Reviews

SNES Game Reviews

  • Review Gundam Wing: Endless Duel (SNES)

    ​Bringing a Gundam to a fist fight

    Mobile Suit Gundam Wing made quite an impact in the West, with the forty-nine episode anime series getting aired by Cartoon Network which would ensure it became one of the most recognizable entries in the iconic Japanese science fiction mecha series in our part of the planet. Predictably, video game adaptations...

  • Review Crystal Beans From Dungeon Explorer (SNES)

    ​Do NOT shoot the food

    Gauntlet remains a dear memory among many retro gamers. After all, Atari's revolutionary dungeon crawler was one of the best co-op arcade games ever produced and it certainly was no stranger to Nintendo owners with several conversions making their way to NES, Game Boy, Nintendo 64 and GameCube. You will notice a strange...

  • Review Dark Half (SNES)

    ​Heaven and Hell

    There are hundreds of amazing games for the Super Famicom that remain a mystery to Western gamers. Dark Half is one such game, published by Enix in 1996. It is a late generation Super Famicom title that at first glance seems to be your typical JRPG, with the player taking control of Falco, the Paladin (not to be confused with the...

  • Review Rival Turf! (Wii U eShop / Super Nintendo)

    Pulls too many punches

    Double Dragon may have kicked off the beat 'em up craze, but Capcom's Final Fight was the game that came out of nowhere and quickly became the measuring stick for the genre. So when Capcom had to cut the beloved cooperative play mode from the Super NES home version of the game, Japanese developer Jaleco decided that it would...

  • Review Super E.D.F. Earth Defense Force (Wii U eShop / Super Nintendo)

    All buck and no bang!

    Its certainly no secret that the 16-bit era of gaming was a great time to be a shoot em' up fan. Not only were there a large number of titles released, there were also some of the best the genre ever had to offer on display. While the Sega Mega Drive and NEC PC Engine were the definitive hot spots to get your shooter fix, the...

  • Review Metal Marines (Wii U eShop / Super Nintendo)

    Modern(ish) warfare

    Strategy is a somewhat niche genre among gamers. While there have been excellent strategy games released on consoles - turn-based RPGs like Fire Emblem to the RTS-style Swords and Soldiers series come to mind - the gameplay has always lent itself more to the PC, where players can be more methodical and control units with relative...

  • Review The Legend Of Zelda: A Link To The Past (SNES)

    A link to perfection

    It's no accident that when Nintendo first decided to do a direct 3DS sequel to a Zelda title, it chose The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past as its reference point. A Link Between Worlds is set some years after the events of the 1991 SNES classic, but it uses a very similar map layout and very effectively tickles that...

  • Review Goof Troop (Super Nintendo)

    Gawrsh!

    In the late '80s and early '90s Capcom created a range of games, based on Disney franchises, for the NES and SNES. The likes of Darkwing Duck, Chip 'n' Dale Rescue Rangers and DuckTales all made appearances, the latter of which has even been given the HD treatment for modern systems, including Wii U. One of the more interesting titles was...

  • Review J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings - Volume I (Super Nintendo)

    Middle Earth is doomed

    Before Peter Jackson came along and turned The Lord of the Rings into one of the most popular cinematic experiences of all time, the video game licence to J.R.R. Tolkien's literary epic was held by the now-defunct Interplay. The company pumped out related games for the Commodore Amiga computer and PC CD-ROM — the latter of...

  • Review Super Pang (Super Nintendo)

    Forever blowing bubbles

    Capcom is celebrating its 30th anniversary in 2013. Since the company formed in 1983, it has published a host of classic titles from the Resident Evil series, countless Street Fighter games and many timeless iterations of Mega Man. One of its lesser known titles is Super Pang (known as Super Buster Bros. in North America), an...

  • Review Mega Man X2 (Wii Virtual Console / Super Nintendo)

    Still mega

    When Capcom created Mega Man X, it had clearly done something right. Many fans loved finally getting a refreshing take on the series, rather than what was essentially the same thing over and over, and it became quite popular. While the Classic Mega Man series went on a break for a few years, Capcom churned out a few more X games,...

  • Review Prince of Persia (Wii Virtual Console / Super Nintendo)

    Worthy of the throne

    Most gamers are familiar with the original Prince of Persia. Its incredibly realistic animations, created by Jordan Mechner from hours of video footage of his brother running and jumping around, made it an instant hit, and it's still one of the most well-known western game franchises today. Most people, however, are only...

  • Review Super Adventure Island II (Virtual Console / Super Nintendo)

    Adventure Island: Wonder Boy Edition

    Most people are aware that the original Adventure Island was in fact a slightly modified NES port of Wonder Boy for the Master System. Immediately after this, Wonder Boy became more of an action RPG-like series, while Adventure Island stayed a platforming series. That is, until the release of Adventure Island IV,...

  • Review Chrono Trigger (Virtual Console / Super Nintendo)

    One of the truly greatest RPG experiences ever created

    Soon after Chrono Trigger appeared on the Super Nintendo in 1995, it quickly became regarded as one of the most unique and impressive RPG releases to hit the system. Not only was it developed by a who's who of some of the greatest role-playing designers in the industry, the finished product...

  • Review Super Adventure Island (Virtual Console / Super Nintendo)

    Back to basics

    The Adventure Island series started out with an almost exact clone of Wonder Boy, but as Wonder Boy became more of an action RPG rather than an action platformer, Adventure Island sequels stuck with the same formula as the first game and built upon it slightly with each release. In Adventure Island II and the later Adventure Island...

