart from that, everything is well made.
Is it worth Playing?
I would certainly recommend it to Tiny Toon fans, or really any platform game fan who wants a game that is not overly challenging. It may be a bit short, but it is still well-designed enough to be worth playing through if you enjoy this type of platform game.
Contra III: The Alien Wars was developed and published by Konami for the SNES in 1992. In Europe it was released under the name Super Probotector: Alien Rebels, and the player characters in the game was changed to robots. Why? Probably because of some stupid German laws about video game violence, since that is usually the case. The version in this review is actually the Japanese one, since that is a bit easier, and I’m just not good enough to beat this game.
The story is essentially that there is an alien invasion of Earth and it’s up to the commandos Bill Rizer and Lance Bean to stop it.
Just like the NES Contra games, this is a side-scrolling run and gun action game. There’s six stages, four of which are your typical side-scrolling Contra action stages, but the other two are played from an overhead perspective, using the Super Nintendo’s Mode 7 in its rendering. Each stage ends with a boss and most stages also have at least one mid-stage boss to defeat.
Just like the other Contra games, there’s two player co-op. Also, like the other Contra games, there are special weapons to pick up, including homing missiles, torpedoes, a flamethrower, a laser and the spread gun. In this game you can even keep two weapons at once and switch between them at will. You can also find bombs which will clear the screen of enemies, and shields.
There is also a spinning jump move introduced in the game, which will make you fire in all directions, although I found this move a bit too risky so I barely used it. This game is so much fun, and it is extremely over the top action packed. One level literally have you hanging from missiles, can it get more over-the-top action than that? The whole game is just so much fun. The overhead stages are a bit less fun, but they aren’t terrible and they are also fairly short. Speaking of short, this might be this game’s biggest flaw. There’s only six levels and if you are good you could probably beat the game in 30 minutes.
Contra III is also an example of perfect controls in a videogame. You can shoot in any direction and there’s never any reason to blame the controls for your deaths.
The difficulty on the other hand. This is one of the hardest games on the SNES. At least the North American and European versions. The Japanese one includes a cheat code giving you 30 extra lives and also has unlimited continues. The western versions gives you 7 lives to start with at most, and only gives you a few continues to get through it. You also die in one hit in all versions of the game, so expect to die a lot. I personally couldn’t get very far at all until I ended up trying the Japanese version out just so I could actually progress anywhere.
Graphically this game looks great but in typical Konami fashion, the player characters got no faces. Apart from that, this game looks great for such an early SNES game and there’s no noticeably slowdown in the game either. As for the music, it certainly fits the action-packed gameplay but I don’t think it’s very memorable.
Overall, Contra III is a fun game, although extremely difficult and a bit too short. But the over-the-top action packed gameplay just makes it a really fun experience. It takes a whole lot of practice to master though, so don’t expect to beat this on your first try. But the controls are great, the gameplay is fun, graphics look good and you can even play it with a second player.
Is it worth Playing?
I would say it is worth playing, but be aware of that the game is really short and the difficulty is quite brutal. If you find this game fun but just too hard, you could always check out the Japanese version which has unlimited continues and the 30 lives code.
Parodius was developed and published by Konami for the SNES in 1992 in Japan and Europe, but was never released in North America. It was originally a 1990 arcade game, but was ported to several consoles, including the NES and Game Boy, apart from the SNES.
I generally don’t like shoot ‘em up’s for several reasons. First of all, I suck at them, and I also didn’t really grow up playing them, except Super R-Type. I also tend to find them quite generic most of the time. You always just blow stuff up in sci-fi settings and it just isn’t that appealing to me. Parodius is a little different though.
The story is that The Great Octopus has threatened earth and you must save the planet.
As the name suggests, it is a parody of the Gradius series of shoot-em-ups. This falls into the genre that is sometimes called “Cute ‘em up”. Gameplay wise it is very similar to Gradius, in that it is a side-scrolling shoot ‘em up, and it also uses the same kind of upgrading system that Gradius uses. So any Gradius fan will know the basics. You can also choose to use an auto-upgrade system, which will mean you don’t have to pay attention to what you are currently upgrading since the game itself will do it for you. Parodius also uses the Bell power-ups from the TwinBee games.
There’s four different characters to choose from. There’s Vic Viper from Gradius, TwinBee, Octopus, and Pentarou the Penguin. They all have different kinds of upgrades and weapon configurations. There’s also a time attack mode that is for some reason named “Lollipop”.
