Video: Just How Well Does The SNES Classic Edition Run Its Library Of Games?

Hopefully when the Virtual Console finally/ever turns up on Switch, it runs as well. No reason why it shouldn't. That's SNES and NES emulation sorted.

When SNES Mini is hard to be founded.....
Supaboy is your alternative.
One solution to prevent Money loss and Heartbreak.

It runs it just fine. All 37 units out in the wild.

I remember thinking the NES mini's emulation was great, with nothing to compare it to admittedly. Then I watched the Digital Foundry and My Life In Gaming videos on it and realised it wasn't! With this, I'll just enjoy it and try to avoid videos like that so my ignorance bubble doesn't burst

I find thin air is naff at running SNES games.

So many great games.

I am so happy I got to place a preorder for this console. I love it. SNES was my childhood. I played a lot of NES, but this was the console that made me love games, and pretty much all those games they are showing.

If I could add some games they would be: Act Raiser, DKC 2 & 3, Mortal Kombat 2, Killer Instinct and Pilotwings.

@GravyThief I didn't notice a lot of problems in most NES classic games, but Kirbys Adventure runs so bad with massive slowdown whenever a lot is happening on screen. It was almost unplayable for me.

For the most part the emulation looks and sounds right. There were a few things that looked/sounded wrong though like the explosion sound when the car crashed in F-Zero, the super bomb in Contra III looked too faint and the wasp enemy in MegaMan X looked too dark.

It would be nice to see what happens in Super Ghouls 'n' Ghosts when Arthur uses the crossbow's special power while wearing Gold Armour. In the Wii/Wii U/3DS emulator Arthur incorrectly turns blue for a second, so it would be interesting to see if they are using the same emulator here.

@Anti-Matter the supaboy is a nice concept but it does not include any games does it? And the price of snes cartridges... yikes!

@countzero I'm pretty sure you get that slowdown on the original game. I have the Famicom cartridge and recall slowdown when I played it recently. Not sure if the NES Mini is worse though.

The main problem with the emulation I foun was the sound delay. I never noticed it until those videos pointed it out. Now I notice it every time I play!

It's nice that all the Super NES games looks and runs very well on the Super NES Classic Edition but for those who want to play their NES & Super NES cartridges on a modern HDTV, the Chinese got you cover with this new Retroad HD console that could play both NES and Super NES cartridges in crystal clear 720p through HDMI, heck it even cost the same as the Super NES Classic Edition as well. It's basically just an HD version of the FC Twin.

@gatorboi352 you're such an incessant pessimist... they're making at least 40.

@retro_player_22 That is assuming that any of us still have their cartridges. If we would, then we would probably also still have our NES/SNES and then there would be no need for a knock-off console that displays games in glorious "720dpi" (crazy chinese and their Engrish).

And of course it also doesn't cost the same to be able to play all those games: you either need to possess or buy those 21 games, and Star Fox 2 isn't even an option to buy on cartridge. All in all, the total amount that you would have to pay to get the exact same experience on this knock-off system, would be multiple times what the SNES Mini costs.

And that's not even taking into account having to buy an extra controller for 2 player mode...

Pokken tournament out in Japan eshop.

You can only play it 15 times unlike the Wii u 29 times

@retro_player_22 That is guaranteed to be a piece of junk that might last six months.

@NickOfTime90
There are some cheap SNES cartridges on Ebay. Also, there is another machine that can read SNES, SEGA Saturn, Neo Geo, PS1 Physical retails. It is Polymega. I prefer buy machine separated with the games.

Looks fine to me ! if Nintendo got the emulation wrong on this I would be very surprised. Nintendo don't release shoddy hardware so I'm sure this will be well up to there usual high standards . The nes mini was great !

@retro_player_22 Usually those things have bad sound

Next time, how well will scalpers runup the prices? Don't hate, emulate. Nintendo is like a senile grandpa sometimes, and it gets harder to give money, folly after folly, YouTube takedown after YouTube takedown.

@RupeeClock At 4:05 in Contra you can see that transparent multicolored glow, each color peaks higher on the original game.
In other words it's much more pleasant to watch now.

Also F-Zero no longer flashes black when you bump into edges.
Also in the (I think) US trailer you can see one of the PSI moves looking very soft and blurry.

@Anti-Matter "there are some cheap snes cartridges on eBay".

Oh really. The snes mini is the same price as say 4 or less cartridges

Its been a while, but I dont recall sprites going invisable on hit?

So I guess again you can't stretch the image to full screen... This was the only thing I didn't really like in NES mini.

Very nice. People should've pre-ordered the other day- there were Gamestops all around the country taking pre-orders in store. I didn't bother because I've already got three of them locked in online.

Toys "R" Us isn't taking pre-orders by the way. Which is nice because it gets rid of the scalpers. I'd advise scheduling time to be at a Toys "R" Us bright and early the day it releases.

@eltomo
You referring to Super Metroid? I noticed that too. But it must've been like that in the original because Nintendolife didn't seem too surprised by it.

I wish you guys had tested the games agains the real deal, it would have given a better idea of the performance

@ThanosReXXX @TheWhiteFalcon @mikegamer There's even a Japanese version of it as well; however, that version lack NES/Famicom accessories support as it doesn't had the NES controller socket on the side. Below is a demonstration video of how the system functions. It may be garbage after all though.

@retro_player_22 I don't know. It could actually also be decent, but the quality of these knock-off devices always varies wildly, at least in my experience.

But even so, the total cost does amount to at least a four- or five-fold (if not more) if you would have to buy all these cartridges to get the exact same catalog as on the SNES Mini.

I did see I made a little mistake concerning those controllers, though, since it also has two of them, so my bad on that one.

I do agree with @mikegamer, though, that the sound is often a problem on these knock-off systems, depending on what type of emulation they use.

Just look at how long AtGames took to finally produce a Sega 16bit unit with something that resembles the original hardware. Before, the sound always seemed to come from a tin can...

And the game emulation itself too: a lot of these systems, even though they do have cartridge slots, dump the game to memory and play it in an emulator instead of playing it straight from the cartridge, which can potentially also be detrimental to the experience.

A lot of these emulators aren't fully updated, or aren't even supported anymore, in which case these systems will always be behind the times, unless you have some way of updating them via an online connection or SD card slot, something that not all of them offer.