This time on Classic Gaming Quarterly, we
take a look back at the 1991 launch of one of the most iconic video game consoles of
all time - the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. You couldn't get enough of it. You ate Nintendo. You drank Nintendo. You slept Nintendo. Now, Toys 'R Us has the Super Nintendo Entertainment
System. The new Nintendo system with Super Mario World. 3D graphics. 32,000 colors. 16-bit power. Toys 'R Us- the biggest video game store in
the world! It's virtually impossible to overstate the
popularity of the Nintendo Entertainment System for a kid my age in the late 1980's. We woke up to Nintendo cartoons, ate Nintendo
breakfast cereal, went to school with our Nintendo backpacks, checked the time on Nintendo
wrist watches, talked about Nintendo on the school bus, day-dreamed about it during class,
ate out of Nintendo lunch boxes, traded game tips and bragged about new Nintendo games
on the playground, and read Nintendo magazines and comic books. Beginning in 1983 and reaching its zenith
2 years later, the home video game market entered into a period of recession, generally
referred to as the "video game crash". At the time, people wondered if home video
games weren't just a fad that had reached the end of its life, and retailers began reclaiming
shelf space for use selling other products. In 1985, having to swim against the tide to
do so, Nintendo brought its 8-bit "Family Computer" or "Famicom" to North America as
the "Nintendo Entertainment System". Nintendo's business model allowed them to
both avoid the pitfalls that caused the video game crash and establish themselves as the
clear leader in the home video game market, leading to an unprecedented period of total
market domination. The NES was not only the must-have video game
system, but the must-have anything for kids in the late 1980's, and it isn't a stretch
to say that the system caused a cultural revolution, at least among certain age groups. While the 16-bit generation technically started
with the release of the Sega Genesis and TurboGrafx-16 in the summer of 1989, everyone knew that
it didn't REALLY start until Nintendo said it did. While the NES was still easily dominating
the American market in 1990, the same could not be said in Japan, where 2 years earlier,
the then 5-year old Famicom was outsold by NEC’s newly released PC Engine. "By Hudson". Nintendo may have been hesitant to unsettle
the position of their console in North America with it’s 90% marketshare, but they could
no longer afford to rest on their 8-bit laurels. Development of the Super Famicom began in
1988, with the first images being shown to the public later that year in “Famicom Tsushin”
magazine. The system’s hardware design was directed
by Masayuki Uemura, the same engineer who had designed the original Famicom, and who
came out of retirement to head development of Nintendo’s 16-bit console. The Super Famicom’s hardware is centered
around a custom-designed 3.58 mhz Ricoh CPU which was based on Western Design Center’s
65816 processor. This chip can trace its roots back to 1975’s
MOS Technologies 6502 which was chosen by Steve Wozniak for the Apple II, and which
Ricoh themselves customized for Uemura many years earlier for use in the original Famicom. Speaking of the Apple II, the 65816 was the
CPU used in the Apple IIGS, which as a result was employed as a development station in the
early days of the Super Famicom. The 65816 is not as fast as the Motorola 68000,
around which the Sega Genesis is designed, but Uemura was designing the Super Famicom
for visual and audio performance, rather than processing power. The Super Famicom can handle 128 simultaneous
sprites and up to 4 layers on-screen at once. The system has a total palette of over 32,000
colors, of which up to 256 can be simultaneously used in a single layer, depending on the graphics
mode used. There are a total of 8 such graphics modes
numbered zero through seven, though the last is the only one to enjoy popular name recognition. The Super Famicom produced 8-channel, 16-bit
sound thanks to 2 chips working in concert. The first is the Sony SPC700, famously and
supposedly secretly designed by Sony engineer and father of the Playstation Ken Kutaragi. The other chip, which sadly has a much less
salacious history, is simply a 16-bit digital signal processor. The system did not have a headphone jack on
it like the Genesis did, but did output line-level stereo sound through the proprietary multi-AV
jack in the back. The Super Famicom controller felt instantly
familiar to veterans of the 8-bit era. It retained the cross D-pad, doubled the number
of action buttons on the face, and added two shoulder buttons. It was also given a much more ergonomic form
factor than the rectangular controllers of the Famicom and NES. Although early speculation suggested that
the system would be released in Japan in late 1989 and the United States the following summer,
the Super Famicom wasn’t released in Japan until late November of 1990. The system cost 25,000 Yen, which was about
$185 at the time, and as was usually the case with systems in Japan, it did not come with
a pack-in game - but gamers had two games to choose from on launch day - F-Zero and
