The Super Nintendo was the second, and last, family console we had when I was a kid. I was too young to remember a whole lot about the NES other than playing RBI Baseball for what seemed like entire weekends with my dad and brother. I do, however, remember seeing those sweet 16-bit graphics of Super Mario World when we first got our SNES. Afterwards, my dad and brother both stopped playing games, so the N64 under the Christmas tree half a decade later had my name on it, and from there I would save money to get my Playstation, Dreamcast, and so on.
Given that the SNES wasn’t actually mine, this list is not necessarily going to be heavy on nostalgia. I only actually remember owning four or five SNES games (I’m sure there were a few more, I just don’t remember them). Some of those will show up on this list, but it was the product of the era; we didn’t own much, but we rented something almost every weekend. My of-its-era SNES experience is essentially limited to a small few mainstays and way too many transient games I experienced for a few hours and never saw again outside of the rare re-rental. So, this list will have some nostalgic elements, but it will be more heavily influenced by my experiences returning to the SNES in recent years.
Without further ado, my top 10 SNES games:
10. Ken Griffey Jr. Presents Major League Baseball
This was one of those few games I remember owning and the one with the biggest nostalgic pull. I actually played a full 162 game season over a summer.
It is a sports game for people who don’t love sports. Controls are simple, the camera angles (mostly) work well to allow you to actually catch the ball, there is a goofy, arcade-y visual style, and real teams populated with ridiculous fake names. I have played many games of this since re-acquiring it a few years back and still love doing so. While the nostalgia pull is strong, this is also a game I would still happily recommend today.
9. Super Metroid
I came back to this after discovering a love for the Metroidvania genre through modern games. It was surprising to me how well this held up to those newer games, but there are definitely some minor nits to pick here. This, however, isn’t the space for that! This is a space to celebrate what an amazing adventure you guide Samus through in this game. I was very much not expecting 2D platformers to start you off with an intense burst of action, a tactic common in today’s gaming landscape (stolen from movies), but Super Metroid throws you right in against Ridley and then forces you through a thrilling escape sequence. That’s how you start a video game, folks.
The rest of the game lays the groundwork for everything we expect from Metroidvanias to this day; new abilities and weapons, exploration, epic boss fights, etc… The game holds up both as a piece of gaming history and a darn good time to play through today.
8. The Lost Vikings
My family were puzzle people, so while Lemmings did come home with us from the rental store a bit more often, The Lost Vikings still spent many weekends in our house. The game gives you three different vikings attempting to work their way back home after being beamed into space. One can run/jump, one can fight, and one can shield/glide. That’s all you get. Each level requires you to get all three to the end safely and will require utilizing the ability of each to do so. You switch between them, making sure not to leave them in a bad spot because the enemies won’t stop, in order to platform and do some light puzzle solving along the way. The actual puzzle here is, of course, figuring out how to use all three safely, but the game features some switches, keys, and other basic tropes seen in “I need to figure out how to get out of this area” style games.
The pacing of this game is perfect as each level adds a layer to the last, slowly ramping up the difficulty over its 36 levels. There will definitely be more than a few that stump you on your first try or three, but the game never presents anything too challenging if you were able to complete the previous level. This is still one of my go to “I have 10 minutes to play something” games because you can hop in, enter your last password, and either make it through a level or two or die a bunch trying.
7. ActRaiser
This is a truly bizarre game. We need more games like this these days. Take a very competent 2D, side scroller, action-platformer, make half of the game a top-down civ building game, and then make half of that actually a tower defense/shooter game. Somehow, some way, against all odds, this combination works together fantastically well and produces, by far, the winner of the “best SNES game I had never heard of until two years ago” award.
The side-scrolling part is quite good, with a nice bit of difficulty but also being significantly less punishing than others in the genre with reasonable checkpoints. There are spells you earn which are a bit overpowered, but you can equip a different one if you’re feeling guilty. The civ building part is very light and should be forgettable, but adding in the tower defense aspect makes it a lot of fun. As ActRaiser 2 proved by eliminating the top-down civ building portions, ActRaiser wouldn’t be the same without its two very different parts.
6. Super Mario RPG
This should be the standard entry point in the My First JRPG genre. It melts away the most frustrating parts of JRPGs (length, customization and open-endedness) and replaces them with a short, linear game where it’s always pretty clear what the best thing to do is. Add in the timed attack/defense bits to spice up the turn-based combat and you’ve got something really engaging for people who don’t want to fully dive into one of the traditionally great JRPGs.
