The 1991 Super Nintendo version of Will Wright‘s classic SimCity was developed by Nintendo themselves, so is somewhat different to previous versions. It’s actually one of the best versions of SimCity around.
Tag Archives: influential
Raid on Bungeling Bay, Commodore 64
Raid on Bungeling Bay was Will Wright‘s first ever video game and it was released for the Commodore 64 by Brøderbund in 1984. Will Wright – in case you didn’t know – was a co-founder of Maxis and also designer of SimCity and The Sims.
Rolling Thunder, Arcade
Rolling Thunder is a side-scrolling arcade action game, developed and manufactured by Namco in 1986.
You take control of Codename “Albatross” – a highly-agile secret agent and a member of the “Rolling Thunder” espionage unit. Your mission is to rescue your partner, Leila Blitz, from a secret society called “Geldra”, and who are holding her against her will somewhere in New York City.
Dragon Quest VI, Super Nintendo
Dragon Quest VI: Realms of Revelation was developed by Heartbeat for Enix and released for the Super Nintendo in 1995 in Japan. It is the sixth instalment in the Dragon Quest series, if you aren’t familiar with Roman numerals.
Dragon Quest V, Super Nintendo
First released in 1992 by Enix, Dragon Quest V (five – or, to give the game its full title: Dragon Quest V: Hand of the Heavenly Bride) is another fun-to-play JRPG that is simple but engaging, and also contains enough detail and surprises to feel worthwhile.
It was the first Dragon Quest game released for the Super Nintendo and sold over three million copies in Japan.
Like its successor, Dragon Quest VI, it wasn’t officially released in the West until decades later, but English fan translation patches for the game do exist and that is what I’m showing here.
Final Fantasy VI, Super Nintendo
Final Fantasy VI (six) is where the series started to move away from its ‘cute’ roots and into darker story-telling territory, foreshadowing the distant Final Fantasy VII. It was initially released on the Super Nintendo in 1994.
Final Fantasy IV, Super Nintendo
Looking a little primitive compared to the 2005 remake for the Game Boy Advance, this original, 1991 Super Nintendo adventure nevertheless is a pioneering game. It was the first Final Fantasy game released for the Super Nintendo (the previous three all being Famicom releases), and the first to use the “Active Time Battle” system.
Final Fantasy III, Famicom
The third Final Fantasy game was released for the Nintendo Famicom in Japan in 1990. It wasn’t officially translated into English until many years after its initial release, so a variety of fan translations exist online, and their quality varies wildly. The TransTeam translation I found to be pretty good although the font and text alignment isn’t perfect.
Etrian Odyssey, Nintendo DS
This pioneering Japanese RPG was first released in 2007 and paved the way for one of the greatest series in the history of level-grinders… The Etrian Odyssey series.
Number three is my favourite, but one and two are excellent too (see also the Nintendo 3DS fourth instalment), and all follow the same credo. Which is: to base a game around exploration, mapping, and turn-based combat. And to make the party system flexible, so that adventurers can take out different parties and experiment with character skills.
Dungeon Master: Theron’s Quest, PC Engine
Theron’s Quest is a modified version of the incredible Dungeon Master, released for the PC Engine in Japan in 1992 and the TurboGrafx-16 in North America in 1993.