Topic: SNES Mini

@DarthNocturnal Yeah, I noticed that. I feel your pain. Gotta say that I was really glad being able to finally preorder one this time around, since last time, I never even got the chance to TRY and place a preorder, no matter how hard I tried.

I tried really hard to stay sane, in between leading a normal life, and having to hunt websites at impossible hours to try and find one. And then the scalper thing happened...

Boy, did that ever p*** me off...

I'm happy that I was able to preorder both minis without problems on their original releases...

Then again, with the taxes video games get in my country, it was basically like paying to a (sorta reasonable) scalper anyway...

My NES Classic Mini should be here before the end of June (although I may have to mod it and then put it aside until my birthday). Very smooth ordering process. Bought it from Nintendo UK Store. Excited!

Fingers and toes crossed we get an N64 Mini announcement this year too!

Please, please, please 😉

@ThanosReXXX Getting ready to attempt the usb mod to add wifi and extra storage to my SNES Classic. With the addition of retroachivements.org and Hakchi2 CE, the SNES classic is slowly becoming a full blown retropie for me. With the added achievements, it is making going back into games a little more interesting and Hardcore mode will really kick in the challenge (no save states).

I am looking forward to being able to make changes to games without destroying my progress in FreeDOOM and Cave Story. Plus it will be nice to be able to load in everything I have without risking running out of space (DosBox stuff can really eat up storage fast). Especially once I start messing around with ScummVM, my dust covered Sierra collection CDs, and some of the freeware Scumm games.

Overall, it is just insane how capable the mini console really is if you are willing to mess around with it. The guys behind hakchi2 have done some impressive stuff. Although I need to get a cable extension for my classic controller so it's a little easier to play PrBoom games (ZL and ZR change weapons).

@Darknyht Haha, yeah, they certainly come in handy. It's actually the first thing I bought, after I got my SNES Mini. I can just sit and relax on my couch, and reset and control menus on the console with the soft mod's button combos. Not too interested in the additional mods, though. For me, it needs to stay a SNES, with only SNES/Super Famicom games.

But I can understand the desire to expand upon that, and to tinker with it, so have at it.

@ThanosReXXX The real game of the SNES Classic is the meta modding game, deciding how to build the perfect list of homebrews or old games I own to have on the system. The retro achievements are the push to actually start playing the games instead of archiving them.

It has even started my exploring systems I never cared about like the Genesis and Atari 2600 (grew up with Intellivision/Odyssey 2, NES, SNES, DOS). I have found some really interesting games that were Homebrew or Open Source that I wouldn't have discovered otherwise. PDRoms is becoming a favorite destination of mine to see what new and interesting things people come up with.

@Darknyht Nah, for me, the REAL game of the SNES Mini, is to actually let it be a SNES, as it was supposed to be. I don't mind adding more SNES games to it, but playing anything other than SNES games on a device that looks and feels like a SNES, just feels wrong to me, as a retro gamer.

And I already have all these other emulators on my PC and some other devices, so I'm well provided for, in that sense. I want to keep both my NES and my SNES Mini pure, so format correct games only.

And then there's the thing where I don't give a crap about achievements or about being online: besides that weird contraption that hardly ever made a commercial impact, the SNES was never online, so all of that has absolutely no value for me.

@ThanosReXXX My closest friend growing up lives 7 hours away. The ability to connect online and play a round of Street Fighter is probably as close as I am going to get these days to going over to his house to play. While achievements are ultimately a worthless number, it does give encouragement, challenge, and a set of goals to strive towards. Since my opinion still is that Sega consoles were inferior to Nintendo in controllability and gameplay (SEGA clung to their co-op past in design philosophy, and I now better appreciate what they were able to do with the system), anything that can help to keep me engaged is a plus.

As for keeping the SNES Classic pure, my view is that it is a Virtual Console machine like any other VC machine. The Wii and Wii U brought games from all systems to the platform, there is no shame in the SNES/NES Classics doing the same.

@Darknyht Well, that I can understand, and I have played online with friends as well, so that is something that I could see people wanting, although for me, that's more something to be used on modern consoles, much like achievements. And personally, I don't need any extra encouragement to play games. I don't agree on achievements adding to a game.

Often times, they're just useless backtrack elements, or something that either completely side-tracks you from the main game, or is so ridiculously easy, that it doesn't fill me with any sense of achievement at all, and you've probably also seen your share of these kinds of ridiculous "achievements". There's also good ones, of course, but like I said: I don't really NEED them to enjoy or play a game and get satisfaction out of it.

I'm 48 years old, and for me, the REAL achievement is finishing a game, getting a high score, being better at something than my friends, and so on. I don't pay too much attention to my points total. Considering the number of games I have, most gamers that do, will probably laugh at my ridiculously low score, but I really couldn't care less. I've played the games, and enjoyed them, and I don't really feel the need to return to several dozens of them, simply to squeeze out all of the points...

As for a SNES Mini being like a VC machine: you're welcome to your own opinion of course, but although I respect it, I don't share it.

It is not a VC machine, because it isn't the same: it's just a miniaturized SNES, and besides its size and the menu screen, everything looks and feels exactly like a SNES, while VC was only ever always about playing older titles on newer hardware, so that's not comparable.

As far as retro gaming goes, I'm pretty much what most people would consider a purist. That is also why playing Sega games, GBA games, Neo Geo or even N64 or PSX games on a SNES Mini doesn't feel right to me. And then there's of course the controls that don't match/add up, so that's a factor for me personally as well. But that's just me, and I don't expect everyone to agree, but I also don't expect people to try and sell me on their opinion, because that's just not going to work or fly with me. No offense...

