Nintendo has announced the SNES Classic will be arriving on store shelves on September 29th, bringing with it a classic selection of games and one never-before-released title. That’s exciting news for any gamer over thirty, but you can bet there will be fierce competition over the device this holiday season.
If you missed the official announcement, here’s a quick primer on the games included in this retro console remade for the modern times.
SNES Classic Games
- 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
That’s a solid list of 21 game that nearly every single gamer who grew up in this era knows about. In fact, the list even includes one as of yet unreleased title in the form of Star Fox 2, which never saw the light of day. For Star Fox fans, this instantly becomes a must-own console.
But how exactly did Nintendo choose that list of games? Well, in a recent interview with Famitsu magazine in Japan, the team behind the SNES Classic shed a little more light on the process.
Famitsu: How were titles chosen for the Japanese and Western versions of the SNES Classic Edition?
Nintendo: It depends on the game’s popularity, whether people were familiar with it, and number of units sold. We carefully hand picked each title to ensure the game lineup appealed to a large audience, so it makes the SNES Classic an easy purchase.
What’s even better about the SNES Classic is that it includes a handful of games that Nintendo has never released on the virtual console of any modern console. That’s because games like Star Fox, Star Fox 2, and Yoshi’s Island use the Super FX Chip, which Nintendo has never found a good way to emulate. Apparently, the SNES Classic solves this problem.
Nintendo: As for the SNES Classic, we have found a way to solve that problem, so we’ve included those titles inside the lineup. There is no (physical) Super FX chip built into the SNES Classic.
I was moderately excited about the NES Classic, but it was never my favorite Nintendo console despite loving the hell out of Super Mario 3. It wasn’t until the SNES that Nintendo managed to capture my imagination fully and so I’m looking forward to snagging one of these come September. How about you?
Super NES Classic – $79.99
