The Super Famicom / Super NES Thread

[BIL]

I've never been able to stand SFC Final Fight. None of the fury or savage difficulty of the AC version. Definitely not in the same league as the MD CPS1 ports like Strider, Daimakaimura and Senjou no Okami II.

[Skykid]

I don't want to play a marathon.

Final Fight is a superb game but (and I always hurt someone's feelings by saying so) It's hurt slightly by Capcom's excessive drawing out of the final two stages. You can't credit feed the game, you must play for a 1cc, or else it becomes exceptionally boring at the climax. Capcom realised its dynamite potential and threw out notions of balance to milk coins at the finale: everything after the Rolento fight is far too repetitive and static, both graphically and in terms of enemy structure. It's an extremely difficult 1cc because of this, and I got bored trying. There's no faulting its exemplary design however, but later belt scrollers refined aspects of the overall experience.

This is for the arcade version though (and MCD, which is even longer). I sold my SFC copy as it's simply not up to scratch.

FF2 is bland and pretty lame tbh.

[Leandro]

I don't want to play a marathon.

Final Fight is a superb game but (and I always hurt someone's feelings by saying so) It's hurt slightly by Capcom's excessive drawing out of the final two stages. You can't credit feed the game, you must play for a 1cc, or else it becomes exceptionally boring at the climax. Capcom realised its dynamite potential and threw out notions of balance to milk coins at the finale: everything after the Rolento fight is far too repetitive and static, both graphically and in terms of enemy structure. It's an extremely difficult 1cc because of this, and I got bored trying. There's no faulting its exemplary design however, but later belt scrollers refined aspects of the overall experience.

No way. After the Rolento fight (and the bonus level) the player is rewarded with the best music track in the game, and the background of the wild open city night is really good in it's entirety.

It's not until the player enters the long hallway in Belger's building, where a low color count background starts repeating and some nasty enemy formations kick in, when the game begins to lose steam (for the credit feeder).

[Skykid]

I don't want to play a marathon.

Final Fight is a superb game but (and I always hurt someone's feelings by saying so) It's hurt slightly by Capcom's excessive drawing out of the final two stages. You can't credit feed the game, you must play for a 1cc, or else it becomes exceptionally boring at the climax. Capcom realised its dynamite potential and threw out notions of balance to milk coins at the finale: everything after the Rolento fight is far too repetitive and static, both graphically and in terms of enemy structure. It's an extremely difficult 1cc because of this, and I got bored trying. There's no faulting its exemplary design however, but later belt scrollers refined aspects of the overall experience.

No way. After the Rolento fight (and the bonus level) the player is rewarded with the best music track in the game, and the background of the wild open city night is really good in it's entirety.

It's not until the player enters the long hallway in Belger's building, where a low color count background starts repeating and some nasty enemy formations kick in, when the game begins to lose steam (for the credit feeder).

Sorry, I'm clearly remembering stage ordering wrong. I'm referring to the last two stages, the one with the bay background that repeats for about a million years, along with the enemies. It would be very pretty, perhaps, if it was around 30% shorter.

[CIT]

Since it was asked here:

A while back I heard about a sidescrolling Gundam game for the Super Famicom that was described as being similar to Mega Man X. I thought I even grabbed a ROM of it, but apparently I either didn't or deleted it.

I've been trying to look up what it is, but I'm not having any luck. Thought it was SD Gundam, but maybe it's just a random mech game? I'm hoping someone here has an idea.

This is a tough one, because there are about seven bajillion Gundam license games on Super Famicom, but if someone is drawing a comparison to Rockman X, they are probably implying that it's a good game, and that does narrow it down quite a bit.

I think your probably looking for one of the Great Battle games, specifically Great Battle IV or Great Battle V, which are platformer/action games (I-III are rather terrible beat 'em ups). This would also explain why you weren't able to find anything searching for Gundam. Great Battle V is considered the best, because of high production values and the solid and varied gameplay, alternating between action platformer and Wild Guns style shooting gallery.

