How Is Your SNES Gaming Going?

[Tanooki]

Hey did more investigating, came up with something that's a wicked compromise.

This was just last update 2 weeks ago, bsnes lives basically.

Due to the route HIGAN took with all the wonky stuff and being a swiss army knife of sorts, some people got together on github and came up with bsnes-classic. It takes the improvements done primarily to the SNES core (including Super GB cartridge support) and keeps the classic emulator modern and alive. Even has a libretro support for those into that.

https://github.com/awjackson/bsnes-classic

Last build 17 days old, using it and it's fantastic. Has the be all exe, but also the accuracy one and it runs fantastic. While the menu lists the other junk that higan runs, none of it outside of the combo cart stuff (BSX, SuperGB) seems to work. Not a big deal to me, rather use better stuff for other systems, but the true SuperGB support is nice even capturing the added color and audio samples such as the HELP! in DK.

[Xeogred]

The Making of Secret of Mana

Extremely well put together video and everything lines up with what I've heard from the Retronauts podcast too. The connection to Chrono Trigger is fascinating.

This whole channel seems legit.

[samsonlonghair]

I know that I'm late to this party, but here I go anyway. I just read the comments by everyone trying to run Super Game Boy games on SNES emulators. I'd like to recommend a different course of action.

The easiest path (that I know of) to Super Game Boy emulation is via Visual Boy Advance. Launch VBA. Load your Game Boy ROM. From the drop-down option menu, select your color palette. One of your choices is "Super Game Boy".

[Ziggy]

OMG, over a year since we last used this thread? That simply will not do!

Here's a game that I never heard of before...

The Lost Vikings



It's not a SNES exclusive, but whatever. From what I've read, it was developed for the SNES then ported to the Genesis. With the SNES and Genesis, usually the preferred versions are whichever the game was originally developed for.

Anyway, it's a puzzle platformer with a very light hearted attitude. SNES Drunk will tell you everything you need to know about it. Also, the SNES version is sub $30 on eBay, which is "cheap" these days for a SNES game.

[BoneSnapDeez]

Expect to see a "Games Beaten" post from me any day now. I replay The Lost Vikings every couple of years.

Play that game, now. It's fantastic. Forget the niche "puzzle-platformer" tag; it transcends that and is really one of the best platformers of any kind, period.

[Xeogred]

Bone and I are super fans of that one. I replay it every few years as well, it's so damn unique and charming.

I finally played through all of the Genesis version most recently, few years ago or something. It MUST be played with a 6-button pad otherwise the controls are a pain. The Genesis version has some extra music and a few extra levels but still, I prefer the SNES version by a long shot in the end. I think the sound and softer colors fit the game better.

I played and beat the PSX version of 2 way back in the day. It's cool how the SNES original is completely different, while the CD/PC/PSX 2 is polygons and completely new graphics, music, etc. But honestly... I never find myself going all the way through 2 anymore, even when I've never gotten through all of the SNES original. The first game is just way better with superior environment variety and the three Viking characters are all you need, I don't like the addition of the new ones in 2.

SNES games I beat this year, *'s are replays:

5. Aladdin* (SNES)
6. Magical Quest Starring Mickey Mouse* (SNES)
7. Run Saber (SNES)
9. Ninja Warriors (SNES)
10. Thunder Spirits* (SNES)
12. Donkey Kong Country* (SNES)
13. Skyblazer (SNES)
14. Super Turrican* (SNES)
15. Donkey Kong Country 2* (SNES)
16. Super Turrican 2* (SNES)
30. Front Mission: Gun Hazard (SNES)
33. Brain Lord (SNES)
34. Assault Suits Valken (SNES)
77. Super Ghouls'n Ghosts* (SNES)
78. super Castlevania IV* (SNES)
83. Super Mario All-Stars* (SNES)

Gun Hazard was my favorite new SNES game of the year... by miles. It's mid to late 90's Square Soft at their peak, nuff said. Another one for the pile of "shame the West never got it", because it deserves far more recognition than it gets. Another collaboration with Mitsuda and Uematsu on music too with two other composers, the OST is a 10.

[Gunstar Green]

The Lost Vikings is great. I played it on PC back in the day and don't really have a version preference these days.