the sequel to Super Mario Bros 3. The Super Famicom was pre-ordered by nearly
1.5 million gamers, and the initial shipment of 300,000 consoles sold out in just 2 hours. The Super Famicom was re-designed for its
North American launch by Lance Barr, who worked full-time at Nintendo as an industrial designer,
and who also redesigned the Famicom for the US market as well as designing the shell for
the NES Advantage joystick. Barr felt that the design of the Super Famicom
looked too soft, or as he put it “like a bag of bread”, and wanted a more angular
design. The Super Nintendo made it’s major US press
debut at the summer Consumer Electronics show in early June of 1991, where attendees could
play, or watch game footage on giant projection screens of a number of early titles including
all three eventual launch games, plus Actraiser, Super R-Type, and Super Ghouls N Ghosts. Almost exactly 2 years after the launch of
both the Sega Genesis and TurboGrafx-16, the Super Nintendo began appearing in American
stores in the 4th week of August, an into the hands of Nintendo fanatics who had been
eagerly awaiting its arrival. The system retailed for $199.99, which was
$50 more than the recently-discounted Sega Genesis. However the console came bundled with both
RF and composite video cables, and Nintendo continued the tradition of including two controllers
with the system. When this extra value was taken into account,
the Super Nintendo actually only cost about 10% more than Sega’s 16-bit offering. Still, this was twice the price of the NES,
which led many parents to feel as though they were being ripped off by Nintendo, as they
didn't understand why these new games couldn't be played on the hardware that they'd already
paid for. While by 1991 the writing was already on the
wall concerning the fate of the TurboGrafx-16, the Sega Genesis was just starting to hit
its stride. Up to this point, Sega had been fighting an
8-bit enemy with a 16-bit weapon, but from here on out the two companies offerings would
be much more evenly matched, and it was no coincidence that Sonic The Hedgehog was launched
in North America just in time to beat the Super Nintendo to market. Sega had already been attacking Nintendo in
its advertisements ever since Tom Kalinske took over as head of Sega of America, and
they only ramped up the offensive with the release of the Super Nintendo. By the end of its first Christmas season,
the Super Nintendo sold through 1.4 million systems, which while an obvious success, was
actually lower than projected sales. Still, it had taken Sega the entire year to
sell 1.6 million systems, while Nintendo sold nearly as many in the span of just over 4
months. Although only 3 games were available on launch
day, two more would follow by the end of August, and before the year was out several games
that would become absolute classics on the Super Nintendo were already on store shelves. All three launch games were developed by Nintendo’s
Entertainment Analysis and Development group, led by the iconic Shigeru Miyamoto, who had
just 15 months from the time they first saw the design of the machine until the launch
titles had to be completed for the Japanese market. ———————————————————— The first game, F-Zero, is a futuristic racing
game credited with creating the genre later made popular by games like Wipeout. According to the game's backstory, F-Zero
takes place in the year 2560, when a new inter-galactic motorsports league based on Formula 1 grand
prix racing is created by a group of multi-billionaires. For as long as I’ve been playing this game,
I never made the connection between F1 and F-Zero, and I’m a huge F1 fan. There are 4 cars, which the game calls "machines",
to choose from, each of course with their own characteristics. While the game only shows an acceleration
curve for each, they also handle quite a bit differently due to differences in their weight. You also choose from three leagues, dubbed
“knight”, “queen”, and “king”, which feature racing circuits of increasing
difficulty, although some tracks are really just variants of others. You also choose a difficulty setting for the
game, which basically sets how hard the AI will be to race against. Unless you're a complete noob at this type
of game, it's best to start with at least standard difficulty if you want any semblance
of a challenge. It is of course impossible to talk about F-Zero
without talking about mode 7, which allows for scaling and rotation of a background layer
on a scanline-by-scanline basis, creating a rotatable layer on the screen that appears
to continue on into the horizon. The game provides you with a normal accelerator
and brake, but thanks to the fact that your machine is hovering above the ground, you
can also use the controller’s shoulder buttons to shift your weight, allowing you to move
laterally across the track, or cut into corners in order to turn more sharply. With the completion of each lap, you’re
also given a super jet, or “s-jet” which is a one-time use turbo boost. This not only allows you to go much faster,
but also lets you drive over rough patches in the track without slowing down. Some tracks feature jump plates or dash zones,
