5 SNES Games That Defined the 1990s

When the Super Nintendo launched in the early ’90s, it quickly took the world by storm, building on the success of the NES. It had some stiff competition from Sega and the Genesis, but ultimately won out in sales due to its exceptional catalog filled with great games. That said, a few games best defined the era. These aren’t necessarily the best games on the Super Nintendo, though they’re all great games. The list of honorable mentions is extensive, given how excellent the SNES catalog is. Still, it’s worth specifically shouting out Mega Man X, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time, and Donkey Kong Country as the last cuts I made.

Here are the five SNES games that defined the ’90s.

5) NBA Jam

As I said, this list isn’t about the best games on the Super Nintendo; we’re trying to capture the decade as a whole. The ’90s were when the NBA went global, as Michael Jordan and the 1992 Dream Team elevated the game to a massive new audience. With the league at new heights, Midway came along to give players one of the best basketball games of all time.

NBA Jam (and NFL Blitz) was a massive hit in the arcades, and continued to churn out sales when it came to consoles. It’s worth noting that the Sega Genesis version actually outsold the SNES port in 1994, but the two versions combined to sell over four million copies in a year. And despite the sales numbers going in Sega’s favor, most reviewers agreed the SNES version’s on-court action was superior.

4) Street Fighter 2

NBA Jam was an arcade hit, but Street Fighter 2 owned the arcades when it launched. The fan-favorite fighter was a quarter-eater for arcade owners, grossing around $5 billion over its many versions. With that kind of success, a home version was inevitable, and the SNES version instantly proved to be a system-seller.

To put it simply, Street Fighter 2 put a turbo injection into the fighting scene, helping popularize the genre and inspiring tons of knock-offs. The SNES version was a near-perfect port of the arcade version, so you could easily head home after losing all your quarters at the arcade and start practicing for the next time you got your allowance.

3) The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past

A Link to the Past is one of Nintendo’s most critically acclaimed games of all time. That’s saying something for a company with so much history. Of course, it helps that the Zelda series outdoes itself with a banger after banger each console generation. That said, ALTTP holds a special place in many players’ hearts as their first Zelda.

Not only is it one of the SNES’ best games, but it also inspired a generation of action-adventure games. Many of Nintendo’s best games hold sway over the industry, but A Link to the Past is often cited as a standout game by developers and players alike. Plus, it still has a thriving speed-running community, who have injected new life into the game via randomizer mods.

That doesn’t play into its status on this list, but it shows that A Link to the Past had staying power through the ’90s and beyond. It’s an incredible achievement from Nintendo that’s really only been topped by future games in the series.

2) Final Fantasy 3

Technically speaking, the game Americans know as Final Fantasy 3 is actually Final Fantasy 6. Square did not release the second and third games outside of Japan until much later, so the SNES’ release of Final Fantasy 4 was called FF2. It’s confusing, but doesn’t matter for this list, so let’s move on.

FF3 was the final game in the long-running mainline Final Fantasy series to feature 2D sprite graphics. It’s also the first game that wasn’t directed by series creator Hironobu Sakaguchi. Instead, Yoshinori Kitase and Hiroyuki Ito shared the director’s chair for this send-off of the old graphical style.

The Final Fantasy series is filled with fan-favorite characters, but Kefka Palazzo stands tall as one of its best antagonists. The sadistic clown proves a worthy challenge, helping elevate FF3 to new heights. Beyond the best-in-class storytelling, FF3 represents the strength of Nintendo’s RPG offerings. That would go away with the launch of the Nintendo 64 because RPG developers preferred the extra space on disc-based consoles. Still, the SNES was a special era for RPG games, so it’d be a mistake not to include one of the best on this list.

1) Super Mario World

It couldn’t be anything else. Super Mario World is the fourth game in the mainline Mario series and launched alongside the system. That meant most players getting their first SNES also got a copy of Super Mario World. Thankfully, it was another all-timer of a platformer.

I’m not saying Super Mario World wouldn’t be popular if it weren’t a launch title. After all, it’s one of the best games of all time. However, being there from day one meant that it was always at the forefront of SNES fans’ minds.

It set the culture around the system and went toe-to-toe with Sega’s Sonic the Hedgehog to give the industry one of its greatest rivalries. You cannot imagine playing video games in the ’90s and not knowing about it. It was one of the biggest games on the planet, and it backed it up with arguably Nintendo’s best-ever platformer.

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