Reviews

SNES Game Reviews

  • Review NBA Jam (Super Nintendo)

    The very definition of Boomshakalaka

    Released amid a surge in the popularity of professional basketball during the early 1990s, NBA Jam rode the wave along with many other basketball video games. In spite of all the competition, it became a legend in its own time and is still remembered fondly today. Often sport-based games become obsolete a year...

  • Review Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest (Virtual Console / Super Nintendo)

    A simplified Final Fantasy experience

    Back in 1992, role-playing games were still largely ignored outside of Japan, but Square tried to remedy this with the release of Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest. The game not only added a bit more action to the experience, it also greatly simplified the gameplay mechanics as well. While this certainly offered up a...

  • Review Plok (Super Nintendo)

    The original Rayman

    A few years before Rayman hit the scene, there was another lesser known platforming hero with floating hands and feet that he could throw at enemies. Created by John and Ste Pickford, two fairly well-known British video game designers, Plok is perhaps one of, if not the best, examples of a cult classic Super Nintendo platformer...

  • Review Another World (Super Nintendo)

    Simply out of this world

    Poor old Lester Knight Chaykin (Les to his mates), an unwitting physicist, innocently went to put in some overtime in the lab during a thunderstorm one night. Who’d have thought that playing with a particle accelerator could magically teleport him to a strange alien planet when his lab gets struck by lightning? In the...

  • Review Parodius: Non-Sense Fantasy (Super Nintendo)

    Oh, we laugh at this game! Gradius is fine but this is nicer!

    A fiendish giant octopus by the name of Zeo and his intergalactic mutant penguin mates are up to no good, wreaking havoc on the inhabitants of the Parodius Zone. Thankfully, help is at hand as Vic Viper, Pentarou the penguin, Twinbee and a gun-toting octopus have come to save the day. As...

  • Review Aero the Acrobat 2 (Virtual Console / Super Nintendo)

    Everything you could want out of a sequel

    About the time mascot games began exploding on the Super Nintendo console, Sunsoft jumped on the bandwagon with the release of their original platformer Aero the Acrobat. While the game featured many of the classic platforming elements that were showing up in the games of the time period, it was criticized...

  • Review Aero the Acrobat (Virtual Console / Super Nintendo)

    Will you go aerobatty for Aero?

    Everybody into gaming at the time remembers the "cool mascot" craze during the early 90's; Sega was heavily in on it with Sonic and a whole bunch of other companies tried to cash in on it as well. Sunsoft's attempt came in the form of Aero the Acrobat – a bat with attitude who works as an acrobat in the...

  • Review Vortex (Super Nintendo)

    Transform and tear your hair out

    The magical mystery core has been stolen and taken away. The Aki-Do forces are the ones responsible and naturally they've split it in to five parts and scattered them across the galaxy. But forget that cobblers, the cool part about Vortex is that you take control of the Morphing Battle System which as the name...

  • Review Arcana (Super Nintendo)

    Magic is on the cards

    FTL's seminal RPG Dungeon Master kick-started an entire genre when it was released at the tail-end of the '80s; the gaming public fell in love with the concept of immersive, first-person adventures and developers fell over themselves to replicate the same atmospheric feel witnessed in the Atari ST classic. It wasn't just...

  • Review Illusion of Gaia (Super Nintendo)

    This being a great game is no illusion

    In the early days of the SNES, Enix made the beloved action RPG Soul Blazer. A strange but incredibly effective mixture of RPG and very light town-building elements resulted in one of the system's most underrated games. Although the game itself did not sell too well, Enix decided to try again, making a...

  • Review Wild Guns (Wii Virtual Console / Super Nintendo)

    Wild West or limp at best?

    Whether the game had any influence over the film Wild Wild West is debatable, but what can't be denied is that the two have a similar, inextricable link between cowboys and steampunk. While the traditional steampunk time period might still be Victorian England in the late 19th Century, the setting for both is somewhat...

  • Review Kirby Super Star (Wii Virtual Console / Super Nintendo)

    Suck on this!

    Kirby Super Star made its debut on the Super Nintendo console in 1996, and although the game came late in the system's lifecycle, it's gone on to become one of the most sought-after games in the series. Now with the release of the game on the Virtual Console, Wii fans can enjoy the classic in all of its original glory. The gameplay of...

  • Review U.N. Squadron (SNES)

    Another Capcom classic

    With various versions of Street Fighter II, Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts, a bunch of Mega Man games and two exclusive Final Fight sequels, the SNES was a good machine to own for Capcom fans. They also released many other games on the platform including U.N. Squadron, a frantic side-scrolling shooter originally released in arcades in...

  • Review Seiken Densetsu 3 (Super Nintendo)

    An action-rpg for the ages!

    When it came time to create a follow up to their fairly successful action-rpg Secret of Mana, Squaresoft decided to try something a little different. While they were already developing the direct sequel Seiken Densetsu 3 in Japan, they created a US development studio and put them to task creating a more...

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

    Still a timeless RPG classic.

    While the game was the second numbered Final Fantasy when it was released in North America back in 1991, it's actually the fourth entry in the series due to the second and third 8-bit releases remaining in Japan at the time. It marked the series debut on Nintendo's 16-bit console and added quite a few new gameplay...

  • Review Ghoul Patrol (Virtual Console / Super Nintendo)

    Bustin' makes me feel alright, I suppose

    When it came time to follow Zombies Ate My Neighbors, LucasArts decided to go with a third-party developer. Using basically the same gameplay engine as the one found in Zombies, the developer was able to successfully create a game that looked and played very similarly to the original release called Ghoul...