But what really makes this game unique isn’t so much the gameplay. It is the completely crazy art style. There’s tons of anime style-weirdness here, as well as scantily clad women and just stuff like a pirate ship with a cat head. Playing this game will surely make you wonder what the creators of the game were smoking when they came up with it. But this is also this games biggest appeal in my opinion. You never quite know what will come next. It really makes it stand out compared to most other shoot ‘em ups.
The graphics are also very good, and I didn’t notice any slowdown. It can certainly be full of enemies at times, and everything is so colourful and interesting to look at. The music is also great, and most of is based on classical music as far as I know. There’s the Flight of the Bumblebee, the Can-Can dance, and music like that which really adds to the wacky, circus-like nature of the game. I think some of the music tracks in the game are also from Gradius, at least the Gradius boss theme makes an appearance.
As for the difficulty, it can be quite difficult at times, and some section basically required some trial and error to avoid dying. Also, like Gradius, when you die you lose all your power-ups, making it much harder for you. I still found the game quite forgiving with the checkpoints, and you can change your difficulty level and how many lives you start with. I also think there’s unlimited continues, I had to use three continues myself.
Overall, Parodius is a fun game, and quite unique. Gameplay wise it plays pretty much like Gradius, but the unique and humorous art style, great graphics, great music and just the wacky nature of the game really makes it stand out. I really enjoyed playing through it, and it certainly is one of the craziest games I have played.
Is it worth Playing?
Anyone into Gradius or shoot ‘em ups in general should like this game. But even someone like me who doesn’t like shoot ‘em ups that much really loved it. I really recommend any SNES player to check it out, because it certainly is an entertaining game that is surely worth a playthrough.
The SNES version of NHLPA Hockey ’93 was developed by Park Place Productions and published by EA Sports in 1992 in North America and 1993 in Europe. It was originally made for the Sega Mega Drive earlier in 1992 before being ported to the SNES. It is the second game in the EA Sports NHL series, but the first one to be released for the Super Nintendo. The game doesn’t have the NHL license however, since the NHL withdrew their license because the original NHL Hockey game included fighting. So the teams are only referred to by their cities, and not the team names or team logos themselves. It does however have the NHLPA license, meaning that it includes real player names.
This is a game my brother had as I was growing up, but I didn’t particularly like it back then. First of all, I wasn’t really a big hockey fan back then, and second, I just felt that this game didn’t play that well compared to something like International Superstar Soccer. It wasn’t really until my brother got me a burned copy of NHL 2002 for the PC that I got more into hockey games, but always when I tried to play this game I just couldn’t enjoy it and just got bored after one match. So returning to it will certainly be interesting.
So, this is a hockey game all right. There’s no real team names, only the names of the cities, but there’s real player names and the colours of the jerseys are correct as far as I know. There’s a few different game modes, like an exhibition match, play a best of 7 matches, as well as a tournament mode. While the Sega version had a save function, the SNES port uses passwords. So far so good.
But, the first thing I notice is how choppy this game plays. It feels like a slideshow and almost made me feel sick. Gameplay wise, this is an awful port of the Sega version. It’s like playing the game in slow motion. The controls are good, but seriously, I couldn’t play more than a few games before just not bothering with this one anymore due to the choppiness and how sluggish this game plays.
Graphically, the game looks decent enough. It looks pretty much identical to the Sega version. The sound effects are nice, and were always a bit amusing to me. Like the players going “Uhh” when they are tackled, and the organ music playing during the face offs. Speaking of music, the menu music is awesome, but I realized that it’s the same soundtrack as the original NHL Hockey for the Sega Mega Drive, just with a SNES sound to it. It sounds a bit softer compared to the harsher sounding Sega equivalent.
Overall, this is a really bad port of the Sega original. The good music, graphics and sound might redeem it slightly, but the choppy, sluggish gameplay simply ruins it for me. It was painful enough just playing a few games and I could never imagine playing through a whole tournament like this. It’s just unacceptable today and it shouldn’t even have been acceptable in 1992. The only reason I could see that the SNES version got so good review back in the day would be the lack of good hockey games on the console at the time. But now, this is just bad.
Is it worth Playing?
Avoid this one, there’s literally no reason to play it today. If you want a hockey game for the SNES, go with NHL ’94, or perhaps any of the later NHL games from ’95 to ’98, since they are supposedly much better than this. If you really want to play NHLPA ’93 for some reason, such as the fact that it has fighting, you should play the Sega version since it just plays so much better. Avoid this rushed, bad port.
The Magical Quest Starring Mickey Mouse was developed and published by Capcom for the Super Nintendo in 1992 in Japan and North America and in 1993 in Europe. Capcom had developed several Disney licensed games for the NES but this was their first Disney game to be released for the Super Nintendo. A remake of this game would be released for the Game Boy Advance in 2002.
