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Which series' did the SNES improve? Which didn't it?


Nintegageo

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I personally like the SNES versions of almost any game vs NES. Though a huge one that's better on NES that stands out is Mega Man. MM7 is my least favorite main MM title. MMX 1&2 are fantastic and X3 is good but not amazing, those titles just don't match up to the original 6.

Castlevania maybe is a toss-up since there were 2 great NES ones and an... interesting experimental one. On SNES there's the masterpiece SCIV and one I don't care for in Dracula X.  So I could go either way there but probably SNES. 

Punch-Out is marginally better than Super Punch-Out. Maybe because of nostalgia, who knows.

Everything else I feel is better on SNES.

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IMO, Super Punch-Out is at least as good as MTPO, and in many ways it's better. But MTPO is more iconic and there's more nostalgia for it.

The NES Metroid and Zeldas are more unforgiving and don't hold your hand as much. That could be considered a win for the NES depending on what you're looking for.

SCIV is a beautiful game with improved controls, but NES Castlevania and Castlevania III hold their own in terms of gameplay. CV3 also has the branching paths and different characters making it the precursor to Rondo. I'm leaning towards NES here.

For me SMB1 has the most replay value of the Mario games. I like the simplicity and relatively short length compared to the rest of the series.

 

 

 

 

 

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On 3/23/2020 at 2:29 AM, fox said:

Better on NES
Gradius

 

Really? The NES Gradius is pretty rough, especially the middle levels (the meatball level in particular.)

Unless you mean the series  including Life Force and Gradius II for Famicom. Those are pretty sweet.

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Gah.. tough question for some series. I think games like Zelda, Castlevania, Contra, Mario, and Turtles just became more polished but they all hold up great on NES. Ghost n Goblins and Final Fantasy kinda fall in this category too although I found FF on SNES to be more interesting. 

Super Metroid took enough of a leap for me that I believe it to be the vastly superior game compared to the original even though it carries a lot of the same concepts.  Pitfall and Star Wars are much better platformers on SNES. 

Adventure Island, Double Dragon, Battle Toads, and Mega Man are the ones that come to mind for being significantly better on NES. I think I like Batman on NES better too than the beat em up on the SNES. 

Punch Out! Is a tough one for me as the games play quite differently. I love the original but also love the stun and quick KOs in SPO. Tough to say on that one. 

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8 hours ago, Tulpa said:

Really? The NES Gradius is pretty rough, especially the middle levels (the meatball level in particular.)

Unless you mean the series  including Life Force and Gradius II for Famicom. Those are pretty sweet.

Lifeforce prob my fav shump on the system so yeah I was counting that as part of the series

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11 hours ago, Tulpa said:

Really? The NES Gradius is pretty rough, especially the middle levels (the meatball level in particular.)

Unless you mean the series  including Life Force and Gradius II for Famicom. Those are pretty sweet.

Is the SNES Gradius worth owning? I think I played it once and got rid of it. Over time I think I have just grown to assume it is the worst game in the series.

Edited by Californication
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5 hours ago, Californication said:

Is the SNES Gradius worth owning? I think I played it once and got rid of it. Over time I think I have just grown to assume it is the worst game in the series.

Gradius 3 is in my opinion one of the best games in the series, and the SNES port is probably the only Nintendo port that actually surpasses the arcade original, which honestly has some really frustrating parts.

The NES versions of Gradius 1, 2 and Life Force/Salamander are fun, but don't really hold a candle to the arcades, while the PC Engine ports are unambiguously the best versions of all three games. I don't know why anyone should ever settle for the NES ones.

IMO the best part of the Gradius series is the Parodius games, and the NES one is definitely a little behind here. The arcades are still the best, but all the SNES versions fare very well, and Oshaberi Pardius is even a SNES exclusive*. So especially when factoring in the "sibling" series, I'd absolutely give the edge to the SNES over the NES here.
The SNES D-pad also works better for 8-way movement, but that's a minor point.
 

(*) There's the Saturn version of Oshaberi of course, but it's very different, and has a few entirely different stages. Though the same argument could be made for NES Life Force.

