You might be wondering how a system as beloved as the Super Nintendo Entertainment System could have forgotten games. Remember, the console came out over 30 years ago, and as you steady your heart remembering just how old you really are, keep in mind that the SNES saw tons of good-to-great games released over its run that you probably forgot until just right now cos again, you’re getting on a bit. Hopefully, as we look at these sadly forgotten SNES games, we can do the Ratatouille critic thing for you.
1. Robotrek
Developer: Quintet
Publisher: Enix
Before they joined up with Square, publisher Enix released some truly exceptional games from the 8-bit era all the way to the PS2. Almost everyone knows their most famous franchise Dragon Quest, but 1994’s SNES release Robotrek is one of those Enix games that’s fallen into relative obscurity. Doesn’t seem fair for a graphically distinctive, funny and unique science-fiction RPG revolving around a young boy named Rococo searching for his father, does it?
The more comedic tone of the game might be why its Japanese name is Slapstick. Perhaps the North American marketing for the game failed to emphasize what a goofy time players would be in for. Robotrek, which sees players building and customizing robots to join them in battle, sold poorly in the west, received some pretty average reviews, and disappeared from view shortly after its release. Hmm.
Today, building and customizing a robot you must effectively raise doesn’t sound all that strange. Monster-hunting and games emphasizing deep control over how your inventions look and perform can be found everywhere from Pokémon to Armored Core. But it seems people just weren’t quite ready for Robotrek yet.
Featuring charming pixel art and an ATB system for combat, Robotrek was maybe just too strange for players in 1994, but is an absolute delight in 2024.
2. Big Sky Trooper
Developer: LucasArts
Publisher: JVC Musical Industries
Don’t let the whimsical sci-fi graphics of the late-stage SNES action game Big Sky Trooper fool you. While Big Sky Trooper is pretty straightforward at the beginning, the depth of gameplay and elaborate level designs reveal a much more complex, difficult title. Pretty apt for a game that uses the same engine as Zombies Ate My Neighbors.
The game gives you a ship, which you can communicate with, and the missions begin after a pretty confusing start. You’ll be traveling to different worlds to find parts for your ship, rescue people, or exterminate every member of the invading Space Slugs you come across. There are also shooter segments similar to arcade classics like Asteroid. Later, you’ll be donning a spacesuit and heading down to the surface for a range of different tasks and missions. There’s even a handful of pretty enjoyable side quests to check out.
While the controls are sometimes a little clunky, particularly in the shooter segments, you gotta admire Big Sky Trooper for sticking the landing of its own bizarre premise and sense of presentation. This is graphically one of the most unique cartoon-style games on the console. Anyone looking for something markedly different from the norm on the SNES should get Big Sky Trooper immediately. If only to fill in your back catalogue of weird, forgotten LucasArts games — we’ll look at Defenders of Dynatron City one of these days.
3. HyperZone
Developer: HAL Laboratory
Publisher: HAL Laboratory
HAL Laboratory is best known for the Kirby franchise, but SNES titles like Earthbound and the intense rail shooter HyperZone are reminders that they’ve done some truly standout work over the decades. They also did Kirby Battle Royale. Nobody’s perfect.
HyperZone is well-deserving of a second look from them. With gameplay that reminds you of Space Harrier, and Mode-7 aesthetics that evoke similar visuals of the time like those found in F-Zero, this is a sadly forgotten SNES game that you should be Hypederzoned to play.
HyperZone pushes you across a pretty challenging balancing act of maintaining the perfect speed while blasting away at anything that moves. Go too fast, and the ship will obviously crash. Go too slow, and you’ll also begin to incur damage. There’s nothing too nuts about this, but there’s always something to be said for a game that strikes a perfect mix of accessibility and ever-increasing difficulty. Not to mention that banger soundtrack, combined with a game whose length made it a perfect rental to build your weekend around.
What’s interesting about HyperZone is that other than Star Fox, there really isn’t a lot else on the Super Nintendo that’s quite like it. True rail shooters are tough to come by on the SNES, and the relative obscurity of this early SNES title is maybe why. It hasn’t been ported to absolutely anything since, and that’s a pity.
4. Rampart
Developer: Atari
Publisher: Atari
An arcade release that was ported to just about every console and computer under the sun between 1990 and 1992, Rampart is a tower defense game that existed well before that genre even had a name. There’s even an alternate timeline in which they’re called ramparticles or rampartvanias or something.