This is a game I remember getting as a kid in the local game store that sold used games back in the day. I remember being excited about it, but as I played it I ended up being quite disappointed. It wasn’t bad but the way it played just didn’t appeal to me that much. When I began to play it I always ended up getting bored after a while, and the lack of a save and password feature meant that I never finished it. What always bugged me was that I choose to buy this game rather than the sequel, The Great Circus Mystery, which was two player co-op, while this one was only multiplayer with alternating turns. But now I thought it was finally time to return to this game once and for all.
The story is that Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Pluto and Goofy are playing catch in the park. Goofy ends up throwing the ball so far it ends up into a strange magical land and Pluto chases after it only to be kidnapped by the evil king Pete. So now it is up to Mickey to rescue him.
Magical Quest is a 2D side-scroller and the first thing I notice is how slow it feels. That’s not necessary a bad thing but playing this after having played through the Super Mario Bros. games was quite the change of pace. The first level is also a bit dull, and while it looks interesting it isn’t that fun to play through. You can jump on enemies to stun them and then pick them up and throw them away. You can also pick up blocks to throw at enemies, otherwise, there’s not really much more here. So playing through the first level is a quite generic experience apart from this being a Disney game that looks pretty good.
As you reach the second level you get your first outfit, and this is where the game starts to be a bit more fun. The first outfit you get is the magician outfit. This lets you fire projectiles, although there is a limited amount of magic for it so you can’t just spam the attack button. It also lets you breathe under water. In the third level you get a fire fighter outfit which lets you spray water to defeat enemies, turn out fires, create platforms on the ice level and move blocks. The fourth level gives you final outfit, the mountaineering gear, which gives Mickey a grappling hook so he can climb up ledges and swing from certain platforms.
The levels, while well designed, feel a bit bland. There’s your forest level, a level in a cave full of lava, a mountain level, an ice level, a castle, you get the idea. There’s only six levels, although each of them is split up into three or four stages each. They usually contain a mini boss as well as a final boss at the end of each level.
This is quite an easy game, and also fairly short. It won’t take much longer than an hour to beat, and there’s unlimited continues which will start you back at the stage you are on, really defeating the purpose of a game over, since you don’t really lose any progress. Any experienced platform fan should not have much trouble playing through this. There are three difficulty levels, but even on the hardest one it isn’t that difficult once you get the hang of it. Some bosses took a few tries to beat for me though.
Graphically, this game looks great, although I must say that the Mickey sprite does look a bit odd. There’s just something about his eyes that looks strange to me. The music is decent enough, feeling like it belongs in a Disney film, although I don’t find it as memorable or good as some of the NES Capcom Disney games.
Overall, Magical Quest is a good game, although a bit bland. The outfits are fun to play around with, but the game is very short for a Super Nintendo game. If it wasn’t for the Disney characters present this would feel even more generic, but the good graphics, nice music and the good level design does bring it up a level. As fun as the outfits are, it just feels like this game lacks something. It’s a good game, but not a great game.
Is it worth Playing?
It is certainly worth playing if you like platformers. Just don’t expect a game that will blow you away. While it is certainly a good game, it is very short, quite easy and just feels a bit generic. The novelty of the outfits makes it stand out a bit, and it is certainly fun to play. I just don’t think it is quite up there compared to so many other platformers on the console.
Final Fantasy VI was developed and published by Square for the SNES in 1994 in Japan and North America. The American release was originally called Final Fantasy III, since Final Fantasy II, III and V were originally never released there. The Super Nintendo version was never released in Europe. The first European release of this game came in 2002 when the PS1 port was released.
The story is just too big to go through, but it takes place in a steampunk influenced world with technology on a similar level to that of the Second Industrial Revolution. You start out as Terra, a girl who has been a slave to the evil empire, who eventually escapes and goes on a quest to save the world and find out who she really is, since she has lost her memory. Apart from Terra, there are 13 additional playable characters that you will come across throughout the game.
The gameplay is your typical RPG on the surface level. There is an overworld, you go into towns where there are shops and people to talk to. There are dungeons you need to go into. There are random battles where you gain experience points to eventual level up your characters so that they become stronger, and you can find weapons and armor with all kinds of strengths and weaknesses.
As mentioned before, there are 14 characters you get to play as in this game. All of them have unique abilities. Terra can use magic, Locke can steal from enemies, Edgar has different tools, Sabin can perform special attacks by performing certain button combinations, Cyan has special sword attacks, Gau can learn the abilities of enemies (although only in a certain area, and you don’t have full control over his attacks), Celes can also use magic but also has her Runic skill with which she can absorb enemies’ magical attacks, Setzer got his slot machine, Strago can copy magical abilities of monsters, Relm can create copies of monsters, Shadow can throw weapons, Mog can dance, Gogo can mimic, and Umaro can’t be controlled at all.
