After having a few conversations with a friend about the "golden age" of video games, I've decided to take a big step back and start playing SNES games again. Even though I bought the system shortly after it came out, I'm sure I missed a ton of games that are well worth playing. So here's a short list of the stuff I found in my closet and a few games that I'm interested in purchasing to beef up my collection a bit. Let's chalk this one up to another one of those "Dammit, I shouldn't have sold that" moments.

I should also mention that I've played most of the "classics", like the DK Countrys, Super Metroid, etc.

So, yeah. Recommendations are more than welcome (Megavolt, I'm lookin' at you!).

I have:

- Final Fantasy III
- Legend of Zelda: LTTP
- Super Castlevania IV
- Super Mario All-Stars
- Super Mario World

I want:

- Darius Twin* (used to have this, beat it about 275 times)
- Final Fantasy II (borrowed a friend's copy)
- Illusion of Gaia (never played it)
- Secret of Mana (I never played it. Yes, seriously)
- Super Mario Kart (played it a ton, never owned my own copy)
- TMNT IV Turtles in Time (rented it)

* Funny story about Darius Twin. When I was in sixth grade, I fractured my wrist during a basketball game. My right arm was in a cast that wrapped down around my hand for about six weeks. I couldn't hold a Super Nintendo controller at all and it hurt to even try to stretch my fingers out that way, so I was heartbroken. But I was determined to play something, so I figured out that I could put my auto-fire on my third party SNES controller and play Darius Twin with one hand. Hence why I beat it so many damn times; it's all I could play for about a month and a half.

And now, thinking back about stories like that makes me really lament the current state of gaming. And with that, I'm going to stop crying and start looking on eBay for carts.

Wow, there are so many. How about Uniracers? You should try that. It's a 2D racing game with unicycles and was more fun than it really should have been.

The first thing that pops into my mind when I think of awesome SNES games that aren't the main ones is Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals.  Skipping the first is recommended (for various reasons, mostly involving ruining the plot of the second game, which is actually a prequel).

i didnt see lufia 2 as ruining the plot of the first. The ending of 2 was still a tearjerker (plus my favorite vgm ending song of all time)

Thats a great story about Darius Twin man.  That made my day

Uniracers is totally ace, but it really is hit or miss.  If it clicks for you, you'll love it, if not...  A few others:

Wild Guns - Really, really good.  Some Japanese site I found called it the 'pinnacle of sprite based gaming' or something, and thats really close to what I felt.  I don't want to sell it short, but the best way to describe it is an interactive shooting gallery?

Kiki Kaikai / Pocky Rocky - The second one anyway.  They're both Senko no Okami style shooters, and they're very playful.  The first one is marred by some absolutely atrocious sound effects, but the second one is a very complete experience.

Uncharted Waters New Horizons - I put a lot more time into this one then I ever thought I would.  Very engrossing.  Along these lines are games like Harvest Moon, but I don't have much experience with that...

Axelay - Fantastic shoot'em'up.  Pretty easy, so its nice for chilling out and watching the spectacular visual effects.  Another like game is Scrambled Valkyrie...

Super Punch-Out!! - Would this be considered a classic?  I mean its Nintendo published but not many people talk much about it.  Anyway, a lot of fun, very funny and well-drawn the animations!

Final Fight 3 - If you can find it... short, but very well put together.  Definetely feels much closer to the quick pace of the Bare Knuckle games as opposed to the very slow feel of the earlier Final Fight(s).

Other then that, you said you've played the classics, so thats most everything I own.  Hope you enjoy your SNES!

EDIT:  Ninjawarriors is supposed to be very, very good.  It certainly looks very cool.  I'm still looking for a copy, so unfortunately thats as far as I can go with it

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You forgot Actraiser.

Yes, that is exactly what I was trying to say. 

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Nice thread dude! Yeah, SNES days were the Golden Age of gaming
As for my list of recommended titles, some are obvious...

Chrono Trigger (obviously!)
Contra III: The Alien Wars (blow stuff up)
F-Zero (classic)
Street Fighter II (no load times
Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts (loved this game! very hard though)
Zombies Ate My Neighbors (SO much fun, especially two player

there are others worth mentioning, but that's all I can think of at the moment. Good times...

cheers,

-avatar!

Soul Blazer! Soul Blazer! Soul Blazer! I'm a big fan. I pull the game out every year just to play through it. In fact, I think I'm overdue...

Yoshi's Island

And you haven't played Secret of Mana? Oooh boy, you're in for a treat. I wish I could go back to a time before I had played that game, just to play it for the first time all over again...

