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SNES CLASSIC Review - Games, Hardware, Controllers, & More! - Duration: 2:35.
Last year Nintendo launched the NES Classic, a $60 time capsule boasting some of that console's
best games.
This year Nintendo's doing it again: this is the SNES Classic, Nintendo's latest game collection in a box.
It continues the tradition with about 21 classic games representing some of the best of the 16-bit era.
It's a lot of fun to play, with just a few compromises.
Okay first off, let's talk about the console itself.
It's basically a tiny version of the original Super Nintendo.
Most every detail is there, including things like the cartridge flap, even if it's just for show.
You can charge it with micro USB and all it takes is an HDMI out for the TV.
The front cover itself is actually a flap hiding the real controller inputs, which are the
same as the NES Classic.
As for the controllers, they're more or less identical to the original SNES gamepads.
Seriously, it's kind of hard to tell the difference even in person.
Even the clickiness feels about the same.
The only catch?
The cord measures just over 4 1/2 feet long.
Longer than the NES Classic controllers, but much shorter than our original Super Nintendo pads,
and for many TV setups, it's not guaranteed to reach your couch comfortably — if, frankly, at all.
The software itself is super easy to navigate.
There are three display modes: CRT, 4-by-3, and the very sharp Pixel Perfect.
Honestly, we spent most of the time playing in CRT, which not only felt more true to the
games but also hid some of the jankiness of a few titles.
The game selection is great — there isn't really a bad title on here.
There are both pick-up-and-play games like Mario Kart
as well as more involved RPGs like Final Fantasy 6 and Earthbound.
You can also check out Star Fox 2, which is a never-before-released game
But it's more of an ambitious, academic title than something I think you'll play too much.
For each game you can have four suspend points, which lets you basically save anywhere and
pick up where you left off later.
You can also rewind the game about a minute into the past.
It's a neat feature, but getting to it requires going back to the home menu, and getting to
that means literally hitting the reset button on the console.
That's also the only way to switch between games, which I get is kind of a throwback,
but it's also just annoying.
But that aside, the SNES Classic is maybe the best way to play some of the best
games of all time, and most of them really hold up.
For $80, even if you only like a handful of games, it's probably worth considering.
That is, of course, if you can find one.
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Star Fox 2 - REVIEW (Super NES Classic) - Duration: 5:44.
"It's about time you showed up fox"" Yeah, it only took you twenty years.
So in case you haven't heard the tale of Star Fox 2, here's the cliffnotes version:
it was a originally planned for release on the Super Nintendo back in 1996!
But despite being finished and ready to ship, Nintendo decided at the last minute to shelve
it, because of the fear it would look too "dated' compared to the then 32-bit competition.
Perhaps a wise move at the time, though one that left Star Fox fans wondering what could
have been all these years since
Well, wonder no more!
Because after, more than 20 years later, the game is finally seeing a proper release as
part of the Super NES Classic.
And that's super exciting--I mean, it's not every day that you're able to experience
a Nintendo game for the first time that you had expected to 20 years earlier.
So the question is, does Star Fox 2 hold up?
Well...let's find out.
So Star Fox 2 is, fundamentally, a very different game from the original.
Whereas the original was a simple on-rails shooter, with every enemy's placement and
movement orchestrated in advance like a space ballet, Star Fox 2 is considerably more complex,
now being an entirely free-roaming affair, allowing you to visit any level at any time,
while always affording a full 360 degrees of freedom--aka all-range mode.
And let me tell you, it feels weeeeird to have this level of control in a game that
looks like, well, the original Star Fox.
On top of this, your Arwing can also turn into a Walker when exploring planets or the
insides of spaceships, which grants you greater maneuverability, but at the expense of speed--and
speed is a big, big factor in this game.
And that's because the clock is always ticking in Star Fox 2.
You see, the World Map is an active battlefield, with Andross's troops constantly advancing
towards Corneria in an effort to destroy it--and they don't care whether you're caught
up in a mission or not--they'll keep moving regardless.
So the longer you take to complete your objective, the more progress Andross's troops can make,
and the greater peril Corneria will be in--because once it sustains 100% damage, it's Game
Over.