and all tracks are lined with an electrified guard rail. Anytime you bump into the rail, or other racers,
you car loses some of its power, which acts like sort of a life meter. Lose all of your power, and your car will
actually explode. Avoid this by driving through the pit row
area on each lap to partially recover your machine’s power, and be aware that some
cars can take more damage than others. While you’re only technically racing against
the other ranked cars, once you complete the initial lap, backmarker cars who are much
slower than you and whose only purpose seems to be to get in your way begin appearing on
the track. To be honest, I found avoiding these guys
to be the single biggest challenge in the game. While there’s no debating that Super Mario
World is one of the very best games released on the Super Nintendo, in it’s own way F-Zero
could be considered the “killer app” of the system’s launch lineup. The game plays to the system's strengths as
an audio-visual powerhouse, taking full advantage of both its expanded color palette, and advanced
sound chip. The game has a number of memorable musical
tracks, although it’s the song that plays during the very first race that I most closely
associate with F-Zero. Although each race track is of course unique
in its design, their differing environments also give each a unique look and feel. I obviously think that F-Zero is awesome,
but it isn’t without it’s flaws. Chief among them being the game’s rubber-band
AI. It’s quite easy to catch the other cars
in the race and take the lead, but once you do so it’s impossible to build up any kind
of real gap to the car behind you. The reverse is also true however, as it’s
basically impossible to fall that far behind. As a racing game enthusiast I find this frustrating
as it de-incentivizes driving technique, but it doesn’t really matter because the game
is just a lot of fun . Any other criticism that I might level at F-Zero would be trivial
at best, as I really do believe that this is a total must-play for the Super Nintendo. While I won’t go so far as to call it a
“top 5” best game on the system, it’s certainly in my top 5 favorites. F-Zero spawned a number of solid sequels,
including the outstanding 1998 release F-Zero X for the Nintendo 64, 2001’s F-Zero Maximum
Velocity which was actually a launch title on the Game Boy Advance, F-Zero GX, released
on the GameCube in 2003, and 2004's F-Zero GP Legend for the Game Boy Advance. —————————————————— Pilotwings has been accused of being little
more than a tech demo for the Super Nintendo's mode 7 scaling and rotation, and while I can
understand where that line of thinking might come from, I don’t think that it’s fair
to dismiss the game as such. Pilotwings isn't a flight simulator, its sort
of a "flight experience". The setup is that you are an entry-level member
in a flight club and you earn progressively higher licenses by completing lessons proctored
by a colorful cast of instructors. Each lesson is made up of multiple events,
and has a requisite total number of points needed to obtain that license and move on
to the next. The game has four different events, although
not all four of them will necessarily appear in leach lesson, and each one is exactly what
it sounds like. In the parachute events, you hang on to a
rope ladder while a helicopter lifts you high into the air. Once you let go and start to freefall, you
have to tilt and turn your body to fall through a sequence of rings before deploying your
parachute. Once you pull the ripcord, your job is to
land on one of several targets of varying difficulty. Landing on the hardest target nets you the
most points, or you can land on the moving target where you not only get maximum points,
but get sent into a bonus round where you can earn even more. In the light plane events you start off just
accurately landing a plane before moving on to harder events involving flying through
rings in the air, performing low-altitude maneuvers , taking off *and* landing, and
so on. While I find these events to be the easiest
to complete, they's also the hardest for me to get maximum points on, and I wish the developers
had taken advantage of the extra buttons on the Super Nintendo controller to give the
player a bit more control over the plane. The rocket belt events are reminiscent of
the guys that you sometimes see old footage of on TV, who would fly these things at sporting
events or air shows. While a real rocketbelt only has enough fuel
for a 21 second flight, in Pilotwings you have enough to practically fly to the moon
and back. Your objective in these stages is to take
off, fly through several stationary rings, touch poles, or fly through moving rings,
before making a successful landing on one of several targets. These levels once again give you the opportunity
to land on a moving target, which earns you access to a bonus stage, and doing so with
the rocketbelt is MUCH easier than with the parachute. The light plane tows you up into the sky to
start the hang-glider events, which have you riding thermal currents to reach some maximum
altitude or flying through rings, before landing. There’s also the odd inclusion of helicopter
