For those who have been following the blog for a while, you may know that my plan has been to put together a top 10 list for each year up to around 1995 before doing my top 50 games of all time. I find it easier to compartmentalize these things before tackling a big list. I’ve now decided to change course a little bit.
First off, it’s going to get increasingly hard to come up with my top 10 games from each year, especially as we keep getting further in the distance. My #9 game from 2002 is probably not a game that I’m actually going to remember all that well.
Additionally, ranking my top 10 games from 2021 and 2022 didn’t get much interest. This makes sense to me, as most people don’t think about past games they like within the context of the year they came out. People will think about these things within the context of the console it came out on, though. Thus, I will now be ranking games by console instead of by year. I think this will be more fun and much more efficient.
I could start with the NES, but I just wasn’t super into that era of games, and those games don’t hit for me all that much when I go back and try and play them. There are a few classics for sure, but the 16-bit era is when gaming truly started to get much more interesting in terms of both stories and gameplay mechanics (and looks, of course).
With that, here are my favorite games from the SNES, a system still considered one of the greatest of all time.
10. F-Zero
People love Mario Kart, and I get it, but F-Zero was always the SNES racer that had my heart. The game radiates “cool”. The visual style, the music, and the sense of speed were all top tier at the time. I also love the durability management system that added extra strategy to each race. I much prefer this over the luck that comes with item systems in games like Mario Kart. I actually just replayed elements of this game last year when Nintendo released F-Zero 99 on the Switch, and the core gameplay here still holds up today. I understand why Mario Kart became the king racer for Nintendo, but I would be much more interested if they kept doing new things with F-Zero.
9. TMNT: Turtles In Time
This might be the SNES game I logged the most hours into as a kid. Pretty much anytime a friend came over, it was a big deal that I had Turtles in Time, and they wanted to do a run of it. I don’t think it’d be an overexaggeration to say I beat this game something like 100 times. Even as a kid, I’ve never been super into beat em ups, but this one was just different. Obviously, having all of my favorite TMNT characters mattered, but this is a really well designed game as well. You have just enough options to keep things interesting, and the game forces you to use all of its mechanics in various ways. The boss fights are fun, the time traveling elements lead to some really awesome and interesting level design, and the game finds other ways to mix it up, too. This might be the game on the list that I’d be least interested in ever playing again, but I have to respect how well done it was, especially for its time.
8. Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island
It’s kind of crazy how Nintendo had such a hit with Super Mario World and then went and made such a drastically different sequel. But that boldness paid off with a really cool and unique experience. I was always a big Yoshi guy as a kid, so playing as him was a thrill. The jump mechanics, egg throwing, occasional vehicle segments, and super fun and colorful level design are all a big hit here. The mechanic of not letting baby Mario fly away also created a lot of interesting challenges and added some nice tension to the gameplay. It was intense sometimes trying to get to Mario in time. This game feels very overlooked these days, but I’d say this is a classic damn near on the level of the original, which is incredibly impressive.
7. Super Mario RPG
This game was my entry point into RPGs, and this was a perfect game to enter the genre with. The mix of having Mario in an RPG and throwing action commands into the combat was absolutely brilliant at the time. The game also introduces some great new characters with Mallow and Geno. Teaming up with Bowser also seemed absolutely crazy back in the 1990s. I played the remake last year, and I’m not sure if this one aged as well as I would have liked, but there is no denying how good it was when it was made, and how influential it would end up being. At the time, there was nothing like it.
6. NBA Jam
I’m just going to use this write-up to tell a little story. Way back in 2016, I had my bachelor party. It was a really fun time with great friends. On the last night of the bachelor party, a… woman at a local classy establishment told us about an arcade bar that serves great breakfast. Most of my friends took off for home the next morning, but one friend had an afternoon flight, so a few of us stayed in the town we were in to hang out. We went to that very bar and saw an NBA Jam arcade machine. Four of us ended up spending over an hour on that machine. Almost every game we played went down to the wire, and it was INTENSE. We were having so much fun that we actually got a bit of a crowd watching us, too.
The point is, this game slapped at the time, and the simple mechanics still make this the most fun basketball video game I have ever played. I can confirm it still holds up today. I had a lot of cool memories of playing this game on my SNES back in the day, but being a 27 year old playing it remains my favorite of all. I will always be grateful to the lady who recommended that bar.
5. Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past
This game would be at the top of many lists like this. I really don’t have much in the way of critiques, as this is clearly a tremendous game, I just happened to like the ones above it a little bit more. The art, combat, puzzles, music, and exploration are all perfect here and set the tone for what we still expect out of a Zelda game to this day. It does everything right and still holds up today. This game is iconic for a reason.
4. Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals
Almost anyone who loves SNES RPGs loves Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy 6, and then has one other RPG that they hold in close to equal regard. For many, that might be Earthbound, Secret of Mana, or another Final Fantasy game. For me, it’s Lufia 2. This game was such a cool evolution on that first game and does a lot of interesting and unique things. You can see enemies in dungeons, and there is A LOT of puzzle solving. These two elements helped ease up on the grind that a lot of SNES RPGs could have. The art, battle system, story, and characters all hit as well. Lufia 2 manages to be one of the most polished RPGs of its era while also adding its own innovations to the table. It was a big-time achievement when it came out, and I think it would still hold up today.
3. Super Mario World
The SNES platforming GOAT. While the NES games were, of course, great, especially for their era, Super Mario World is when the series truly went to the next level. Between the secrets, upgrades, level designs, enemy designs, and the basic platforming, everything is damn near pitch perfect. On a personal note, while I enjoyed playing a few original NES games with my dad, this was the first game I ever truly dived into, and I give it credit for being the game that made me start loving video games. So, for me, it has an extra emotional attachment as well.
2. Final Fantasy VI
The Final Fantasy series has had plenty of iconic games over the years. So it’s pretty special that many still cite Final Fantasy 6 as their favorite, or at least have it in the mix near the top. Despite not having voice acting yet, this game still has one of the best casts in Final Fantasy history. It has an incredible story, one of the best Final Fantasy villains ever, and a classic and fun battle system. This game also felt cinematic in a way that almost no SNES RPG did in this era. This is the game that truly showcased what the Final Fantasy series was set to be, and yet it still is one of the best out there.
1. Chrono Trigger
Probably more than any other SNES game, this is the one I still see at or near the top for “greatest game of all time” lists. And that is deserved. Chrono Trigger nails pretty much everything. From its battle system, to not having random encounters, to the characters, plot pacing, the music, big moments, it all hits. This was the game I held as my greatest game of all time until a certain game was released in 2020.
Back when I first played this game, I was playing all of my SNES RPGs through emulators. Having that kind of access to any game I wanted was overwhelming and caused me to not finish most of the games I started. This was not the case with Chrono Trigger. I played it three times, which is damn near unprecedented for me. It’s that good, and it’s so good that it feels close to time for me to experience it a fourth time. What a special game.
Big Nerd Gaming 
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