ValenKnight Square. Cost too much money. In fact that is why there is only 21 games vs 30. It cost a lot more money for those SNES third party titles. If they got Chrono Trigger it would have been $100+ for the system, or they would have had to cut more titles down to 16-18 total. I’m personally sad we didn’t get Turtles In Time. But I think this is the best they could do overall while keeping the price under $100
Super Metroid is Nintendo's: they don't have to pay license to anyone. But Chrono Trigger is Square's, and Square has been VERY reluctant to put any of their game on the Virtual Console or PSN/XBLA, only re-realising at full price on handled (Final Fantasy II at 40$ on the PSP in 2008?? Really???). You can still buy Chrono Trigger DS new at 30$. It's A MIRACLE we get Final Fantasy VI/III, albeit with that choppy original translation.
Ooooh, I can already not wait for the next DF Retro video! The Legacy of Kain remains one of my favorite game series, and Soul Reaver was an absolute technical masterpiece for its time. The Dreamcast version was also the first game that demonstrated Nixxes' prowess in creating high quality ports. This is gonna be good.
Here's the games list Contra III: The Alien Wars Donkey Kong Country EarthBound Final Fantasy III F-ZERO Kirby Super Star Kirby’s Dream Course The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past Mega Man X Secret of Mana Star Fox Star Fox 2 Street Fighter II Turbo: Hyper Fighting Super Castlevania IV Super Ghouls ’n Ghosts Super Mario Kart Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars Super Mario World Super Metroid Super Punch-Out!! Yoshi’s Island
skydragonslash Hey..what's your recommendation for the most reliable way to sodtmod your wii u? I have modded the original Wii but never messed with Wiiu softmods..quite fancy doing that this afternoon :)
If I had to choose *_ONE CONSOLE_* _(and its entire library)_ for the rest of my life, it'd had to be the Super Nintendo. SNES graphics and sound are great, something that many retro-style games today try to replicate, and the library is robust with lots of variety from _almost_ every genre. I usually like simpler games anyway, so I wouldn't miss today's complex and epic games too much.
When talking about the SNES audio, I'm surprised that yo didn't mention how Tales of Phanasia used samples in its opening song to create vocals. The SNES was truly a glorious machine.
John you really need to do a df retro on the best Genesis games that really push its hardware. I'm talking about Alien Soldier, Thunder Force IV, Gunstar Heroes, Musha, Adventures of Batman&R, Contra Hard Corps etc. The system deserves the love, it's undeservedly underappreciated.
fossilfern nes mini got hacked. nes mini sold perfectfly than everyone expected.With help of hacking,everyone get nes mini to hack it for more games(mother 1 for example,mario bros hacks and more) i hope snes will have low-level security.It will again oversold.
YT Gamer it's what I'm hoping. sure I could just built a raspberry pi but the SNES mini is a novelty so it would be nice to have every SNES game on this little device.
Come on now :P, for what it was, back in the day, that would've been awesome to see. I've got a 144hz Monitor, I'm not chomping at the bit for 20fps ;P, don't worry.
Stadium ARTs I was obsessed with virtua racing on the mega drive which has a similar chip to allow 3d images and polygons. I played it till my thumbs blistered and bled. But looking at that now and even the improved 32x version as well as at starfox - in context they were impressive but I personally don't think I can look at any and say they are amazing. everyone's different ofc and entitled to their opinions,, but i think it's important to be objective
No I prefer "SNES"! Man you American's had to put up with a really ugly version of the console, not that the main version was much of a looker, mind you most consoles look uggers compared to the beautiful Mega Drive ;) The SNES was a great console though, I enjoyed playing on my little bro's SNES very much.
+SpyengoEen - So you'd rather have a sequel that (while good) is largely more of the same gameplay than a unique game? I think they made the right choice - if it came down to limited space/licensing budget, I'd rather they provide a better variety of games than several games in the same series.
It's like all everyone's cares about anymore is frame rate and resolution. It's like people don't even care if a game good or not. People praise shitty games for being 60fps and overlook classics for not being 1080p. It's just sad.
No.... Demon's Crest!? Act Raiser!? ChronoTrigger!? Illusion of Gaia!? Secret of Evermore!? Zombies ate my Neighbors!? Super Bomberman!? Saturday Night Slam Masters!? Sparkster The Rocket Knight!? Ranma 1/2 fighters!? Skyblazer!? Soul Blazer!? No buy! These games Should have been on that SNES mini, no ifs, ands or buts about it, Nintendo fucked up, period!
Is here some older than 30 or 35 and really grown up with the snes?! Cant understand the bashing and complaining! Geeeeez....! i find the line up superb! And a have allmost all games CIB already here!
Legacy of Kain! :D! What a nice surprise at the end of the video, Soul Reaver is one of my all time favorites, can't wait to see the full episode, thanks DF.
I like how u make the disclaimer in the beginning that no emulation will be used to display the games for this video but less then 3 mins later Mario Kart is emulated, lmao
WHAAAAAAAAT?! These are only 16 bits? Not even 720p graphicssss!? Ugh, Nintendo fans have really LOW standards! Nintendo's going downhill everyone!!!!!
B Thomas ...my comment is supposed to me making fun of typical comments found in DF videos. Anytime Nintendo is brought up, they really like to laugh and scoff at anything they can, as well as say everything looks like a N64 game.
You're choices of games are like when a Pearl Jam fan thinks that a B-side like "Fatal" should be included on a Greatest Hits album. (Super Tennis and/or Super Soccer could have been on it though)
Glad to see someone mention Terranigma, such a shame it's not included in the SNES Mini. For PAL gamers, it was THE RPG on the SNES, since we never got Earthbound, Final Fantasy or Chrono Trigger. In fact I never even heard of Earthbound until a few years ago. I get the feeling there is some alternative world where RUclips was dominated by Australians and Europeans instead of Americans. Where everyone talks about Terranigma instead of Earthbound.