You can only have 4 characters at most in the same party, however. Early in the game, you don’t get to choose your parties while later the game opens up more and eventually you get to enter dungeons with several parties that need to work together, but you never use more than one party in battle. While Terra and Celes are the only ones who can use magic to begin with, you can later teach other characters magic attacks too.
Apart from just weapons and armor, you can also equip relics which change your character stats in different ways. Some make you immune to certain attacks, some make you stronger and there’s all kinds of different relics to use.
In general though, this game is very story heavy. The story is really what kept me playing in the long run. The gameplay was good on its own, but it was always interesting to discover what would happen next. The setting of the game is also what kept me playing, and the graphics are just so beautiful in this game. There is some extremely nice pixel art in this game, and it makes me just want to hang out in this world.
As if that wasn’t enough, this game’s soundtrack, composed by Nobuo Uematsu, might be the best soundtrack of any SNES game, ever. It is just beautiful at times, and so well-composed and including different genres from classical music, ragtime and even progressive rock in the style of Emerson, Lake & Palmer. There’s a lot of music here as well, the official soundtrack album has a duration of over 3 hours.
As for the difficulty, this game is actually quite easy. I never really needed to grind, and there were a few challenging moments, I generally did not have any problems. The only real trouble I had was with the final boss, as well as one other boss in the game, where it took me several times before I could defeat them.
Overall, this is a fantastic game. I really don’t have anything bad to say about it. It’s not nostalgia either, as I played it for the first time in my life before writing this review. I will be honest, considering how hyped up this game is, I was skeptical at first. But this game really managed to live up to my expectations. The only real criticism I could give it is that it might be a bit too easy, but I think the story, soundtrack, nice graphics and overall presentation alone make this a great game. The fact that all characters play differently also make this game a lot less repetitive than most other RPG’s I’ve played. I really had a fun time playing this game all through it.
Is it worth Playing?
Of course it is, unless you really despise turn-based RPG’s. But even then, I still recommend you to at least try it out. It never felt overly complicated to get into it. RPG veterans looking for a challenge might be disappointed, and grindfest lovers should look elsewhere, but otherwise, this is just such a great game.
Top Gear was released for the SNES in 1992. It was developed by Gremlin Graphics, who were previously famous for the Lotus series on Amiga, and published by Kemco.
This is a game I never knew existed as a kid, and I only discovered it as a teenager. I still remember it, since me and a friend were looking around for multiplayer SNES games to play on an emulator, and somehow came across Top Gear. We didn’t expect much but ended up getting quite impressed with it, playing through the whole game.
Top Gear is a racing game with no relation to the BBC show with the same name. You get to race on 32 tracks in places like USA, South America, Mexico, Japan, Germany, Scandinavia, France, Italy and the United Kingdom. Some races are longer than others though, not just in the length of the track but also how many laps the races are. The shortest races are only 3 laps, but some races are as long as 7 or 8 laps.
There’s four cars to choose from, each with their own statistics, such as top speed, acceleration, grip and fuel consumption. That’s right, you have to watch your fuel when racing. On some of the tracks it is impossible to run out of fuel, but on some of the longer races this is crucial. This gives the game some strategy. If you choose a car with lower fuel consumption but that is slower, you might be able to do many races without even going into the pits to refuel which is good for some of the longer races, while choosing a faster but thirstier car is a better choice for the shorter races. You can’t change cars from race to race however, the only time you can change car is if you quit the game and use a password. Personally I tend to go with the slowest but most fuel efficient car, since that one also has the best grip. You also get three nitros to use in each race.
After every four races, you will move on to the next part of the world, and get a password, if you manage to finish in the top of the standings. It did let me continue to the next four races even when I finished second in the standings in total, so I am not completely sure how well you must perform to be allowed to continue.
The races themselves are similar to the Lotus games, but unlike those, in Top Gear you are on a race track and must drive laps around circuits, unlike in the Lotus games where you go from point A to point B. Also, here you race against 19 other cars, without a time limit, while in Lotus you race against the clock mainly.
While this game is possible to play with two players, if you choose to play alone, you must still play it in split screen mode. The bottom part of the screen will show a computer player who can be seen as your rival in this game. This is somewhat annoying, but is easy enough to get used to. Your computer rival will never use his nitros, but there is some severe rubber banding going on at times. Sometimes he is driving really slow and is easy to catch up with, while at other times, when he is far behind, he will reach insane speeds even without using a nitro.