Now you can always hit pause during a mission to scope out what's happening on the World
Map--and if things look dire, you can quit the mission to try and intercept Andross's
forces elsewhere--but you'll have to start that mission over from scratch once you come
back later.
So in case you haven't guessed, Star Fox's objective is to eradicate Andross's forces
from the Lylat System--which is complicated by the fact that the planets under Andross's
control will continually launch missiles that home right in on Corneria.
And that's where the strategy comes into play.
Do you go on the offensive to try and wrestle back control of the planets to prevent more
missiles from being launched, or do you go on the defensive to take down Cornerian-bound
enemies and missiles before they can do some damage--but remember, if you take too long,
even more missiles might be launched in the meantime.
Oh, and then there's the fact that your ship's heath is a persistent factor between
levels too, meaning you'll need to be careful to not take too much damage.
So it's a constant battle of assessing risk vs reward--of when to make to go on the attack
and when to hold back.
And the constant threat of Corneria's looming destruction is the heart and soul of Star
Fox 2.
It lends the entire game a sense of intensity--one that makes every action have weight--and thank
goodness too, because the game's core gameplay isn't particularly engaging by itself, at
least in a vacuum of space.
Dogfights consist of little more than taking potshots at enemies that fly straight at you,
before turning around and doing it again.
And the planetary missions aren't much better, requiring you to find a certain amount of
switches to gain access to a base, where you'll navigate some corridors to reach a boss--which
almost always boils down to the same strategy of circling around them while shooting.
The missions are mostly repetitive and lack the meticulous design and skill requirements
of its predecessors' on-rail levels.
It's a little ironic that the greater player freedom comes at the expense of levels that
feel limited by that.
But thankfully , the missions don't exist within a vacuum, and when combined with the
genuinely novel real-time World Map conceit, Star Fox 2 can be quite enjoyable--constantly
pushing you to play better and faster--both to save Corneria, as well as to earn a better
ranking at the end of the game, and eventually unlock the final difficulty.
Oh, and speaking of difficulty, I strongly recommend playing the game on Hard Mode, instead
of the, poorly titled "Normal mode," which I found to be so incredibly easy, that it
undermined the entire point of the real-time conceit.
But once I cranked it up to hard, that's when I really began to appreciate the game's
intricate gameplay.
Now it's impossible to talk about Star Fox 2 visuals without taking into account the
context how the game came to be.
And within that context, Star Fox 2 can both impress--as well as be genuinely ugly.
Some moments honestly blew me away, in that it's honestly hard to believe it could run
on the Super Nintendo--the mere act of being able to fly anywhere, including around giant
space structures, is impressive.
And a few moments even ran at a shockingly smooth framerate, by SNES Star Fox standards.
And one planet-based mission in particular really surprised me when I discovered it had
both an aerial, as well as underwater segment.
There are also some really neat details, like how when a Battleship begins charging its
laser on the World Map, you can see that reflected in the actual mission to destroy it too.
But on the other hand, the game is bogged down by ugly and repetitive interiors--especially
when you discover how much the game can chug during boss battles, with the framerate cratering
to just barely a notch above completely unplayable.
The music too, seemed mostly forgettable, and lacked the awesome punch of the original's
soundtrack--although I do quite like the title screen theme.
So all in all, I liked Star Fox 2.
It's very different from what you might expect, but if you give it a chance, it can
sink its addictive teeth into you--and truly amounts to more than the sum of its parts.
Plus, it's just gosh darn cool to be playing a "new" Super NES after all these years.
Thanks for watching and make sure to stay tuned to subscribe to gameXplain for more
on Star Fox 2 and everything Nintendo
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Super NES Classic Edition REVIEW - Duration: 5:08.
What the NES CLassic did for the 8-bit era, the Super NES Classic does even better for
the 16-bit era--which is to say, it kicks a lot of ass.
By Bringing together 21 of the finest Super Nintendo games ever released, or never released
in Star Fox 2's case, and strapping on a few modern-day features, the Super NES Classic
breathes new life into a library of games that have largely withstood the test of time.
Oh, and it's all contained within the adorable shell of a mini Super Nintendo.
Dawwwww
But before we get too carried away, let's go over some bad news furst: The Super NES
CLassic only has 21 games as compared to the NES Classic's 30.
But here's the good news: Nearly every game here is fantastic.