I was going to say DoReMi, I actually have the cart. The music is really fantastic. Rockman & Forte is awesome and much better than Megaman X. I'd also include Rockman 7.
Usagi Jojo Compares to what? You must be a Neo Geo elitist, I had the Mega drive/Genesis and the snes, Snes was more powerfull. And the better system though the Sega was amazing in it's own right!
Check out Joe & Mac on Genesis vs. SNES to see what I mean. SNES is slower and has more input lag, plus the SNES has less horizontal resolution so you can't see as much of the stage left and right.
SNES has a lot of great games, but for whatever reason Nintendo decided to shortchange its hardware performance, perhaps to save on the costs of its Mode 7 and Sony sound processor. This is why so many games came with extra chips to give additional processing power.
For the love of god do not give shoutouts to Drakon. He is one of the worst modders out there. He just takes other peoples mods, does them poorly, and charges a ridiculous amount of money for it.
Honestly, the only case in which you would want to use Higan over zsnes or snes9x is when you're a speedrunner or when you play some really rare, unpopular games. In other cases you're just pointlessly stressing your CPU, because snes9x would be enough.
Managed to pre-order one after lots of searching. Probably gonna give it to my niece as a Christmas gift since I use Zsnes. It's a shame they missed out on Bomberman, Chrono Trigger, Lufia, FF 4+5, Dragon Quest, Killer Instinct, Mortal Kombat 3, Secret of Evermore........ man the list of possibilities! They could easily have replaced one of these with one of the Mario games, why have 4 of them , 2 Kirby games and 2 Starfox games? Could have had a slightly better selection of games IMHO
Haven't finished watching yet, but had to stop as soon as you started talking about running Star Fox faster. Emulators and overclock mods run Star Fox too fast and it ends up cutting off Dan Owsen's voice at the beginning and affecting the overall difficulty of the game. "Emergency! Emergency! ... Emergency Emergency! ... Incoming enemy fighters. ... Prepare for launch!" gets cut off about five words too early because the SPC700 sound CPU is still running at the normal speed. I just can't consider that acceptable.
Final Fight 3, True Lies, Maximum Carnage, Super Soccer 2, Striker, Turrican, Batman Returns, Top Gear, Axelay, Blackthorne... I hope the SNES Mini can be hacked as well so I can install these games.
I loved Demon's Crest back in the SNES days but you can't say it's a better choice for the *Classic* Edition if the game were overlooked back then. It technically can't be an SNES classic if so few played in during the SNES' lifetime. I believe that's precisely why Star Fox 2 is an unlockable, since no one played that back in the day (obviously).
I know this video is about games on the SNES mini, but i'm surprised that the original Star Ocean and Tales of Phantasia weren't mentioned at the end of the video. Those games pushed the hardware to it's limits with their massive amounts of voice samples, great use of the SNES' sound chip in general, and lots of colorful, well animated graphics.
Loved entire analysis, you know what you are talking about!! Dracula X Would have been better in my opinion! But by the way "A Link to the Past" is my fave zelda game and one of all time best games ever!!
I pity all the American people for never having played Terranigma. Its story even outshined Chrono Trigger, with one of the saddest endings ever written in a video game. And, imo, the soundtrack also was even better. Instant goosebumps and teary eyes when John mentioned it.
Their "key titles" missing from the lineup are silly. Most people never even heard about those games. DKC 2 TMNT Turtles in Time Chrono Trigger those are games that should have made the list
SNES had awesome 2D graphics hardware and good sound capabilities, but it was heavily crippled by very low RAM and slow CPU that was stuck in 8-bit era. Amiga, Atari ST and Sega Genesis got a powerful Motorola 68000 CPU. That CPU allowed for really revolutionary gameplay mechanics that really never got to SNES. First XCOM was released for first generation Amigas (1985!) and yet it first console release was on PSX. SNES could do amazing parallax, transparency and rotation, but it was very limited in terms of resolution. 320x240 was used in other platforms and it allowed for much larger field of view or detailed graphics. Even if Sega Genesis lacked such great games like Chrono Trigger or A Link to the past, it had very fast, responsive and smooth arcade games. SNES got more or less 10 groundbreaking games, but rest of it's library was generic side-scrollers and other NES-like games with upgrade graphics. Amiga or DOS PC from that era got hundreds of amazing games with groundbreaking mechanics, maybe not as polished as Nintendo ones, but their library was very diverse. Even with all that extra power from chipsets SNES was obsolete very quick in his life. Nintendo censorship didn't helped either. SNES is just an example of a failed concept of a heavily focused hardware that could do great things but limits the overall possibilities. Wolfenstein 3D and DOOM started home 3D gaming, that PSX brought for everyone. Nintendo 64 was a good successor, but it had the same flawed design. N64 was good at 3D, but it struggled at 2D graphics, and had some weird texturing limitations. Nintendo portable consoles seem to correct those mistakes. Gameboy and Gameboy Color are the ultimate 8-bit platforms. GBA has the power SNES should have and NDS is what N64 should been - great 3D graphics and 2D capabilities.
Donkey Kong Country's music composer must have been inspired by Kate Bush and her eclectic, haunting atmospheric Fairlight keyboard sound heard on the albums "Hounds of Love" [1985] or "The Sensual World" [1989]. Underwater level sounds similar to "Wow" [1978] by Kate Bush for example. Rare was a British company so it makes sense.
