what snes games are still worth playing

[little egg]

Which ones hold up in your opinion?

[[McD] James]

I think a better question would have asked what SNES games haven't aged well. The SNES is timeless, boasting many of the greatest games ever made. Games like Super Metroid, A Link to the Past, Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy 6, UN Squadron, R-Type 3, Super Mario RPG, Illusion of Gaia, and Castlevania 4 are every bit as good today as they were upon release. 

 

On the other side of the coin, I would say that Mortal Kombat and Star Fox have not aged well. It's a short list. 

[little egg]

i'm trying to get reccomendations for my nephew, he has only played modern games. I'm surprised you think star fox aged poorly, is this a widespread opinion?

[Nine Inch Heels]

Zelda ALTTP

 

Super Metroid

 

Battletoads in Battlemaniacs

 

Super Streetfighter II

 

Seiken Densetsu 3 (Secret of mana 2)

 

R-Type III the third lightning

 

Parodius

 

Super Mario Kart

 

F-Zero (despite cheap rubberbanding)

 

Just a few I'd still happily play today, and, in fact, sometimes I do just that ;-)

[Aurelius]

My personal additions to the already mentioned:
 

Donkey Kong Country 1-3

Super Mario World

 

The first SNES game I ever played was DKC, and it still is one of my all time favorites. The mood in that game is superb, and even if it's a bit frustrating to play at times (minecart jump timing and the like), it still is very fun and original. The other two are just as good, I don't think I would put them in any order - they're all awesome. I still listen to the soundtracks quite regularly too, which are some of the best soundtracks ever made.

[chungy]

1 hour ago, little egg said:

I'm surprised you think star fox aged poorly, is this a widespread opinion?

I honestly passed over Star Fox even when it was new, perhaps an unwarranted pass-over, in hind sight. It was marketed very heavily on its technical prowess, hosting the SuperFX enhancement chip that allowed a primitive form of 3D graphics on the SNES. This combined with the fact I was already playing PC games (such as Doom and Descent) that looked visually superior made me pass over the title. I didn't really start giving it a fair shot until earlier this year (via Nintendo Switch).

 

It's a decent on-rails game, but it remains extremely primitive in graphical capability. Look past that, you can have fun.

[almostmatt1]

I am a very big fan of the Final Fantasy series and IMO the SNES installments (IV, V & VI) are the best ones, particularly VI. Chrono Trigger and Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island are some of my other favourites and are some of the most highly acclaimed SNES classics. 

I have a Raspberry Pi that I use as a retro emulator and I love it. 

[Gokuma]

Super Castlevania IV, Actraiser, Zombies Ate My Neighbors, Earthworm Jim 1 and 2 (but 1 is missing at least a stage that Genesis has), Contra III The Alien Wars, TMNT Turtles in Time, Super Bomberman 2's multiplayer, WeaponLord, Street Fighter Alpha 2, WWF Wrestlemania the Arcade (but this version is missing two wrestlers)

 

Imports and hacks:

Tetris 3 (4 players!), newer Bomberman games (up to 5 players),  BS Zelda (new rendition of original and a Link to the Past-based one), F-Zero 2, Haven't tried this one but it's an 8 player fighter: http://www.romhacking.net/homebrew/15/

[DuckReconMajor]

Aside from the classics already mentioned I have always loved Stunt Race FX. Only reasons it hasn’t aged exceptionally well are the framerate and the difficulty, the latter of which can be mitigated by save states or the Rewind feature in the Nintendo Online port. 
 

 as for Star Fox, I think 64 was much better

[hybridial]

Yeah I'd say the vast majority of SNES games still hold up as at least playable today. 

[Fonze]

^ agreed

 

No mention of Lufias 1 and 2 tho yall 😭

 

And definitely Zelda ALttP, Super Metroid, TMNT games, Contra 3, etc among most other SNES games. Was a great console!

[Jello]

15 hours ago, little egg said:

i'm trying to get reccomendations for my nephew, he has only played modern games. I'm surprised you think star fox aged poorly, is this a widespread opinion?

It has aged extremely poorly. I mean it was neat at the time, but the rudimentary polygon graphics just looked like crap. Star Fox 64 on the other hand still holds up pretty damn well.

