It's easy to love the SNES Mini, unless you're in the US and have that horrible
purple thing - but for the rest of us it's easy.
Because it's great.
A gorgeous little lump of nostalgic joy you can splatter all over your screen, playing
some of the greatest games ever made - games that are still fun to play even today - and
just having a bloody good time of it.
Now, obviously I want to complain about something, and it's hard to do that when I'm so utterly
enamoured with something like this.
Still, I've found something - there's games missing from the SNES Mini.
Games I wanted.
Games that should have been on it.
Games that… are in this list.
Shadowrun Ah, Shadowrun.
Great game.
A top-down RPG with deeper elements than you might have expected from a western-style RPG
in the 90s.
Dark, very bloody Blade Runner-y, obtuse at times and the kind of thing that just sticks
with you for how totally unique it was for the SNES.
You'll note from my playing of Shadowrun here that I am both excellent at it and definitely
remember what I should be doing at all times.
But please don't let that distract from the fact this is a game that deserves to be
played and remembered by all - it wasn't the best, because god things were limited
by technology and dodgy controls and all manner of other things back in the early 90s, but
Shadowrun was incredibly forward-looking in its approach to video games.
A lot of modern titles owe even more to this forgotten gem.
Alright, it's not forgotten as everyone brings it up all the time, but yeah - forgotten
gem.
I'm sticking with that.
Deal with it.
Why isn't it on the SNES Mini?
Well Beam, the studio that made Shadowrun, has been gobbled up a couple of times and
ended under the stewardship of Krome Studios, which as far as I'm aware shut them down
in order to concentrate on… well, rubbish.
We ain't seeing this one again any time soon.
The Firemen Every single day of my life I am bewildered
that more people don't know and adore the Firemen like I do.
Okay, it probably isn't every single day, more just any day I think about the game.
Which, to be honest, is actually most days.
Hmm.
Anyway, the Firemen was made by a student development team about thirty two million
years ago and sees players take control of a fireman with an AI buddy, hence the plural
title.
You tackle a towering inferno, probably influenced by that popular fire-in-a-building-based thriller,
Jaws.
You move from floor to floor extinguishing Prometheus's favourite plaything, rescuing
survivors and tackling the odd boss fight - usually a malfunctioning robot or just a
giant sentient fire.
It is ridiculously good for for what it is and a constant source of fun - maybe even
joy - in my otherwise meek and pointless life.
There was a sequel on the PlayStation, but beyond that I can't think of any other appearances
the Firemen have made, barring that PS Vita homage I've forgotten the name of right
now.
The SNES Mini would have been the ideal opportunity to put the Firemen where it deserves to be:
front and centre and with a whole new potential audience of people ready and willing to finally
give it the love and mainstream acceptance it deserves.
Can you tell I like this game?
Not sure if it's coming across, I am often told I'm too down on things.
Chrono Trigger So you've got Final Fantasy Three or Six
or whichever you want to pretend it is and Secret of Mana included with the SNES Mini.
Great.
Brilliant.
Games worth a place in anybody's best of collections, and a fine way of showing off
just what was so great about the Superb Nintendo.
But there's quite the gap in that line-up, thanks to the really rather large spectre
of Chrono Trigger hanging over everything.
It's not only one of my favourite games on any format, ever, even though I never managed
to finish it because the last boss was too hard stop judging me, but it's one of the
best RPGs, period.
It's up there with FF3-6 and Mana, and to some, to many, to me, it surpasses them both.
A time travelling adventure the likes of which we've seen surprisingly few of in the world
of gaming, Chrono Trigger told a story you could care about, featured characters who
were both unique and interesting in their motivations and - best of all - had time travel-hah
only joking the best thing was Frog, a character in your party who was a frog, who was originally
named Glenn when he was still a human.
They don't make them like they used to…
I do struggle to understand why Chrono Trigger didn't make it to the SNES Mini, and I hope
there's a bloody good reason for it - because as it stands, it's the kind of decision
that makes me want to storm Nintendo HQ with a big placard saying 'I am a bit miffed
by this' on it.
The gits.
NBA Jam TE Come on now - who wouldn't want this one?
Okay, so Midway, who made the game, no longer exists, the last NBA Jam game was released
by EA and there'd be licensing issues up the wazoo - not just with the NBA teams, but
the now-retired players and plentiful celebrity appearances throughout… so yeah, I never
actually expected NBA Jam TE to be included with the SNES Mini - but this isn't a list
of games I expected to be on the SNES Mini, it's games that should have been on it.
