SNES News (Page 5)
News What Are Your Favourite Switch Online SNES And NES Games? Nintendo Wants To Know
There are now over 100 classics to enjoy
At the end of last month, Nintendo rolled out another batch of retro games for the SNES and NES Switch Online service. Japan also got another Fire Emblem game and a bonus for everyone was
Never-before-seen content, cut ideas and much more...
New secrets about the SNES game EarthBound have been uncovered thanks to efforts of the Video Game History Foundation. In 2018, former Nintendo of America employee Marcus Lindblom (and the guy responsible for the English-language script in EarthBound) discovered an old floppy disk which were...
News Nintendo Reminds Us The Switch Online Service Now Has Over 100 Classic Games
We're ready for Mother now, Nintendo
Nintendo has just added five more games to the Switch Online SNES and NES service for the month of May, as well as a bonus version of Super Mario Kart. Interestingly, this means there are now more than 100 retro games available in North America and Europe. As a reminder of this milestone, Nintendo has shared the...
Reminder Five NES And SNES Games Hit Switch Today, Plus A Special Version Of Super Mario Kart
A retro wonderland
As promised, five new games have arrived on Nintendo Switch Online's NES and SNES apps today. But hang on a minute... What's this bonus game we see before us? Yes, as we shared last week, SNES titles Caveman Ninja (otherwise known as Joe & Mac), Magical Drop II, Spanky's Quest, Super Baseball Simulator 1.0
News 30 Years Later, SNES Street Fighter II Confirms One Of The Franchise's Biggest Myths
You spin me right round
Another of video gaming's greatest myths has been confirmed, 30 years after it first did the rounds in a pre-internet world. The myth relates to Capcom's insanely popular Street Fighter II: The World Warrior, and the notion that the original version of the game, first released in arcades in 1991 and later ported to the SNES,...
Hands On Book4Games "Precision Game Storage" - Fancy Warehousing For Your Loose SNES Carts
We go hands-on with the fanciest alternative to a shoebox yet
Many years ago, some wise penny-pincher at Nintendo decided that shipping games in flimsy cardboard boxes was a sound business decision, and as a result, NES, Game Boy, SNES and even N64 owners had to endure packaging that was annoyingly delicate when compared to that seen on rival...
News A Rare SNES SA1 Demo Cartridge Has Been Found And Preserved
Power preservation
The Bit Wars were an intriguing time in gaming, particularly in the era of one-upmanship between the Super NES and the SEGA Mega Drive / Genesis. While there could be arguments over sound chips, BLAST processing etc, we also saw special enhancement chips produced that'd go within the game cartridges to improve performance or make...
Random Someone Really Wants Ant-Man To Sign Their Super Nintendo
Will donate $1000 to charity, if anyone can make it happen
Long before the American actor Paul Rudd joined the Avengers as Ant-Man, he actually starred in a commercial for the Super Nintendo - showcasing games like F-Zero, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, Pilotwings and even SimCity. With this in mind, Twitter user
Random If You're Curious About How They Made SNES Music, This Is Worth A Watch
It was a free-for-all
Many of us have favourite SNES-era soundtracks, especially as they have that distinct sound of Nintendo's 16-bit machine. Of course, the actual technicalities of how those soundtracks came together can be fascinating, as composers and sound designers were working with resources a thousand miles removed from the range of tools...
News Super Coder Speeds Up Yet Another SNES Classic
Konami's Axelay benefits from the FastROM treatment
Remember Brazilan coder Vitor Vilela? He's been making it his quest to fix SNES games that are plagued with slowdown, and he's already worked his magic on titles such as Contra III, Super R-Type and Super Mario World. The issue is that th
News PlayStation's Ken Kutaragi "Never" Considered Nintendo To Be A Competitor
"We were workmates"
Before the existence of the PlayStation, Sony worked with Nintendo on a CD-ROM drive for the Super Famicom. Nintendo decided to pull the plug on the device, and so Sony entered the console business by itself - becoming a direct rival and industry powerhouse. With this in mind, “The Father of PlayStation” Ken Kutaragi...
Guide Best SNES / Super Nintendo RPGs
Flame spells at the ready!
The expansive software library of Nintendo’s 16-bit powerhouse wasn’t short of any of the most popular genres of the '90s, and perhaps least of all RPGs. Intense strategy, whimsical adventure, tear-jerking goodbyes to characters you’ve spent months with… the SNES has it all. And that makes compiling a list of ten...
Anniversary It's Super Mario RPG's 25th Birthday!