Controlling and defending a territory protected by immense walls, the game has a focus on strategy that made it a little unusual during its release at the start of the SNES’ lifespan. As well as basically every other platform going. You know you’re hitting all bases when Wikipedia hits you with the “various”.
Rampart looked excellent on the SNES, and still looks good for its age, owing to the use of Mode-7 graphics to create a vibrant 3D environment. Rampart can prove to be surprisingly addictive on its own, but it’s when you start a multiplayer battle against one or two other players that things get really interesting.
Rampart didn’t really have a genre to belong to when it was released to the SNES in 1991, and it’s hard to say how well the game sold, since the sales data doesn’t seem to exist anywhere. In all likelihood, it wasn’t a huge seller, or it wouldn’t be such an obscurity in the present day. Still, it was a perfect rainy day game, drawing in unassuming kids everywhere with the surprisingly addictive promise of turning bedrooms everywhere into the battleground for a civil war.
5. Cybernator
Developer: NCS Corp
Publisher: Konami
Part of the Assault Suit series, and a prequel to the Genesis game Target Earth, Cybernator, also known as Assault Suits Valken, is set in a bleak world in which countries fight over limited resources with soldiers piloting giant mechs in locations around the world and even in outer space. As a member of the Federation, the protagonist is immediately drawn into combat with the rival government known as Axis, which probably gives you a good idea of which side is supposed to be the bad guys.
The story and setting are both solid, but it’s when you crack open this absolutely gorgeous mecha action platformer that you see why it’s such a beloved title for the few who remember it in the 2020s. Cybernator, from a graphics and sound point of view, might be one of the most underrated Super Nintendo games of all time.
Featuring two distinct endings, a variety of side-missions, and combat that has the weight of feeling as though you really are slugging it out or blasting away inside a massive mecha, Cybernator really is as cool as its 90s ass name would imply. The subject of some censorship between its Japan release and North American localization, Cybernator is a near-perfect marriage of breathtaking backgrounds and details, with excellent controls and satisfying combat to boot.
Here’s another random recommendation with big robots: I was playing the Capcom Beat Em Up Bundle, whatever it’s called lately, and man: Armored Warriors whips! Give that a go too. And then play this next game too, which is also in the same bundle.
6. The King of Dragons
Developer: Capcom
Publisher: Capcom
Beat-em-ups were a bit passé by 1994, when The King of Dragons made its way to the SNES. That might be why it’s scarcely remembered today by anyone beyond hardcore genre fans or Capcom completionists. The game is as good as any of its contemporaries on the system, including Capcom’s own Final Fight series, and it’s worth your time if you consider yourself a fan of bright, vivid brawlers with very light platforming and action RPG elements.
The King of Dragons allows you to choose one of five characters, including fantasy standards like The Fighter, The Wizard, and The Elf. Each character has their own fighting style attacks, so there is something to be said for trying each of them out.
More impressive is how much of this arcade game Capcom was able to recreate on the SNES. Yeah, the sprites are a little smaller, and only two players can fight at the same time, but the core, simple fun of beating up bad guys in a lush 2D world remains completely intact.
The King of Dragons has found its way onto numerous Capcom collections, including the recent Capcom Arcade 2nd Stadium and Capcom Beat Em Up Bundle, available for all modern consoles, but even there it tends to get unfairly overshadowed by more famous titles. Stop dragon it out and play this time. Whoever writes these puns needs to be fired.
7. Aero the Acro-Bat
Developer: Iguana
Publisher: Sunsoft
Here’s a fun game: take a random name, animal and occupation. Write what you come up with down below. Congratulations: you just created a forgotten 90s gaming mascot.
Released for both the SNES and Genesis, Aero the Acro-Bat sees circus performer Aero trying to rescue his fellow performers captured alongside their carnival by a deranged industrialist named Edgar Ektor and his associates Zero the Kamikaze Squirrel and the Psycho Circus Gang. Despite all the Looney Tunes names, it sounds like a pretty standard platformer for the time, filled with plenty of that enduringly beloved 90s attitude, but that’s not the whole story.
