The 16-Bit Generation (SNES, Genesis, TurboGrafx, maybe more)

[Coolio55]

I would actually blame coomers and the kind of people who need "representation."

Which are, admittedly, some of the same people.

Can't coom to an old guy on his 7th war.

If we're talking about coomer RPGs: Look up the Cosmic Fantasy series.
Full-on nudity hidden in what looks like a children's game. PC ENGINE was truly the console of the otaku. (Hudson even sent out public thanks to all the unlicensed porno game developers for enticing console sales)

Anyways, some cases it's laziness, but the fact of the mattet is the GBA was really, REALLY not a "portable SNES", nor could it truly rise to task of being such.
It COULD be done, stealths sonic 1 romhack proves as much. Question is how viable is that on like a 16-32megabit cartridge

I'm assuming this post is deliberately engineered to set off my autism. The GBA had a faster 32-bit ARM processor and far more sprite/layer effects than the SNES. The only downside was it's low resolution and lack of a dedicated sound chip.
Also, it's a 32 megaBYTE cartridge.

The lower the sample rate the more CPU resources became available for other things. There were some demoscene guys that made a seriously impressive music engine that used very little resources and offered it up for licensing but I don't think anyone dared taking them up on it since they weren't a licensed developer and they used a hacked together devkit.

And anyone that like Advance Wars should play the first Front Mission, the translation patch was complete jank 15% of the time but it was a fun game.

Was Shin-en the unlicensed team? That's exactly the sort of bohemian faux-pas I'd expect from Germany.

 

[Smaug's Smokey Hole 2]

Was Shin-en the unlicensed team? That's exactly the sort of bohemian faux-pas I'd expect from Germany.

I googled it and holy shit it might actually be those guys! But I remember it being demonstrated in a downloadable ROM with heavy CPU usage for graphics(3d stuff).

 

[Shroom King]

Ghouls n' Ghosts on the Genesis is the only Ghosts n' Goblins game I can beat legitimately on original hardware, which makes it the best Ghosts n' Goblins game by default.

If that game is too wussy for you, have fun trying to beat The Immortal on Genesis.

Clock Tower on SNES is based as fuck.

 

[Enig]

Heads up for SNESchads, if you want a FXPak without paying the reddit krikkz tax, go to Aliexpress and look for the newer SD2SNES clones labeled "Super SD2", they're 1:1 FXPak dupes and they're charging around $110 before shipping so it still costs way less than fucking $225 for the "official" one.

 

[PipTheAlchemist]

Ghouls n' Ghosts on the Genesis is the only Ghosts n' Goblins game I can beat legitimately on original hardware

But Ghouls n' Ghosts is not a Ghosts n' Goblins game. It's a Ghouls n' Ghosts game

 

[Calandrino]

Ghouls n' Ghosts on the Genesis is the only Ghosts n' Goblins game I can beat legitimately on original hardware, which makes it the best Ghosts n' Goblins game by default.

If that game is too wussy for you, have fun trying to beat The Immortal on Genesis.

Clock Tower on SNES is based as fuck.

Super Ghouls 'n' Ghosts is an ongoing project for me, but I play the MSU hack with the slowdown removed and arranged music.

Here's my whole SNES todo list:

Super Ghouls 'n' Ghosts
Hagane
Pocky & Rocky
Clock Tower
Demon's Crest

 

[SSj_Ness (Yiffed)]

Here's 5 less popular suggestions across a few systems (actually not sure what's popular on TG16).

SNES:

Beavis & Butthead
Congo's Caper

TG16:

Chew Man Fu
Ninja Spirit

Genesis:

Pulseman

 

[goddessalthena]

SNES wise, I was really into the RPGs at the time. They had all the storyline I have ever wanted and the graphics were always top notch. FF 2 (4) and 3 (6) were my favorite, but Breath Of Fire, Chrono Trigger, Lufia (1 and 2) and Secret Of Mana made up my top tier list.

Genesis for me was mostly Mortal Kombat (SNES version had gray blood instead of red) and of course, Sonic. Sega CD had my favorite RPG Lunar: Silver Star Story.

 

[BrunoMattei]

Since I gushed over the Genesis I'll go over SNES titles I like:

You have the Mario games and all that. I got Yoshi's Island as an Xmas present and I was hooked. Then all of a sudden my mom was like "We have to visit your aunt!" For no reason and she lived 3 hours away or so and wasn't a nice person either. I don't know how I did it but I somehow summoned getting sick enough to puke (I didn't fake it) and she called off the impromptu trip then I got better in like 2 hours and I blasted through Yoshi's Island.