If you haven't played either Lufia, get them. The second one is the best though.

Excellent decision!  The SNES is still my most favorite gaming console ever.  If I were back in America right now, I could look through my library of games and pretty much tell you each and every good game for the system, but I'm not, so you'll have to do with me flipping through my Super Famicom collection here instead.  Let's see...

-Super Metroid
-Tetris Attack
-Donkey Kong Country 1, 2, and 3
-Yoshi's Island
-Contra 3
-Kirby's Dream Course (One of the best games nobody's ever played!)
-Uniracers
-F-Zero
-Chrono Trigger
-Mega Man X 1, 2, and 3
-Zombies Ate My Neighbors

So many other games I'm forgetting... sorry!

Edit:  Oh god, EarthBound, how could I leave that off?!

I don't hold whole a lot to recommend since, although the era is widely regarded one of the best, it was far too much for an elementary-age boy to pay over $100 for games. However, Ultima VI The False Prophet is my best game of all time, and in 2007, while this game may no longer stand out, I still think it holds some features that many JRPGs should have emulated. The SNES game was actually a port, but strangely it was far better than those on other consoles.

Sadly I know the first Romancing Saga (Minstrel Song? that's another game) and Tactic Ogre SNES weren't released outside of Japan (any translation available, huh?) but I'd otherwise recommend them too.

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I agree with Wanderer...OMG,Zane!You haven't played neither Seiken 2 nor Illusion of Gaia?   o_O
I can't believe it...I almost started to play A-rpgs with those games (excepting Zelda),and we're the same age...What were you playing back then!Shame on you!
If I'm not wrong,nobody added this,so this is my personal advice: Breath of Fire 2;I advise you to play the second one cause I could never try the first one on snes (only gba),but the second is still one of my all-time favs games (and one of my first rpgs,too).

Hi. ^_^

That's the game that single-handedly launched my RPG addiction, so you're in for a treat.  I was basically floored with that title sequence and music as a kid.  "Welcome to the world of Square RPGs", and all that.

And I second Csk's great list, except for Final Fight 3, which is a game that I feel had a lot of potential but was let down in particular by the horribly frequent reuse of the same set of enemies over and over again.  I played the game with my sister and we were almost laughing at how most of the time you're just fighting variations on Andore.  Beat 'em ups are by nature somewhat repetitive, but I felt like FF3 took it to a new level, and it's a shame because the controls and movesets for your characters are great, which is one thing I do agree with Csk on.  Yet Captain Commando, an older game, has a much better variety of baddies along the way.  The first Final Fight for the arcade or the Sega CD is the way to go.

Wild Guns is the kind of game that is good to throw at the Genesis fans who say that the SNES was weak in terms of action games.  Say what?!  The experience is totally unique, stylish, and fast paced.  It even supports co-op!  It seems like Natsume could do no wrong with the games they published for SNES.

Super Punch Out gets overlooked because it didn't have the same impact as the original.  Instead it's something of an improvement on the original formula.  Either way it's a wonderful game that is easy to pick up and play at any time, and trying to beat your own best times for the various fights gives it depth and tons of replay value.  I personally like it more than Punch Out.

Oh, and Ninja Warriors is definitely good.  I was a little apprehensive about the left to right style of the game but the stages are nicely varied and each ninja possesses a cool set of moves.

I'll just edit/post a list that I had already been working on for a thread on another forum: (excluding imports, of course)

Final Fantasy IV & VI, Earthbound, Chrono Trigger, Super Metroid, Ogre Battle (some people are turned off by the strategy element, but I love this game; it was basically my first SRPG), Zelda 3, Super Punch-Out, Super Mario All-Stars, Super Mario World 1 & 2, Super Mario Kart, Super Castlevania IV, Actraiser, Soul Blazer, Illusion of Gaia, TMNTIV: Turtles in Time, TMNT Tournament Fighters, Pocky & Rocky 1/2, Demon's Crest (stick with it and remember that using curative items and finding new powers does much to alleviate its difficulty), DKC series, Space Megaforce, Axelay, R-Type III, Gradius III (slowdown or no, it's a fun game), Zombies Ate My Neighbors (this game is too awesome), Contra III, Arcana, Breath of Fire 1 & 2, Lufia 1 & 2, Secret of Mana, Secret of Evermore (yes, it's a good game with some nice music from Jeremy Soule), Super Mario RPG, Rock 'n Roll Racing, Plok! (the Follin brothers handle the music in this one), Street Fighter 2 Turbo, Killer Instinct, Mortal Kombat II, NBA Jam T.E., Megaman X1-3 (two and three still fetch a pretty penny, but the original is dirt cheap), Megaman 7, King of Dragons, Knights of the Round, Saturday Night Slam Masters, WWF Wrestlemania the Arcade Game, Wild Guns, Battletoads & Double Dragon, Super Turrican 1 & 2 (part two deviates from the Turrican style and opts for a more Contra-esque style, but unless you're one of those diehards who feels betrayed or whathaveyou, the variety is impressive), Tetris Attack, Sim Ant (I like the SNES version more than the PC version), Super Bomberman 1 & 2, Dragonview (don't judge by Drakkhen; the sequel is an excellent game), Soldiers of Fortune, Cybernator, Metal Warriors, Starfox, Super Star Wars trilogy, EWJ 1 & 2, Cool Spot, and others that I'm forgetting.