Aero the Acro-Bat looks great and controls pretty good for the most part, while giving you huge levels that are actually worth traveling through. Each level has different objectives, offering some nice variety, and makes good use of Aero’s job at the circus as a trapeze artist. That circus is one of the biggest aspects of Aero the Acro-Bat that keeps the game from being ordinary. Jumping along platforms, bouncing off trampolines, and defeating enemies with a sometimes very-difficult-to-pull-off corkscrew attack.
Aero may prove to be a little too frustrating for casual players, but if you know what platformers were like in the mid-90s, you’re likely to have a blast. You can even have a blast with it on modern platforms thanks to a modern port that saw the bat released from caves. Watch for rabies.
Okay, what name did you come up with? I got Jason the Seagull Sous Chef. I’d eat his food.
8. Plok
Developer: Software Creations
Publisher: Tradewest
Mascot platformers were a huge part of the Super Nintendo’s success. So much so that by 1993, the year Plok was released to very good reviews and mediocre sales, people were starting to get a little sick of them. That might be why this thoroughly unique game from brothers Ste and John Pickford just didn’t go anywhere.
You may even feel like Plok is a spiritual forefather of Rayman, which is another game that has the hero throwing his hands at enemies. We wish Rayman would throw hands at Ubisoft to get himself a proper game, but we digress. The story, in which Plok is searching for a flag that was stolen from him, is just a very basic setup to get us to the 16-bit nightmares that await us.
Because there’s something very vaguely disconcerting about some of the creatures and their designs in this highly unusual game. Plok offers a wide variety of powerups, but the other gameplay twist is a lot more dramatic. Plok must lose body parts at times to progress (did somebody say NeverDead?), and there’s even a late stage in the game that has you riding some very offbeat vehicles.
A lot of 90s stuff that claims to be weird is just kinda crass and noisy. Plok really is as bizarre as some claim it to be, and it was perhaps just a little too weird for SNES players in the early 90s, but it really is just always fun to say.
Plok.
9. Goof Troop
Developer: Capcom
Publisher: Capcom
One of the first games designed by Shinji Mikami, who would go on to direct games like the first Resident Evil and Dino Crisis, Goof Troop is the only licensed game to make the cut. You probably remember the hit Disney animated series and films, but you may not recall that Goof Troop is one of the many banger licensed Disney titles released by Capcom during the 90s. And if you think you’re just getting a basic platformer, or even just a good, but ultimately still average platformer, think again.
Because Goof Troop opted to be something else altogether. While platforming elements are still part of your experience, the game is not as simple as moving left and jumping along until you reach the end. Goof Troop instead emphasizes solving complex puzzles, while collecting the necessary items to get to the next point. Even combat in Goof Troop is a good deal different from what you might be thinking. Rather than simply jump on your enemies, the game has you using such tactics as throwing barrels, knocking them off their feet and off the stage, or even putting them directly in front of an enemy attack.
Goof Troop keeps you guessing and thinking, right up to the end. There’s an ease and comfort to the control scheme, and that’s good because this game’s difficulty is anything but comfortable. Don’t be a goof and play it. Seriously, you’re driving us nuts. With a Z.
10. Mr Nutz
Developer: Ocean
Publisher: Ocean
While Ocean wasn’t the most reliable name in town when it came to open quotation “good” close quotation games, particularly with their seemingly endless glut of NES and SNES licensed titles, they still occasionally produced some very good games. Mr. Nutz is a 2D platformer and prime example of that. Unfortunately, the game doesn’t seem like it would have much to offer beyond being yet another mascot platformer that wanted to capitalize on that cool Sonic guy.
Is that accurate? You’re a badass squirrel who wants to stop a yeti with magic powers from taking over the world. Either that sounds like a great time or it doesn’t. These are our terms. But experienced fans of these games will find that from its responsive and simple controls to its incredibly rich backgrounds and character sprites, Mr. Nutz has more to offer than just being another product of its time. Even if you hate this character, and it’s easy enough to dislike Mr. Nutz at a glance, because he does look like a massive grass, you’ll find it hard to deny that this is just a really good mascot platformer.
There’s really not much else to say about Mr Nutz beyond that, apart from that it looks and sounds great, you get plenty of time in which to run around and explore, and some of the bosses look like they want you to give them something for the pain and let them die. Same, bud. Same.
If you want a platformer that gets a bit weird with it sometimes, you can do a lot, lot worse than Senor Nutz. It actually even had a remake on the GBA, of all places, so you could even let your Nutz loose on the bus, and then play this game.
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