Let's admire what NES Mini was - a shitty ARM-based SoC that runs god awful emulator all put in low quality box with one controller, proprietary input ports and super-short cables. Does it seem to have any novelty value for 60 bucks (plus 10 for AC adapter and 10 for additional gamepad)? They should produce more expensive, high quality and bigger Amiibo in a form of NES to put on shelf instead, with in-game goodies for modern Nintendo consoles and games. No wonder they haven't produced enough - they weren't expecting this crap to sell. Now it's Nintendo Mini 2: Electric Boogaloo.
A bit dissapointing video if i may. I know you can handle your fair share of criticism so here i go. 1st - As a PAL gamer, and owner of a SNES at its time, it irked me that you didn't metion that the Super Famicom model was also the SNES in europe. We didn't get the (ugly) NTSC USA version. 2nd - While we all agree that Digital Foundry is all about tech, maybe you focused a bit too much on it? SNES has loads of not technically remarkable games that are also great. 3rd - I found comparisions between Sega Genesis/Mega Drive and SNES kind of innecesary 4th - No Harvest Moon mention? :/
That was really weird. Your choices for games that were missing from the line-up were almost troll level. I particularly like that you come out right at the end with "Oh yeah..." leading to almost everybody thinking you're about to talk about Chrono Trigger, than saying "Where the hell is ActRaiser? It's really quite bizarre that it's not here". ActRaiser is a good game and all, but wouldn't you think the absence of Donkey Kong Country 2 and 3 is more bizarre? What about Chrono Trigger, that one's a big omission, don't you think? Super Mario All-stars? Even Pilotwings, Final Fantasy II, Harvest Moon, Killer Instinct, Stunt Race FX, and NBA Jam make more sense to be mentioned than ActRaiser. I'd almost go so far as to say that it's "really quite bizarre that they're not here", y'know.
Not only did Drakon manage to OC the SuperFX chip for the base hardware, there are tools/mods so you can replace the SuperFX1 with the later SuperFX2. Then we have emulators - like the Mercury fork of bSNES (predecessor to Higan) that allows you to overclock the SuperFX there too. Even as far back as the less-accurate-but-beloved-nonetheless ZSNES, you could run SuperFX games faster.
"Beefy Machine"? Actually even the Athlon II X4 (cheap PC from 2010) runs any emulator very well. But yeah even a cheap PC from 2010 is still much stronger than a Raspberry Pi or a smartphone. So hum... What you say is Beefy for smartphone/mobile standards... Yes you need something at least like the Zenfone 2 ZE551ML to run the best emulators without any problems.
It was Kojima that loved to rub his pee pee all over his PlayStation. Perhaps we can get some true Konami support for the Switch with Castlevania (GBA/DS collection, of Sorrow 3??), Metal Gear (new top down style), Contra (collection, or remake?? FPS like Doom??), DO IT.
I am honestly excited less for this one than the NES classic and that was something I wasn't expecting. 9 less games than the NES classic and a $20 dollar premium. No thanks. Don't tell me the extra comes from that extra controller and the fact they are SNES games. That shit should still be 2-3 dollars a pop at best. The list of games is good, but could have been great if a few essentials like ActRaiser, DKC2, FF4(2), etc were thrown in.
Hi John! Thanks for the awesome vid! a) As far as I can see, you didn't answer your intro question what Nintendo has learned from the release of the NES Mini. I may miss some points, but I guess they mainly learned that delivering a low stock of a highly sought-after machine is the perfect way to get free buzz and media coverage. So, I am quite sure what we'll see in the future. Thinking of it, I wonder when the first publisher will come up with the idea of a limited digital download or a preorder-only game. Wait and see. b) I actually owned an original Rendering Ranger R2 cartridge some 10 years ago but sold it on eBay, hehe. The price was nothing to write home about though.
I'm confused why they didn't add Donkey Kong Country 2 & 3. Also really wanted to see Super R Type, Super Adventure Island, Earthworm Jim 1 & 2, and some of the Disney titles, like Aladdin or Mickey's Magical Quest.
I'm definitely going to try to get one BUT!!!!!! UMK3 not in it why!!!!!!!! Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 is why I spend days playing SNES when I was growing up and all my blisters! Killer Instincts too!!! WTF!
Very nice episode about the SNES, loved it! Just had thought SNES emulators would get a spotlight here, but it may have annoyed Nintendo ^^ Expecting a full Star Fox 2 analysis when it comes out! And anxious about the next episode! Hope DF can show us how to play the first Legacy of Kain on modern machines!
Whaaa I thought every game ever put out by Nintendo hit 60fps all the time always?!?!? Nintendo would never put out a game at 10-20fps on the SNES it was a powerhouse! LIES! We didn't play games below 60 fps before the days of modern consoles didn't you know that!
Get yourself a Super Everdrive and a 4gb+ microSD + and SNES. Will be more expensive but you can get every great SNES/Famicom game and play it on the official hardware. The Super Everdrive uses the actual SNES game board and plays on the actual console so you get perfect emulation. I have Super Everdrive and the Everdrive for Genesis and they are awesome.
You managed to talk about great music on the SNES for 5+mins without any mention of Final Fantasy 6 (NOT 3 btw, that was a NES game..)?!? Not saying the scores you mentioned arent good but the music in FF6, along with Chrono Trigger, blows them all out of the water..
It's the SNES Classic not the SNES Obscure, so it can't have Demon's Quest (as much as I'd personally like it too) and those odd Japanese games. They must be all noted classic games. The real classic missing is Pilotwings. I'd have dumped a Kirby game for it.