 

Pretty much everything I'd have to offer has already been mentioned. I would have to strongly suggest Final Fantasy III at least, II is good, but III was better. Also Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island. It's quite possibly the cutest game that I've ever played, but it still has extremely good level design and provides a decent challenge, unlike newer Yoshi games like Woolly World. Chrono Trigger was fantastic, as was Secret of Mana. I also have a soft spot for Actraiser, Super Metroid, the Donkey Kong Country's. There were quite a few crap games on SNES, mostly the licensed stuff pushed out to promote movies, but it just has so many good games on it. Probably more than any other console I've ever had. I've heard the PS2 is pretty good in that regard, but I never got much use out of mine.

 

 

 

[hybridial]

Yeah I consider the PS2 to be the best console ever based on the strength of its library. And I owned a Gamecube and Xbox. And those were really good too. That was the console golden age to be honest. 

[SlayerOGames666]

16 hours ago, little egg said:

Which ones hold up in your opinion?

I'm quite a fan of Clock Tower, a japanese Super Nintendo horror game. You may need a patch to actually play the game in english, though.

[Phobus]

I really liked Star Fox back in the day (StarWing, in the UK) and as thrilled to see it again on the SNES Classic Mini. I would argue it holds up just as well as ever, but as a fan of the game it doesn't count for as much. There's a lot of good mentions here. I think the only SNES game I've ever played that I would recommend against is Super Ghosts 'n' Ghouls. It's frustratingly difficult, even with an emulator letting you use save states and a limited rewind system, and your reward for getting through once is being sent through again with the requirement to do an essentially perfect no-damage run in order to get the "true" ending.

[Jello]

34 minutes ago, Phobus said:

I really liked Star Fox back in the day (StarWing, in the UK) and as thrilled to see it again on the SNES Classic Mini. I would argue it holds up just as well as ever, but as a fan of the game it doesn't count for as much. There's a lot of good mentions here. I think the only SNES game I've ever played that I would recommend against is Super Ghosts 'n' Ghouls. It's frustratingly difficult, even with an emulator letting you use save states and a limited rewind system, and your reward for getting through once is being sent through again with the requirement to do an essentially perfect no-damage run in order to get the "true" ending.

Right, I mean it started out as an arcade game to suck quarters, and that followed with it to the SNES. I still love "trying" to play it from time to time, but I've never beaten it. I did get through the first run on the SNES (actual SNES, not emulated) when I was a kid. Then I found out I had to go back through the whole game. This was before the internet. It's a rough game, probably not a good one for little egg's nephew.

 

And shit, I forgot about Shaq Fu. Best fighting game ever. You can probably still find 10 copies in any pawn shop that still sells SNES games for less than a buck. For all 10 copies.

 

On a serious note, I loved the hell out of Demon's Crest. It's a wonderful platformer, with a beautiful art style, and I love Firebrand. But it's nowhere near as difficult as Ghoul's N Ghosts, so that was nice. Original cartridges go for a pretty penny, but it's still one of my favorites. Still pissed I ended up having to sell my original cartridge a few years ago, but at least I got a $100 return on my investment.

Edited December 13, 2019 by Jello

[Doomkid]

Mortal Kombat 1 on snes is shite, but 2 plays really well, it’s better than 2 on the Genesis mainly because of graphics and sound being slightly inferior.

 

Star Fox 64 is to Star Fox SNES as Doom is to Wolfenstein3D. For most people the new one totally obsoleted the old one, but the old one is still a darn good game in its own right.

 

Most of the classics have been mentioned, but Earthbound is another fantastic RPG.

[Joshua Schäferhund]

20 hours ago, Ajora said:

On the other side of the coin, I would say that Mortal Kombat and Star Fox have not aged well. It's a short list. 

 

Idk about Mortal Kombat (though I do know that the SNES version of the first game is generally regarded as being the worst version), but I have to say I strongly disagree about Star Fox. I really don't find the framerate as bad as people make it out to be. There were early 3D games on the Genesis and SNES that ran far worse such as Race Drivin. Current emulators and even the SD2SNES feature overclock options so this is practically a non-issue at this point imo.

 

As for Star Fox 64, it is a great game but it's not without it's problems either. The game suffers from having levels that bog down the pacing of the game, particularly those that exclusively take place in all-range mode. Aquas and Katina are the worst offenders in this regard. The unbareably dark lighting and snail's pace framerate absolutely kill the former for me while the latter amounts to flying around in circles and waiting for the boss's core to appear. Katina, Fichina and Sector Z all suffer from the latter issue. This in itself wouldn't be a big problem, however the two routes in the game that offer the most points have one of those two aforementioned stages as the third mission, making me almost wanting to quit at that point on repeat playthroughs. These days whenever I replay SF64, I end up using a gameshark code to skip the stages I don't really care about and go straight to the levels I actually enjoy playing. 