Top Gear has four different control styles to choose from, but personally I see no reason to choose any other than Type D, since then you accelerate with the B button. Type A have you use X to accelerate, which is strange. Type C also uses X to accelerate and the Start button to use nitro, while Type B requires you to hold your controller upside down (and also uses the start button for the nitro). I really wonder who the madman was who came up with some of these control schemes?
When it comes to the difficulty, there are three difficulty levels to choose from. I did find the easiest one slightly challenging but could win most races even if it has been a long time since I last played this game. I must say that the level progression is a bit uneven though, since the courses in France are much harder than the ones in Italy and United Kingdom that you get to afterwards.
Unlike games like F-Zero and Super Mario Kart, who used Mode 7 graphics to create a pseudo-3D feel to their games, Top Gear goes for a more traditional 2D-style in the vein of Out Run, Rad Racer and the already mentioned Lotus series. In fact, the graphics looks a bit unimpressive for SNES standards, but there are shifts in elevation on the tracks that affect the gameplay. You do really notice if you drive up or down a hill, and I must say that this game managed to create a genuine sense of speed that games like Out Run and Rad Racer lacks. There’s also some interesting designs on the levels, such as the rain forest course containing dessert sections with signs saying “save the trees”, or the Bordeaux course containing giant grape vines. The backgrounds in the levels are also good at indicating where in the world you are. Something else that I could imagine being impressive for its time is the fact that some levels have you start the race at night, with the a transition to day, as well as other races starting in day time and gets dark by the last lap.
As for the music, it is actually a conversion of the soundtrack from the first Lotus game for Amiga. That said, however, this is easily one of the better soundtracks on the SNES. There are four different songs for the races, so it never gets too repetitive either.
Overall, Top Gear is a great game, and personally I find it to be the best racing game on the Super Nintendo. The graphics might not be the best, but the courses do look different enough. The music is awesome, and the sense of speed is pretty impressive for an early SNES game. The only real fault I can find with this game is the fact that you are forced to play split-screen even in single player. But I don’t think that stops me from enjoying the game.
Is it worth Playing?
Top Gear is absolutely worth playing if you are looking for a racing game for the SNES. It has actually aged surprisingly well, and is also a fun multiplayer title. It might look a bit dated, but it is a fun game with a great sense of speed.
Smash TV was originally a game made by Williams for the Arcades in 1990. It would be ported to the SNES by Beam Software and published by Acclaim in 1992 in North America and Japan, and in 1993 in Europe, which is the one I will be reviewing. It was also ported to the NES, Game Gear, Master System, Mega Drive, ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC, Atari ST and Amiga.
It takes place in a dystopian future in the year 1999, and you play as one or two lucky contestants taking part in a game show where you must kill or be killed, in that sense borrowing from the film The Running Man.
The gameplay is incredibly simple, you move through a series of rooms by shooting every enemy that you see. At the end of each level you will face a boss, which seriously takes like a million hits to kill. Moving through the game you can collect different temporary weapon upgrades that make your weapon stronger, shields, temporary invincibility, and stuff like a brand new VCR or money. This game is full of violence, and even includes blood, something that is rare in early SNES games.
The presentation of this game is just so 90s and I love it. The sleazy TV-show host surrounded by scantily clad women is just hilarious. But there isn’t really too much to say about the game, and I guess the biggest flaw is that it gets very repetitive. There’s only three levels, but they will take some time to get through.
This game has great controls. The original arcade machine used two joysticks where one controlled your character, and the other one controls your shots. This translated really well to the SNES controller, where the D-pad moves, and the four main buttons acts like second D-Pad letting you shoot.
Super Smash TV is really hard though. You get a limited amount of lives and continues to get through the game. There are three difficulties, but if you play it on Easy you only get to play the first stage. You must play on Normal to be able to play all the stages. This is a stupid thing I think, but then again, I barely noticed any difference between Easy and Normal, they were both brutally hard. Especially considering the vast amount of enemies you must deal with. The bosses also take forever to beat, seriously. I personally wasn’t able to get past the second boss.
Graphically, it doesn’t look too exciting, but it looks close to the original arcade game. In general, it looks more like an updated NES game rather than a SNES title. However, there is no slowdown, despite the many enemies on screen at once. Super Smash TV does contain some cheesy voice clips. They sound quite muffled though, but it’s still funny. The music is decent enough, nothing particularly special about it, but it isn’t bad.