The lack of Chrono Trigger is what drops this out of 'must-buy if I can find" territory. it is the best RPG ever, IMO. Also, I've read the SNES mini doesn't emulate the Super FX chip, it actually includes it in the hardware.
I feel so old... I actual have the real Snes. and it STILL WORKS perfectly fine. This is the model I have images.eurogamer.net/2017/articles/1/8/9/6/0/1/5/149259681143.jpg/EG11/resize/300x-1/quality/80/format/jpg
The one game I'd be very interested on the SNES Mini classic is the Doom port, but this time with proprer framerate corrected, among other problems. I know I'll receive quite a good of flak about it, but back in the day, I really enjoyed it because I had no other ports to compare it to until the PS1 port came. Sadly for me, the SNES Doom port is highly unlikely to be included or re-released, either now or in the far future.
awesome video, as usual! ... now, as a sega fanboy, I feel it is my duty to ask that you do a video showcasing the best the sega Genesis had to offee, technically speaking. I feel you'd do a much better job (and more in-depth) than other videos on RUclips (although most did a really good job too) ... make it so. engage. 😋
Excellent lighting, no jarring cuts in the middle of on camera dialogue, smooth and unnoticeable editing technique, an extremely clean audio track, not to mention an easy going and likable presenter who knows his stuff and is clear in his delivery. Take note, viewers and RUclipsrs. This is the watermark to which all RUclips videos should be produced. Digital Foundry is top of that list!
Another awesome episode of DFretro :) Can't wait for the next one. Coincidentally I just finished Soul Reaver on NullDC (with a couple of fairly tolerable visual glitches) a couple of weeks ago.
The reason why the orginal NES sounds "better" is because of the amplifiers in the analog signal. The NES Classic is what the music sounds like without any added coloration to the signal. It's basically the same reason why many people think vinyls sound better; the added analog warmth and coloration of the sound.
This thing costs more than a low-budget Android phone capable of running 5 of SNES emulators in parallel, and not to mention you get actual video output to your liking, and an option to use wireless controllers with rebindable keys. I understand nostalgia as much as the next guy (I'm still playing Tyrian on my phone), but this is a bit pushing it, no?
How the holy mother of god did they not get Chrono Trigger in the SNES Mini???
KangarooBeard Than Super Metroid? Really?
Nintendo owns super Metriod they don't have to pay anything.
ValenKnight Square. Cost too much money. In fact that is why there is only 21 games vs 30. It cost a lot more money for those SNES third party titles. If they got Chrono Trigger it would have been $100+ for the system, or they would have had to cut more titles down to 16-18 total.
I’m personally sad we didn’t get Turtles In Time. But I think this is the best they could do overall while keeping the price under $100
+Emily Richards Emily stfu.
Super Metroid is Nintendo's: they don't have to pay license to anyone. But Chrono Trigger is Square's, and Square has been VERY reluctant to put any of their game on the Virtual Console or PSN/XBLA, only re-realising at full price on handled (Final Fantasy II at 40$ on the PSP in 2008?? Really???).
You can still buy Chrono Trigger DS new at 30$.
It's A MIRACLE we get Final Fantasy VI/III, albeit with that choppy original translation.
But the european SNES also looked like the Super Famicom, isn't this a british show? :P
Nukleon John is American but yea Richard is British
Eurogamer is from UK (hence the name) but John is american
Also, (from UK) we never referred to it as the ‘Super NES’, it was just the SNES.
Ooooh, I can already not wait for the next DF Retro video! The Legacy of Kain remains one of my favorite game series, and Soul Reaver was an absolute technical masterpiece for its time. The Dreamcast version was also the first game that demonstrated Nixxes' prowess in creating high quality ports. This is gonna be good.
Kain was deified.
The clans tell tales of him.
Astfgl Still have my Dreamcast version such a great game especially that version :).
few know the truth...
He was mortal once, as were we all.
Here's the games list
Contra III: The Alien Wars
Donkey Kong Country
EarthBound
Final Fantasy III
F-ZERO
Kirby Super Star
Kirby’s Dream Course
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
Mega Man X
Secret of Mana
Star Fox
Star Fox 2
Street Fighter II Turbo: Hyper Fighting
Super Castlevania IV
Super Ghouls ’n Ghosts
Super Mario Kart
Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars
Super Mario World
Super Metroid
Super Punch-Out!!
Yoshi’s Island
Devin Money Neat, I can work with that
If you can get ahold of a Wii U. You can softmod the wiiware side of it and play your shit over HDMI I did it to mines.
skydragonslash Hey..what's your recommendation for the most reliable way to sodtmod your wii u? I have modded the original Wii but never messed with Wiiu softmods..quite fancy doing that this afternoon :)
couldve used DKC 2 and 3, and Chrono Trigger
Devin Money so a lil over $4 a game, not bad
If I had to choose *_ONE CONSOLE_* _(and its entire library)_ for the rest of my life, it'd had to be the Super Nintendo.
SNES graphics and sound are great, something that many retro-style games today try to replicate, and the library is robust with lots of variety from _almost_ every genre. I usually like simpler games anyway, so I wouldn't miss today's complex and epic games too much.
When talking about the SNES audio, I'm surprised that yo didn't mention how Tales of Phanasia used samples in its opening song to create vocals. The SNES was truly a glorious machine.
great video but one miss was your mention of Drakon. His mod work is an abomination. There is well documented information on this
@24:30
OOOOOOOOOOOHHHHH!!!!!! SOUL REAVER!!!!
I'm From Nigeria and we LOVE this GAME!
which part i lived in oyo some months!!! ASEEE
Lagos!
