Chris Scullion - The SNES Encyclopedia : Every Game Released for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System

The SNES Encyclopedia

EVERY GAME RELEASED FOR THE

SUPER Nintendo

ENTERTAINMENT SYSTEM

CHRIS SCULLION

First published in Great Britain in 2020 by

White Owl

An imprint of

Pen & Sword Books Ltd

Yorkshire - Philadelphia

Copyright Chris Scullion, 2020

ISBN 978 1 52673 783 0

ePUB ISBN 978 1 52673 784 7

Mobi ISBN 978 1 52673 785 4

The right of Chris Scullion to be identified as authors of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the Publisher in writing.

PAL SNES cover image by JCD1981NL is licensed under Creative Commons BY 3.0.

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To Mum and Dad: thank you for recognising and encouraging my love of gaming by following up my NES with a SNES, rather than worrying you were doing more harm than good.

To my wee brother Kevin: cheers for the countless late-night and early morning International Superstar Soccer sessions. The reason the SNES was one of my favourite systems was because it was the one I played most with you.

To my incredible wife Louise: not only did you not complain when I said I was writing a second book, you were an absolute star when I was going out of my mind trying to get it finished in time. I love you more than words can say, which is a bit worrying considering this is a book and words are sort of its thing.

And finally, to my beautiful wee girl Serena: the countless wonderful experiences your daddy had playing these games over the past three decades are all nothing compared to a single smile from you. I will love you forever.

When I heard Nintendo was replacing the NES I was really excited about it. Dont get me wrong, the first system was a great machine. As a developer, though, I was always hit with sprite per line issues when creating end-of-level bosses in side-scrolling games. I was also getting a little bit bored of the small colour palette available and the rather dull sound channels.

Eventually, two Japanese machines appeared in the office at Rare, each with Super Mario World packed in. My first impression was that it really was a Super Nintendo. It did everything the NES did, but far better. Bigger sprites, higher resolution, more colours, amazing sound, fully rotating backgrounds with a special Mode 7 which could also be used to create fantastic perspective 3D effects, and the fantastic transparency feature.

However, this was a problem for me as I was already very much in love with my Mega Drive. So much so, in fact that I didnt really want to believe that the SNES was going to be as Super as it was, because that would mean Id be buying one immediately: and where would that leave poor old Sonic & Co? But, after drawing comparisons with Ghouls n Ghosts on both systems, I decided I had to go and get one. So, sure enough, my Mega Drive was turned off for the last time and I ordered a SNES through Rare along with a few games to kick off with.

When I began working on my first few projects on the system, it was clear to see that it was an awesome piece of kit. Gone were the days of trying to box up 8 x 8 pixel, 3-colour sprites together to make something that resembled a Battletoad, and in came a huge range of colours to choose from, with a palette of 15 for each sprite. Gone was the slightly feeble channel 2 hum that struggled to create any form of bass, and in came orchestral sounding anthems filled with samples and fantastic FX created by my buddy David Wise. At last: the games were going to look and sound like Id imagined them to! Id go as far to say that we were spoiled by the machines capability, and I dont think I had ever had quite so much fun experimenting with graphics on any other machine as I did on the SNES. But just when I thought things couldnt get any better I was given the chance to create something really special, that actually did look Super: I got the chance to recreate Donkey Kong.

The Super Nintendo handled the colours of Donkey Kong Countrys rendered models beautifully, making really gorgeous, solid-looking sprites. People were baffled as to how things looked so good, and often we were asked if we had performed any special hardware modifications under the hood of the cartridge. But it was just the SNES doing what it was supposed to do extremely well. We were also able to add environmental effects like snowflakes and water, all thanks to that transparency (none of that dithered pixel stuff). These effects werent only a visual feast at the time; they added a new dynamic to the gameplay side of things too. All in all, the game looked Super, it sounded Super, and it played really well on that Super controller too.

If the truth be told, I was very sad to have to go back to basics when I moved onto the Nintendo 64, because things really took a step backwards when it came to graphics production. Of course, once wed mastered the art of making things look great in 3D it was all ok, but there was something really special about the SNES that I missed: even the way it looked. Sniff. I loved the way it looked. So much better than its little brother and Im not even going to compare it to the N64. That thing was just plain ugly.

Thanks, Nintendo, for getting every single thing right with the Super Nintendo and making the 16-bit era so great! Ill be playing on my SNES Mini long after they wheel me away to the old peoples home. And I cant wait.

Kevin Bayliss

Rare Ltd: 1987 2005

Playtonic Games: 2015 Present

The arrival of the SNES affected me in a different way to that of its predecessor. When a four-year-old me first discovered the NES, it was unlike anything Id ever seen before. Id gone from the occasional dabbling with my dads Atari 2600 and ZX Spectrum, to staring mouth agape at the groundbreaking wonder of Super Mario Bros. Nintendo had entered my life and my tiny wee mind was blown.

The SNES arrived in the UK a few days after my ninth birthday. In the previous five years Id gone from a wide-eyed sprog, gazing in amazement at a wondrous new contraption, to a complete gaming die-hard. The NES had become the most important thing in my young life: I adored every new game release, devoured countless magazines to glean every word of knowledge I could, got up early in the morning to watch the Super Mario Bros Super Show and Captain N , and was generally the biggest Nintendo fan imaginable.