Overall, Super Smash TV is a fun game. I love the presentation of it and just how 90s it feels. The only real flaw it has is that it gets very repetitive quite fast. Playing with a second player will make this more fun though. Also, sometimes it is fun playing a mindless game like this where the sole purpose is just to blow stuff up.
Is it worth Playing?
I would say that this game is only really worth playing if plan to play the multiplayer mode. Playing alone is fine enough, but it does get a bit old after just playing for a short time. It might be fun if you just feel like killing some time and want a gory, mindless shooter or just some simple arcade-style action. I certainly recommend it for anyone wanting a difficult challenge. It certainly isn’t a bad game, it is just very repetitive.
The Addams Family was developed and published by Ocean Software in 1992 for the SNES. It is based on the 1991 movie of the same name. It would later be ported to the Sega Mega Drive, Amiga and Atari ST. Versions also exists for other consoles such as the NES, but these ones are not direct ports, instead being original games.
This is a game I have many memories with, since I used to borrow it a lot from my brother when I was young. I used to love this game back then, and I wasn’t even that much into The Addams Family otherwise, but something about this game just appealed to me. I never finished it back then though. So let’s see how I like it today.
I haven’t actually seen the movie so I have no idea how well it follows it, but what has happened is that “The Nasty Judge” has kidnapped your family members and it is now up to Gomez to save them.
The Addams Family is gameplay-wise a typical side-scrolling platformer. However, there are some unique elements to it. It is actually a bit non-linear. While you start out outside the family’s house, you can basically go anywhere you wish. Either continue outside the house until you find an underground tunnel, or go inside the house, and choose one of several doors there. Each door takes you to a new area, and you have to travel through most of them to rescue your family members. To rescue a family member you must find the area boss, usually located at the end of an area. Rescuing all family members except Morticia unlocks the final door. Some areas don’t contain any family member, but there are still an additional three bosses to fight. These aren’t mandatory, but defeating them will increase your total health by one hit point each. You start out with two hearts, but you can expand your health meter to five hearts.
The level design is quite interesting at times, I especially love the level taking place inside of the stove, and the level in the portrait gallery. Each level is broken up into several short rooms, and each room has its own name displayed at the top of the screen, reminding me of some old-school computer games. Some of those names are puns and quite funny. Speaking of funny, there is a boss where you literally have to bounce on Uncle Fester’s head to jump on the boss. There are also several hidden areas you can find throughout the game.
Gomez main attack is jumping on enemies, just like Mario. The hit detections is all over the place however. Sometimes you take a hit for what feels like no reason. Although the bad hit detection sometimes works in your favour as there were several times when I could swear I would take a hit but didn’t.
Gomez can also find power-ups. Either a sword, which he can use to stab enemies in front of or above him. There are also tennis balls which acts similar to Mario’s fireballs. I personally didn’t find these power-ups all that useful, but they do give you an extra hit point. Other power-ups include the shoe, which makes you much faster although it also makes you harder to control, a propeller hat which gives you the ability to fly for a period of time, as well as a power-up that makes you invincible for some time. There is also money to be found, finding 25, 50 and 75 will increase your health if you don’t have full health at the moment, and finding 100 gives you an extra life.
The controls might be this game’s biggest flaw, they are very slippery and this combined with the bad hit detection can lead to some frustrating moments. Especially considering that there are some parts of the game that require pixel perfect precision when you jump. However, I did notice that I managed to get used to the controls after playing for a while, so I wouldn’t exactly say that they are ruining the game completely.
As for the difficulty, the game surely has some frustrating and difficult moments, especially considering the hit detections and pixel perfect precision required at times. However, this game is extremely generous in the checkpoint department. Most of the time you start out very close to where you died, and you never start further back than at the beginning of a room. Unless you would get a game over, that is, which takes you back to the house. I believe there are unlimited continues though, and there’s also a hidden area in the stairwell where you can find around 25 extra lives, which should be enough to take experienced platform players through this game. This game is generally quite generous with extra lives, and I never went below 20 myself.
You also get a password after each boss defeated, and the passwords are very short, thankfully.
Graphically, the game looks decent, even if it is nothing special. The portraits on the wall on the portrait gallery look very impressive though. Sound wise, there are some annoying sound effects when you get hit that literally sounds like a fart. Musically, it is pretty good. It might not be a top soundtrack for the SNES, but it certainly isn’t bad, and the rendition of the Addams Family theme sounds really good. That said, I do have some really nostalgic feelings about this soundtrack.