  • Review The Ignition Factor (SNES)

    It burns, but it doesn't crash

    Ask anybody to name some firefighting games and you'll be lucky if they name one. Despite the games about the profession generally being quite good, there's not many of them, and they're not very widely known either. The Ignition Factor is one of only two on the SNES, the other one being the more well-known The...

  • Review Mega Man X (Wii Virtual Console / Super Nintendo)

    X-ceptional

    Spinoffs in popular franchises have delivered historically mixed results over the years, but when Capcom spun the X series off of Mega Man, not only did they create a new line every bit as intense and engaging as the originals, but arguably even more polished and fun to a certain degree. And now, after a rather lengthy wait, Capcom have...

  • Review Brawl Brothers (Wii Virtual Console / Super Nintendo)

    A marked improvement

    Jaleco released several beat 'em ups on the SNES, although you may not know that three of them are actually related. Exclusively in Japan, the games Rival Turf!, Brawl Brothers and The Peace Keepers were all part of one series called Rushing Beat, but for their North American releases they were retitled, and the story and...

  • Review Street Racer (Super Nintendo)

    Road to joy?

    On rare occasion, a game so revolutionary will appear that not only will it receive the usual much deserved critical acclaim, it’ll become responsible for the creation of an entirely new genre. Take Super Mario Kart for instance — the title single-handedly responsible for the birth of the console kart racer. Following its huge...

  • Review Final Fantasy III (Virtual Console / Super Nintendo)

    Still one of the best RPGs to come out of the 16-bit era

    What can you say about the Final Fantasy series that hasn't already been said a thousand times before? The titles have become one of the best-selling video game series in history and have been largely responsible for making the RPG genre so popular with fans across the globe. After having...

  • Review Natsume Championship Wrestling (Wii Virtual Console / Super Nintendo)

    Puts up a fight

    It might seem strange that there has not been a single wrestling game on Virtual Console in the West so far, but when you really think about it, it makes sense. Almost every single wrestling title out there features the likenesses of real people, meaning it would take some serious effort and money to rerelease them. Games with...

  • Review Darius Twin (Virtual Console / Super Nintendo)

    Double the monotony

    The Darius series has long taken a backseat to some of the more prominent shoot 'em up series, despite featuring some absolutely amazing releases on the various 32-bit game consoles. Darius Twin still features much of the aquatic-themed shooter action of its brethren, but for some reason the game comes off feeling very...

  • Review Super Bonk 2 (Super Nintendo)

    Bonk's most enjoyable adventure yet

    If you've ever owned a TurboGrafx-16 or PC Engine, chances are you're quite familiar with our little caveman friend Bonk. Once these systems began to lose ground to Nintendo's Super Nintendo and Sega's Mega Drive (a.k.a. Genesis), Hudson decided to bring their prehistoric hero to some of the more popular platforms...

  • Review Mickey Mania (Super Nintendo)

    Mickey's been epic for years

    This December many Wii owners will be delving into the world of Disney Epic Mickey, taking a moment to appreciate Mickey's animated past with 2D platforming sections in that game which allow you to play through his classic cartoons. However, 16 years ago UK developer Traveller's Tales pre-empted Warren Spector's game by...

  • Review Super Bonk (Virtual Console / Super Nintendo)

    Bonk moonlights on the Super Nintendo

    After becoming a staple and mascot of sorts after 3 platformer releases on NEC's TurboGrafx-16 console, Bonk was given new life on the Super Nintendo system with the release of Super Bonk. The game went unnoticed for the most part, but it's gone on to become a bit of a cult favourite among Super Nintendo fans...

  • Review The Great Circus Mystery Starring Mickey & Minnie (Super Nintendo)

    Of Mice and Mystery

    Isn’t it strange that the same creatures that carry disease and caused the rapid spread of the Black Death in Europe back in the 1340s eventually became the world’s most iconic and recognizable characters? Clearly Walt Disney was doing something right when he thought up Mickey and Minnie Mouse, and Capcom was doing just as...

  • Review Super E.D.F. Earth Defense Force ( / Super Nintendo)

    Emergency on planet earth

    Back in the 16-bit wars, the SNES was unquestionably the comfortable winner when it came to RPGs. Sega's Mega Drive (or Genesis, depending on where in the world you're reading this) was completely and utterly outclassed in this area, despite the presence of brilliant titles such as Shining Force, LandStalker and Light...

  • Review The Addams Family: Pugsley's Scavenger Hunt (Super Nintendo)

    The hunter becomes the hunted

    Following their release of the first Super Nintendo Addams Family game, Ocean Software’s programmer, James Higgins, gave an interview to Super Play magazine to promote the development of their second, Pugsley’s Scavenger Hunt. He highlighted the fact that the arcade platforming feel of this sequel was initially...

  • Review Addams Family Values (Super Nintendo)

    The Legend of Addams

    When anyone drops a mention of licensed games, it's generally appropriate to tune out. With very, very few exceptions, almost every single game based on a movie, TV series, comic or what-have-you is mediocre at best, and frequently completely terrible. There are exceptions – everybody knows about classics like DuckTales and...

  • Review The Addams Family (Super Nintendo)

    Morticia's marooned in a maniac mansion

    Throughout the late 1980s and early 1990s, Manchester-based Ocean Software became synonymous with movie licensed games and established themselves as the go-to developer for Hollywood. They delivered their software on the home computers that were flourishing at the time and handled a huge list of movie...