Background:
Last year VGChartz ran a series of articles that ranked the top ten games for a number of modern systems including the 360, Wii, and PS3. The voting was handled by the staff and a small “reader’s choice” section was added with the reader’s opinions. A year has come and gone, and tastes change, so we decided to see what kind of games you guys wanted listed in a top ten this time, except we are handling things differently this time. Not only will the list be compiled entirely by you, the fans, but we will go through a large number of game systems all the way back to the 1970’s with the Atari 2600 to modern day. We hope to do these over a few weeks, so stay tuned for your favorite systems! Since our readers are a diverse group, be prepared for some surprises!
Method:
Our voting was carried out on the forums, where we asked patrons to list their top 5 SNES games in order, and numerical values were placed on the rankings. After compiling all the totals, this is the list that we came up with.
History Lesson:
So we all know how Nintendo helped to bring gaming back from certain oblivion back in the 1980’s right? What about their follow up to the popular Nintendo Entertainment System / Famicom? By the time Nintendo decided to create a new system, the NES was starting to show its age. Both the TurboGrafx16 and the Sega Genesis were making new fans due to an increase in graphical and sound capabilities that 16 bit games offered. The SNES was released well after Sega’s second entry into gaming history, but somehow managed to sell enough units to be considered the best selling and most successful gaming system of the 16 bit era. This era in gaming is notable because it was one of the worst “console wars” in terms of competitive banter, smear campaigns, fan allegiances and just sheer rivalry. You didn’t come here to learn though, now let’s look at some games!
10. Final Fantasy 4
After the success of the last three Final Fantasy games turned out to be enough to not only turn around the then failing company, Squaresoft, but it made them comfortable to try “something new” with their first 16 bit RPG. Final Fantasy 4 was notable because it contained a far more advanced narrative than its predecessors and a lot of innovations that remained in the series well into the modern era. Final Fantasy 4 was also the second Final Fantasy to make the long journey to the west, getting redubbed Final Fantasy 2, as it was only the second game in the series to do so. The popularity of this game has survived the time, allowing it to be re-released multiple times as well as a sequel.
9. Secret of Mana
The first game in the “Mana” series was a lowly spin-off from the then behemoth franchise that was Final Fantasy. It was a Nintendo Game boy game, and was released over here as Final Fantasy Adventure and in Japan as Seiken Densetsu: Final Fantasy Gaiden. Rather than keeping the game series as a Gameboy specific spin-off series, Seiken Densetsu 2 was rebuilt from the ground up to run with the “big dogs” on the SNES. Sadly a little known fact about this game is that the Western release is heavily edited down storyline-wise due to the technical limitations in localizing the game. Large amounts of text were stripped down to the bare minimum. Even despite this fact The Secret of Mana is an amazing game and holds a wonderful spot on our list.
8. Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island
Nintendo took a HUGE chance with Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island, in that they could have just knocked together another Mario game that took place in the Dinosaur world with similar controls and new power-ups. Instead Miyamoto decided to make a game with the intention to show a much younger Mario being escorted around by Yoshi as he tries to find baby Luigi. The game employed very state of the art graphics for the time including sprite scaling, polygons, and morphing; this is all thanks to the FX2 microchip installed. Yoshi’s Island was actually quite controversial within Nintendo HQ due to its changes to the basic Mario formula, but became quite popular with fans and press alike.
7. Super Mario Kart
One of the very first hit Mario spinoff games, Super Mario Kart put everyone’s favorite mustachioed plumber into the seat of a go-kart. The game was created to try to push Nintendo into the multiplayer market as Miyamoto wanted two players to interact on the screen at once. This was in direct contrast to another Nintendo-made racing game, F-Zero, which concentrated on single player. Mode 7 graphics were utilized heavily to give the game an overwhelmingly 3-D look despite being made with sprites the old-fashioned way. Many sequels later, nobody can doubt the success of this franchise, and it all started here.
