Talking about Awesome...

[Iain]

I don't know if any of you can relate to this, but I am absolutely addicted to my SNES emulator. I use ZSNES, and it's pretty much my best friend. The downside of this is that I eat up games. I've beaten chrono trigger about a million times, Secret of Mana, Illusions of Gaia, King of Dragons, EVO The Search for Eden, TNMT 4, TNMT 5, Secret of Mana 2, Bomberman 3, Lemmings 2, Bust-a-move, Megaman X, various mortal kombat and street fighter titles, Contra III, Knights of the Round Table, Kirby Superstar, Kirby's dreamland something, Spawn, Weapon Master, Spider man and venom (maximum carnage and separation anxiety), Star Ocean, The various donkey kong country games, marvel superheroes, Zombies ate my neighbors (can't beat it, but played a lot) and Soldiers of Fortune (my latest discovery, quite a good title).

Now, why am I telling you this? I would like to make this thread a place to discuss SNES games. What are your favorites? Which games suck the big ones? Do you have any that you would recommend to other althanians? What emulator do you use? How is my taste in games? Really, whatever, just enjoy it.

[Letho]

I played around with the SNES emulator for a while, mostly because I never owned a SNES and I wanted to see what I was missing all these years. I've beaten most of the Final Fantasy games, Chrono Trigger, Final Fight 3 multiple times (because it's so cool to play with somebody), Flashback, played some other games as well. I liked the quick save option very much, something that consoles always missed. It's maybe a form of cheating since the original games didn't have it, but I still liked the fact that I can save/load whenever I feel like it.

[Elrundir]

Three words:

Seiken Densetsu 3

Also play Super Mario RPG. And Final Fantasy 6, since you don't have it mentioned. Those three games + Crono Trigger make up my favourite games of all time. I played them all on the original SNES (well, minus SD3 of course, which was never released in North America), but that went out long ago so emulators are cool.

I use ZSNES too (psh, as if there was any other). I'm thinking about getting A Link to the Past soon since I'm on a total Zelda high now that I'm in the midst of Twilight Princess (though not uberly far from finishing it, sadly). At some point I need to play Tales of Phantasia again (also a great game, get it now). I never got to the end the first time because my hard drive crashed, and I haven't had the will to pick it up until now.

[Ashiakin]

Three words:

Seiken Densetsu 3

Oh man, best SNES game ever. One of the best games ever!

And I play a SNES emulator from time to time. Mainly for Chrono Trigger, Secret of Mana I and II, the early FFs, and Harvest Moon. Oh, and I use ZSNES.

[Iain]

Seiken Densetsu 3 - This is the same thing as Secret of Mana 2, only the original name. Secret of Mana was Seiken Densetsu 2, and god knows what the first one was. Anyways, definitely a great game. I actually started a new file yesterday with Hawk as my main, with Duran and Angela as my partners :D

I can't believe I forgot Zelda, I enjoy a Link to the Past just as much as anyone else. Haven't heard of Tales of Phantasia, I'll have to look into it.

I also forgot Super Metroid. Silly Ian.

EDIT: I agree with Ashiakin, SoM 1+2 make me very very happy inside.

[Artifex Felicis]

I actually useed an old CPS2 emulater for a buncha games. The biggest ones Being the Darkstalker series. Gawd I love those games. However, I stopped doing it cause they began to eat up space on my hard drive like crazy. Super Mario RPG was the greatest game I have ever played though. Ever. Period. Hmm, the breath of Fire Series I think was one SNES though, and that is some good oldschool RPGs. And Star Ocean as well.

I've been wasting my time at the Kingdom of Loathing lately though. Not exactly a snes game, but a fun one nonetheless.

[Iain]

Mmmm Star Ocean was a good one. Really liked the battle interface, but going back and forth between the continents got real annoying. I also thought that the end was EXTREMELY disappointing, to the point of aggravation. I go to all this trouble to beat this wonderful game, and the ending is CLICHE and PREDICTABLE and SUCKS.

Still, a good time.

[Elrundir]

If you do get Tales of Phantasia, I'll give you a bit of advice: stick with it. You'll probably start out for a while and think "WTF is this?" because it is kind of slow at first, but in fairly short order it gets to be quite addictive. I still think Tales of Symphonia is the crowning achievement of the series, and I looooved Tales of the Abyss, but Tales of Phantasia scores massive points at least for being one of the early ones.

And you get to fight some ToP characters in the ToS coliseum, too. ^_^

[Dissinger]

Yes Super MEtroid had BETTER be on that list. It redefined the entire Metroid series!