  • Review Final Fight 3 (Wii Virtual Console / Super Nintendo)

    Is the third time the charm?

    Final Fight 3 came along fairly late in the Super Nintendo's lifespan, but that certainly didn't bother fans of the series who were looking for one more heavy dose of beat-'em-up action. Capcom decided it was time to spice up the gameplay some and the end result was something that would appeal to classic fans of the...

  • Review Batman Returns (Super Nintendo)

    Merry Christmas, Mr. Wayne

    The release of Batman Returns was perfectly timed at the peak of Konami's SNES development and during a high point in Batman movie history. The festive feel of the game was slightly out of sync with its Spring '93 release date, but it was completely fitting in regard to the source material. Konami had already mastered a...

  • Review Sunset Riders (Super Nintendo)

    Bury me with my SNES

    Just for a moment, cast your thoughts towards Saturday matinee Western films and reel in all of their imagery of the Old West. Picture in your minds the characters deftly dodging stampeding cattle, guiding their trusty steed as it gallops alongside a runaway train, chasing down a stagecoach, gun fighting in uncouth taverns and...

  • Review Street Fighter Alpha 2 (Wii Virtual Console / Super Nintendo)

    Stunning achievement or a conversion too far?

    No company in the storied history of video gaming has tried harder to not create a true sequel to one of their hit games quite like Capcom did with the myriad releases that followed their hit fighting game Street Fighter 2. Not only did they create a number of tweaked releases of game itself, but they...

  • Review Rock n' Roll Racing (Super Nintendo)

    Are you ready to rock?

    While Rock & Roll Racing began life as a direct sequel to their original RPM Racing release on the Super Nintendo console, the guys at Silicon & Synapse decided to amp things up a bit for their new racing title. They added in a classic hard rock soundtrack, some unique race announcing from Larry "Supermouth" Huffman,...

  • Review The Combatribes (Virtual Console / Super Nintendo)

    A beat 'em up that packs very little punch

    There was a time when Technos ruled the beat-'em-up genre of fighting games during the 8-bit era with their Double Dragon and River City Ransom titles, but sadly the 16-bit generation wasn't as kind to the company. Once Capcom's Final Fight hit the scene, there was little room left for any other...

  • Review Stunt Race FX (Super Nintendo)

    Racing: Super FX style!

    In 1993 the Super FX-enhanced Star Fox brought 3D visuals to the SNES with great effect, so it was a no-brainer that further games would follow. The second game to use the wonder chip came a year later in the form of Stunt Race FX, a cutesy 3D racer from Nintendo that featured a variety of tracks with slopes and bumps across...

  • Review Secret of Evermore (Super Nintendo)

    A challenging but rewarding RPG experience.

    After having success with their Secret of Mana release outside of Japan, Squaresoft decided to try a different approach with their next action RPG release Secret of Evermore. While Japanese gamers would get the true sequel to Secret of Mana in the shape of Seiken Densetsu 3, US gamers were treated to what...

  • Review Super Mario Kart (Wii Virtual Console / Super Nintendo)

    Back to the good old days before the blue shell from hell

    Less than a year after the Super Nintendo was launched, our pals at Nintendo had the bright idea of taking the Super Mario World universe and squeezing it into a kart-racing game. It sounded like a crazy idea at the time, but they managed to pull it off with style and create an almost...

  • Review Indiana Jones' Greatest Adventures (Virtual Console / Super Nintendo)

    Another fantastic movie trilogy gets another fantastic game

    By the end of 1994, Sculptured Software had already created two SNES games based on the Star Wars games, and were hard at work on a third. But of course movie fanatics noticed something - Star Wars already had a lot of representation, but where was everybody's favourite archaeologist?...

  • Review Zombies Ate My Neighbors (Wii Virtual Console / Super Nintendo)

    B-Grade horror movie action comes to the Virtual Console.

    Every once in a while a game is released that's so unique it garners a cult following and becomes more popular years later than when it was first released. Toe Jam & Earl for the Sega Genesis is one such game, but another prime example would be Konami's Zombies Ate My Neighbors. The game...

  • Review Porky Pig's Haunted Holiday (Super Nintendo)

    A Looney Tunes platformer that's actually not too shabby.

    For anyone who's watched the classic Porky Pig cartoons, you know that animators were quite fond of placing our stuttering pig friend into scary situations. Who could forget the leprechaun shoes or the moose head with the gun barrel protruding from its mouth. Well you'll be happy to know that...

  • Review Final Fight 2 (Wii Virtual Console / Super Nintendo)

    Final Fight for two

    The Mad Gear gang are back and out for revenge. This time they’ve kidnapped Guy’s fiancée Rena and her farther, so it falls to Haggar and friends to rescue them from the gang’s evil clutches. The original Final Fight was a classic side-scrolling brawler which received two paltry SNES ports, the first of which is already...

  • Review Super Double Dragon (Super Nintendo)

    Billy and Jimmy Lee star in Super Double Draggin'!

    The scene is set: grimy, littered streets patrolled by ruthless gangs, whose sole intent is to cause mayhem in the neighbourhood. This urban jungle setting for Return of Double Dragon (Super Double Dragon in the West) is as synonymous with 2D side scrolling beat-em-ups as it was with movies like The...