Trash or Treasure: Digging Up the Secret Shames and Overlooked Gems of the Super Nintendo

The Super Nintendo is oft-regarded as one of the pinnacles of Nintendo's legendary roster of games and consoles. Released in North America in 1991, the system set a new standard for graphics, game play, and fun that are still being revered to this day. Games like The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, Street Fighter, and Donkey Kong Country remain classics among video game enthusiasts, each having helped to define the conventions of their respective genres.

Of course, not everything was sunny for the SNES. Memory often pulls us into a narrative that may not be congruent with reality, and the prevailing storyline for the SNES will have you believe that the console was simply unassailable. Unfortunately, it isn't true. Like every other console released in history, the SNES had its fair share of slip-ups. Time has just been kind enough to bury them in the past.

However, with NESbox.com you now have the option to dig through these long-forgotten titles at your leisure. Suddenly, what was meant to be lost can now be more easily renewed. And it's not just the most rotten games that can now experience a revival either. The hidden gems that you never played or never even had the opportunity to buy are now available at your fingertips. To give you a quick run-down on what's good, and what should remain shelved, we've figured the trash and treasure of the Super Nintendo's beloved games catalog.

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I'm not sure how many points I should be giving out for unintentional comedy or ironic enjoyment, but if that was the metric by which we measured the quality of all video games then Michael Jordan: Chaos in the Windy City may be the greatest game of all time. The title stars Michael Jordan, who must rescue his fellow teammates from an evil mad scientist who has locked them up in various places around Chicago. Along the way, you're fighting enemies by using regular and powered-up basketballs, including ice balls, fire balls, and bomb balls. Slam dunks can be used as an attack as well. Clearly, strange magics are afoot in this title.

Obviously, this title was panned upon its release, and it's not terribly hard to see why. The fighting mechanic can be a little too precise, and as a result, it's easy to rack up damage and lose a life against the villains that the game pits you against. On top of that, this title was clearly a marketing ploy that wanted to cash in on the name of Michael Jordan in order to move units. We can't really blame Electronic Arts for trying, even though the game ended up being a failure both commercially and critically.

However, at the end of the day, this game is a cultural artifact, and is just as deserving to enter the canon of '90s nostalgia that the Internet has ordained in recent years. It represents rampant commercialism simultaneously at its best and worst, but it was definitely still more fun to play with than the Furby.

Verdict: Treasure

Why is it that so many video game adaptations of movies end up as total struggles? Batman Returns is one of the many licensed movie games that makes you wonder. Despite the initial praise that followed the game upon its release in 1992 (Electronic Gaming Monthly named it the Best Licensed Game of the year) I found it difficult to see the charm in this old school side-scroller.

What is it that people fell in love with so much? The pixelated stills of Michael Keaton? Because it certainly wasn't the fighting style, which borrowed mechanics from Final Fight to guide its action, forming a fighting/action game combo that grew stale within the first level.

Side-scrollers are a fun, if slightly outdated genre, and even side-scrollers that are based off of movies can be a blast. Take Aladdin (released in the same year as Batman Returns) which did well to emphasize platforming elements of the game over fighting. Of course, Batman is a superhero, so it's a completely different set of expectations. We're supposed to see the Dark Knight face off and throw fists. However, despite the fact that the game did what it was supposed to do, the result is that it simply revealed how low we set the bar.

Verdict: Trash

Terranigma is perhaps the most underrated RPG of the Super Nintendo's storied roster, which includes beloved classics like Earthbound, Chrono Trigger, and Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars. The console made exceedingly well-executed titles in this genre, providing moments that could range from heart-breaking to hilarious.

Unfortunately, Terranigma never got to enjoy the same audience as these titles. The game was never officially released in North America, and only gained popularity because its English version (released in Europe and Australia) made it over to the States via computer emulations.

It's a strange thing that Terranigma never got the chance it deserved in American markets, mainly because of how unique it is from the SNES's other RPGs. The fighting style is done in a real-time combat mode, likening it to something closer to the Legend of Zelda than Final Fantasy. Divided into four chapters detailing the resurrection of a dying Earth, the story focuses on Ark and his quest-turned-creation myth. The plot may smack as too biblical for some, but if you ignore its possible religious implications, you'll find a complex and captivating tale involving the natural struggle between darkness and light.