John you really need to do a df retro on the best Genesis games that really push its hardware. I'm talking about Alien Soldier, Thunder Force IV, Gunstar Heroes, Musha, Adventures of Batman&R, Contra Hard Corps etc. The system deserves the love, it's undeservedly underappreciated.
Great video, I really like the look of the 16-bit games and what they were able to achive with the hardware.
Can't wait till mine arrives.
no doubt the SNES MINI will be hacked shortly after its out
fossilfern nes mini got hacked.
nes mini sold perfectfly than everyone expected.With help of hacking,everyone get nes mini to hack it for more games(mother 1 for example,mario bros hacks and more)
i hope snes will have low-level security.It will again oversold.
YT Gamer it's what I'm hoping. sure I could just built a raspberry pi but the SNES mini is a novelty so it would be nice to have every SNES game on this little device.
why the hell would nintendo left a usb port on the console, they just said: ight if ya want like goof troop (btw good gem) ya can donwload the rom
Did not mention Chrono Trigger! RIOT! RIOT! W66
neither did Nintendo when deciding SNES classic games
Don't worry guys. Russians are going to hack the console anyway and you'll be able to upload your dem games to it the same way we did with nes mini.
Damn, Startfox on an OC'd FX chip looks amazing. Like, the way they designed the game.
Stadium ARTs 20fps is "amazing"?
Come on now :P, for what it was, back in the day, that would've been awesome to see. I've got a 144hz Monitor, I'm not chomping at the bit for 20fps ;P, don't worry.
Stadium ARTs I was obsessed with virtua racing on the mega drive which has a similar chip to allow 3d images and polygons. I played it till my thumbs blistered and bled. But looking at that now and even the improved 32x version as well as at starfox - in context they were impressive but I personally don't think I can look at any and say they are amazing. everyone's different ofc and entitled to their opinions,, but i think it's important to be objective
I still find it funny that someone overclocked a SNES.
where is my boy Richard Leadbetter?
Homeless Emperor Wichard*
Vapor Trail owned super hard. Also the snes mini should've had The Legend Of The Mystical Ninja, a gorgeous game with a wonderful soundtrack.
First time I heard that Donkey Kong Country underwater music it was the best music I had ever heard in a game!
Are we talking about the same Drakon (the modder) who has a reputation for ruining other people's consoles by drowning them in hot glue?
Linneman surely shows a soft spot for those children platformers. First Keio 2, and now Doremi.
No I prefer "SNES"! Man you American's had to put up with a really ugly version of the console, not that the main version was much of a looker, mind you most consoles look uggers compared to the beautiful Mega Drive ;) The SNES was a great console though, I enjoyed playing on my little bro's SNES very much.
Agreed. It just depends on where you are from. SNES to me.
The lack of Donkey Kong Country 2 in the little console is... disturbing.
For sure. If anything to show how far they went with the engine after the first game. SNES mini is a box of missed opportunities
What's also missing is Chrono Trigger.
+SpyengoEen - So you'd rather have a sequel that (while good) is largely more of the same gameplay than a unique game? I think they made the right choice - if it came down to limited space/licensing budget, I'd rather they provide a better variety of games than several games in the same series.
Just mod it later like the NES one.
Its not either or, we should get both.
Genuinely said "this is what I'm looking for" when this turned up in my feed. Haven't even watched yet but I'll know it'll be good. Cheers John.
It's like all everyone's cares about anymore is frame rate and resolution. It's like people don't even care if a game good or not. People praise shitty games for being 60fps and overlook classics for not being 1080p. It's just sad.
Christian Young I didn't care about that crap back in the day!
Thanks for mentioning Terranigma.
23:09
Anyone hear the CRT whine in the background? Should've used a low-pass filter.
A Player 69 And you should lower your entitled expectations on free videos.
No....
Demon's Crest!?
Act Raiser!?
ChronoTrigger!?
Illusion of Gaia!?
Secret of Evermore!?
Zombies ate my Neighbors!?
Super Bomberman!?
Saturday Night Slam Masters!?
Sparkster The Rocket Knight!?
Ranma 1/2 fighters!?
Skyblazer!?
Soul Blazer!?
No buy! These games Should have been on that SNES mini, no ifs, ands or buts about it, Nintendo fucked up, period!
malbhet licensing issues
malbhet some people are never happy
Is here some older than 30 or 35 and really grown up with the snes?! Cant understand the bashing and complaining! Geeeeez....! i find the line up superb! And a have allmost all games CIB already here!
Drakon... That LAMER!! D:<
he destroyed hundreds of consoles with awful mod works, just talking about it makes me cringe...
Legacy of Kain! :D! What a nice surprise at the end of the video, Soul Reaver is one of my all time favorites, can't wait to see the full episode, thanks DF.
I like how u make the disclaimer in the beginning that no emulation will be used to display the games for this video but less then 3 mins later Mario Kart is emulated, lmao
WHAAAAAAAAT?! These are only 16 bits? Not even 720p graphicssss!? Ugh, Nintendo fans have really LOW standards! Nintendo's going downhill everyone!!!!!
Guypersonmanthing3 Jesus Christ you have no idea you fucking fool.
B Thomas ...my comment is supposed to me making fun of typical comments found in DF videos. Anytime Nintendo is brought up, they really like to laugh and scoff at anything they can, as well as say everything looks like a N64 game.
B Thomas you didn't get the "pun" young fool!
Nice one!
Guypersonmanthing3
And it is still more powerful than a Switch
Super Castlevania IV was and its still my favorite SNES game, it was just amazing!
i just got all the main classics on the wii shop a few years back, screw getting shafted on one of these.