Spawn is great. But, there is a big ass Asterisk for this game, YOU NEED TO READ THE MANUAL. You absolutely need to do that because the game has fighting game style special move inputs that are all done while holding block. I swear, every single game review or aborted LP of Spawn has the guy not even realize that there are special moves. Even the AVGN review of Spawn games -which is a terrible video- he/Screenwave fuck up by not knowing about the special moves. If you don't know about the special moves the game is still fine, it's very playable and I was able to beat it as a kid without knowing the special moves. But knowing the special moves greatly ramps up the fun value and makes things a lot easier.

Contra 3 is awesome but it's sadly the only objectively good Run 'N Gun title on the console. No one else was able to figure out how to make a good one on the SNES. Fuck hard mode.

I'm looking at my list of ROMS and I'm just drawing a blank. Donkey Kong Country was great but I never bothered with 2 because I didn't like Diddy and that you couldn't play as Donkey Kong. From what I understand, 2 is the superior game. I tried playing DKC 3 and hated it.

Mega Man 7 is all right. I don't like the X games that much. X3 sucked the big one; it teases you that you can play as Zero but you can only play him for like 1 screen and that's it. Thus making picking Zero completely pointless.

Super Metroid: I love Metroid but I got into it with Fusion and worked my way back to Super and... It's fine. It's a good game. I don't see it as a sacred cow. I have this weird hatred of the run button and the sound effects especially when using the blaster are just very weak. It's a little too cryptic too. Speed runner faggots are probably mad at me now. Also, Metroid Zero Mission/Dread > AM2R > Fusion > Super. NES Metroid aged terribly.

There's 2 great Natsume games: Wild Guns which is fantastic but no one heard of it back in the day. Then there's Ninja Warriors which is a somewhat unique beat 'em up in that you have a charge meter to do a screen clearing attack similar to Streets of Rage 3 and it's all about the timing to use. And there's only one plane of movement most likely because the SNES had a weaker processor than the Genesis. Both games got updated remakes.

 

[skykiii]

Super Ghouls 'n' Ghosts is an ongoing project for me, but I play the MSU hack with the slowdown removed and arranged music.

..... WHY? With how hectic that game can get, the slowdown can be a blessing!

Here's my whole SNES todo list:

Super Ghouls 'n' Ghosts
Hagane
Pocky & Rocky
Clock Tower
Demon's Crest

.... You know what, I should go through Demon's Crest again myself. I remember the rush when I finally beat the true final boss, and I wonder if I could repeat that.

Then there's Pocky and Rocky, which I've never been able to beat at all.

 

[BrunoMattei]

Demon's Crest. I want to love that one but the pacing takes the piss out of it. It takes such a long time to build up your arsenal where you feel powerful. Whenever I replay I just tune out during the first couple of levels because you just feel so weak. In stark contrast to Metroid where you get the missiles relatively early in every game and once you do you feel powerful.

 

[zionlion1488]

I had a SNES as a wee piss and didn't get a Genesis until I was an adult, so I've spent a lot more time with the ol' SNES. I almost want to recommend exclusively non-RPGs, because there's a 100% guarantee someone else will name at least five of them before the end of page two. So, my top 5 favorite non-RPG SNES games are:

1. Super Mario World
2. Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest
3. Super Punch-Out!!
4. Tetris Attack
5. Mario's Super Picross

Just remembered one of the greatest series on the Sega Genesis: the Strike games. There is Desert Strike, Jungle Strike and Urban Strike. You play as an apache helicopter pilot and you have to destroy enemies on changing maps. Heck you can even blow up the White House (though I think that is Mission failure)

Tetris attack was the best 2 player game of that era imo. My cousins and I spent hours and hours playing that shit.

Desert strike was the shit. The way you could rescue your own people with the helicopter was so novel for the time. There were a lot of mechanics that were never seen in games prior.

I can't believe nobody has mentioned this gem:

Comix Zone was so fun and actually really difficult to play. As a kid it took me a long time to beat, I think it took me like a year on and off (there were so many games back then). The 3 item limit made it a challenge because you had to really plan out which weapons to use and when. The rat buddy was a cool mechanic to find hidden stuff in game.

All around, I feel like 16 bit gaming was the most exciting time for gaming. I'm sure I'm biased because I'm an old fuck, but there were so many different game studios that were constantly trying to innovate. Sure, there were countless Sonic the Hedgehog clones such as Tiny Toon Adventures, Bubsy, etc, but there were a lot of cool things happening back then.

 

[BrunoMattei]

Tetris attack was the best 2 player game of that era imo. My cousins and I spent hours and hours playing that shit.

Desert strike was the shit. The way you could rescue your own people with the helicopter was so novel for the time. There were a lot of mechanics that were never seen in games prior.

I can't believe nobody has mentioned this gem:

View attachment 4497238
Comix Zone was so fun and actually really difficult to play. As a kid it took me a long time to beat, I think it took me like a year on and off (there were so many games back then). The 3 item limit made it a challenge because you had to really plan out which weapons to use and when. The rat buddy was a cool mechanic to find hidden stuff in game.

