Thursday, July 6, 2017

Super Nintendo Classic Pre-Release Wrap Up

    Hey again everyone! Today I will be doing a sort of wrap up on my thoughts on the Super Nintendo Classic before it is released. I've had some time now since the day the mini console was announced and I just wanted to say a few more things. I apologize to those of you waiting for the Kirby's Block Ball review. It is in the works, but I want to get this out there first. So unless you haven't been following here or various other sites, or Youtube, or any other source of video game info, Nintendo has announced that the Super Nintendo Classic will be hitting store shelves this September. My first blog on this console broke down the games that were on it and whether or not I thought they were good fits. I agree that for the majority of the games on the console certainly deserve a spot with really the only exception being Kirby's Dream Course. This blog is going to be more thoughts that have come into my head since then as well as taking a quick look at the Super Famicom mini that will be released in Japan.

    The more I look at the list of games on the Super Nintendo Classic, the more I actually like it. All in all you are getting just about all of the most popular games on the console (barring Chrono Trigger mostly). Donkey Kong Country, Super Castlevania IV, Yoshi's Island, and Super Mario World all hold up well today and are some of the best platformers ever made, let alone on the Super Nintendo. While I would have rather had seen Donkey Kong Country 2 be on the console, the issues with Rare and Nintendo are not all that secret and the first game of course is the one that started it all. It would be like having Starfox 2 on there and not Star Fox. Speaking of Star Fox, the first official release of Star Fox 2 is awesome, but I'm curious how younger gamers are going to view the game's graphics that have really not aged well at all. Will they even want to bother once they see what is essentially largely grey polygons flying around the screen? Also what will people who haven't played a rom of Star Fox 2 think of it's gameplay? What will their reaction be once they realize it is not a traditional Star Fox game? (Really what is at this point?) These are things I'd love to know and see involving those two games.

    The more I think about Earthbound, the more I find it really cool that it made it onto this console. The game has always been a cult classic, but that cult is growing. If we were looking at Super Nintendo classics in the sense that they were huge during the system's life, this game would never had made the cut. Amazingly though it's popularity now keeps growing and growing and I'm sure it making it's way onto the Super Nintendo Classic will only do more to raise that popularity. Hell, it'd be amazing if it helped convince Nintendo to actually get us an English version of Mother 3. Just sayin.

    Kirby's Dream Course is still a pretty good game. It's very unique in it's style on the console and I keep going back and forth as to whether or not it should be on here. Part of me loves that it is, the other part of me feels like it's almost a missed opportunity. By that I mean the game has a lot of golf/billiards mechanics. My question now is why pick this game over some of the other multiplayer sports games like Super Tennis for example? I mean one of the advantages the Super Nintendo Classic has over the NES Classic is that is actually comes with two controllers, so why not make the most of it. I feel the same way about F-Zero in that regard. Yes, It absolutely should be on the console, but it's still a single player racing game. Just kind of strange to me given the amount of multiplayer racing and other sports games out there. Could be a license thing, but who knows.

    From there we arrive at the Super Famicom Classic. Much like the Super Nintendo Classic, the Super Famicom Classic will be a mini version of the original system. The game list is actually a bit different than the Super Nintendo Classic in the following ways. First of all, Earthbound is out and is replaced by Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem. The Mother series had always been popular in Japan as Earthbound was the only one released outside of the country until the Wii U's Virtual Console released the first game of the series in the U.S.. At the end of the day it's probably safe to say that Fire Emblem has more of a following at this point. Super Castlevania IV is out and Legend of the Mystical Ninja is in. This doesn't surprise me much honestly. Mystical Ninja was and still is a pretty big deal in Japan and Castlevania is and always was a big deal in North America. Seems like a fair trade to me. Kirby's Dream Course is out and Pano de Pon (Tetris Attack) is in. Tetris Attack is really a great game. It's one of the better puzzle games on the system, but is often forgotten because of Pokemon Puzzle League on the Nintendo 64. The plus of this game over Dream Course is the two player option. I would have loved for Tetris Attack to be on the Super Nintendo Classic, but space is a thing. Super Punch Out is out and Super Soccer is in. I mean, Soccer as a sport is probably way more popular in Japan than it is in the United States. I honestly have no idea if Super Punch Out was popular in Japan or not, but either way, the Super Famicom continues to have more of a multiplayer presence.

    That brings us to the last difference. Street Fighter 2: Turbo is out and Super Street Fighter 2: The New Challengers is in. This one was a bit surprising to me at first, but now it makes sense. Whenever I hear people talk about Street Fighter 2 I hear them talking about the turbo edition. That seems to be most people's favorite in the United States. If you go over to Japan however, that doesn't seem to be the case. It seems that more people there prefer The New Challengers. So it's a region preference. Nothing wrong with that.

    Are there other games I'd still like to see on the Super Nintendo Classic? Yes. Are there games I would still like to see on the Super Famicom Classic? Yes. However the lists are what they are, but I can't help but feel like games such as Zombies Ate My Neighbors, Chrono Trigger, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time, Tetris Attack, and even another unique game like Pilotwings would have made this thing virtually perfect. In addition Nintendo probably could have priced the thing quite a bit higher with all these titles included. Hell for what it is now, it's still a steal.

    All in all both systems are looking stellar now I think. For $80 you are getting 21 games (one never released), two controllers (NES Classic only came with one), and you are saving a ton of money as opposed to trying to find all these cartridges plus a Super Nintendo. Several of these games are quite expensive, but with either classic edition you are getting the meat and potatoes of the system. You are getting nearly every title that had massive fame and continue to be some of the more popular games around. In addition you are getting a couple odd balls and a previously unreleased game on top of it. There is no downside to this thing with the exception of however many Nintendo plans to make. They keep saying it will be significantly more than the NES Classic, but what constitutes that? One million more? Ten million more? Ten more? All we can do is keep our fingers crossed and wait because these things are going to fly off the shelves. With any luck the average person will be able to pick one up and make their own or their families holiday wishes come true.

    As always thanks for reading. This will be my last blog on the Super Nintendo Classic until it is out and we see what happens with the supply question. I think I've gotten everything out that I want to say about it now. I am also working on a little preview blog for the spooky game marathon that I'll be starting sometime next month. I'm not sure which will be done first but the summer keeps rolling on either way. Expect a few more reviews here and there as well a couple other blogs leading up to my first Halloween event!

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