You're choices of games are like when a Pearl Jam fan thinks that a B-side like "Fatal" should be included on a Greatest Hits album.
(Super Tennis and/or Super Soccer could have been on it though)
Just make sure you let us buy a goddamn SNES Mini if we want one, Nintendo!
Another great video John. Ignore all the negativity people are toxic.
The scalpers are coming! the scalpers are coming!
I'm also surprised to not see pilot Wings on this as well
13:43 - he has reverb on his voice when he says "reverb". Love that detail :)
Yesss can't wait for the next episode :D
I know right? They just slipped that in at the end
meh, no Axelay or UN Squadron .... i will pass
Can we please stop calling it SNES?
It's S-N-E-S...
you just said the same thing twice.....
s74p13s no I didn't.
Glad to see someone mention Terranigma, such a shame it's not included in the SNES Mini. For PAL gamers, it was THE RPG on the SNES, since we never got Earthbound, Final Fantasy or Chrono Trigger. In fact I never even heard of Earthbound until a few years ago. I get the feeling there is some alternative world where RUclips was dominated by Australians and Europeans instead of Americans. Where everyone talks about Terranigma instead of Earthbound.
I was going to say DoReMi, I actually have the cart. The music is really fantastic. Rockman & Forte is awesome and much better than Megaman X. I'd also include Rockman 7.
SNES definitely needed those chips. Its default hardware was rather weak. So much slowdown and input lag on the system... :(
Usagi Jojo Compares to what? You must be a Neo Geo elitist, I had the Mega drive/Genesis and the snes, Snes was more powerfull. And the better system though the Sega was amazing in it's own right!
No, the SNES is in fact the weakest of the 16-bit consoles. Neo-Geo CPU: 12 MHz, Genesis CPU: 7.67 MHz, SNES CPU: 1.79 to 3.58 MHz (usually 2.68 MHz).
Check out Joe & Mac on Genesis vs. SNES to see what I mean. SNES is slower and has more input lag, plus the SNES has less horizontal resolution so you can't see as much of the stage left and right.
Also, check out Kawasaki Superbike Challenge on Genesis. It can run 3D at a higher framerate than Star Fox, without needing a SuperFX chip!
SNES has a lot of great games, but for whatever reason Nintendo decided to shortchange its hardware performance, perhaps to save on the costs of its Mode 7 and Sony sound processor. This is why so many games came with extra chips to give additional processing power.
Artificial shortage by Nintendo incoming.
DF: we want a video of Doom ports like the video of Duke Nukem ports you did a few months ago.
Many Thanks for your amazing work
I think one game that everyone misses in the "could've been on snes mini" videos is Earthworm Jim, that game blew my mind as a kid.
Is video isn't uploaded in 4K
119 people couldn't get a snes mini lol
Or.... just buy the real system cheaper...
For the love of god do not give shoutouts to Drakon. He is one of the worst modders out there. He just takes other peoples mods, does them poorly, and charges a ridiculous amount of money for it.
Don't forget his love of hot glue...
Honestly, the only case in which you would want to use Higan over zsnes or snes9x is when you're a speedrunner or when you play some really rare, unpopular games. In other cases you're just pointlessly stressing your CPU, because snes9x would be enough.
Managed to pre-order one after lots of searching. Probably gonna give it to my niece as a Christmas gift since I use Zsnes. It's a shame they missed out on Bomberman, Chrono Trigger, Lufia, FF 4+5, Dragon Quest, Killer Instinct, Mortal Kombat 3, Secret of Evermore........ man the list of possibilities! They could easily have replaced one of these with one of the Mario games, why have 4 of them , 2 Kirby games and 2 Starfox games? Could have had a slightly better selection of games IMHO
Haven't finished watching yet, but had to stop as soon as you started talking about running Star Fox faster. Emulators and overclock mods run Star Fox too fast and it ends up cutting off Dan Owsen's voice at the beginning and affecting the overall difficulty of the game. "Emergency! Emergency! ... Emergency Emergency! ... Incoming enemy fighters. ... Prepare for launch!" gets cut off about five words too early because the SPC700 sound CPU is still running at the normal speed. I just can't consider that acceptable.
Final Fight 3, True Lies, Maximum Carnage, Super Soccer 2, Striker, Turrican, Batman Returns, Top Gear, Axelay, Blackthorne... I hope the SNES Mini can be hacked as well so I can install these games.
I loved Demon's Crest back in the SNES days but you can't say it's a better choice for the *Classic* Edition if the game were overlooked back then. It technically can't be an SNES classic if so few played in during the SNES' lifetime. I believe that's precisely why Star Fox 2 is an unlockable, since no one played that back in the day (obviously).
I know this video is about games on the SNES mini, but i'm surprised that the original Star Ocean and Tales of Phantasia weren't mentioned at the end of the video. Those games pushed the hardware to it's limits with their massive amounts of voice samples, great use of the SNES' sound chip in general, and lots of colorful, well animated graphics.
Oh neat, next week will be interesting. Time fades even...retro? hope you've enjoyed checking the good ol' Raziel's box pushing adventure :)
Loved entire analysis, you know what you are talking about!! Dracula X Would have been better in my opinion! But by the way
"A Link to the Past" is my fave zelda game and one of all time best games ever!!
I pity all the American people for never having played Terranigma. Its story even outshined Chrono Trigger, with one of the saddest endings ever written in a video game. And, imo, the soundtrack also was even better. Instant goosebumps and teary eyes when John mentioned it.
Console modder Drakon? You mean the "Hot Glue Master"? I'd rather coat my own copy of Starfox in hot glue myself if it means a few more FPS...
I wonder if you can do glitches on the SNES Mini?
