Twenty Five Years of Super Nintendo

Original image credit to JDLinus

Twenty-five years have passed since Nintendo introduced their 16-bit behemoth, the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. Those days were dominated by buzzwords like “blast processing” and “Mode 7” to give the 16-bit giants (sorry TurboGrafx-16) a 1-Up on each other. The Super Nintendo was my first home console but second overall video game system after the Game Boy, which I owned.

I had a neighborhood friend whose house I would go to often and we would play videogames together. Most of them were competitive games like Street Fighter II Turbo and Riddick Bowe Boxing. Eventually we would get into actual physical fights because one of us was losing one too many times. This prompted my neighborhood friend’s mother to forbid us from playing fighting games in general.

He was basically my only outlet at the time for playing the Super Nintendo. My parents were concerned about my grades in school and how I would be affected when videogames are introduced as part of the equation. Thankfully my nana stepped up and got me a Super Nintendo with Ken Griffey Jr. Presents Major League Baseball as a pack-in game. I was finally able to play the Super 

Nintendo whenever I want and without any restrictions from my neighborhood friend’s mother.

Since this was the mid-1990s Blockbuster was still going strong. Every Friday my parents would take my brother and I to the video rental store and I would very often pick out a Super Nintendo game. Mortal Kombat 3 and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 were frequent staples.

One of my fondest memories with the Super Nintendo is playing Kirby Super Star with my dad. We would play the mini-game Samurai Kirby. Although my dad managed to beat me quite often because of his better reflexes at the time. We would also sometimes play Tetris Attack together. I think that game I was the superior player.

The Super Nintendo started my love of RPGs although it was a rough start. I had originally tried Final Fantasy II but I was confused on what to do in the game and the random encounters did not make sense to me. It was Earthbound and Chrono Trigger that really got me into RPGs. I read about Earthbound in issues of Nintendo Power and Electronic Gaming Monthly. With the release date upon me I convinced my mom to take me to Best Buy and purchase Earthbound for me. I was sucked in by its charming graphics and quirky humor. This led me to Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy III, and Super Mario RPG.

The Super Nintendo has had a huge impact on the gaming world and it’s still desirable today. I cherish the memories I have with it. This is definitely a system I hope to introduce to my future son and I hope that he can have joy from the system as I have found.