So, yeah, everyone is free to do whatever they want with their SNES or NES Mini, but I'll simply stick to them only having the games that belong with the system, because that is simply MY preference. To each their own, I guess...

So I've finished Chrono Trigger on the SNES Classic, and the whole thing worked like a dream for the most part. However I did encounter a handful of times when the audio would cut out entirely and the game would freeze completely. Oddly enough this only happened in the Undersea Palace dungeon, so to anyone planning on playing the game on the SNES Classic, I'd advise you to make frequent use of save states, at least in the Undersea Palace. Other than that, though, everything worked perfectly.

@ilikeike Thanks for the heads up, that's actually one of the games I added.

@ThanosReXXX Thing is, I don't disagree with some of your points. For example, I avoid 6 button Genesis games because most Six-Button Genesis games are a nightmare to play on Nintendo's controller layout (even on the Wii it was bad). The same problem happens with Atari 2600 games that made use of the switches on the console for me.

Likewise, there are good achievements and their are just bad ones out there. As I said, they are a tool to push me to try something different in games (or just different games themselves). I have tried my hand at speed running because of achievements, same for stupid challenges (like four white mages in FF). It is a little gotcha to remind me and to prove I managed it (especially like that there is a hardcore version that doesn't allow save state scumming).

Ultimately we just have different visions for the console, and neither are right or wrong. You love the purity and celebration of the SNES system and I love the playing around with the potential of the board and seeing how developers have pushed each system to their limits. For example, I am amazed that the Atari 2600 saw games released until 1989 (which was the same year that the Genesis was introduced in NA and Castlevania III, Wonder Boy III, TMNT II: Arcade Game, Dragon Warrior, and Mega Man 2 were released).

I thank you for the discussion. I've honestly enjoyed hearing a differing view of how to approach the SNES Classic.

@ilikeike Thank you for taking the time to let us know here. Very useful to know in advance. Congrats on finishing such a critically acclaimed SNES title. It's one of many that I've yet to play for any significant length of time ☺️

What's your next title to play on the SNES Classic?

@Darknyht You're welcome. Always nice to see someone being able to agree to disagree without resorting to caveman behavior.

@Lroy Trust me, it was my pleasure to play Chrono Trigger... solely for research, of course Absolutely give it a shot if you get the chance, it's a true joy to play if you have any interest in JRPG's at all. Barring those glitches in the Undersea Palace, the SNES Classic is a great way to experience the game. It's better than the PC port at the very least!

I'm still debating what to play next. I've been thinking about Terranigma since that's generally accepted to be one of the best RPG's on the SNES aside from Chrono Trigger. But I also think I'm due for a break from JRPG's for a bit, so I'll probably try Donkey Kong Country 2 first since that's supposed to be one of the best platformers on the system. I certainly enjoyed the original DKC on the SNES Classic, so I'm sure I'll have fun with the sequel.

@ilikeike Cool, enjoy DKC 2 and if and when you get to that other JRPG you mentioned, let us know how it plays. I recall that was a title that possibly had some difficulty running in the inbuilt SNES Classic emulator. Might be one to run using RetroArch but I'll let other more informed folks comment further on that if needed.

@ilikeike @Lroy Yes, in principle, it is true that ANY game that doesn't run, or runs badly on the standard emulator in the SNES Mini, will run, or run much better with RetroArch'es Snes9x emulator.

Of course, practically nobody has tested ALL games, so there might still be games that have difficulties and/or suffer glitches with either of the emulators. But regardless, Snes9x is one of the best SNES/Super Famicom emulators on ANY platform, so you'd be hard pressed to find an emulator that is compatible with more titles than that one.

@ThanosReXXX @ilikeike @Lroy KMFDManic has published quite a few additional cores for SNES Classic RetroArch, there has been very few games I haven't been able to get to run including prototypes. So far, everything I have tried has worked with either Canoe or snes9x (and there is a fairly extensive but not complete list here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/12HKfz4ZQBy6Ip5awvh8t2... The biggest thing is to remember to switch the clover-canoe-shvc-wr portion of the command to be snes once the module is installed.

I would recommend using Hakchi2 CE if you haven't gone too deep into Hakchi2, although there are instructions on how you can import your settings. The user interface is a little easier to use and there is a module store to find additional cores. Best of all is that once it is installed, it will handle the system reboots automatically and uploading new content doesn't require re-uploading everything.

Hi! I am not checking this website as often as I used to (I've always been more of a reader than a poster). Anyway, I recently got a SNES mini and everything is going great so far, except for a couple of issues I thought maybe you guys could help me out with.

One of the things I've noticed is some minor slowdown on a few games that I think wasn't there in the good old days. If I remember correctly, there are a few areas in some stages in Super Castlevania IV which present some (thankfully minor) slowdown issues that were not present in the "original" game as far as I remember. This doesn't bother me much, since I remember performance issues here and there back in the day and I can get used to them.

The other problem, which is quite annoying, is that I can't seem to pull off any special moves at all in Street Fighter II Turbo. I am still using the original controllers and haven't tried my Wii or Wii U pro controllers yet. I remember having this exact issue when emulating Street Fighter 2 Turbo on my computer years ago, though. I know the D pad works correctly because every direction seems to work and respond fine when pushed.

Any ideas? Sorry about the long post!

EDIT: a few typos