I hope it doesn't give you that vaunted 'An Error Has Occurred' thingy like on the NES Mini...
Their "key titles" missing from the lineup are silly. Most people never even heard about those games.
DKC 2
TMNT Turtles in Time
Chrono Trigger
those are games that should have made the list
19:52 - The PCE didn't have multiple background layers, so even if the SNES had 1 level of parallax, it would be more than the PCE.
YEEEEEEEEESSSS!!! SOUL REAVEEEERRR!!!!!
Comments section literally being offended by John's face.
Never thought I'd see a new level of cesspool, congrats comments section
that SSH Remix of FF6's boss theme in the background during Yoshi's island and star fox. well done john :D
Thanks for the Terranigma shoutout. Probably one of my favorite games ever. Everything about it is just amazing^^
I really want to get this soo many games I've never played that I've always wanted to play like
earthbound
starfox
yoshis island
megaman x
DF retro episodes are soooooo good!
Znes is a great emulator for Low-end weak PCs.
Computer/Laptop+Emulator+HDMI cable+Controller. Boom. Your own SNES Classic for free.
yeah, but it doesn't look nearly as cute.
A Roadie and pc emulation sometimes have problems, cause some of tbe good ones need a beefy pc.
SNES had awesome 2D graphics hardware and good sound capabilities, but it was heavily crippled by very low RAM and slow CPU that was stuck in 8-bit era.
Amiga, Atari ST and Sega Genesis got a powerful Motorola 68000 CPU. That CPU allowed for really revolutionary gameplay mechanics that really never got to SNES.
First XCOM was released for first generation Amigas (1985!) and yet it first console release was on PSX.
SNES could do amazing parallax, transparency and rotation, but it was very limited in terms of resolution. 320x240 was used in other platforms and it allowed for much larger field of view or detailed graphics. Even if Sega Genesis lacked such great games like Chrono Trigger or A Link to the past, it had very fast, responsive and smooth arcade games.
SNES got more or less 10 groundbreaking games, but rest of it's library was generic side-scrollers and other NES-like games with upgrade graphics.
Amiga or DOS PC from that era got hundreds of amazing games with groundbreaking mechanics, maybe not as polished as Nintendo ones, but their library was very diverse.
Even with all that extra power from chipsets SNES was obsolete very quick in his life. Nintendo censorship didn't helped either.
SNES is just an example of a failed concept of a heavily focused hardware that could do great things but limits the overall possibilities. Wolfenstein 3D and DOOM started home 3D gaming, that PSX brought for everyone.
Nintendo 64 was a good successor, but it had the same flawed design. N64 was good at 3D, but it struggled at 2D graphics, and had some weird texturing limitations.
Nintendo portable consoles seem to correct those mistakes. Gameboy and Gameboy Color are the ultimate 8-bit platforms. GBA has the power SNES should have and NDS is what N64 should been - great 3D graphics and 2D capabilities.
Donkey Kong Country's music composer must have been inspired by Kate Bush and her eclectic, haunting atmospheric Fairlight keyboard sound heard on the albums "Hounds of Love" [1985] or "The Sensual World" [1989]. Underwater level sounds similar to "Wow" [1978] by Kate Bush for example. Rare was a British company so it makes sense.
Let's admire what NES Mini was - a shitty ARM-based SoC that runs god awful emulator all put in low quality box with one controller, proprietary input ports and super-short cables. Does it seem to have any novelty value for 60 bucks (plus 10 for AC adapter and 10 for additional gamepad)? They should produce more expensive, high quality and bigger Amiibo in a form of NES to put on shelf instead, with in-game goodies for modern Nintendo consoles and games. No wonder they haven't produced enough - they weren't expecting this crap to sell.
Now it's Nintendo Mini 2: Electric Boogaloo.
A bit dissapointing video if i may. I know you can handle your fair share of criticism so here i go.
1st - As a PAL gamer, and owner of a SNES at its time, it irked me that you didn't metion that the Super Famicom model was also the SNES in europe. We didn't get the (ugly) NTSC USA version.
2nd - While we all agree that Digital Foundry is all about tech, maybe you focused a bit too much on it? SNES has loads of not technically remarkable games that are also great.
3rd - I found comparisions between Sega Genesis/Mega Drive and SNES kind of innecesary
4th - No Harvest Moon mention? :/
That was really weird. Your choices for games that were missing from the line-up were almost troll level.
I particularly like that you come out right at the end with "Oh yeah..." leading to almost everybody thinking you're about to talk about Chrono Trigger, than saying "Where the hell is ActRaiser? It's really quite bizarre that it's not here".
ActRaiser is a good game and all, but wouldn't you think the absence of Donkey Kong Country 2 and 3 is more bizarre? What about Chrono Trigger, that one's a big omission, don't you think? Super Mario All-stars? Even Pilotwings, Final Fantasy II, Harvest Moon, Killer Instinct, Stunt Race FX, and NBA Jam make more sense to be mentioned than ActRaiser.
I'd almost go so far as to say that it's "really quite bizarre that they're not here", y'know.
Not only did Drakon manage to OC the SuperFX chip for the base hardware, there are tools/mods so you can replace the SuperFX1 with the later SuperFX2. Then we have emulators - like the Mercury fork of bSNES (predecessor to Higan) that allows you to overclock the SuperFX there too.
Even as far back as the less-accurate-but-beloved-nonetheless ZSNES, you could run SuperFX games faster.
"Beefy Machine"? Actually even the Athlon II X4 (cheap PC from 2010) runs any emulator very well. But yeah even a cheap PC from 2010 is still much stronger than a Raspberry Pi or a smartphone. So hum... What you say is Beefy for smartphone/mobile standards... Yes you need something at least like the Zenfone 2 ZE551ML to run the best emulators without any problems.
