© Nintendo Life

A lot can happen in thirty years. To be fair, a lot can happen in one year (2020’s been a stark reminder of that), but thirty?!? We’ve seen five-ish console generations in that time, and some incredible advances in the tech and design ideas behind video games, but there was something special about the 16-bit generation.

Maybe it’s just rose-tinted specs for our long lost childhood. Maybe the console wars and the playground debates gave every game release an extra little frisson. Or perhaps developers and hungry platform holders really were at the very top of their game—the peak of their powers—before polygons arrived and sent teams back to the drawing board to re-examine and experiment with the expanded possibilities of household gaming.

Whatever the reason, the 16-bit Super Nintendo and SEGA’s Genesis / Mega Drive represent a pinnacle of gaming for many of us. On the 30th anniversary of the Super Nintendo’s launch in Japan (known there as the Super Famicom, of course), we present to you the top 50 Super NES games ever, as rated by Nintendo Life readers.

Much like our previous Top 50 lists covering other Nintendo consoles, the ranked list below is dictated by User Ratings for each game in the Nintendo Life game database. As such, the order below is fluid and can fluctuate even after publication. Haven’t rated your favourite SNES games? Simply click on the User Rating star next to each title below and give it a score out of 10. The score will immediately be counted towards the total and be reflected in the ordering.

Already rated your SNES collection? Thank you! In that case, simply sit back and prepare to scroll through the 50 best SNES games ever…

Publisher: Nintendo / Developer: Rare

Release Date: 30th Aug 1995 (USA)

Publisher: Konami / Developer: Konami

Release Date: 23rd Apr 2007 (USA) / 28th Sep 2007 (UK/EU)

Gradius III has great level design and plenty of variety on offer, with each level having its own theme. The end of level boss battles are excellent, albeit quite punishing — you will have to keep your wits about you until you figure out the best tactics to repeat in order to ensure success. Fans of the series are unlikely to be too disappointed with this, even if it is a little rough around the edges.

Publisher: Data East / Developer: Beam Software

Release Date: 1st Nov 1993 (USA) / 28th Jul 1994 (UK/EU)

There are some things about the controls that irritate and visually Shadowrun lacks polish but for the most part the game is challenging fun, with atmospheric music, interesting characters and a gripping narrative that makes each play through an absolute joy. Perhaps the only disappointing thing is that the ending mentions ‘Shadowrun II’ and whilst games based on the license appeared on the Mega Drive, Mega CD and Xbox 360, sadly none were the much-deserved sequel to this.

Publisher: Square Enix / Developer: Quest

Release Date: 2nd Mar 2009 (USA) / 3rd Jul 2009 (UK/EU)

The Super NES Ogre Battle cartridge is quite rare and expensive, but this unique game still stands as one of the best strategic offerings of the 16-bit era and remains an absolute must-have for strategy game fans.

Publisher: Enix / Developer: Quintet

Release Date: 27th Oct 1992 (USA) / 27th Jan 1994 (UK/EU)

There’s certainly no denying the quirky charm Soul Blazer emanates as you take part in the quest, but what makes this game such a joy to play is the incredible play control system and unique gameplay elements inherent throughout. Who would have ever thought that some of the better ideas from Actraiser could ever make for such an engrossing RPG experience when placed in the right developer’s hands? If you want to see what the action-RPG genre is really all about, look no further than this 16-bit classic.

Publisher: Capcom / Developer: Capcom

Release Date: Nov 1996 (USA) / 19th Dec 1996 (UK/EU)

Street Fighter II’ Turbo: Hyper Fighting is arguably the best entry in Capcom’s premier fighting franchise on the SNES, but there are more than enough flavours of Street Fighter II floating around to satisfy all tastes. While not the best Street Fighter on the system, squeezing Street Fighter Alpha 2 onto the Super Nintendo was a hugely impressive feat that deserves your admiration. You can play the arcade port of the game already on Switch as part of the Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection, but the SNES version is still a sparkling example of what could be accomplished on the console.