combat levels. About halfway through the game, things take
a dark turn when 3 of your instructors get kidnapped by a nameless evil syndicate, and
you’re the only one who can save them! In these levels, you fly an attack helicopter
into enemy territory, and use missiles to take out their anti-aircraft guns before making
a safe landing and rescuing your instructors, Choplifter-style. At the end of the game, it happens again when
the same people kidnap an un-named government VIP. You basically play the same level over again,
but at night and with more anti-aircraft guns. These levels seem very out-of-place compared
to the rest of the game, but they’re also awesome so who cares? While much like F-Zero the game makes heavy
use of the Super Nintendo's new mode 7 technology, it also provides a unique gameplay experience
that absolutely makes the game worth looking at. The graphics in the game are colorful and
detailed, and again like F-Zero is a game that really couldn't have been pulled off
on the 8-Bit NES. I also really like the soundtrack, which has
an upbeat new age jazz feel to it. Pilotwings definitely has a much more relaxed
pace and feel compared to not only the other two launch games, but to most video games. To some this will be a weakness, but to others
it’ll present a welcome alternative. My only real issue with Pilotwings is in how
scoring and difficulty are handled. In order to pass each lesson, you have to
achieve a minimum aggregate score. If you fail to earn enough points in a single
event, that aggregate score will no longer be possible. Unfortunately, Pilotwings doesn’t give you
lives or do-overs, so if you make a mistake in any single event, it can quite possibly
be game over, especially in the later lessons. This means replaying the entire lesson over
again. Now, I’m certainly not saying that I want
the game to be easy, but imagine playing Super Mario Bros, except that if you die in say,
world 1-3, you get sent all the way back to the beginning of world 1-1. That might get old after a while, and if you're
trying to beat the entire game, as I was in preparation for this episode, it's the kind
of thing that can make you walk away and not want to come back anytime soon. Still, all that really means is that Pilotwings
requires a lot of patience, and is perhaps best played in short bursts if you’re someone
who is easily frustrated. It’s certainly not a reason to avoid the
game, which is often treated like the red-headed step child of the Super Nintendo’s launch. It was of course sandwiched in between two
legendary launch titles, and probably got buried under the amazing lineup of games that
started coming out for the system immediately after launch, but in my opinion Pilotwings
would have made an excellent weekend rental if you were looking for something a little
bit different. —————————————————— Super Mario World was the pack-in game for
the Super Nintendo, the direct sequel to 1990’s Super Mario Bros 3, and is considered by many
to be one of the greatest video games ever made. As the two games were released just months
apart, Super Mario World is often compared to Sonic The Hedgehog. In fact Sega ran an advertising campaign using
a comparison between the two games as a selling point for the Genesis, which they kicked off
at the very same Summer CES that served as the Super Nintendo's coming-out party. At first glance, Sonic is the more impressive-looking
game, but while Super Mario World may not look as visually striking as it’s competitor,
under the hood you’ll find what is quite possibly the greatest platform game ever created. In fact, while Sonic is clearly a pure platformer,
Super Mario World is almost an adventure game in platformer's clothing. Super Mario World is very similar in execution
to Super Mario Bros 3 in that it's split up into multiple worlds, each with a map that
allows you to choose your path to a certain degree. While for some reason the levels in Super
Mario Bros. 3 were short by usual standards, in this game they have thankfully returned
to normal size. This was by far the largest Super Mario Bros
game released to date, with a total of 72 levels and 96 level exits, and finding all
96 is the benchmark for proper completion of the game. Levels that contain a secret exit are marked
with a red dot on the map instead of yellow. Unlike Super Mario Bros. 3, you can also travel
freely between worlds without the need of a warp whistle, allowing you to replay any
level in the game. This is in fact essential to beating the game,
as you will need to go back and re-play levels after unlocking new block houses. This game is rife with secrets and unlockable
worlds, and I’m hesitant to show too many of them here, for fear of spoiling them for
the uninitiated. Back when the Super Nintendo was released,
many gamers actually complained that this game could have been done on the NES. I guess that's true in a superficial sense,
but you could say that about a lot of games. Super Mario World may not make use of the
Super Nintendo’s new technology in as much of an in-your-face manner as the other two
launch titles, but does a much more subtle job of incorporating the system’s new features,