 

SF1's levels are much more consistent in quality due to them all being on-rails, even if they don't reach the same heights as 64's best levels. With the exception of Fortuna, there isn't really a level in that game I find myself disliking. It doesn't have a proper scoring system/high score table like 64 does though, which sucks as it kills a lot of potential replay factor the game could have had.

 

20 hours ago, little egg said:

I'm surprised you think star fox aged poorly, is this a widespread opinion?

This is actually a very common consensus about the game from what I've seen myself.

Edited December 14, 2019 by Patch93

[almostmatt1]

Also Yoshi's Island has some incredible Romhacks, if that's your thing.

[00_Zombie_00]

Megaman X3

[Gaia74]

All The Megamans Games

 

The trilogy of soul blazer

 

And R Type 3

 

my favorites

[Mortrixs19]

All the Mega man X titles

Super Mario World 

Super Mario kart

Yoshi's Island

Donkey Kong games

ActRaiser

Castlevania 4 and The other one I think it's called Castlevania Dracula X

Mega man 7

Mega man and Bass, although that one was only released in Japan, so no English version. However, you can also play that game on the GBA in English.

Super Mario All starts

All the Mortal Kombat games

Super Metroid

Star Fox

F-zero

Super Star Wars games and the Super Indiana Jones games too. (If you like to experience the SNES equivalent of CBT)

Contra 3

And the ones mentioned before. The SNES is filled with great stuff.

[Gokuma]

Another import and there's an English patch:  Kunio's Dodgeball (4 players).   There's some other good Nekketsu or Kunio (River City) games but the rest of the best are on 8-bit NES/Famicom or PC-Engine (Japanese TurboGrafX16).  Well there are new ones on PC and most of them on Steam.

[Du Mhan Yhu]

Terranigma.

[NuMetalManiak]

seconding Lufia 2, Terranigma, Super Mario World 2, Chrono Trigger

[DSC]

On 12/14/2019 at 3:28 AM, 00_Zombie_00 said:

Megaman X3

 

On 12/14/2019 at 4:09 AM, Gaia74 said:

All The Megamans Games

 

On 12/14/2019 at 1:16 PM, Mortrixs19 said:

All the Mega man X titles

Oh yes! The original Mega Man X trilogy for the SNES are awesome, surprised more people haven't mentioned them. Absolute god tier music, plus dashing and having an infinite wall jump have to be the best mechanics in any platforming game ever. Still have much to play on that console, but those three right now are by far my favorites!

[Gaia74]

8 hours ago, DSC said:

Absolute god tier music, plus dashing and having an infinite wall jump have to be the best mechanics in any platforming game ever.

for those 2 things worth play the three games xD

[Dark Pulse]

Lufia II, Chrono Trigger, a lot of the ones people already mentioned.

 

Now for some that people don't mention:

• You all should be ashamed I'm the first person to mention Plok.
• Ditto for Equinox, which is the sequel to the NES game Solstice.
• The SNES version of Civilization is also surprisingly good.
• The Ninja Warriors is excellent - so excellent, it recently got an enhanced remake on the Switch by the same dev team. That's a better play if you got a Switch, but if not, nothing wrong with the original.

[Reisal]

Let's see:

 

• Super Mario Kart ☺
• UN Squadron ☺
• Super Metroid
• Chrono Trigger
• Zelda: A Link to the Past ☺
• Super Mario RPG ☺
• Donkey Kong Country series (esp. first one)
• Final Fight
• Killer Instinct
• Mega Man X 1/2/3
• Joe and Mac ☺
• Earthworm Jim
• Kirby Superstar
• EVO: Search for Eden
• NBA Jam ☺
• Sim City ☺
• Final Fantasy 6
• Final Fantasy 4 ☺
• Super Mario All-Stars ☺
• Actraiser
• F-Zero
• Super Punch Out!!
• Secret of Mana
• Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo
• Super Mario World ☺

Did I miss anything? These are my personal preferences above. The ☺ indicates personal favorites.

Edited December 18, 2019 by Armaetus

[DSC]

On 12/18/2019 at 7:00 AM, Dark Pulse said:

 

• Ditto for Equinox, which is the sequel to the NES game Solstice.

For anyone curious and that wants to try this game out, just be warned that it contains a lot of weird isometric platforming, which might not be good for your eyesight...