Sorry if it's messy, but organizing it line by line would've made it too long.  Oh, and I've always liked Taz-Mania and Jurassic Park.  I just wish that Jurassic Park had a password feature.  Prehistorik Man is good too (although it has Banjo Kazooie-type "voices", heh heh), though I'm not sure how it relates to Prehistorik 1 & 2 (whether it's a sequel or a port of one of those), which I've never played.  First Samurai for example appears to be a port of the Amiga game.

Terranigma is obviously a great game (the last part of Quintet's Soul Blazer trilogy), but there are definitely some potential issues with trying to play it on an American SNES.  I think that some copies of the game have a region lockout chip that will block your access even with a converter or without the tabs in your SNES.  Or at least mine does.

No mention of Legend of The Mystical Ninja makes me weep bitter, bitter tears.  Seriously, one of the SNES's brightest moments, and certainly one of the most finely crafted action-adventure platformer games ever made in my eyes.

Though you might just want to pick up "Kessakusen! Ganbare Goemon 1+2" for the GBA, and call it a day.  It contains ports of both the original Mystical Ninja plus its Super Famicom-only sequel Goemon 2, which is almost as good.  They're in Japanese, though.

I only started playing Legend of the Mystical Ninja a few days ago but it seems like a cool mix of platforming, adventure/RPG elements, and minigames.  Plus the baddies are straight up wacky.  Seems like four games came out for the SNES and yet only one made it to the states.  Oh well.

I borrowed it from my friend years ago and loved it. Looking back, there were a number of notable features: no random encounters, innovative IP skills (similar to limit breaks), and a Capsule Monster system that predated even Pokemon. There was, however, one thing I absolutely loathed: The Ancient Cave. It was my first time experiencing randomly generated dungeons, and the Ancient Cave left me scarred for life. Thankfully, it was completely optional, but I've since refused to play games with random dungeons.

If you liked TMNT IV or any of the Final Fights, I highly recommend Jaleco's The Peace Keepers. IMHO, it's the best 2D beat 'em up ever (note that I've yet to play Guardian Heroes). If the branching paths and multiple endings didn't make it replayable enough, there was also the multitap-compatible arena mode. After Super Bomberman, it was my favorite party game of the time.

You mention Sim Ant but not SimCity?! The SNES game was the definitive version, and desperately needs to be remade for the DS.

I think all of the games I'd recommend have already been covered by others, except for maybe Kirby Super Star, Seiken 3, and the original Star Fox (which you should absolutely not play on an HDTV).

Am I the only person in the world who thought Star Fox looked hideous even back when it was originally released?

Super Adventure Island... it could be really cheap but it's a platforming classic. It has some of Koshiro's best work on it. Anyone know if he composed for SAI2?

^Apparently not.  Credit for the second one is given to Akihiro Akamatsu, Sachiko Oita, and Shinji Nakaya.

Actually, I've never played it.  I've played SimCity 2000, but not the original.

YEEEAAAHHH, I sold my SNES and associated Squaresoft/RPG collection about 4-5 years ago; stupid move.

But, then again, I thought the system, and the cartridges, would give out some day, so...I'm not kicking myself...too much.

Although, I accidentally nixed my SNES Emulator and ROMs some whole ago, reformatting my computer. I forgot to back up so much stuff...ugh.