All around, I feel like 16 bit gaming was the most exciting time for gaming. I'm sure I'm biased because I'm an old fuck, but there were so many different game studios that were constantly trying to innovate. Sure, there were countless Sonic the Hedgehog clones such as Tiny Toon Adventures, Bubsy, etc, but there were a lot of cool things happening back then.

I mentioned Comix Zone on page 1, bud.

SMDH

 

[skykiii]

All around, I feel like 16 bit gaming was the most exciting time for gaming. I'm sure I'm biased because I'm an old fuck, but there were so many different game studios that were constantly trying to innovate. Sure, there were countless Sonic the Hedgehog clones such as Tiny Toon Adventures, Bubsy, etc, but there were a lot of cool things happening back then.

I tend to agree. Back then gaming felt like a vista of endless possibilities. I remember reading magazines, looking at the back of boxes, and just my imagination swirled with what was being done in the world of video games.

But gaming went in a trajectory similar to western animation.... for awhile it was like, most of the output was by a large number of smaller companies, but as time went on everything got consolidated into big companies.... its hard to remember now but Electronic Arts used to actually be a great company, as did Ubi Soft, Bethesda, etc. Then they got big. And a lot of smaller companies either stopped existing (Sunsoft), became just a label with no real connection to their past (Sierra On-line, Atari), or found some niche that they endlessly milk to the exclusion of all else (From Software, Kemco).

People like to say Indie are the saviors, but... well, it depends on the indie dev.

 

[rareblacklobster]

Any good Mega Drive flash carts with save states that aren't overpriced?

 

[zionlion1488]

I mentioned Comix Zone on page 1, bud.

SMDH

Sorry I was reading at work and I am retarded...thank you.

I tend to agree. Back then gaming felt like a vista of endless possibilities. I remember reading magazines, looking at the back of boxes, and just my imagination swirled with what was being done in the world of video games.

But gaming went in a trajectory similar to western animation.... for awhile it was like, most of the output was by a large number of smaller companies, but as time went on everything got consolidated into big companies.... its hard to remember now but Electronic Arts used to actually be a great company, as did Ubi Soft, Bethesda, etc. Then they got big. And a lot of smaller companies either stopped existing (Sunsoft), became just a label with no real connection to their past (Sierra On-line, Atari), or found some niche that they endlessly milk to the exclusion of all else (From Software, Kemco).

People like to say Indie are the saviors, but... well, it depends on the indie dev.

Indie devs are saviors if you are autistic and into games that look cool but take a couple of hours to beat. I can't blame them because they have limited resources, but I prefer games that take a long time to beat.

 

[Enig]

Here's 5 less popular suggestions across a few systems (actually not sure what's popular on TG16).

SNES:

Beavis & Butthead
Congo's Caper

TG16:

Chew Man Fu
Ninja Spirit

Genesis:

Pulseman

Darius Twin on SNES, it's pretty much a console optimized Darius II (unless you are that weirdo that actually likes Super Darius II on PCE) and usually has more going on onscreen than the later game on SNES. Also has weird differences between SFC and SNES like where SFC has mono music but the right shooting sound while SNES has stereo sound but shots make the bomb noise.

 

[Two Dollars]

Tetris attack was the best 2 player game of that era imo. My cousins and I spent hours and hours playing that shit.

Speaking of which, Tetris & Dr. Mario, despite the notoriety of the two games comprising it, is a hidden SNES gem. It comes with straightforward ports of the original games with better graphics and audio (though they’re more like amalgamations of the NES and Game Boy versions), but the real attraction is the Mixed Match mode. It’s a Nintendo World Championships-style timed challenge where you have to clear some lines in Tetris, then beat a Dr. Mario level, then spend the remaining time getting as many points as you can in Tetris. It’s technically multiplayer-only, but you can just let player 2 go and play it solo; getting a game over simply wastes time and resets your board.

 

[Tren Shapiro]

Congo's Caper

Congo's Caper and the Joe and Mac games are extremely comfy.

Snatcher for Sega CD was definitely the most A E S T H E T I C game of the 16 bit era. Very cool. Very swag. Very Kojima.

 

[zionlion1488]

Speaking of which, Tetris & Dr. Mario, despite the notoriety of the two games comprising it, is a hidden SNES gem. It comes with straightforward ports of the original games with better graphics and audio (though they’re more like amalgamations of the NES and Game Boy versions), but the real attraction is the Mixed Match mode. It’s a Nintendo World Championships-style timed challenge where you have to clear some lines in Tetris, then beat a Dr. Mario level, then spend the remaining time getting as many points as you can in Tetris. It’s technically multiplayer-only, but you can just let player 2 go and play it solo; getting a game over simply wastes time and resets your board.

I've actually never played this...gonna load it up on my Odin. It is seriously the best purchase I've ever made.