Publisher: Nintendo / Developer: Nintendo EAD

Release Date: 1st Mar 1993 (USA) / 3rd Jun 1993 (UK/EU)

Star Fox is obviously a classic, and its use of the Super FX chip resulted in an experience that felt awe-inspiring to anybody who witnessed it on their SNES back in 1993. It’s a little more jarring for players these days, especially ones who got into the Star Fox series later. Players who vomit at anything less than 60fps will want to sit this one out, but the underlying design still shines and those pining for a return for Fox, Peppy, Falco, and maybe even the ever-rubbish Slippy will enjoy jumping back in the cockpit of an Arwing and saving Corneria once more. The fact that it’s now available on Switch is very nice.

Publisher: Squaresoft / Developer: Squaresoft

Release Date: 15th Oct 1995 (USA) / 22nd Feb 1996 (UK/EU)

Secret of Evermore is quite a refreshing take on the Secret of Mana gameplay formula and serves up one of the more unique and interesting Squaresoft RPG story lines of the 16-bit generation. The high level of difficulty at times might turn you off, but if you’ve got the mettle to stick it out, you’ll find that the quest is one well worth experiencing. If you enjoyed Secret of Mana, you’ll likely find a lot to like here as it’s very similar in style and presentation.

Publisher: Capcom / Developer: Capcom

Release Date: 1996 (USA) / 1996 (UK/EU)

By no means a bad game, Mega Man X3 is disappointing. From a design standpoint, there’s simply too much that feels lazy and incomplete compared to X or X2. Unremarkable weapons, illogical solutions to environmental puzzles, and repetitive boss fights take some of the shine off the X series, although franchise fans will find enough here to warrant a play-through. Those looking to dip a toe, however, would be much better served by either of its predecessors.

Publisher: Square / Developer: Square

Release Date: TBA

Final Fantasy V expanded the series’ job system and came to the West in TOSE’s 2006 GBA port Final Fantasy V Advance. The port touched up the game’s visuals and added a sprinkling of new content and features to make it arguably the best version to play – it remains the only way to play the game in the West on Nintendo systems, although it’s on Japanese Virtual Consoles and is widely available on other platforms (PC, PlayStation, mobile).

Originally published way back in March 2013, we thought we’d re-share this feature on the Super Famicom to commemorate its 30th birthday today.

To many, it’s the greatest video game console ever made. The Super Famicom — or Super Nintendo Entertainment System as it is more commonly known outside of its native Japan — is host to some of the finest pieces of interactive entertainment ever made. It was on this console that Nintendo refined so many of the franchises which had made it famous on the original NES; series like Super Mario, Zelda and Metroid all came of age on the this 16-bit wonder. Third party support was almost unprecedented; big-hitters like Capcom, Konami, Square, Irem and Enix all flocked to support the console with their biggest and best releases. Although console technology has advanced to the point where photo-realistic visuals are now possible and players are able to prove their skills online with a global roster of rivals, it’s genuinely difficult to think of a modern system which has a library that is as fully-formed and packed with classics as the Super Famicom (or SNES, if you prefer).

When it launched on November 21, 1990, the Super Famicom was thrust into direct competition with Sega’s Mega Drive and NEC’s PC Engine. Despite coming to the market late, the console swept aside all challengers when it launched, effortlessly shifting 300,000 units in hours and causing such chaos that the Japanese government famously asked console manufacturers to schedule their hardware launches during weekends in the future (November 21 was a Wednesday). Another story from the time of release was the apparent involvement of the Yakuza; Nintendo is alleged to have shipped the consoles during the night to avoid them being intercepted and stolen by Japanese criminal gangs.

The system was designed by Masayuki Uemura, who also created the original Famicom. North American readers will instantly notice that the external casing of the Super Famicom is very different from that of the US SNES. The clean lines and two-tone grey casing were replaced for the American launch by a more boxy look, along with purple-coloured buttons. Oddly, Nintendo reverted back to the Super Famicom design when the system was made available in Europe. Being a UK-based site we’re clearly a little biased, but we much prefer the Super Famicom/Euro SNES design to the North American SNES shape.

One of the most memorable things about the Super Famicom was the controller — not only did it look aesthetically pleasing, but it offered more control options than had ever been witnessed before on a home console. Four face buttons — arranged in a diamond shape which has now become almost standard on all modern consoles — ensured that Nintendo fans had more buttons at their fingertips than their Mega Drive-owning chums (until the release of the six-button pad to coincide with the port of Street Fighter II: Special Champion Edition, Sega’s console only had three face buttons). But that wasn’t all; the Super Famicom pad also had L and R triggers on the top edge of the controller, which came in very handy when playing launch title F-Zero, as they allowed you to slightly bank your craft around corners. The pad remains one of the best ever seen in the business, with a rugged design and excellent D-pad. The only issue with the Super Famicom variant is that the cable is very short — possibly because Japanese rooms are traditionally a lot smaller than western ones, which means that there’s little need for a long length of cable between the console and the player.