including mode 7 scaling and rotation, mosaic effects, the ability to place sprites behind
background layers, background tile flipping, improved parallax scrolling, and a vastly
increased color palette. Super Mario World is quite a bit more challenging
than previous games in the series, which to me is a welcome improvement. Series mainstay enemies like Goomabs, Koopa
Troopas, and the hated Koopa Paratroopas are joined by a large cast of new foes, including
Blarggs, Super Koopas, and Chargin’ Chuck, as well as a colorful cast of Koopalings that
act as end-of-world bosses. This installment in the series ditched the
myriad of power-ups found in its predecessor, while retaining the mushroom and fire flower,
and adding one new power-up: the feather. This allows Mario to don a cape, which he
can use to dispatch enemies with a spin move, and can also allow him to fly. This power-up is reminiscent of the Tanooki
suit, the critical difference being that with the cape Mario can remain airborne indefinitely. Super Mario World also serves as the debut
of Yoshi, who has gone on to become one of Nintendo's most recognizable characters, as
the game takes place in his home of Dinosaur Island. You’ll find Yoshi hidden inside certain
blocks, and riding him gives you access to his expanded skillset. Perhaps most importantly, he can eat enemies. Some of them he simply swallows, or spits
their shell out, using it as a weapon, and eating red-shelled Koopas actually allows
him to spit out fireballs. Just as important, riding Yoshi allows Mario
to absorb one extra hit, as it simply knocks him off and sends Yoshi into a panic. If you can catch him, you can jump back on,
and if not, you’ll just have to find him again. According to Miyamoto, he wanted to include
a dinosaur companion for Mario as early as the original Super Mario Bros, but was prevented
from doing so by the technical limitations of the hardware. The Yoshi was designed by lead artist Shigefumi
Hino in his first credited role at Nintendo. Hino would go on to direct Super Mario World
2: Yoshi’s Island, and still works at Nintendo to this day. In addition to the game’s use of the Super
Nintendo’s new video technology, it also takes advantage of the expanded sound hardware. The music is head and shoulders above the
NES releases, and includes more exotic sounds like steel drums, and makes appropriate use
of echo effects in underground levels. Super Mario World's soundtrack was composed
by Koji Kondo, who began working for Nintendo when he was just 22 years old, and who was
responsible for almost every first-party Nintendo song that you've ever had stuck in your head. <music montage> Kondo, who joined Nintendo straight out of
college in 1984, is credited on over 120 games, and currently serves as Nintendo’s sound
supervisor. While the game was of course produced by Shigeru
Miyamoto, it was directed by Takashi Tezuka. Tezuka, who should really be more widely-recognized
than he actually is, began working for Nintendo in college as a summer intern before being
hired full-time after graduation. He co-designed the first three Super Mario
Bros games as well as the original Legend of Zelda, and still works at Nintendo as a
senior producer. Considering the fact that Super Mario World
was the high watermark in the series, it inexplicably never got a proper sequel. There was of course Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s
Island, which was actually a prequel and was a great game in its own right, but it was
certainly not a continuation of the Super Mario Bros lineage. While Nintendo did release Super Mario Land
2: 6 Golden Coins on the Game Boy in 1992, the closest thing to an actual sequel has
to be New Super Mario Bros, which was released on the Nintendo DS in 2006, 16 years after
Super Mario World. I feel like many people overlook Super Mario
World in the Super Nintendo’s library, especially newcomers to the console. Whenever someone asks what Super Nintendo
game they should play next, be it Super Metroid, Earthbound, Chrono Trigger, etc., I always
want to ask, “Have you beaten Super Mario World yet?” I could go on and on about the game, It’s
impossible to use too many superlatives to describe this game, which is the very embodiment
of Nintendo magic. It is the fundamental Super Nintendo game,
and is a required experience for anyone who calls themselves a fan of the system. This is made all the more impressive by the
fact that it was a launch title that found its way into the hands of over 20 million
gamers. Even Shigeru Miyamoto himself has gone on
record saying that this is his all-time favorite Mario game. If you want to experience the Super Nintendo
launch but don’t have the console, all three launch titles were recently released on the
3DS virtual console for about 8 bucks each.
Great video. Thanks for sharing.
This is the latest episode of my show, released on Thursday. Did anyone here have the SNES at launch? If so, what are your memories and thoughts? If not, what games would you have picked up with the system?
Dude I love your channel. I've been devouring your vids all week. Keep up the great work, I'm telling everyone I know how good your stuff is!