Verdict: Treasure

There's a reason that you don't see tennis video games more often, and it likely has to do with the dark past that the sub-genre experienced. While Mario Tennis or Top Spin 4 have enjoyed their critical accolades, a game like Andre Agassi Tennis represents that brutal history in game-making when developers were throwing out best guesses as to how certain movements and actions should've been represented in a game.

Granted, I love the sport of tennis, so I'm biased here, but Andre Agassi Tennis is a brutal failure of a graceful and reflexive game. Maybe it was too early in the console timeline to even consider trying to capture a sport of this much nuance. Maybe TecMagik just shouldn't have bothered to develop the game at all. But they did.

Every player in this game appears to be on some form of methamphetamine, as they move so quickly that it's difficult to properly align them for a hit. The complicated process of lining up your player at the correct spot and hitting the ball is a task that has to be executed with hair-trigger speed, even though the game's faulty mechanics demand more time. I lost multiple sets without winning a single game, much less a point. Even when I could get in a rally with my opponent, I found that the nervous tension of whether I would manage to get my racquet on the ball outweighed the joy of actually hitting it.

Verdict: Trash

Full disclosure: I love absolutely anything and everything involving Gundams. I watched the anime endlessly when G Gundam and Gundam Wing were playing on Toonami, and, for my money, Gundams are infinitely cooler than anything the Transformers series has ever had to offer. I remember seeing a guy on the street one day who was wearing a wife-beater, and on his shoulder, he had a tattoo of a Gundam. I complimented him on it, and after thanking me he added, "Yeah, it can be confusing for people sometimes because they usually think it's Optimus Prime or something." We both agreed that those people suck.

Anyway, Shin Kidō Senki Gundam Wing: Endless Duel was great to play because it was the first Gundam-related game to ever be released. The fighting style is fluid and well-animated, and also manages to incorporate everything that is good about a Gundam: they can fight with swords, guns, or just bash into one another with their flying, metallic limbs. Despite the fact that I couldn't read what was happening in the narrative of the game, it was still as enjoyable as any other fighting game I've played for the SNES.

Verdict: Treasure

Okay, what the actual fuck is this game? Sure, we know that Mario is Missing is an educational title which came out in 1993 after being developed by Software Toolworks. It was released for home computer, NES, and SNES, and tells the story of Luigi as he tries to unravel the mystery surrounding his brother's sudden disappearance. Still, however, none of this information even begins to help us understand the deep-seated issues holding this game back from pleasing its users.

Mario is Missing seems like an answer to the Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? franchise, which took off in 1985 and remained relevant until the middle of the '90s. Nintendo's attempt at matching the educational wanderlust of Carmen Sandiego was a colossal failure for the company, though. This game has been so thoroughly dismissed by history that it doesn't even have its own proper Wikipedia page. It's given a mere blurb under an article named, "List of Mario educational games", each of which, by the way, is more forgettable than the last.

I played one level of Mario is Missing, and it was more than enough to see how poorly the game had been made, and just how little Software Toolworks seemed to understand about Nintendo's design philosophy. There was such a stunning lack of functionality in so many visible aspects in the game; the dearth of creativity between this title and literally any other Mario game was stunning.

In my level, I wandered around Rome looking for a gladiator's missing spear, the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, and coins from the Trevi fountain. The historical sights that they corresponded to (the Colosseum, the Sistine Chapel, and the Trevi fountain) were all closed off until I found these objects. When I did, the attendant at each gate (played by Peach) asked me two questions to prove the authenticity of each object. I learned the answers to these questions by reading informational pamphlets provided at each gate. It's simple enough.

The thing that bothered me was how labyrinthine and empty the game developers made Rome. Bland NPCs milled about the streets, unable to talk or interact with me, and the only action that took place in the game was when I would jump on random Koopas walking around various parts of the city. Every now and then, I would hop upon the correct Koopa and find the object that I was looking for. Yes, you've put it together correctly: the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel was stashed away in a Koopa's shell and then just dropped on the ground for me to pick up like a lucky penny. At that point, I had to find my way back to the correct site, which could prove impossible at times. Every section of the city looks the same, causing you to inadvertantly back-track two or three times over. A bag of bread crumbs would've been a welcome addition.

Inexplicably, Mario is Missing was Luigi's debut title as the star of a Mario game (though, it's difficult to really call him Luigi since the sprite used in this game was just a Mario clone with green clothing). He deserved better, and wouldn't get what was owed to him until 2001 when Luigi's Mansion dropped.

Verdict: Trash