It wasn’t just the console which looked different in North America – the cartridges were also re-shaped, again for a more boxy look. The Super Famicom carts (and European ones) are much sleeker, although the stickers don’t cover the top edge, like they do on North American games. The different shape was also intended as a crude form of region lockout, although converter cartridges quickly appeared which allowed players to circumvent this system. Despite being the same shape, Super Famicom carts were not compatible with European systems, as Nintendo also used a lockout chip which detected the region of the host system. Japanese and American consoles both used the same region chip because of the aforementioned physical incompatibility of the cartridges made it impractical to play them without special hardware.

Collecting for the Super Famicom today can be an immensely rewarding experience. The system’s popularity in Japan means that hardware and software are both readily available. There are many Japan-exclusive games — usually RPGs — which are worth collecting, although the prices of these must-have releases are usually high due to the lack of a western release.

When buying hardware, be wary of badly-yellowed systems — the Acrylonitrile butadiene styrene used to manufacture the Super Famicom’s casing has a habit of ageing quite badly, an apparent after-effect of the fire-retardant chemicals used in its production. This issue only impacts certain models manufactured up to a particular date, and can be reversed by using Retr0bright.

In this 2019 XRDC session, Beast Inc.’s Vivian Tan explains how tools and techniques that are accessible to VR developers, including hand gestures, eye contact, and other forms of spatial interaction, can be used to create compelling AI characters.

In addition to this presentation, the GDC Vault and its accompanying YouTube channel offers numerous other free videos, audio recordings, and slides from many of the recent Game Developers Conference events, and the service offers even more members-only content for GDC Vault subscribers.

Those who purchased All Access passes to recent events like GDC already have full access to GDC Vault, and interested parties can apply for the individual subscription via a GDC Vault subscription page. Group subscriptions are also available: game-related schools and development studios who sign up for GDC Vault Studio Subscriptions can receive access for their entire office or company by contacting staff via the GDC Vault group subscription page. Finally, current subscribers with access issues can contact GDC Vault technical support.

How can game developers better design experiences around their players? This often-asked question is one that Celia Hodent has a particularly strong grasp on, given her expertise in the field of User Experience design (AKA UX).

This December, Hodent will be teaching a day-long Masterclass course on player psychology and UX principles. We wanted to give you a taste of her class in advance, so we reached out to her for a quick Q&A that may help you in your day-to-day game development life.

For your benefit, here’s a conversation between Hodent and a hypothetical game developer looking to solve specific challenges with their game based on player feedback.

Hey Celia, I’m a game designer looking to understand more about UX and player psychology. We’re working on an online multiplayer RPG with a lot of moving parts. We have a solid A/B testing process for new features but we’re looking for ways to introduce player psychology into our process.

What are some of the first steps you take in your work when doing this kind of testing? How do you make sure you’re getting useful data out of it?

Gathering data is a great start! But data is not information. Telemetry data is great to figure out WHAT is going on in your game, but not easily WHY. Let’s say that you see that many players are dying from a specific telemetry event (whether it is from a specific AI enemy, against a specific weapon in PvP, or in a specific location). That’s good to know, but it’s not very helpful by itself.

You need to understand why in order to make decisions. Is it because players don’t understand what is killing them? or because a specific weapon is overpowered? or is it because there’s a usability issue leading players to not even realize that they are getting damage? Making shots in the dark based on gut feelings is not an efficient process to solve problems affecting the player experience. In order to get meaningful insights from telemetry data that will help you make the right decisions faster, you need to start by posing hypotheses very early on the development process.

When considering UX and cognitive science, a common hypothesis would be “If players don’t understand how [feature] works, they won’t be able to feel competent at playing the game and they will therefore churn” (not feeling competent at playing is strongly hampering engagement).

If prior to your beta you have conducted playtests where you observed players and asked them questions, chances are that you’ve spotted early on UX issues that will help you anticipate what precise telemetry hooks you will need once the game is launched to make enlightened decisions faster.