4:42 Lagrange Point is an incredible game, and it's been playable on the Everdrive N8 since the last few weeks.
It was Kojima that loved to rub his pee pee all over his PlayStation.
Perhaps we can get some true Konami support for the Switch with Castlevania (GBA/DS collection, of Sorrow 3??), Metal Gear (new top down style), Contra (collection, or remake?? FPS like Doom??), DO IT.
I am honestly excited less for this one than the NES classic and that was something I wasn't expecting. 9 less games than the NES classic and a $20 dollar premium. No thanks. Don't tell me the extra comes from that extra controller and the fact they are SNES games. That shit should still be 2-3 dollars a pop at best.
The list of games is good, but could have been great if a few essentials like ActRaiser, DKC2, FF4(2), etc were thrown in.
Hi John! Thanks for the awesome vid! a) As far as I can see, you didn't answer your intro question what Nintendo has learned from the release of the NES Mini. I may miss some points, but I guess they mainly learned that delivering a low stock of a highly sought-after machine is the perfect way to get free buzz and media coverage. So, I am quite sure what we'll see in the future. Thinking of it, I wonder when the first publisher will come up with the idea of a limited digital download or a preorder-only game. Wait and see. b) I actually owned an original Rendering Ranger R2 cartridge some 10 years ago but sold it on eBay, hehe. The price was nothing to write home about though.
I'm confused why they didn't add Donkey Kong Country 2 & 3. Also really wanted to see Super R Type, Super Adventure Island, Earthworm Jim 1 & 2, and some of the Disney titles, like Aladdin or Mickey's Magical Quest.
I'm definitely going to try to get one BUT!!!!!! UMK3 not in it why!!!!!!!! Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 is why I spend days playing SNES when I was growing up and all my blisters! Killer Instincts too!!! WTF!
Very nice episode about the SNES, loved it!
Just had thought SNES emulators would get a spotlight here, but it may have annoyed Nintendo ^^
Expecting a full Star Fox 2 analysis when it comes out!
And anxious about the next episode! Hope DF can show us how to play the first Legacy of Kain on modern machines!
Whaaa I thought every game ever put out by Nintendo hit 60fps all the time always?!?!? Nintendo would never put out a game at 10-20fps on the SNES it was a powerhouse! LIES! We didn't play games below 60 fps before the days of modern consoles didn't you know that!
Get yourself a Super Everdrive and a 4gb+ microSD + and SNES. Will be more expensive but you can get every great SNES/Famicom game and play it on the official hardware.
The Super Everdrive uses the actual SNES game board and plays on the actual console so you get perfect emulation.
I have Super Everdrive and the Everdrive for Genesis and they are awesome.
You managed to talk about great music on the SNES for 5+mins without any mention of Final Fantasy 6 (NOT 3 btw, that was a NES game..)?!? Not saying the scores you mentioned arent good but the music in FF6, along with Chrono Trigger, blows them all out of the water..
It's the SNES Classic not the SNES Obscure, so it can't have Demon's Quest (as much as I'd personally like it too) and those odd Japanese games. They must be all noted classic games. The real classic missing is Pilotwings. I'd have dumped a Kirby game for it.
The lack of Chrono Trigger is what drops this out of 'must-buy if I can find" territory. it is the best RPG ever, IMO. Also, I've read the SNES mini doesn't emulate the Super FX chip, it actually includes it in the hardware.
I feel so old...
I actual have the real Snes. and it STILL WORKS perfectly fine. This is the model I have
images.eurogamer.net/2017/articles/1/8/9/6/0/1/5/149259681143.jpg/EG11/resize/300x-1/quality/80/format/jpg
HOLY MOTHERFUCKING SHIT! Soul Reaver is next? DAYUM, I'm buying some gourmet popcorn or sumethin for this shit, it's gonna deserve something special.
The one game I'd be very interested on the SNES Mini classic is the Doom port, but this time with proprer framerate corrected, among other problems. I know I'll receive quite a good of flak about it, but back in the day, I really enjoyed it because I had no other ports to compare it to until the PS1 port came. Sadly for me, the SNES Doom port is highly unlikely to be included or re-released, either now or in the far future.
awesome video, as usual!
... now, as a sega fanboy, I feel it is my duty to ask that you do a video showcasing the best the sega Genesis had to offee, technically speaking. I feel you'd do a much better job (and more in-depth) than other videos on RUclips (although most did a really good job too)
... make it so.
engage.
😋
Excellent lighting, no jarring cuts in the middle of on camera dialogue, smooth and unnoticeable editing technique, an extremely clean audio track, not to mention an easy going and likable presenter who knows his stuff and is clear in his delivery.
Take note, viewers and RUclipsrs. This is the watermark to which all RUclips videos should be produced. Digital Foundry is top of that list!
Another awesome episode of DFretro :) Can't wait for the next one. Coincidentally I just finished Soul Reaver on NullDC (with a couple of fairly tolerable visual glitches) a couple of weeks ago.
The reason why the orginal NES sounds "better" is because of the amplifiers in the analog signal. The NES Classic is what the music sounds like without any added coloration to the signal. It's basically the same reason why many people think vinyls sound better; the added analog warmth and coloration of the sound.
This thing costs more than a low-budget Android phone capable of running 5 of SNES emulators in parallel, and not to mention you get actual video output to your liking, and an option to use wireless controllers with rebindable keys.
I understand nostalgia as much as the next guy (I'm still playing Tyrian on my phone), but this is a bit pushing it, no?