Following the overwhelming success of last year's NES Classic Edition, Nintendo has inevitably followed up by giving the Super Nintendo the same treatment. While the NES Classic featured 30 games, the Super Nintendo Classic has just 21, however the selection of games on the SNES Classic Edition are a great collection of many of the greatest games that appeared on the system, plus the first official release of the previously unreleased Starfox 2.

The Games

The 21 games included on this system are primarily first-party Nintendo titles, but several popular 3rd party games also made the cut. Here's a list of what you'll be getting:

• Contra III: The Alien Wars
• Donkey Kong Country
• EarthBound
• Final Fantasy III
• F-ZERO
• Kirby Super Star
• Kirby’s Dream Course
• The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
• Mega Man X
• Secret of Mana
• Star Fox
• Star Fox 2
• Street Fighter II Turbo: Hyper Fighting
• Super Castlevania IV
• Super Ghouls n Ghosts
• Super Mario Kart
• Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars
• Super Mario World
• Super Metroid
• Super Punch-Out!!
• Yoshi’s Island

How well do these classic hold up?

For the most part, surprisingly well. These games represent the pinnacle of sprite based 2d gaming. Zelda III, Super Metroid, Super Mario World, Street Fighter II Turbo, Mega Man X and other games still look great thanks to the hardware, which upscales these games to 720p, which by today's standards might sound low-res, but these pixels scale up brilliantly and look fantastic.

The titles which do seem to have aged poorly are the games on the system that tried to mimic a 3D effect. Super Mario Kart, Starfox and F-Zero are simply hard to come back to after subsequent games in their respective series successfully pulled off what they were trying to do with the limited hardware of the early 90's.

What else does the system do?

In addition to the slick interface that feels perfectly in sync with the era these games come from, the console gives you a number of additional perks.

Visual enhancements

In addition to the aforementioned boost to crisp 720p resolution, the system give you the option to display in standard 4:3, pixel perfect (producing even sharper pixels) and a CRT mode that adds scanlines to give the appearance of the televisions these games originally appeared on. With the black space on the sides of the image, you also have a number of decorative borders you can apply if you choose to.

Gameplay enhancements

The system offers two primary ways to make these older games more enjoyable to modern gamers. The first feature is the suspended mode, which allows you to create up to four save states for each game. Secondly is the rewind feature that predictably allows you to rewind the game after screwing up.

How's the hardware?

The system itself is surprisingly small, even smaller than I expected with the widest point being the size of a CD case. Its very compact, with functional power and reset buttons on the top, outputs where you'd expect them on the rear and a flip-down panel on the front where you plug in the two included controllers. The cords are adequately long, but an extra foot or two on each would have been appreciated. The biggest surprise was the controllers, which feel extremely close to an authentic SNES controller that was built 25 years ago.

What's the downsides?

I did have a few complaints with the system. The documentation was very lacking, with poor instruction on how to use the various features of the console. I assumed there would be a simple way to return to the main menu without physically hitting the reset button, but if there is I wasn't able to figure it out. In addition, the instruction manuals for each game are accessible, but not through the console itself. Instead, you're given a QR code that brings up an online version of the game manual on your phone. I would have much preferred an option to view the manuals right on the system if you didn't want to have to deal with your phone.

Overall impressions

This is a really nice system that is well worth the price. An original copy of Earthbound will set you back about $150 alone and trying to collect a system and all the games included on this console would set you back hundreds of dollars. The system is solid and well-built, though documentation wasn't done very well. There were also a few games that should have made the cut, like Turtles in Time, Final Fight or NBA Jam, but that's just nitpicking. In conclusion, if you're a fan of these games, picking this system up is a no-brainer if you can manage to find one. Nintendo has pledged to greatly expand production of the SNES Classic compared to last year's NES version, so eventually supply will catch up with demand.

Thanks for reading. As always, upvotes, resteems and comments are appreciated!