Since its release in 1991, the Super Nintendo Entertainment System is the first video game console that many college students have encountered in their lives, unless you’re the poor soul whose parents bought a Sega Genesis.
Until recent years, SNES games have been difficult to find. They have been either too expensive through EBay or too illegal through the Internet. But ever since Nintendo came out with the Virtual Console, SNES games have been made readily available and relatively cheap. Most games sell for 800 Wii Points, or $8.
But for those who didn’t have the luxury of playing these games growing up, here’s a quick overview of which games you should pick up and download to your Wii.
The Classics
If you’ve played these games, you know they’re good. If you haven’t played them, these games are all a worthwhile purchase: “Super Mario World,” “Donkey Kong Country,” “Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy’s Kong Quest,” “Super Metroid,” “The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past” and “Final Fantasy II.”
But these are only the well-known classics. Here are the games on the SNES Virtual Console that some people may not have heard of.
“Super Mario Kart”
This really should go with the classics. But out of any of the games available on virtual console, “Mario Kart” has aged the best. It’s a challenge and the large population of people that have played it are really passionate about it.
It has come to my attention that some people think that “Mario Kart 64” was the original in the franchise. This disturbs me.
“Harvest Moon”
OK, so, back in high school, I would play this game, and people would ask “How can a game about running a farm be fun?” At that point, I didn’t have any way to describe the simple pleasure of running a little virtual farm – it’s hard to describe.
Then came FarmVille, and all of a sudden, video game farming is socially acceptable. I call shenanigans. “Harvest Moon” has everything FarmVille has, in addition to an accompanying town, characters and the ability to move around instead of a god-mode approach. “Harvest Moon” also gives the character the ability to marry one of the young lasses in town and procreate with her. That’s cool, too.
“Kirby Super Star”
Not everyone’s played a Kirby game, which is unfortunate. The guy’s a Nintendo cornerstone and a pretty popular choice in “Super Smash Bros.,” but his games don’t dominate the market share.
However, if you’re going to play one Kirby game, make it “Kirby Super Star.” The game, which is actually an aggregation of several smaller story-mode games along with mini-games, is pleasantly challenging while remaining consistently fun.
In “Super Star,” Kirby has 15 different abilities he can steal from his enemies in addition to five other special ones. These powers range from hammer, sword and yo-yo to plasma, ninja and suplex. It’s about as good as you can get in terms of non-Mario platforming.
“ActRaiser”
This lesser-known game is an interesting mix of platformer and SimCity (also a solid choice to download). In the game, you play The Master, a vague all-powerful deity who arises from his slumber and most go out and save the world from darkness.
In the first stage of the game, The Master is looking down upon the land and must macro-manage the area to purge of famine, pestilence and the like.
Then, once The Master has gotten rid of the larger issues at hand, he must go first-hand into the various dungeons, which unfold like a typical platforming game with a sword-wielding protagonist.
“ActRaiser” won’t blow you away, but it’s a truly creative game that’s worth a try.
“Street Fighter II”
If you like old school fighters, get it. The issue here is that there are currently an absurd four versions of this game on virtual console. Even worse is the fact that two of them are obsolete. (Unless you have a preference, but in that case, why do you care what I say?) With 16 characters and the most updated character models and other little tidbits, “Super Street Fighter II: The New Challengers” overshadows the original arcade “Street Fighter II: The World Warrior” and “Street Fighter II Turbo: Hyper Fighter.”
This leaves “New Challengers” with “Street Fighter Alpha 2” (now it’s getting ridiculous), which are actually quite different in terms of characters. Both games have Ryu, Chun-Li Guile, Ken, Sagat, M. Bison, Zangief and Dhalsim. That leaves “New Challengers” with E. Honda, Blanka, Balrog, Vega, Cammy, Fei-Long, Dee Jay and T. Hawk. Meanwhile, “Alpha 2” has Charlie, Guy, Birdie, Sodom, Adon, Rose, Dan, Rolento, Sakura, Gen and, important for some, Akuma.
“Zombies Ate My Neighbors”
A throwback to a simpler time when all adults were stupid, 3D glasses were cool, and kidz rooled. So, yeah, third grade in the early 80s.
This game’s fun lies in its simplicity. The plot: There are zombies, because we said so. The objective: Save everyone who is wandering around in the apocalypse. The weapons: You have a water gun, soda cans, popsicles and a bazooka.
The game is hard and a surprisingly entertaining cult game. You take your goofy protagonist who is far too comfortable in this situation and go around backyards, shopping malls and other settings fighting zombies, giant insects and the occasional baby monster. The game’s got 48 levels, but it’s a pain to get to them all. “Zombies” is at its best when you look up the passwords to levels and goof around.
Games to Avoid
“Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong’s Double Trouble”
Ah yes, it does say “Donkey Kong Country” up there, doesn’t it? But you don’t play as Donkey Kong. Or Diddy Kong, for that matter. Instead, you’re stuck with Dixie Kong and her little cousin Kiddy Kong.
This game is like that great band you loved, but then all the members left and they still kept the same name. Frauds.
“Super Ghouls ‘n Ghosts”
This game is too difficult to be fun. Sure, you could read this and say “Challenge Accepted.” But then you’ll just spend the next half hour dying. Just dying.
If you want to do that, download Steam and buy “Super Meatboy.”
Nick O’Malley can be reached at [email protected].