Naaah,you're not the only one, Qui-Gon,I also thought Starfox was ugly,cause they were trying to make some 3D without the technical means to do it correctly.I hated the idea of 3D,and I thought (and still thinks) Starfox was too hard for my RPG-player fingers.Xlord,when you speak of Seiken 3,I assume you're speaking of the Japanese version,right?I'm not wrong in telling it has never been released in US,right?(only translated in emulators,according to me).Was it really as good as everyone says?I had started playing it on an emulator,but I just couldn't find it as catchy as Seiken 2,that I had played through many years before.
I have a short story about importing games.It's a story about a European (French) RPG addict,who bought one day FF III for his SNES,but the US version(it hadn't been released in France,and never was, on snes).(FF VI,actually)He had previously bought an adaptor to play import games,and had completed his wonderful Chrono Trigger.He then started playing FF III/VI,and completed it within a few weeks.The final boss (crazy K.),was dead,the end was beginning (how can a end begin?),then Gogo fell in a hole,and then...nothing,the definitive blackout,forever.This person (actually me) completed the games some three or four more times,still on snes (not yet on PSX or GBA though),but was never able to see the whole end of this classic...So I would like to understand  WHY European gamers who owned PAL systems were not able to see the end if they had bought an import adaptor (adapter?) and the US version of the game?Was that made on purpose by game developpers to avoid games to "travel" a lot?Or is it just that Europeans are doomed,cursed,"kappaed"(or "imped",as you like)?

I actually played  it after SF64, but I honestly didn't find the original ugly.  Its hard to explain and I certainly didn' fll head over heels for it... but I was ok with it.  Good use of colour perhaps?

But Stunt Race FXk, now THAT was an ugly game.

Yes, there's only the Japanese version.  SD3 is a lot better than SD2 in my opinion.  The characters and story are better, the magic system is far better, the class system is cool, and it still has a normal weapon system instead of the nonsense that started with Legend of Mana.  I wouldn't recommend playing it on an emulator since, at least for me, SFC RPGs just aren't any fun when trying to play them on a PC.

I never had a problem with the graphics until I tried it on my HDTV.  At any rate, the great thing about the original Star Fox is the level design and huge amount of secrets.  IMO, it's the only Star Fox worth going back to.

Actually,I'm not playing Seiken 3 on my computer,but on my PSP.I just like the idea of being able to play SNES games,and even more,translated in English on a handheld system.But I'm not playing it right now,cause I have some other games to complete first.Wasn't the battle system different from Seiken 2?If I remember well,in Seiken 2,you could "charge/load" your weapons according to their level and  unleash a devastating attack.Is it still possible in Seiken 3?
And Zane,do you intend to play Japanese SNES games,too?

Every RPG is improved by the ability to fast-forward through random battles.

By the way, has anyone else played GOD - Mezameyo to Yobu Koe ga Kikoe? It's a bit like Mother, in that it's set in modern times and is about...well, that's actually a fairly significant spoiler, though it happens only an hour or two into the game. IMO, it's one of the better SFC RPGs out there, and definitely worth a play-through if you can read Japanese or don't mind playing an RPG whose dialog you can't read.

"Every RPG is improved by the ability to fast-forward through random battles."

Hah, oh man, I know what you mean.  I was playing through some Square demo discs (you know, the ones that seem to be in every Square PS release that wasn't F.F.) last night, and I came across F.F.VIII.  I really liked it - at least, the game is very pretty - but ohmigawd the random encounters!  It seemed like every other step would dash the screen in white

Yeah, there'd be more stuff to recommend, and Seiken Densetsu 3 is probably the first Japanese title that most people check out, what with how we all got teased with a potential US release that was cancelled.  Anybody else remember those screenshots in EGM where you had a rabite as your third party member?  I guess they must've scrapped that system and used it for Legend of Mana instead.

I haven't, so thanks for mentioning it.  There are a lot of SFC RPGs I need to get to completing or at least playing further into.  It's just a bit overwhelming sometimes since there are so many.

Are you kidding me? Star Fox 64 is worth going back to just to laugh at the hilarious voice acting. No love for the Andy Griffith boss on MacBeth?

In SD3, you have a gauge that builds up with every hit.  Once it's full, you can unleash a super attack for your given weapon.  It's not terribly interesting.  The best part about the weapon system in SD3 is that it's a normal RPG weapon system where you buy better weapons when you get to new towns.  No weapon leveling up or forging nonsense here.

That weapon leveling up you call nonsense was one of my (numerous) favourite parts of Seiken 2....    T_T
I didn't like the forging system of Legend of Mana,though.

To come back to the original topic,has anyone here played AND completed the following SNES games,and which one would you say is the "best" (for you),and which one has the most interesting music(I know this is quite subjective,but...):
Treasure Hunter G
Rudora No Hihou
Live a Live
Bahamut Lagoon
Dragon Quest VI