There are also a couple of straight up Gundam games, that could fit the bill, but they are pretty much all crap. I'll just mention Kidou Senshi V-Gundam here, which scores points because it's one of the few non-super deformed games. Straight-up mech action in the vein of Valken—just too bad the controls are complete garbage.

For the record: The best Gundam game on the system (and one of the best overall) is Shin Kidou Senshi Gundam W: Endless Duel. A really beautiful and rock solid fighting game developed by Natsume.

[BIL]

Great Battle V is considered the best, because of high production values and the solid and varied gameplay, alternating between action platformer and Wild Guns style shooting gallery.

Interest piqued! Must check this one out.

[Skykid]

Great Battle V is considered the best, because of high production values and the solid and varied gameplay, alternating between action platformer and Wild Guns style shooting gallery.

Interest piqued! Must check this one out.

Don't hold out too much expectation.

[Fudoh]

I think your probably looking for one of the Great Battle games, specifically Great Battle IV or Great Battle V, which are platformer/action games (I-III are rather terrible beat 'em ups).

The first one is actually a top-down shooter like Ikari Warriors. Very early (1990) SFC game and not so bad after all. 2 and 3 were beat'em ups.

[CStarFlare]

I think your probably looking for one of the Great Battle games, specifically Great Battle IV or Great Battle V, which are platformer/action games (I-III are rather terrible beat 'em ups). This would also explain why you weren't able to find anything searching for Gundam. Great Battle V is considered the best, because of high production values and the solid and varied gameplay, alternating between action platformer and Wild Guns style shooting gallery.

Great Battle IV is spot-on. The second I saw your post I remembered the IV. Thank you!

Endless Duel was my first emulated game - I was a big Gundam Wing fan back in the day. Lots of fun to play with, but I've no idea how it holds up as a fighting game.

[CIT]

The first one is actually a top-down shooter like Ikari Warriors. Very early (1990) SFC game and not so bad after all. 2 and 3 were beat'em ups.

Oh yeah, you're right about that. I think the game is still horrible though.

[Ganelon]

Yeah, not much competition for best Gundam game on the SFC against Endless Duel unless you count the Super Robot Wars games. It's a wonder why its sister title Power Rangers The Fighting Edition isn't respected more though. The dichotomy is yet another example that fighting game fans usually care about a lot more than just the pure mechanics.

[Ed Oscuro]

Endless Duel was my first emulated game - I was a big Gundam Wing fan back in the day. Lots of fun to play with, but I've no idea how it holds up as a fighting game.

If memory serves, this was an early entry on the Something Awful ROM Pit. But that doesn't mean anything.

Edit: Something Awful: Doing the clueless ROM review routine before it was popular, and ironically that wasn't what they were setting out to do, either

[BrianC]

I think your probably looking for one of the Great Battle games, specifically Great Battle IV or Great Battle V, which are platformer/action games (I-III are rather terrible beat 'em ups).

The first one is actually a top-down shooter like Ikari Warriors. Very early (1990) SFC game and not so bad after all. 2 and 3 were beat'em ups.

One video I saw of II was showed shmup stages. I couldn't find more. I'm a bit confused. Is it shmup and beat 'em up stages or all shmup?

edit: The video I saw was mislabeled. The shmup game was SD Kaido Senshi Gundam 2. Last Battle II is all beat 'em up.

[nZero]

I enjoyed Kidou Senshi Gundam F91 - Formula Senki 0122 for SFC, actually. Interesting premise and fairly impressive sound and graphics for such an early title, although the action scenes get a bit repetitive in the later levels.

[shmuppyLove]

God help me, after picking up Tales of Xillia, I decided to go back and start from the beginning ...

I have the DeJap translation of Phantasia for the SNES, it's pretty badass.

Random encounters are a bitch though, every 4 or 5 steps it seems.

[andsuchisdeath]

I don't know if the game has been name dropped in this thread previously , but has anyone played Edono Kiba? It's Telenet1993. The game is rough around the edges on all accounts, yet very novel.

