Guide Best SNES Games Of All Time - Super Nintendo Games You Must Own

Wonderful article, Damien! The new site's a banger; I'm enjoying it very much! The color scheme goes great with my hat.

Minor typo in the title: it says "best" instead of "legendary." A common error, I know. Just helping.

NINJA APPROVED

Oh man... This system still astounds me to this day. The SNES truly had something for every type of player. Truly a one of a kind.

I agree with @BloodNinja . This site is wonderful!!

My only issue with this article is that it's only two pages long! 😂

Firstly i love this site already, even more now thanks to this amazing piece on my favourite console ever!! God was this an exciting time, the 16bit era was/is magical. No generation will ever come close again regardless of how good tech gets. If you experienced it first hand you'll get what I'm on about:)

@Damo that picture of Super Famicom games is a sight to behold

@Axelay71 You're absolutely right. The NES era was incredible for starting so much, but the 16-bit made everything even better, and created so much more. It was a great time to be alive.

Truly one of the greatest systems ever made. The golden era. Great article!

@Guitar_bard yes your right mate shouldn't forget the 8bit era either the Nes is another iconic system that paved the way for the Snes.

@Hikingguy hey I totally agree with you, but for me the Snes took everything that was great about the Nes and dialled it up to 11. Stuff like Pilot wings, Star Fox, Axelay, Contra was such a game changer for me personally. To this day I still love this stuff. 8/16 bit will always be the best generations in my eyes.

My all-time favourite system, and having previously only having owned an Atari 2600 and an Amstrad CPC 464, the jump to 16-bit was mind-blowing for me. I couldn't believe how close SF2 was to the arcade game!

@Hikingguy It really was, I’d seen a NES a few times but never really played one for longer than a few minutes. My CPC was a monochrome one too, so just having colour was amazing!

The SNES had lots of great games and I at least play SMW in its original version, as its the only nintendo console I never owned and played it on a trip to my cousin's house. If i could pick a No. 1 game, it would be between super metroid and a link to the past

@Hikingguy it's still a shame Atari lost there way. I still have a 7800 underrated console unfortunately. The funny thing is Nintendo approached Atari to market the Nes, they refused bet they regret that now. I could talk about this stuff all day. I don't think a lot of gamers realise tech wouldn't be where it is now without these amazing generations before. But to be honest a lot of today's stuff bores me.

If there's one game I would absolutely add to that list, it's Mario's Picross: great tactile feedback when drilling out holes, an amazing soundtrack and some surprisingly clever puzzles for a SNES game. I've put over 25 hours into it and it's something I can always come back to and have a great time.

Also, Super Punch Out being there is incredibly based, well done

@Axelay71 Yep, a golden period of gaming for sure. The best.

@SpecialT yes still the best mate 👍

I was scared it would be another list missing Kirby Super Star but there it is. SOLID. THANK YOU.

The greatest console of all time for me personally. So good in fact that my [hacked] SNES Classic Mini is currently my favourite system in modern times too.

Edit: But, I feel I must correct a specific error under U.N. Squadron that states "Sure, there's some slowdown here and there – an unfortunate consequence of the SNES' slow CPU"

The slowdown in U.N. Squadron was not caused by the SNES' CPU but the fact the developer/publisher used the cheaper SlowROM cartridges to save a few bucks, which actually limited/throttled the SNES' CPU to 2.68 MHz, around 75% of its full 3.58 MHz speed. If Capcom had simply spent the extra pennies per FastROM cartridge for this game, there would be no talk of slowdown.

There's already patches out there of U.N. Squadron running in FastROM that remove basically all the slowdown. And some additional better-optimized code could have it running at a solid 60fps throughout if any minor slowdown remains, I have no doubt, especially after seeing what's been achieved with the once slowdown-plagued Gradius III on SNES via nothing more than making it run in FastROM and better optimizing the code.

Seriously, you should go look up some videos of Gradius III with the FastROM patch done by Aaendi and see how it compares to not only the original arcade version but even the SA1-patched version on SNES that runs with a whopping 10.74 MHz chip. I'd be shocked if it didn't immediately alter any reasonable person's perception of the SNES' CPU being "slow" to rather "Man, I'm actually annoyed that certain developer/publishers cheaped-out back in the day and that, we, the paying customers and gamers suffered a bunch of below-par performing games as a result of that".

It has been demonstrated time and time again at this point that most of the slowdown seen in SNES games, usually in early titles released in the first year or two, is almost always attributed in large part to those games running on SlowROM cartridges and/or often with quite a bit of badly optimized code too. And many of them have already been patched to FastROM to remove the slowdown now, often by the brilliant Vitor Vilela, which is a great demonstration of this in action.