In summary, the first step is to very early on think about what players need to understand in your game in order to progress, feel competent, and master it (among many other things). So that you can spot much faster when something goes wrong and fix it. This mindset (which is the essence of UX) is what will help you once you’re in the beta stage.

You can’t “introduce player psychology into the process”. Considering human factors at every step IS the process.

That’s helpful!! Here’s my next question: we’ve gotten some feedback from players over time as we’ve problem-solved various issues that the game seems to be getting easier, but not necessarily more fun. We think we may have overcorrected in our process by sanding off the edges of some encounters.

In your work, what’s been a useful step for figuring out when player frustration is good frustration, versus when it’s frustration developers should be trying to eliminate?

That’s a great question. Fine-tuning the difficulty curve is important to offer a good UX, as it’s one of the key components of game flow, which in turn is one of the three pillars of engageability (along with motivation and emotion).

A game should not be too easy, or too hard. The problem is that different players have different levels of expertise and need different levels of challenge. Also, some games are specifically sought out for their high level of challenge (such as Souls games), while other games can be appreciated when they are more chill. Thus, many factors are at play.

Generally speaking, when a game is too easy players get bored and might stop playing. When it’s too hard, they might rage-quit. This is one of the things that we can only fine-tune once the game is in beta and played by thousands of players, thanks to telemetry data and player feedback.

Both are important to look into, as there can be a big gap between what players say and what they do. But if they say that they find the game too easy in surveys and telemetry data tells you that players are churning, it can indeed be a sign that you need to raise the level of challenge in your game.

If these sound like the kinds of questions you’d ask Hodent if you had the chance, get your own answers and sign up for her GDC Masterclass before seats fill up!

Gamasutra and GDC are sibling organizations under Informa Tech.

The next(iterator) function is one of Python’s built-in functions—so, you can use it without importing any library. It returns the next value from the iterator you pass as a required first argument. An optional second argument default returns the passed default value in case the iterator doesn’t provide a next value.

Syntax:

next(iterator, <default>)

Arguments:

• iterator – the next element is retrieved from the iterator
• default (optional) – return value if iterator is exhausted (it doesn’t have a next element)

Related Tutorials:

• Python Keywords Cheat Sheet
• Python Iterators
• Yield Keyword
• Python Lists

Example 1: No Default Value

The following example shows the next() function in action—without using a default value in case the iterator is empty.

users = ['Alice', 'Bob', 'Carl', 'David'] # convert the list to an iterator

users_iterator = iter(users) x = next(users_iterator)

print(x)

# Output: 'Alice' x = next(users_iterator)

print(x)

# Output: 'Bob' x = next(users_iterator)

print(x)

# Output: 'Carl' x = next(users_iterator)

print(x)

# Output: 'David'

Each time you call next(iterator), the iterator returns the next element in the iterator over the Python list users.

But what happens if you call the next() function once more on the now empty users_iterator object?

x = next(users_iterator)

print(x) '''

Traceback (most recent call last): File "C:\Users\xcent\Desktop\Finxter\Blog\HowToConvertBooleanToStringPython\code.py", line 22, in <module> x = next(users_iterator)

StopIteration '''

Python throws a StopIteration error.

Let’s learn how to fix this!

Example 2: With Default Value

Not providing Python a solution to the problem that the iterator may be empty is a common source of errors! You can fix the errors by passing the optional default argument:

x = next(users_iterator, 42)

print(x)

# 42

Now, you cannot crash the next(...) function anymore! Go ahead and try it…

Interactive Shell

The interactive code shell offers you a way to try your newly gained skill—understanding the next() function. Can you crash the script by changing the default value?

Exercise: Run the code in the interactive shell. Now, change the default value & run again!

Where to Go From Here?

Enough theory, let’s get some practice!

To become successful in coding, you need to get out there and solve real problems for real people. That’s how you can become a six-figure earner easily. And that’s how you polish the skills you really need in practice. After all, what’s the use of learning theory that nobody ever needs?

Practice projects is how you sharpen your saw in coding!

Do you want to become a code master by focusing on practical code projects that actually earn you money and solve problems for people?

Then become a Python freelance developer! It’s the best way of approaching the task of improving your Python skills—even if you are a complete beginner.

Join my free webinar “How to Build Your High-Income Skill Python” and watch how I grew my coding business online and how you can, too—from the comfort of your own home.

Join the free webinar now!

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