I guess you could call the game a beat 'em up on rails...kind of. I'll describe it as Turtles In Time sewer surfing, except you're on foot. There is also a flying in the sky Hagane type level too. The game has a Ghost Chaser Densei cyberpunk feel, and the bosses can get very bizarre . I've only reached the stage 3 boss as of this post. I'm glad I've finally picked up the game after having it on my radar for quite some time. It's definitely worth a try for the novelty factor alone. Be warned though ,the collision detection sucks and you need to abuse the hold Y + Foward and release sword attack to stand a chance at surviving.

[BIL]

I remember trying out the ROM very briefly last year, and wondering if the whole game was "on the run" or if it was just a Dracula X Rondo-type prelude stage. Interesting concept at least, might look it up again. I've still not tried out that Great Battle game CIT mentioned. ROM procrastination. o_o

Seems every Telenet (Wolf Team / Riot, etc) console game I've ever heard of has its rough edges, haha. Usually stuff like choppy scrolling or less than silky smooth framerates, the things you can end up taking for granted from the top developers of the time. I guess they were more at home on Japanese PCs?

There are a few I want to spend a bit more time on like El Viento (MD) in spite of that. Ex-Ranza (MD, Gau Entertainment) was by ex-Telenet members, apparently, and has that relatively rough feel but is an utterly fantastic mecha sidescroller. Though, the slightly choppy movement is justified in that game's case, with its frequently massive levels of onscreen activity, and it's less of an issue since the mech action is inherently a bit floaty.

[Obiwanshinobi]

It is possible that teams other than the original devs handled porting Wolf Team games to consoles. The way Sega ported Aleste to Master System (thus Compile can't be rightfully criticised for all of the port's slowdown).

[CIT]

I have Edo No Kiba, but not played much of it. Mechanics seemed goofy to me, but I will give it another chance in due time. I definitely like the Cyberpunk style the game has!

Seems every Telenet (Wolf Team / Riot, etc) console game I've ever heard of has its rough edges, haha. Usually stuff like choppy scrolling or less than silky smooth framerates, the things you can end up taking for granted from the top developers of the time. I guess they were more at home on Japanese PCs?

Not really. Telenet games were pretty much always "not bad but not great".

Even back in the day they had that reputation, which is the whole reason Wolf Team switched to Namco as publisher for Tales of Phantasia, since they wanted a fresh start without all the Earnest-Evans-baggage.

There are a few I want to spend a bit more time on like El Viento (MD) in spite of that. Ex-Ranza (MD, Gau Entertainment) was by ex-Telenet members, apparently, and has that relatively rough feel but is an utterly fantastic mecha sidescroller. Though, the slightly choppy movement is justified in that game's case, with its frequently massive levels of onscreen activity, and it's less of an issue since the mech action is inherently a bit floaty.

El Viento may actually be Wolf Team's best!

[BrianC]

It is possible that teams other than the original devs handled porting Wolf Team games to consoles. The way Sega ported Aleste to Master System (thus Compile can't be rightfully criticised for all of the port's slowdown).

As far as I know, the port was done by Compile themselves (a lot of ports said re-programmed by Sega on the title screen, even when Sega didn't actually do the ports). I'm not sure how it runs on a real stock MSX2, but when I played MSX Aleste via emulator, it still had plenty of slowdown. I'm guessing that it may have had the same amount of slowdown on the stock MSX2 originally at 60Hz, but may have less in 50 Hz or on the faster MSX2+. I'm pretty sure Wolf Team ported their games to Genesis/MD, as well. Not to mention that the games that weren't ports still had that unpolished feel to them.

Edit: Gdri lists the SMS version as being developed by Compile.

[BIL]

Not to mention that the games that weren't ports still had that unpolished feel to them.

Exactly what I was thinking. EV's got a chop similar to Granada's despite being MD native. Still, for amateurish design issues, I prefer less than silky-smooth sidescrolling to nagging control flaws like Alisia Dragoon's awful mashup of Contra projectiles and Prince of Persia turnaround delay, or the rickety animation demo that is MD Aladdin.

[evil_ash_xero]

I love so many games on the SFC.