I ultimately like Valken a little more than Gun Hazard because it's pure action with cooler set-pieces. The director of Gunhazard, Hideo Suzuki, was one of the main programmers on Valken which explains a lot of the similarities. My main issue with Gun Hazard is it starts getting a little repetitive and easy near the end. The RPG elements are both a strength and a weakness.

That said it's still an incredible game with the high level of polish expected from a late 16-bit era Square game. If I had played it as a kid I have no doubt I would have been completely blown away. It's the closest thing I've seen to something resembling a side-scrolling MechWarrior game. I find myself recommending it a lot because I feel like there are still loads of people out there who have glossed over it thinking it was like the original game.

[Tanooki]

That's kind of what I was going to say there. Lost Vikings was a PC game, annoying anti-piracy code on a manual page level design with it too. There is where I played and finished that game back in the 90s. The same can be said also for Blackthorne that's on SNES too. Years later on the GBA Blizzard decided to revisit those 2 games with GBA releases that are well made, and they did bring up Rock N Roll Racing too on there. The Blizzard trio of excellence that hit both SNES and GBA. There is a Lost Vikings sequel but I never see so much attention given to that one.

Lately due to the ownership of the SD2SNES and with those nice real updates to the firmware this year with FX, then SA1, and now the SDD1 I've been tinkering with random chipped games. The last one i put a real good effort into trying out was Chatting Parodius and that one is definitely worth my wait as it's not a let down at all, solid shooter.

[Ziggy]

I said in the SNES TR thread that I was sad to see that month go. In regards to that, o.pwuaioc said there's no reason we can't keep talking about the SNES. I didn't want to keep that thread alive though, and detract from the current TR. So I decided to bump this old thread. For some reason, no one has used this thread since December of 2018!

I have stopped playing Secret of Mana. It wasn't that I don't like the game, although there were a few things that bugged me about it. I actually really started to get annoyed when the two computer controlled characters would get held up on stuff. Especially when you just want to run through an area and try to avoid enemies, and then you have to backtrack because someone is running in a corner or up against a tree or something LOL. That's not why I stopped playing it, though. It's just a case of I put the game down for a while because I was busy with work for a while and then I got sick. That combined with, I got the itch to play something else.

I've been playing Final Fantasy II (AKA FF4). I think I told this story in the SNES TR thread, but to sum it up, I once tried to play FF2 on the SNES but lost my save data about halfway through. I eventually played through the game on the PS1. I really felt like playing this game again, and decided to play it on the SNES since I never beat that version. I'm very close to the end of the game now.

I know that FF2 on the SNES is the easy version of the game. It's definitely really easy as far as stats and money are concerned. You really don't ever have to grind, and you pretty much always have enough money to buy the best equipment along with a healthy stock of healing items. And you seem to find a ton of healing items in the wild. FF4 is a localization of the original Super Famicom version, and I don't remember it being very hard at all. The SNES version is definitely too easy, though. But it's also pretty fun to just plow through it almost mindlessly.

Talking about Super Famicom exclusives and repro carts in the TR thread gave me the bug. I decided to pick up a few SFC exclusives since some of them are so cheap. I got Seiken Densetsu 3, Bahamut Lagoon and Treasure Hunter G. I never played through any of those three, but always wanted to. I'm going to patch the carts with the English translations. I've also long owned Final Fantasy V, and plan to play through that one again (I made it to the end once, but never beat it). Also, going through some of my old repro stuff, I realized that I somehow ended up with an authentic Tales of Phantasia cart shell, so I think I'll make a repro of that to put in there. And I have an authentic Star Ocean cart that needs to be repaired. I've played through Star Ocean once before, but it was years ago and I wouldn't mind playing through it again.

Anyone have any recommendations for other cheap SFC exclusives that got English patches? I was thinking about Front Mission or FM Gun Hazard, but I'm not sure if I'll like those games or not.

[Ziggy]

I just beat Star Fox for the first time on Level 2. I've beaten the game plenty of times on Level 1, but it occurred to me that I never tried to beat Level 2 or 3 in my adult life. Maybe now I'll try to beat Level 3 sometime.

The original Star Fox can sometimes be hard to go back to, just because of it's low frame rate. But I still find it to be a fun game. I can admire admire the graphics from a technical standpoint. Even with the low frame rate, and occasional pop in, it's still a marvel for the SNES. And of course, the gameplay is still fun. And it's still charming, in typical Nintendo fashion. The banter between characters, the music, etc.