Super Nintendo Entertainment System Classic Edition

Believe it or not, I had another article lined up for today, but as I count myself lucky enough to have arrived at a Target this morning (at 5:15 AM, later than some, but people were arriving as late as 6:58 AM) that had more Super Nintendo Classics than people in line (about 70+ people and the word was that there were 140 units in stock), I cannot really do anything else than gush about this tiny little box.

But you know what, there have been dozens of reviews of the system that include written articles and review videos so I do not see the need to jump into that ever deepening pool.  Since I arrived back home at about 7:20 AM, I have tooled around a bit with system and overall I am just as excited as I was when the system was announced.

I might be in the minority in saying that I actually prefer the North American SNES over the PAL Super Famicom version, mainly because this was the version of the console that I grew up with.  And isn't one of the main points of the SNES Classic is to feed that nostalgia bug?  I know some people find the shape of the original SNES to be rather ugly and not as aesthetically pleasing as the Super Famicom.  Grey and purple, how is that attractive?  I personally think it looks just fine and was super giddy when I found out that the power and reset slider switches had the same function as the original SNES.  A little sad that the eject button didn't depress at all, but that does not really bother me.

As far as the software goes, I love that you have the option for display styles, being an old CRT filter that brings back the visual aesthetic of the 1990's.  I do kind of wish that there was a way to switch the filters between the CRT, 4:3 ratio, or the pixel perfect filter on a whim (use for the eject button!).  I also found out that in order to play Star Fox 2, you have to play and beat the first stage in Star Fox.  Finding this out almost made me want the system to have games locked behind being able to complete something else, similar to how games were unlocked in Ultimate NES Remix, but I fully understand the reason why this decision was not made.

Looking over the 21 titles that are included, I have played 13 and owned eight.  Out of all of the games, the only genre that I would have liked to have seen was a puzzler such as Tetris Attack, or Tetris & Dr. Mario.  Had either of those games been included I most definitely would have found a way to buy two units and given one to my Mom who can school most people at either of the two aforementioned games.  But Panel de Pon, the original game that acquired a Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's World skin and Tetris name was included in the PAL edition.  The only other game in the PAL version that I would have wished had been included in the NA edition is Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem.  And I know that a lot of people have lamented the exclusion of Chrono Trigger, which I can understand and I would have preferred that to Kirby's Dream Course.  But all-in-all, I am still very happy with the selection of games (although I do agree with 80% of Polygon's article for games they wished had been included).

The only other aspect of this little plastic gem I feel compelled to write about is the controller, which I was a little concerned about.  From what I can tell, the controller is just about the same size and feel of the original SNES controller.  The buttons are responsive, the directional button is not clicky.  The only thing that does not seem 100% right, is the texture of the plastic used, but if that is my only critique then I do not really see a problem.

All in all, and so far, I have no regrets about having spent the MSRP for this unit.  Now Conklederp and I have to wait until 2018 when the NES Classic goes back into production.

But in the meantime, I am going to go enjoy some Final Fantasy III, because Odin knows I haven't beaten that game enough already.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

Now the Victory is Sweet


P.S.  And yes, I will still hold reset while I turn the power off.