Some relatively recent discoveries were

Seiken Densetsu 3- I still can't believe this hasn't been released by Square in some form in the west. I mean, Secret of Mana is considered a classic, and is still pretty popular. I don't get why they haven't made some effort on this one.



DoReMi Fantasy- Also mentioned earlier. One of the best(if not the best) platformers on the SNES, that never made it over here.



Magical Pop'n- I don't think this one has been mentioned. Probably the other best platformer that never made it here. And the main character is voiced by an ex-pornstar(who is now dead)!



And of course that Cho Aniki fighting game.....well, maybe not.

[null1024]

God help me, after picking up Tales of Xillia, I decided to go back and start from the beginning ...

I have the DeJap translation of Phantasia for the SNES, it's pretty badass.

Random encounters are a bitch though, every 4 or 5 steps it seems.

The combat in ToP on SNES makes me sad. Only reason I even bothered playing it over the PS1 version [which uses what became the baseline format of LMBS that was introduced in ToD] was that I was using my phone to run it.
The encounter rate isn't nearly that bad though. Certainly high, but not 4-5 steps.

Seiken Densetsu 3- I still can't believe this hasn't been released by Square in some form in the west. I mean, Secret of Mana is considered a classic, and is still pretty popular. I don't get why they haven't made some effort on this one.

Oh man, SD3. Brilliant game, although I stopped playing for an unknown reason.

[EmperorIng]

Since i always love a good platformer, I'll have to check out Magical Pop'n and DoReMi Fantasy.

[trap15]

DoReMi Fantasy is a bit too slow and easy for my tastes. I got bored of it quite quickly.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Already namedropped Ardy Lightfoot, in the earlier thread. I can't remember anything wrong with it.

[Skykid]

DoReMi Fantasy is a bit too slow and easy for my tastes. I got bored of it quite quickly.

I think DoReMi, Pop n' and Majuuou are the holy triumvirate of SFC platform games, mainly due to scarcity and domestic only releases. But DoReMi certainly isn't the best platform game on the system: it looks pretty and plays well, but it's easy and lacks variety over the course of its lengthy campaign. I didn't get bored with it, but I can understand Trap15's lack of enthusiasm. Sometimes these grails get built up a little beyond their station.

[evil_ash_xero]

DoReMi Fantasy is a bit too slow and easy for my tastes. I got bored of it quite quickly.

I think DoReMi, Pop n' and Majuuou are the holy triumvirate of SFC platform games, mainly due to scarcity and domestic only releases. But DoReMi certainly isn't the best platform game on the system: it looks pretty and plays well, but it's easy and lacks variety over the course of its lengthy campaign. I didn't get bored with it, but I can understand Trap15's lack of enthusiasm. Sometimes these grails get built up a little beyond their station.

I just think it's the best SFC platformer that we never got. The best platformer would probably be Yoshi's Island or Mario World, depending on your mood.

Speaking of which, if you can get the cart that has Mario All-Stars and Mario World....good lord, that's like the best platforming cartridge EVER.

I could never get into Majuuou, due to it's...well honestly, horrible graphics. Does that make me superficial?



Also, I'd just like to point out I think Little Ralph is the best platformer we never got, period. But, different system....

[BIL]

I find Majuu Ou's graphical mishmash kind of endearing, if only since it suits the game's deranged cartoon/horror schism. Microscopic player sprites and blaring graphical effects paired with generally evocative, occasionally excellent backdrops like the first boss's skull-carpeted chamber and the aforementioned castle wall, which creates an incredible sense of being a tiny speck aboard a speeding juggernaut. I do get why this would turn some off, though. El Viento's art style has a similar lack of commitment and I find it repulsive. Guess it helps that horror media in general doesn't necessarily suffer from looking a bit cheap and nasty.

Never really went for DoReMi, but I did like how Magical Popn's character controls (big fan of agile sidescrolling with weapons). Reminded me a bit of Sasuke from the latter three SFC Goemons. Wasn't sure about the level designs though, seemed a bit spaced out. But it's been a while. Another for the procrastination folder.

[evil_ash_xero]

DoReMi Fantasy, easy? A little, but it's still harder than most AAA games made in the last 3 years. How sad is that?