SUper Mario RPG is also a good one to take part in, as it definitely deserves the praise it gets. Infact I may just have to start playing my real copy of it. Chrono Trigger is a good one as well.

I also would recommend Super Mario World, as its a classic and the only game I ever went the full 100% on. When yuo turn all turtle shells into heads, you knwo you're god. They even tell you, the coins spell out "Congratulations you've become a video game superstar!" Plus if you can beat the game in under an hour, you have found the secret of Star Road!

Zelda is another good one.

Earthbound is supposed to be good, I couldn't get into it.

[Iain]

Yeah I got halfway through earthbound when it completely lost its appeal. Oh well.

[grim137]

Used to have a ZSNES (I may download it again). I beat FFII (in America, I forgot which one it is in Japan), Super Metroid (I highly recommend it) and Act Raiser (I'll probably download the second one if I get ZSNES again).

I tried to get into FFVI but got bored of it after but not before becoming hopelessly addicted to it. I also tried Earth Bound but couldn't get into it. Plus I need to find a new place to download roms since my Ninja Gaiden Trilogy rom was glitched.

[Koran]

I STILL OWN MY SNES!

Ha! Have you all beat, you fucking cheaters! Mwahahaha...>.>

I don't play it though.

Anyone wanna buy it? O.o

I like Yoshi's Island the best...cause it was fun to listen to Yoshi struggle when you made him hover. And his hopping and jumping noises were always fun too. Hated it when you lost Mario though...bastard crying all the fucking time!

[Cyrus the virus]

I own my SNES and copies of Earthbound, Super Mario RPG, Street Fighter II... etc etc.

Still use ZSNES, though. Thing is, I've beaten everything several times over, so I've nothing left to play. I boot up Mario Paint every once in a while to play with the musical score, remake songs I know. Fun!

[Dissinger]

I STILL OWN MY SNES!

Ha! Have you all beat, you fucking cheaters! Mwahahaha...>.>

I don't play it though.

Anyone wanna buy it? O.o

Sorry, I already own one and have been playing the aforementioned games on it ;)

[Culix]

Yay! A SNES game emulation thread! Oh, so very happy to see this! And to bring it back up! ^_^

...

Looks like a lot's already been mentioned, though. Ah, well. I recommend almost every RPG that's been mentioned so far. At least for a try. Dissinger and Grim, I'm sorry to hear you didn't like EarthBound. It's not for everyone, but those who do enjoy it will have a lot of fun. It's hard to find a quirkier game.

I've heard a lot of good things about the non-RPGs mentioned (still not sure how I missed Super Metroid all this time...), but I can just never get past playing them on a keyboard interface. It just feels way too awkward to me, no matter what keys I set to what. A shame...

I still want to beat Star Ocean... I really like what I've seen so far, but I eventually just got sick of the music dying and the game locking up so constantly. And, since I hear those were problems with the cart and not the ROM, I'm not too optimistic.

I'm glad to see Seiken Densetsu III's getting a lot of mentions -- as a note to Iain, I think Final Fantasy Adventure for the Game Boy was Seiken Densetsu I. Still need to beat that in all three end-game scenarios... Good thing it's fun enough to play through multiple times.

I thought I'd mention two incredibly obscure RPGs I haven't seen up here. Both are quality works, so it's a shame they never left Japan. You can find the translation patch for both of them, with quite a few others, here (http://agtp.romhack.net/).

Live A Live is a nice little gem that could be rightly described as less one big RPG as several little ones. The scenarios range from a caveman's quest, to a martial arts master seeking apprentices, to a hodge-podge of mecha and psychic anime plotlines set in the not-so-distant future, and more. Most have some level of choice involved, like deciding constantly whether whether to break out the katana or the stealth techniques during the ninja mission. If you're an RPG fan, you'll definitely find something to like here.

Treasure of the Rudras is like Live A Live with fewer and more tightly linked scenarios. You follow the quests of the offered three main characters over the same time period, seeing how their stories tie together. That's kind of an interesting aspect, but the magic system is even more intriguing. Basically, no character ever learns a spell, or even a skill. Instead, you make the spell list: type in whatever you want, and it'll suddenly become a spell for use in battle. There are some rules involved, but I won't spoil them. Since you can add or remove them whenever, there's a lot of versatility. And sometimes it's fun to throw any word/sequence of letters that strike your fancy to see what they do. So, give it a try.

Hope I didn't sound too much like an ad for these two. They won't disappoint.

And... Wow... Babbled a lot, there... So... Shutting up.