Don't get too excited - Nintendo likely won't do anything for this one, either
Let's just ignore the woeful approach of the end of Mario's 35th anniversary, or the completely-ignored 35th anniversary of the Zelda series for a moment. 2021 is also a big year for Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars
News Store Your SNES Games In Style With These Rather Fetching Book-Like Cases
"No more shoeboxes or shady repros"
Ah, the SNES. What a machine, eh? Home to some of the greatest video games of all time, this legendary 16-bit console still gets plenty of action in the Nintendo Life office – but, after more than 30 years, we have to admit that many of the games we load up are loose carts, largely because SNES software...
Random Talented Hacker Bumps The Frame Rate Of SNES Race Drivin' From 4fps To 30
A significantly improved experience
Race Drivin' is considered an arcade classic in some quarters, which made its SNES port extremely disappointing back in 1992. Offering a meagre 4 frames-per-second, that edition was widely slated, but now, one software engineer has reverse-engineered it to run at a significantly enhanced 30fps. This comes from...
Mini Review Prehistorik Man (SNES) - The Stone-Age Platformer That Time Forgot
You're in real Barney Rubble now
For a brief, shining period, the video game industry seemed to become obsessed with cavemen. We’re not sure why this is – the Flintstones remake can’t have accounted for all of it. Bonk’s Adventure, Caveman Games, BC Racers, Joe & Mac, Bignose the Caveman and more absolutely flooded the market with...
Mini Review Doomsday Warrior (SNES) - A Street Fighter II Clone That's Doomed From The Start
Welcome to your doom
The Super Famicom port of Street Fighter II was released in June 1992. Telenet’s Doomsday Warrior then hit the market later that year in November. It’s unknown how long it was in development, but based on the final product, one could easily surmise that it was slapped together as quickly as possible to capitalize on the...
Review Psycho Dream (SNES) - The Flawed Yet Fascinating Cult Classic Finally Comes To The West
Import Inception
To best understand Psycho Dream – which has finally come to the west thanks to its addition to the Nintendo Switch Online SNES line-up – you first need to understand Nihon Telenet. It was a prolific company throughout the late 1980s and early 1990s, and while its games often had some interesting concepts (and some legitimately...
News Irem's SNES Brawler Undercover Cops Is Getting A New Physical Release
And it comes with loads of goodies, too
One of Irem's 1990s classics is getting a fresh physical release this year, thanks to American company Retro-Bit. Undercover Cops originally launched in arcades in 1992, and built upon the legacy of Kung-Fu Master, which Irem had released way back in 1984. Set in a post-apocalyptic 2043, it's a...
Random Dataminers Use Original Uncompressed Samples To Restore Super Mario World's Soundtrack
And it sounds glorious!
The Super Nintendo game Super Mario World is already amazing, but what might have changed if there were no file size limitations back then? For starters, the iconic music might have been even better. The truth is, we've been listening to "heavily compressed" music in this game for many years now. Today, though, we can...
Video 27 Years Later, Early Donkey Kong Country Concept Sketches Are Revealed To The World
Rambi, Kremlings, and other characters also shown
Back in the '90s, Rare had quite a reputation for being secretive about its internal practices. Though it has opened up significantly since being acquired by Microsoft, it's one of the reasons why we get interesting stories still
News The SNES Almost Got A Zelda-Style Back To The Future II RPG
Great Scott!
The Back To The Future movie franchise is one of Hollywood's most famous products of the '80s, and it should come as no surprise to find that it had its fair share of licenced video games. The original movie got a home computer adaptation in 1985 for the likes of the C64 and ZX Spectrum – as well as a later NES game in 1989 – and...
News Arcade1Up Is Releasing Its Very Own Killer Instinct Arcade Cabinet
Includes Killer Instinct 1 & 2, Battletoads and Battletoads & Double Dragon
Arcade 1Up - known for recreating classic arcade cabinet titles such as Mortal Kombat and NBA Jam - has revealed a cabinet for Rare's 1994 release, Killer Instinct. This is the same game that was ported to the Super Nintendo a year later - although there are notable...
News How One Man Is Fixing The SNES' Biggest Weakness
Slowdown, be gone
The SNES is a legendary console, of that there can be absolutely no doubt. However, it did have one considerable weakness when compared to its main rival, the Sega Mega Drive / Genesis: the clock speed of its CPU. The Ricoh 5A22 which powers the console runs at 3.58 MHz, while Sega's 16-bit system has a Motorola 68000 running at...
Poll Box Art Brawl #72 - Tuff E Nuff
Had E Nuff yet?