Overall, The Addams Family is a good game, although a bit generic at times. There are some cool levels, but the rest of the levels are a bit bland. The controls are not the best and will take some time before you get used to them. Otherwise, there isn’t too much bad to say about it, but there’s also not too much good to say about it either. What makes this game stand out is that you can play it in any order you like, so you never have to feel stuck on a specific level. It’s not exactly Metroid, but it does make the game more open ended.
Is it worth Playing?
This is a tough question. It is a good platformer, but there isn’t anything special about it. There are tons of better platformers for the SNES, and I don’t really think the fact that you can play it in any order you like is a big selling-point. But it is at least a fun game if you decide to play through it, and if you are a fan of The Addams Family, there isn’t really any reason you should avoid this game. It has its flaws, but it also got its charm.
Legend of the Mystical Ninja was developed and published by Konami for the SNES in 1991 in Japan, 1992 in North America and 1994 in Europe. This is one of those games that I never even heard of until recent years. I did know about the N64 sequels, but I never played those either.
So the game stars Kid Ying and Dr. Yang who are out on a quest to save a kidnapped princess. Never heard that story before, but really, I never cared much about a story in an old game like this, unless it is an RPG.
I must say that Legend of the Mystical Ninja is very hard to describe. It’s extremely Japanese, that’s one thing. You could say that there are three different gameplay styles. First there’s the town sequences. Here you go around the time to fight enemies who drop money. The towns are also full of houses you can go into, some contains nothing useful, or a person giving you a hint. But there’s also shops where you can buy certain armor, extra lives, pizzas which restores you if you die, sandals which makes faster and able to jump further, bombs and other things you can use on your journey.
Places like inns, restaurants and saunas also exists where you can restore your health. As if this wasn’t enough, this game is full of tons of minigames. Some are just for fun, like air hockey, a breakout clone and even a version of Gradius, but there are other minigames such as whack-a-mole and a version of snake where you can actually earn money. There are also places where you can play dice games, secret labyrinths where you can find useful things, take part in a quiz to win money, play the lottery and even bet on horse racing. It is quite crazy how much stuff Konami put into this game, and in this sense it almost feels like a precursor to the Grand Theft Auto series at times.
Enemies can also drop cats which if you collect them will upgrade your weapon (yeah, I don’t get it either). However, something I found really annoying is that as soon as an enemy hits you, you lose a weapon upgrade, making it really tough to hold onto the weapon at times, considering how full this game can be of enemies, especially later in the game. You can also use your money as a weapon by throwing them at enemies, although I rarely used this.
There are also a few sections that plays from a top-down perspective, but otherwise, the so called “action stages” in each chapter is a side-scrolling platforming level. So there is a ton of variety in this game that sometimes it is a bit hard to believe this is actually an early 90s game, not a modern indie game. As if all of this wasn’t enough, this game is co-op multiplayer. However, there is no save feature in this game, so if you are playing it on real hardware, you must write down some really long passwords.
The difficulty isn’t too bad to begin with, but later in the game it can get brutally difficult. The last level in particular is insane, and almost feels unfair, but once you figure out the enemy patterns, it is not too bad. It requires some patience, but it never felt cheap. The only thing I wasn’t happy about was the fact that you lose your weapon upgrades as soon as you get hit, making it very punishing for newcomers like myself.
As for the graphics, they are gorgeous. They might be less detailed than some later games on the system, but considering it is an early SNES title they are beautiful. The art design is so well done and full of colours, and I never experienced any slowdown despite there often being many enemies at the screen at once.
The music was also fantastic, and it manage to mix that typical “Konami”-sound from the SNES-era with some traditional Japanese music, and it works wonderfully. There was even one track that reminded me of International Superstar Soccer, and would you believe it, but Harumi Ueko was the co-composer for both games.
Overall, it is a fantastic game and I really think it is a must play on the SNES, especially if you are looking for a great co-op game. Pretty much everything about this game is great. The only real fault I can find is the fact that you lose the weapon upgrades when hit and that the difficulty can feel a bit overwhelming at times, but I think these issues are not really a huge problem considering how fun this game is. I really don’t want to hand out a 10 out of 10 too easily, but this is a game I couldn’t justify giving a lower score.
Is it worth Playing?
Do I even have to say more? Of course it is worth playing, especially if you want a great multiplayer game. But even playing it single-player was fun. There are so many funny moments, and all the mini games you come across make it a really fun experience. Be aware of the high difficulty on the later levels, and the extremely long password system though. But that shouldn’t stop you from enjoying this game.
Secret of Mana was developed and published by Square for the Super Nintendo, and was released in 1993 in Japan and North America, and in 1994 in Europe where it was published by Nintendo. It is one of only three games developed by Square that was released for the SNES in Europe, the others being Mystic Quest Legend and Secret of Evermore.