[Corvus MacCallum]

Terranigma is an essential game for any SNES fan who enjoys an action RPG, it has one of the best stories going for it, starting out in a fairly trippy section before revealing just how grand Arks quest is, he also has enough actions and moves to keep moving and fighting interesting through the game.

Its also part of the same series as Illusion of Gaia and Starblazer, though the games are only linked in themes. Oh and unlike some other RPGs, a great non-cliche ending.

If they had translations I'd recommend the four Ganbare Goemon games, though sadly not an option yet and it really needs translations in order to be playable thanks to the random and insane nature of some of the plot-lines heh, very fun games though.

For non-RPG gaming I heartily recommend Lost Vikings 1 and 2, very fun tri-character( in the first one at least) action puzzles, making best use of your characters abilities.

[Iain]

Culix, my star ocean rom works fine, I have never had any sort of problem, including the ones that you mentioned. Are you sure you don't just have a corrupt rom?

Oh, and thanks a lot Elrundir. Tales of Phantasia has stolen my soul.

[Elrundir]

This is a little off-topic, but has anyone seen screenshots from the upcoming Heroes of Mana game for the DS? I really have no idea what's going on. Most of the screenshots look like a new game, but a couple of them, both on Gamespot and in the latest Nintendo Power, are very, very definitely screenshots from Seiken Densetsu 3 - particularly, Carlie/Duran/Kevin fighting against a couple of the God-Beasts. Were those just stuck in there by mistake? They really look nothing like any of the other screenshots so I have to wonder...


Oh, and thanks a lot Elrundir. Tales of Phantasia has stolen my soul.
Aww, you're welcome a lot. ^_^

[Corvus MacCallum]

Nah Iain there really are glitches throughout the Star Ocean cart that also came about in the rom, you've just been lucky, lots of folks have had the music stopping for no reason, the game stalling and many other things... eventually it'll happen and using the speed up function on Zsnes aggravates that.

[Iain]

Meh, I don't listen to the game music anyways, I have iTunes and ZSNES open at the same time. I do use the speed up quite a bit, and I didn't get any freezes or nuthin'. Maybe I'm just so awesome the gods of game emulation smile on my eternal lack of glitches. Or not, because my pc is nothing but a breeding ground for viruses, but you know...

A man can dream.

[Cyrus the virus]

I am an idiot for not playing Digital Devil Saga until now... Wow. Total idiot.

[grim137]

It's official, Tales of Phantasia owns my soul despite its simplistic, button mashy battle system.

[Storm Veritas]

SHADOWRUN

One of the best games ever for SNES. Absolutely adore this game. I want to play it again, right now. This game owns my soul.

Also, Artifix, I just got away from Kingdom of Loathing. I was playing all my turns every day, but it got outrageously tedious after about level 10. Too bad, too, because the game is fun as hell.

As some of you know, I am hopelessly hooked on Runescape. The graphics aren't anywhere near WoW, but it runs flawlessly on my shitty computer and is fun as hell. That game is absolute crack - great skill systems and fantastic quests. Love-love-love runescape.

[Elrundir]

Well, I have taken the next step and evolved into PSX emulation. I can finally play the games my brother has lost and/or mutilated - multiple times - over the years. (Yes, I have bought some games more than once and he's ruined them the second time around too. It's quite sad.)

Hurray FF8! Hurray for soon-to-play FF9! Hurray FFT (one of a very few games that can compete with my SNES favourites)!

[Corvus MacCallum]

You owe it to yourself when emulating PSX games, to play Wild ARMs 1 if you haven't already, such a wonderful story, its also very deceptively hard and really damn long.

[Cyrus the virus]

The only PS game I bothered to emulate was Suikoden 2 :cool:

[Elrundir]

Well, I just beat Final Fantasy 8, and while it warmed my heart, I have come to a startling realization: aside from Tactics, that's the only Final Fantasy game I've ever actually beaten. I've come pretty close in a handful of them but I have this weird aversion to actually finishing games. Yeah, it's strange, I know. But there's a twisted sort of logic/illogic behind it. ^^;;

Kind of a sad realization, but now I'm just all the more pumped to get started on FF9 (again)!

[Serilliant]

Wait... PSX? I... I wanna. Teach me!

And if you're on the SNES, Bahamut's Lagoon is always a fun one. It's a SRPG, and although catastrophically easy (you end up with an immortal dragon that can kill anything in one hit by about the third battle...), it's a fun romp.

And now that I've contributed... TEACH!

[Elrundir]

Well, I dunno what kind of legal problems would be associated with posting links to that kind of stuff on-site, since most forums really don't like it, but I'll send you a PM straight away.

[Godhand]

Bump because I forgot that translation site and I don't want it to happen again.