We really need to start correcting what is basically a false narrative around SNES at this point, where everyone including professional gaming journalists is regularly stating that slowdown is [pretty much] inevitable on SNES due to its "slow" CPU, especially with any of the more intense and action-heavy titles like shumps for example, as if it's almost an inherent limitation/issue with the system, which simply is not true.

Because, not only can SNES run most games perfectly fine when using FastROM to run properly at its full 3.58 MHz CPU speed, it can actually run most games with little to no slowdown even in the SlowROM 2.68 MHZ mode too, IF the games are simply programmed properly and optimized with this basically budget-related constraint in mind, as genuinely stunning examples like Super Aleste [especially in Wild mode, which has the most stuff on-screen] and Rendering Ranger R2 demonstrate beyond any serious doubt, with both of them running in SlowROM 2.68 MHz mode and still at a smooth 60fps throughout, even with loads of bullets and enemy ships and explosions and multiple layers of parallax and whatever other stuff going on and lots of intense action all the time.

The SNES really is a lot more capable than I think many people have come to believe in modern times.

PS. Never really seen Arcana mentioned much before in lists detailing the best SNES games. I'll need to check that out. . . .

Selecting so many (40) games and not adding numbers to them is definitely a safer approach to avoid controversy than the top 10 in order methods of other lists. Though perhaps 40 is TOO safe to avoid having to make tough decisions; I think my personal preference would be a 25 game limit.

Roughly a year ago, I revisited Yoshi's Island as I could not get into it previously. The time I had played it before, I was dealing with some chronic insomnia which does color some impressions. So I gave it another go, and had a good time with it. It's also visually stunning. I do prefer the more direct and exciting platforming of Super Mario World, but Yoshi's Island is a good one. I would like to revisit Axelay too, as I didn't like that one in the past. That's my story with the SNES. Many of the highly-regarded games for the system did not land for me. Contra 3 doesn't work for me because of the Mode 7 parts. I don't like Castlevania 4(I love Rondo and Bloodlines on PCE and Genesis respectively).

Referring back to FastROM that was mentioned earlier, I hated Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts when I first played it due to how terrible the slowdown was. It interfered with gameplay. SGnG was the first game I tried with a FastROM hack and it made such an amazing difference, as in it made the game enjoyable. It's a pretty game too, though it was bested by Demon's Crest which is good all around. I cannot beat that secret final boss though.

So I've focused a lot on what I don't like. There are still a bunch of SNES games I want to really sit down and try, but from what I have played, I've enjoyed some unusual stuff that doesn't get mentioned as much, like the two Bonk games, and the Japanese Mazinger game. But some standouts I wanted to mention are the two Pocky & Rocky games, Macross: Scrambled Valkyrie, and Ninja Warriors. Those are some of my favorite games on the system.

Glad to see some praise given to International Superstar Soccer Deluxe - I personally loved the SNES and N64 ISS games.

@sdelfin I really like the first Pocky & Rocky game (it could also go on this list). That's another title where simply converting it to run in FastROM would remove any slowdown, which isn't that terrible as is but does exist, and just make it pretty much perfect for what it is. Not sure if someone's patched it already to run in FastROM, but if not, I'd love to see that happen.

@RetroGames Spot on buddy.

I mean, what do we have to do to get the Soul Blazer/Illusion of Gaia/Terranigma trilogy on Switch??

The fact that F-Zero lacks a 2 player mode, yet still makes these best of lists is a testament to how amazing it was.

The Mute City theme is stuck in my head now. I'm probably gonna be humming it for the rest of the day.

By the way Parodius Da! also absolutely deserves to be on this list, as it's easily one of the very best shmups of the entire 16-bit generation, and even in SlowROM at 2.68MHz and 75% of the SNES' full CPU speed still runs really well.

Super Mario All-Stars, Super Aleste, Gundam Wing: Endless Duel, Killer Instinct, King of Dragons, Knights of the Round, Sunset Riders, Batman Returns, Final Fight 2 or 3, Pocky & Rocky, and Wild Guns all deserve to be on such a list too imo.

The Terranigma entry is wrong in one of two ways, depending how the ambiguous wording is intended to be read. Either it's saying the only English release was in Europe, which isn't correct as it was released in Australia too, or it's saying the only release in Europe was in English, which isn't correct as it was also available in French, Spanish and German.

Those who like Cybernator should check out Front Mission: Gun Hazard. It’s Japan-only but there’s a translation patch available. It’s very similar and is just an excellent game.

@TransmitHim

Australia has often counted as part of Europe for video game releases, so maybe that covers this case? It seems weird but I think it stems from Australia's use of the PAL format.

Yet another list that includes Donkey Kong Country 1 over DKC2, and doesn't even give a passing MENTION to the latter. Why is this the state of the world we're in...