Welcome all to the Box Art Brawl, our regular contest where we vote on regional cover art variants from the dim and distant past when you could only buy games in physical form. Last time, we observed an old-fashioned Pokémon battle with Pokémon Stadium 2 for the N64 in honour of its
News Super Mario RPG Character Designer Shares Original Concept Art For Geno
To celebrate the return of his Mii Fighter costume in Smash
Geno, as you've likely heard by now, has returned to the Smash Bros. series once again as a Mii Fighter costume. It might not necessarily be the news every Geno fan wanted to hear, but hey - some acknowledgment is arguably better than nothing. To celebrate this special occasion, Super...
Anniversary ActRaiser Turns 30 Today, And There's Still Nothing Quite Like This SNES Classic
Raise this game!
Another day, another significant anniversary for another celebrated video game. The Super Famicom launched in Japan three decades ago last month and knowing the incredible catalogue of classics birthed in the bloody 16-bit console wars, you should brace yourself for a barrage of 30th anniversaries over the next few months/years (all...
Random Watch Out Next-Gen, Real-Time Ray Tracing Is Now On The SNES
Well, with a little bit of extra help...
Ray tracing is more than a buzzword, it's actually a big deal for next-generation gaming. Although we likely won't be seeing it on a Nintendo platform any time soon, game developer and software engineer Ben Carter has at least found an unofficial way to get this rendering technique up and running on Super...
News Yuzo Koshiro's Sumptuous ActRaiser Soundtrack Is Getting A Vinyl And CD Release
Includes previously unreleased tracks
The gorgeous soundtrack for Quintet's ActRaiser – one of the SNES' most unique and iconic third-party releases – is getting a special re-release on vinyl and CD, courtesy of Paris-based Wayô Records. Composed by the legendary Yuzo Koshiro, who has also created the music for Streets of Rage,
Poll Box Art Brawl #68 - Super Mario World
It's a Mario, Mario, Mario, Mario World
Welcome back, you beautiful bunch, to Box Art Brawl — our regular poll to find out which of two or more vintage video game cover variants from around the globe is the best, better than all the rest (diew, diew, diew-diew, diew), better than anyone we ever met. Last time we watched F-Zero take itself to the...
Video A Look At Ocean Software's Cancelled SNES Game Green Lantern
That never got the green light
Green Lantern might not be remembered for much other than a failed movie starring Ryan Reynolds over the past decade, but long before this in the early '90s, British developer Ocean Software was working on a licensed Super Nintendo video game for the DC Comics hero. This unreleased project has been largely shrouded in...
Hardware Classics Super Famicom
Still super after all these years
To many, it's the greatest video game console ever made. The Super Famicom — or Super Nintendo Entertainment System as it is more commonly known outside of its native Japan — is host to some of the finest pieces of interactive entertainment ever made. It was on this console that Nintendo refined so many of the...
Poll Rate Your Favourite SNES Games
Help us assemble the top 50 Super NES games ever
It varies from person to person, of course, but your favourite console generation is often the one you played most in childhood — in that impressionable pre-to-early teen sweet spot where a foundation of gaming memories are formed. That's when you play the classics you return to later in life for...
Poll Box Art Brawl: Duel #67 - F-Zero
From zero to F-Zero
Welcome to Box Art Brawl, the weekly vote to find out which of two or more regional box art variants has what it takes to win your hearts and minds. Last time we boarded the Halloween train with a trio of Resident Evil 0 covers. While Japan and North America scarpered to lock themselves in the WC when the ticket man came, the...
News The SNES Encyclopedia Is An Exhaustive Resource For Nintendo Fans
Penned by Chris Scullion, no less!
As long-time readers of this very site will be aware, Chris Scullion really knows his stuff. That's why we get him to fill these hallowed pages with lovely words; he's something of a boffin when it comes to the world of Nintendo, having worked at Official Nintendo Magazine during its heyday. Scullion has been...
News Nintendo Shares Mario’s Super Picross Tutorial As The Game Arrives On Switch
Appearing for the first time in the US
One of the four new games available on the Nintendo Switch Online service next week is Mario's Super Picross, a puzzle game that launched for the Super Famicom back in 1995. This is actually the first time it's ever appeared in the US; European fans were lucky enough to try it out through the Virtual Console...
News Nintendo Switch SNES Controllers Are Back In Stock In "Limited Quantity" (Europe)
Get on it quick!
Update (10th Sep, 2020 15:05 BST): The SNES controllers for Nintendo Switch are available once again in Europe. Nintendo notes that it only has "limited availability", so make sure to act fast if you want one: Super Nintendo Entertainment System Controller for Nintendo Switch (£26.99 / 29.99€) Delivery is expected between the...
News Evercade's Next Two Cartridges Come Loaded With NES And SNES Titles
Fancy a brawl, bro?