And good god NBA Jam TE should be on every gaming system ever made, forever.
Pure arcade joy with some simple, straightforward, ridiculously fun systems, the ability to turn
on the option that litters the game with power ups - including the ability to dunk from anywhere,
which is the best thing games have ever done - and, get this, a basic commentary system
those of us who played it first time around are still quoting.
It's got it all, basically, and would have been such a wonderful inclusion on the SNES
Mini's line-up.
Super Bomberman 2 Yes yes yes, it should be the original and
blah de blah - no.
See, Super Bomberman Two perfected the formula for what became one of the greatest series
on the SNES.
The first game is absolutely a classic, of that I have no doubt, but it was the second
game that refined the formula and made it something to truly cherish for generations
to come.
Obviously that's not how Nintendo sees it, as they've not bothered forking out whatever
cashola to Konami would have been necessary to get them some tubby little blaster action
on the SNES Mini.
Maybe it's because you can't play with four people on the new-ish console, so they
didn't want to upset us all by reminding us of just what we're missing out on.
Or, y'know, just let us use a multitap or connect more controllers via bluetooth.
For god's sake, just let us play four-player Bomberman - it's one of the best things
in the world and people are missing out.
They're missing out.
Sorry, I think I'm going to cry.
Oh, and Hudson Soft was merged into Konami back in 2012, I bloody know Hudson Soft made
the bloody game shut up.
Zombies Ate My Neighbours I cried 'zombies ate my neighbours!' the
first time I saw Shaun of the Dead in the cinema, thanks to the trampoline-over-the-fence
bit.
Yes, it's the kind of game that didn't just leave a mark on us as kids, but one that
carried over into adulthood for carefully crafted nerd personas like Simon Pegg.
Why?
Well it's a pretty basic top-ish-down shooter in the vein of…
I don't know, Robotron?
Except less manic?
The game itself isn't why people have such fondness in their heart for Zombies, no - it's
all about the setting, the design, the aesthetic.
Riffing on 50s B-movies and making the combat decidedly child-like in the most part - your
main weapon is a water gun and you can lob tomatoes at the undead - Zombies Ate My Neighbours
keyed into something with those of us who played it when we were young.
It was cool, it was how we imagined ourselves during the inevitable day of the dead, and
even though you might never want to publicly admit it, wearing old school 3D glasses is
awesome.
Why didn't this one end up on the re-released console, then?
Well probably because Disney and LucasArts and that whole morass of childhood-destroying
crap that's been going on since the 2012 takeover.
Poor, sad LucasArts - and no, we'll never see Ghoul Patrol either.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time I do think this one is firmly rooted in the
concept of Powerful Nostalgia - which would sound better if I put an echo effect on it
- but the fact is back in the day it was nigh-on impossible to get a decent take on the Turtles
Arcade Game without… well, being in an arcade.
They were smelly, dank rooms from the past where nerds would assemble to play with and
against each other at brilliant and terrible games.
I beat a guy at World Heroes once, and I've never forgotten it.
Button bashing gets you places.
Anyway, Turtles in Time was the first thing we had on our home machines that accurately
replicated the style of play seen in the arcade classic, so it's gone down in SNES-shaped
history as one of the best games on the machine.
And you know what?
It's shallow and some of those bosses cheat their arses off, but there's no denying
this is great fun to this day, especially when you throw another player into the mix.
Obviously it would never come to the SNES Mini, though, what with the licensing issues
and all that joy entails.
Ah, and indeed, well.
International Superstar Soccer Deluxe PES got good again a couple of years ago,
so we don't actually need to have any other football games around to keep us going.
All the same, for a nostalgia blast right in the breadbasket, ISS Deluxe is the way
to go - with it not featuring genuine teams, just nations, and made up player names, I
see little to no reason why this shouldn't have made its way onto the SNES Mini.
I mean, Konami has included other titles on the machine, and it's not like they're
doing anything else with their time besides making licensed pachinko things, a PES a year
and trying to ruin Metal Gear Solid, is it?
ISS Deluxe is simple footballing fun from a simpler time back when we could unironically
like the England national team - complex beyond its basic controls and with more than enough
easter eggs to keep you amused, see dog ref for that, ISS Deluxe would have been an ideal
inclusion.