The game oozes charm in a way few other Mario games are allowed to. You get Bowser in your party! There are two completely new playable characters in Mallow and Geno and you are ultimately fighting against a giant sword. Bowser capturing the Princess again, this is certainly not. The game presents enough of a challenge in certain boss fights to stay interesting, but mostly it provides a great world to explore and a fun, light introduction to turn-based JRPG combat.
5. Mega Man X3
Tough call between this and X. They are, obviously, very similar games. I ultimately went with X3 because it adds a bit more on top while not going too overboard like I would argue X2 did. It’s all classic Mega Man, just a bit better. Short levels which are tough enough to get through in the first place, then throw in the boss fights you have zero chance of beating the first time you see them. Find the hidden upgrades, beat a boss to earn a new weapon, repeat.
I’ve only recently played through the first three X games and they were my first serious attempts at Mega Man games. They are incredibly difficult, but the right kind of difficulty given that the levels are never super long and I felt like I learned a bit more with each boss fight death I added to my tally. The end gauntlets are another story, and requiring you to do those all in one sitting is an incredibly of-the-era decision, but they are very rewarding to conquer.
4. Super Mario World
I remember seeing this game for the first time. The bright, vibrant colors. The yellow blocks on the first level, by themselves, signaled that a new era of gaming was here. Luckily for all of us, the gameplay backed up these groundbreaking visuals. The gameplay was so smooth and still stands up as one of the best 2D platformers of all time.
3. Final Fantasy III/VI
Final Fantasy VI does so much right, it would be impossible to cover it all in this small space. Gameplay-wise, I appreciate how it allows you to choose how deep you want to go. You get to select your party, recruit (or not) a bunch of optional characters and then decide which to play with, and how to do so. Some characters are quite wild with their abilities, while many others are straightforward JRPG tropes. Only want to use a character who has to learn moves from enemies? Or a completely uncontrollable character who only has melee attacks? Go for it! The combat is smooth, simple, and fun no matter which characters you use.
Zooming out a bit, the game is basically split in half. The first half being an open world that always gives you a clear direction on where to go next. I appreciated this as it helped me learn the world and mechanics of the game. After the thing happens, the second half of the game is completely open-ended. You actually get thrown a very short walk away from the final boss area and are free to enter it at any point! What madness is this? The contrast between the two halves works perfectly and allowing you to play how you want via party choices makes this a game that everyone will experience a bit differently. Oh, and it also features an all-time video game bad guy.
2. Earthbound
Earthbound doesn’t do all that much in terms of JRPG mechanics. Basic attacks plus magic, and items. You don’t have much in the way of customizations. Your party is set. Equipable items aren’t upgradeable; you get a better baseball bat, you equip it and sell the old one. Simple enough.
Why, then, is this game held in such high regard? I can’t speak for everyone, but for me it is the setting, characters, and story combined with the mostly bare bones gameplay. A traditional JRPG set in a normal western town? It gives off heavy Goonies type vibes and I’m of the age where that squarely hits the nostalgia buttons for me. The main character is a kid with a baseball bat; you make some friends, explore a bunch of increasingly strange locales and generally go on a fun, slightly whacky, adventure. Send me on a memorable, nostalgia-tinged adventure with fun, straightforward JRPG elements in a reasonable playtime and I will definitely enjoy the game.
1. Donkey Kong Country
This one is heavily based in nostalgia. Seeing the graphics on this game when it was released was as jaw-dropping as seeing the Super Mario World graphics compared to the NES games that came before. I wasn’t sure how DKC was made on the same system as all of these other games I’d been playing. The jaw-drop moment certainly helps this game stand out, but it is the gameplay that gives it legs 30-ish years after release.
Simple, fun, often tough 2D platforming. Nothing particularly groundbreaking, but it was all done so well. The over-the-top boss fights, the collectible aspect, the animal buddies you can ride or transform into, and those thrilling mine cart levels that, if you blinked, might make you think you were playing a Genesis game for a few seconds. Platformers are probably my favorite genre of video game and I believe DKC still holds up as one of the best examples of the genre out there (DKC 2 and 3 are amazing as well).