The Evercade handheld console is getting two more cartridges soon, both packed with retro titles from back in the day. If you're a fan of Rival Turf – also known as Rushing Beat – then you're in for a treat. Jaleco Collection 1 is perhaps of most interest; it comes with Bases Loaded, Astynax, Brawl Brothers, City Connection,...
Poll Box Art Brawl: Duel #58 - Super Mario All-Stars
Super Mario 2D All-Stars
And welcome back, box art enthusiasts, to the latest entry in Nintendo Life's Box Art Brawl canon. Yes, this week we'll be taking another look at some retro game covers and it'll be up to you to pick the best of them. Last time we took a look at Blue Ninja Shadow of the Kage Dragon as Natsume's variously-named 2D...
Review Super Mario All-Stars (SNES) - All That Glitters Isn't Necessarily Gold
Has this star begun to fade?
On its mid-1993 bow, Super Mario All-Stars was greeted with the sort of rapturous praise usually reserved for pontiffs, or a new Daft Punk album. This was a compilation of a generosity never-before-seen goodies, packing in the stone-cold classic NES titles Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. 2 and Super Mario Bros. 3...
News Super Mario All-Stars Is Now Available On Nintendo's Switch Online SNES Service
Featuring "enhanced 16-bit graphics"
One of the many Mario announcements during today's Super Mario Bros. 35th Anniversary Direct was that Super Mario All-Stars would be joining the Nintendo Switch Online SNES library. Well, it's now available! Yep, you'll actually be able to play something right away to celebrate Mario's 35th! It's worth...
Random Playing Super Mario Run With An Official SNES Mouse Looks Quite Fun, Actually
The smartphone game transformed
Super Mario Run was a pretty decent leap to smartphones for everyone's favourite gaming plumber, but even the great pulling power of Mario himself couldn't convince every Nintendo fan to give it a go. Perhaps more would have tried it out if a more traditional control setup were available? You know, like the official...
Random Finally, Sonic The Hedgehog Spins Onto The Super Nintendo
To be this good takes AGES!
Ah, the good old playground arguments of the '90s. Which camp were you in? Even if you were a dedicated Super Nintendo owner with all of the wonderful exclusives that the system offered, it was hard not to be a little bit jealous of the Sega Genesis / Mega Drive's impressive library of games. And of course, the Mega Drive...
Poll Box Art Brawl: Duel #55 - Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island
Crying in a bubble
And we're back for another edition of Box Art Brawl, the weekly poll where you vote for your favourite classic (or sometimes not-so-classic) retro video game box art variant from around the world. Last week we checked in with Dr. Mario on the Game Boy (and NES) 30 years on from
Guide The 35 SNES Games On Nintendo Switch Online, Ranked By Us
Which Super NES games should you start with?
It took a while but after months of rumours, speculation and player wishes, Nintendo eventually put SNES games on Nintendo Switch back in September last year. Since then it has been adding to the roster of Super NES games on the system. Just like
News Classic Nintendo Source Code And Prototypes Allegedly Leaked
For SNES games and much more
Following on from those "massive" Nintendo leaks earlier this year, it has now reportedly happened again. Alleged prototype versions of classic Super Nintendo titles such as Yoshi's Island, Super Mario Kart, and
Poll Box Art Brawl #51 - Super Aleste / Space Megaforce
A Megaforce to be reckoned with
Welcome to Box Art Brawl, our weekly contest that pits three box art variants from around the world against each other in a fight for your vote. Last week observed three versions of ActRaiser 2 locked in combat. While Japan trailed from the very beginning, it was an exceptionally close fight between North America and...
Random Rather Than Pay A Fortune For The Legendary SNES PlayStation, One Man Built His Own
The dream of the '90s is finally here!
The discovery of the SNES PlayStation sent shockwaves through the gaming community back in 2015. A collaboration between Sony and Nintendo, the unit was intended to meet the challenge of CD-based systems like the Mega CD and TurboDuo, but it was never released; Nintendo infamously left S
Poll Box Art Brawl #50 - ActRaiser 2
Raise your act
Welcome back to Box Art Brawl, the weekly contest between box art variants from around the globe to find out which is the best, better than all the rest. Last week Puzzle Bobble, or Bust-a-Move as it's known in North America, graced us with its presence. It wasn't a contest, really - Japan absolutely stormed it with over two thirds...
Random Turns Out NBA Jam Has Been Cheating The Chicago Bulls All This Time
"Make sure you pick the Pistons over the Bulls"
If you're a Netflix subscriber, you'll no doubt have seen the excellent basketball documentary series, The Last Dance. It charts the incredible story of Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls during one of the most exciting periods in the history of the sport. It also spends a bit of time covering the...