6. Donkey Kong Country
Back in the days when Rare made games for Nintendo, a crazy re-envisionment occurred. Wanted to work on a big game with Nintendo, the heads of Rare decided to tackle a big property that had fallen by the way-side a bit. In Donkey Kong Country, no longer was DK and evil girlfriend snatching “King Kong” type monster, but an action man trying to save the bananas he loves. Donkey Kong Country was made using a new technology called "ACM" (Advanced Computer Modeling). This new technology gave programmers the option to create games using pre-rendered 3-D backgrounds at a fraction of the usual memory allotment. If done well all backgrounds and characters would come out looking many leagues above what could normally be created using the systems hardware. Rare went on to use this method on many of its formidable 16-bit games including Killer Instinct.
5. Chrono Trigger
Hey look another RPG made the grade! Chrono Trigger was created by Squaresoft to be one of the most spanning and epic games they had ever created. They gathered up the “cream of the crop” from within the many studios including Akira Toriyama on character design and Hironobu Sakaguchi on production. Wanting to create a game that had never been seen before, the guys stumbled onto the unique idea to do a game based on time travel, and history was made. The game follows a rag-tag group of adventurers (all from different times) trying to stop a massive post-apocalyptic future at any means necessary.
4. Super Metroid
What a fitting game to make a list this week as we are currently awaiting Metroid Other M to hit store shelves. Super Metroid is the third main game in the popular Metroid franchise, and saw a huge increase in narrative and scale never before seen in the series. Gunpei Yokoi was said to have wanted the game to be similar to the first two games to incite familiarity and to fix things that he felt were incomplete in the first games. While far more popular in the West than Japan, Super Metroid went on to win over a new generation of gamers with a strong female character. We can say that Samus is quite possibly the innovator of the archetype in gaming.
3. Final Fantasy 6
No top ten list including SNES games could be complete without mentioning one of the most beloved RPGs of all time. Final Fantasy 6, called Final Fantasy 3 in the west, was one of the most daring games of its kind, and possibly ever since. No other game of the time had such a strong grasp on cinematic quality and character development as Final Fantasy 6, as small touches like the music in the game were simply masterpieces. On a storyline front, many fans will note the overlying darkness in the story being quite different from the somewhat upbeat previous games. Not only does the main character start out as a bad guy, the world ends in the middle of the game. No other final Fantasy save number 7 has as much fan love as Final fantasy 6.
2. Super Mario World
Many felt that Super Mario Bros. 3 was a gaming masterpiece, and the best possible Mario game that could be made. Some would argue that the very next game in the series aped it in every way, and got everything right. On the surface Super Mario World borrows a lot from Mario 3: the level design, the power-ups, and the villains are similar, but Super Mario World is definitely aided by the power of 16 bit technology. The game fulfilled a lifelong dream of producer and creator Shigeru Miyamoto in that he always wanted Mario to ride around on a dinosaur, but was unable to do it on past consoles. What we got was Yoshi, and a legend was born.
1. Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
Here we have it, our number one game on the countdown. Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past is a prequel to the original NES Zelda game storyline-wise, but is far more advanced in every way. Nintendo actually had to bust out a new double density cartridge to handle the epically expansive world and all the storyline, rain effects, and so on. This is the first game in the series to use some sort of duality system, a trope used in pretty much every other game in the series. Here we saw use of a Dark world and a Light world, mirrors of each other but fundamentally different. Since then, we have seen day and Night, Past and Present, and many other similar gimmicks. Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past is still a legendary game despite its age, and that’s why it was voted number one.
Join us next time for a look at Sega’s first handheld gaming machine, the Game Gear!
and while your at it.....
In the meantime check out a few older lists in this series:
VGC Top Ten: Sega Master System Games
VGC Top Ten Sega Megarive / Genesis Games
Gallery
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Originals
The Team
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Brett Walton Founder |
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Chris "Bearded Gamer" Arnone Editor-in-Chief |
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Gabriel Franco Senior Contributor |
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