48. The Peace Keepers (SNES)

Jaleco's The Peace Keepers is the final entry in the Rushing Beat trilogy which includes Rival Turf! and Brawl Brothers. This unspectacular beat 'em up takes place in the grim, distant, corporation-run future of 2015 and sees you taking to the mean streets and generally dealing out pain to deserving goons.

47. Rival Turf! (SNES)

Putting the salubrious charms of the two-player mode aside for one moment, Rival Turf! riffs on Capcom's Final Fight but is inferior in every single way imaginable. The gameplay is insipid, the characters look like they've wandered off the set of a Vanilla Ice music video, and the presentation is lacklustre. This is a game that was practically sold on the fact that it allows you to play along with a friend, but in all honesty your pals are likely to shun you should you force them to endure this disappointingly feeble fighter.

46. Spanky's Quest (SNES)

Ah, yes. Spanky's Quest. It's a game from Natsume released on both Game Boy and SNES in 1991, 1992 in the West. It has graphics and gameplay, which is nice.

Okay, we have to admit we're not really au fait with Spanky and his quest, but rest assured we're looking to plug that gap in our knowledge. "Spanky was on his way to a picnic when the witch Morticia began dropping bricks from the sky," according to Nintendo's blurb. "Trapped, with six towers now built across the land, Spanky must clear each before the witch’s evil pet crow catches him."

We'll get back to you on this one. (In fact, you can check out our Spanky’s Quest review now — hurray!)

45. Operation Logic Bomb (SNES)

Also known as Operation Logic Bomb: The Ultimate Search & Destroy, Jaleco's sequel to the Fortified Zone titles on the Game Boy is a decent top-down romp that sees you gunning down enemies with a variety of futuristic weaponry. It's pretty short and certainly not complex, but if you're in the market for a solid blast of Smash TV-style 16-bit gameplay, you could do a lot worse. With expectations set sufficiently low, this could be provide a surprisingly fun hour or two.

44. Side Pocket (SNES)

A port of Data East's arcade pool sim first released in 1986, Side Pocket came to all the consoles of the day and offers up a decent representation of the sport in video game form. The action is viewed from above with floating hands and a line of dots indicating the trajectory of the cue ball. Shot speed and spin are controlled in a similar way to your standard golf game, relying on a well-timed button press on a power slider.

With the 16-bit port getting a suitably slinky soundtrack and realistic-ish images of glamourous ladies to greet you between stages, all that was missing was the low-hanging cigarette smog floating in the lamplight to complete the pool hustler vibe.

43. Super E.D.F. Earth Defense Force (SNES)

Mediocre. Is there a more damning adjective in the English language? It's the perfect word to describe Super E.D.F., though. This Jaleco shooter doesn't do wrong enough to elicit strong negative emotions, but its uninspiring presentation and mechanics do almost nothing to get your adrenaline pumping, either. Much like Brawl Brothers, it's not offensive, just unimaginative. Very... mediocre.

42. Claymates (SNES)

From Interplay's clay-mation stable that included the ClayFighter series, Claymates' relation to those fighters should give you an idea of the tone of this 16-bit platformer. Playing as Clayton, son of Professor Putty, you're transformed into various animals as you attempt to rescue your Prof Padre from a witch doctor called Jobo.

Definitely sounds like an early-'90s platformer from the premise, then — the cheeky console wars reference to "Blaze-processing" (a nod to the Genesis' infamous 'Blast-processing') on the cover sets the tone, too. Not a stone-cold classic in the platforming pantheon, but a fun one all the same.

41. Smash Tennis (SNES)

Smash Tennis and Super Tennis have us split here at Nintendo Life, with our favourite 16-bit SNES tennis game switching sides like a ball across a court. Prior to its inclusion in the Nintendo Switch Online lineup, this wasn't available in North America, so many players won't have nostalgia for it, but in many ways it gives the Nintendo-published game a run for its money. We'd recommend giving both a go on centre court and seeing which one works best for you.

40. Prehistorik Man (SNES)

Some say this is a poor man's Joe & Mac, but we think that does this caveman themed game a bit of a disservice. Where do cavemen get sunglasses from though?

39. Congo's Caper (SNES)

A decent little action-platformer from Data East, Congo's Caper won't win any awards for originality, but it delivers a colourful, competently constructed, cave-man campaign with some cheerful audio and not-unpleasant visual effects as you head out on a quest to save the kidnapped Congette. It won't change your life, but neither will most games — if you're eyeing it on Nintendo Switch Online, it's definitely worth firing up.

38. Magical Drop II (SNES)

Never originally released in the West (probably thanks to the N64 being the hot new Nintendo console on the block in 1996, this Super Famicom version of Magical Drop II is a cracking puzzler, much like the other entries in the series. Hamster's port of the Neo Geo version is also available on Switch, but you'll have to pay for that (beyond a yearly subscription to NSO, that is).

37. Joe & Mac 2: Lost in the Tropics (SNES)

Known as Joe & Mac 3: Lost in the Tropics in Europe, this is a good-looking 2D (and 2-player) platformer that's worth investigating if you've never encountered Joe and/or Mac in your video gaming travels. You won't be missing much if you never get around to it, but there's certainly an afternoon's worth of action platforming fun to be had from it.