This is a game I never really heard much about until I got internet. Even then, I never tried this game out on an emulator, despite the game being held in such high regard.
I won’t be explaining the story too much, that’s just not my thing in reviews. Essentially, you are a boy who pulled a rusty sword out of a stone. This makes him banished from his village. The sword happens to be the Mana Sword, and the boy must now re-energize it by visiting the eight Mana Temples. On his way he meets a runaway princess and a sprite child who joins his party. Together they must save the world. The story is quite interesting, and there are some very funny moments at times. My favourite is probably when one boss turns out to be Santa Claus, who turned into a monster because children don’t believe in him anymore. Even Rudolph makes an appearance, how can you now love that?
Secret of Mana is an action-RPG played from a top-down perspective. You start out playing as the boy character, but will eventually meet two other party members. These will be controlled by the computer, but you can switch between them as you like, and you can even customize how the computer should control them, such as how aggressive they should be or if they should be more defensive. To make matters even better, it is possible for a second and even third player to control the other characters, making this one of few multiplayer RPG’s from this era.
Each character have different strengths and weaknesses. The boy can’t use magic, but will master the weapons quicker and is more powerful in combat. The girls mainly uses healing spells, while the sprite casts offensive and powerful magic. Apart from that, you also acquire different weapons through your journey, including swords, spears, boomerangs, bows and javelins. These can also be levelled up by killing enough enemies with them, and in certain areas you can also reforge the weapons to make them stronger.
However, the levelling system is one of this game’s biggest flaws. Just levelling up your characters are not that bad, but the way you level up weapons can be really annoying. Especially since if you level it up with one character, you must then level it up with the other characters too. Sure, you don’t have to do this with every weapon for every character, but I did because I wasn’t sure about which combinations worked best, meaning I spent a whole lot of time on this. The same is true for magic, to level it up, you must use it, but using it costs magic points, which can make it very tedious at times. Especially when you get a new magic and it starts on level 0, meaning you have to level it up for such a long time. I really found this very annoying as it took so much time. The way you use magic is also a bit annoying. You must go into the menu in order to use it. This pauses the game, although it does make most boss fights very easy since you can just go into the menu and spam the magic attacks.
Otherwise, your typical RPG stuff is here, but the combat takes place in real-time, as opposed to a turn-based system. You can’t just spam your attack however, or else it will be less effective. You should wait for the meter at the bottom to recharge so you can perform a stronger attack. As you level up your weapons, you can charge them up for several levels, but this just takes so much time I rarely bothered with it.
Another thing that brings this game down is how it is full of bugs and technical issues. The computer controlled characters will constantly get stuck behind objects so you have to backtrack just to get them to follow you the right way. As if that wasn’t enough, at times certain characters literally got stuck inside of walls, completely unable to move. At times they somehow got out from the wall, but many times I had to go back to the last save point, or use an escape rope meaning I had to do the dungeon all over again. Such a game breaking bug is really a huge flaw in my opinion and brings the score down a notch.
Flaws aside, the game does at least control well, even though there is a slight annoyance of having to enter the ring menu to use magic.
As for the difficulty, I never found this game that hard. It may have been due to my compulsive grinding as soon as I got a new weapon or magic spell, but it just never felt that challenging. Sure, there were some difficult sections, especially later in the game so it never felt too easy either. But if you look for a tough challenge this might not be the game for you.
The graphics look quite good for a Super Nintendo game, even though it doesn’t get close to some of the later games released on the system. The music on the other hand, is really great. It almost sounds like CD quality at times, and it is seriously a soundtrack I can imagine listening to even outside the context of the game. Some of the music in this game is just so relaxing and fills me with peaceful feelings.
Overall, Secret of Mana is a great game, but it is surely full of flaws. The gameplay in general is fun, but the way you level up and the whole magic system makes the game quite boring at times. It is fun when you progress but when you want to level up a weapon or spell it can get really tedious at times. Add some game breaking bugs, such as getting stuck in walls and you have an incredibly flawed game. But, I still loved to play through it. It was nice seeing the new areas as you progressed further into the game, the combat was satisfying, and with such a great soundtrack, it was a fun play through. Add the fact that you can play it with two other people, and it could be an even more fun experience.
Is it worth Playing?
Of course it is, but I do think it is important to be aware of the bugs, and the fact that the game can be quite tedious at times. It isn’t quite up there on the level of certain other RPG’s but it is still a must play for any RPG fan. Zelda fans will probably also like this game as long as you get used to the combat system. Despite its flaws, it is still a top tier Super Nintendo game.
Retro Viking Reviews 