I mean, you have classic RPGs like Fi nal Fantasy 6, Earthbound, and Secret of Mana,
one of the best 2D Marios, one of the best 2D Zeldas, the best Yoshi game, an awesome
Kirby game that's like 8 in one, the original DKC, the Mario Kart that started it all, and
even the original Star Fox--before it got rebooted to death.
And on top of it all, the never-before released Star Fox 2 makes its first official appearance
ever--which we even reviewed seperatly.
This is truly an all-star collection--with almost no filler--except for maybe Kirby's
Dream Course.
Sorry Kirby.
And in my opinion, these games, on the whole, hold up far better than the bulk of the NES
Classic's library.
THere is so much gaming greatness here that you might be tempted to jump around from game
to game just to try them all out as soon as possible--which unfortunately, is still a
bit of a pain since the only way to switch games is by physically pressing reset on the
system itself.
Annoying.
Although if you have a Wii Classic Controller lying around, you can use that and its home
button instead.
Now full-disclosure, I obviously haven't played every all 21 games all the way through.
But based on the portions that I have, nearly every one of the games, looked, sounded, and
played almost EXACTLY as I remembered--but even shaper thanks to the HDMI output.
Almost too sharp in the case of Star Fox, as the use of dithering which was imperceptible
on the original hardware, is now plain as day--although the optional old-school CRT
does help to hide it.
Even the Super FX games, which are the first time they've ever been officially emulated,
ran nearly flawlessly.
The only exception I noticed was a flashing background whenever Yoshi would get Dizzy
in Yoshi's Island--but unfortunate, but also only affects a handful of levels in the
game.
Those exceptions aside, I'd be hard pressed to tell the difference between the Classic
and a real Super Nintendo...unless maybe you had one of the new borders turned on, which
fills in the black bars with a stationary image, some of which change color to match
what's happening on-screen.
As one who prefers to keep them black, I found them pretty pointless.
Besides a sharper images, the Super NES Classic also provides some other tangible benefits
over playing these games on the original system.
And one of the biggest ones is a feature that returns from the NES Classic being the ability
to create up to 4 Suspend Points for every game, allowing you to quit at any time, and
then pick right back up from where you left at later But the SNES Classic goes one step
farther, now giving you the option to rewind each Save Point by up to a minute or so, allowing
you to resume playing from any point therein in case you screwed up, such as during a boss
battle or something--or you can just watch it like a replay instead, in case you wqant
to relive that sweet turn I pulled off in Super Mario Kart.
The Suspend Points and Rewind features alone makes the entire library even more accessible
than ever before.
Hardware wise, the SNES Classic feels sturdily built--I've already accidentally pulled
it off its shelf a time or two with no damage once so ever.
But I do have some qualms when it comes to the controller--or should I say controllers,
since it thankfully comes with two of them packed-in this time.
On the upside, the cords are 2 feet longer than the pathetically short NES Classic--but
they still feel a little on the short side, coming up two feet shy of the of the original
Super Nintendo.
Secondly, while the Classic controller looks the part, it doesn't exactly feel the part.
Instead of the slippery smooth plastic of the original controller, the imposter features
a rougher, sandpaper-like texture.
It's not uncomfortable, but it will definitely be noticed by those who grew up with the system.
Otherwise, the Super Nintendo Classic is a fantastic piece of hardware, offering instant
access to some of the best games ever created.
Yeah, it still has a few annoyances, like the inability to return to the Home Menu from
the primary controller.
And more games would always be preferable--with the lack of DKC2 or Chrono Trigger being especially
notable.
But everything else about the system is sublime--and I love it for that.
Whether you're just looking to rekindle an old flame with games you grew up with,
or looking to create new memories with games you've never played before, the Super NES
Classic offers some of the best experiences in an adorable and easy to use form factor.
Oh, and if you want even more, make sure to check out our full review of Star Fox 2--just
click on the card or the link in the description below.
Thanks for watching and make sure to stay tuned to GameXplain for more on the Super
NES Classic, and everything Nintendo as well.
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Classic Log Driver's Waltz updated for 2017 - Duration: 2:05.
Canadian Moments, 1979.
National Film Board releases Log Driver's Waltz animation.
In celebration of Canada 150,
NFB updates the story of the log driver and his wife.
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