As well as yet another reason for me to batter opponents with a shoulder barge and hear the
greatest bit of in-game commentary ever…
DIRTY PLAY, REF!
Wild Guns You realise Wild Guns was re-released very
recently - at the time of making this video - on PS4, right?
You didn't?
Yeah, that's probably because it had zero fanfare and cost about three hundred quid,
though I may be misremembering the precise amount they were charging.
Basically, it was one of the most tone-deaf re-releases I've ever seen.
With that in mind, Nintendo should have tapped up Natsume - oh those of Harvest Moon glory
- to wang Wild Guns on the SNES Mini.
It's a perfect example of a game that maintains its appeal in the modern day thanks both to
the fact it's just ruddy good fun to play, and because it looks fantastic with a steampunk-y
wild west setting letting you shoot bandits and giant robots alike.
The game itself is a bit simplistic, sure, with you just running about on a 2D plane
and shooting into the screen at all manner of enemies, but as a quick pick-me-up - and
especially as a multiplayer title - it holds its own against much newer, shinier, less
cowboy-ey games.
Yee… haw?
Unirally Called Uniracers in the States, for some reason,
Unirally - as it's correctly known by those of us who correctly call the console a SNES
- was a unicycle racing game, with stunts, made by pre-Rockstar North DMA Design.
That's about it, really.
Oh - it was also, and is also, brilliant.
Another one that's fairly limited but absolutely brilliant in short bursts - especially with
friends - Unirally absolutely should have been included with the SNES Mini.
It was never going to happen, though, thanks to the fact that Pixar successfully sued DMA.
See, back in the 80s the fledgling animation studio made a short film featuring a red unicycle
- Red's Dream - which bore some resemblance to… well, a unicycle.
And so, the unicycles in Unirally.
For some reason, a judge ruled that DMA in making a unicycle that looked like a unicycle
was too similar to Pixar's unicycle they'd made based on a unicycle.
As such, Nintendo was forced to stop producing copies of the game.
Now that Pixar is Disney, I don't think Ninty wants to poke that particular bear's
nest - and so we're left with a dead and forgotten game.
PilotWings You heard about the SNES Mini and, before
reading anything about it, confidently reclined in your pleather office seat, clumsily pushed
your spectacles back up your sweaty face and proclaimed: "Why yes, PilotWings will be
all over the miniature console re-release from the former playing card-manufacturing
company.
It would be foolish of them not to include a much-loved launch title for the SNES, and
churlish of me to even consider a world where Ninty thought 'no we won't put that game
on that there tiny console'.
And now I shall recline even further into horizontal victory ha ha!"
Well, I'm sorry, but you were wrong, you silly bugger.
There's no PilotWings on the SNES Mini, and while it might seem like not including
this flight-sim-'em-up is nothing other than the purest form of idiocy, there is a
good reason for it.
Wait, sorry - I said 'good reason', I meant 'no reason I can think of'.
PilotWings is still great fun and harks back to the very beginnings of the SNES - it's
also a unique proposition, something you don't get too much of in gaming.
It not being on the Mini absolutely beggars belief.
Super Mario All-Stars Okay, so this one might end up being a bit
pointless seeing as the NES Mini already featured the first three Mario games, and while it
didn't feature the Lost Levels like Mario All-Stars did, I don't think that's quite
enough of an impetus to put this on the SNES Mini.
But at the same time, it is - to me - the best way to play the original Mario games.
They look better, they're all in one little package and there's not much other actual
reasoning here but I have to say something to make it a list of three.
Really, it just comes down to the fact I didn't have a NES and did have a SNES, and All-Stars
is the first way I actually experienced Mario games of my own.
That sort of nostalgia… well, as Nintendo has realised, it sells consoles.
Even if it would be a bit of a dumb move to put three games on two consoles in a row.
Hang on a minute - Nintendo literally did that in real life, with more than just three
games.
Ignore everything I just said - this is me being absolutely, 100 percent right.
Super Mario All-Stars should have been included on the SNES Mini's line-up.
So there.
And that, chums, is what you call a list feature.
I'm sure you might have opinions of your own, so add them below and I might pop in
to tell you why you're wrong.
Please do like, share, subscribe, dance like everybody's watching, write disturbing fan
fiction about your favourite shopkeepers, learn how to backflip then never actually
do it and follow my instructions to a tee.
Bye!
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