Edited by Sumez
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4 hours ago, Sumez said:

Gradius 3 is in my opinion one of the best games in the series, and the SNES port is probably the only Nintendo port that actually surpasses the arcade original, which honestly has some really frustrating parts.

The NES versions of Gradius 1, 2 and Life Force/Salamander are fun, but don't really hold a candle to the arcades, while the PC Engine ports are unambiguously the best versions of all three games. I don't know why anyone should ever settle for the NES ones.

IMO the best part of the Gradius series is the Parodius games, and the NES one is definitely a little behind here. The arcades are still the best, but all the SNES versions fare very well, and Oshaberi Pardius is even a SNES exclusive*. So especially when factoring in the "sibling" series, I'd absolutely give the edge to the SNES over the NES here.
The SNES D-pad also works better for 8-way movement, but that's a minor point.
 

(*) There's the Saturn version of Oshaberi of course, but it's very different, and has a few entirely different stages. Though the same argument could be made for NES Life Force.

But if we are talking SNES, not Super Famicom the compariosn is between Gradius lll and Gradius and  Life Force NES.

I have Gradius lll on the PS2 and it doesn't play anything like the SNES version, from what I've heard. I thought the SNES versionwas much easier and had massive slow dow down, on multiple levels?

Don't get me wrong I suck at Gradius lll on the PS2, I am pretty sure it is the hardest shoot-em-up I own l, which sounds dif. than the SNES port.

 

Edited by Californication
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4 hours ago, Californication said:

But if we are talking SNES, not Super Famicom the compariosn is between Gradius lll and Gradius and  Life Force NES.

I have Gradius lll on the PS2 and it doesn't play anything like the SNES version, from what I've heard. I thought the SNES versionwas much easier and had massive slow dow down, on multiple levels?

Don't get me wrong I suck at Gradius lll on the PS2, I am pretty sure it is the hardest shoot-em-up I own l, which sounds dif. than the SNES port.

 

 

There's a SNES Gradius III rom hack that removes the slowdown. It's supposed to be much tougher. I watched the Mexican Runner spend hours trying to beat it before finally giving up and beating the original instead.

 

 

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7 hours ago, Californication said:

But if we are talking SNES, not Super Famicom

That's exactly the same thing

8 hours ago, Californication said:

the compariosn is between Gradius lll and Gradius and  Life Force NES.

I don't see the logic in including Life Force, but not Parodius. Either way, it's just as easy - a mediocre, inferior port (Gradius NES) vs a great one (Gradius III SNES) that improves a lot of stuff over the arcade?

8 hours ago, Californication said:

I thought the SNES versionwas much easier and had massive slow dow down, on multiple levels?

It is, but that's not a bad thing. It's in the very easy end, but the arcade one is not just hard, it's obnoxiously hard, to the point where I've heard even the most hardcore shmup veterans curse it to hell. The changes in the SNES version are absolutely to the better, and the only downside is obviously the slowdown.

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I like simpler games and smaller sprites, but Castlevania IV and Mega Man X are my favorite games in those series. I'd probably sooner pick up SMB3 than SMW, but would agree Mario is basically tied, both top 10 games ever for me. I'm also on team MTPO. Whether nostalgia, how technically impressive it is, or how much I like arcade to NES ports that are better on NES, MTPO is the one for me.

I'd give Turtles to NES too, but I don't like beat 'em ups so the platformer is gonna win by default.

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Graphics Team · Posted

I feel that the SNES had a tendency to over-complicate things that worked perfectly well on the NES. It just fueled the departure from pick-up-an-play, arcade style gaming. That's not always a bad thing; it's just what makes the 16-bit era different from what came before it.

But in spite of that, I agree that Gradius III is better than Gradius because of all the customization options. I'm also partial to Super Mario World over SMB3 - there's a case where the SNES iteration of a classic NES series really kept its stride without making the game convoluted.

-CasualCart

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On 3/24/2020 at 12:28 PM, NEET.dreams said:

I've always preferred the Super Mario All Stars versions of smb 2 and 3 but I always thought the first game was better on nes. 

The ability to save makes the All Stars version of SMB3 superior. I've also always appreciated the refinements to the soundtrack and graphics on the All Stars version. 

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Off the top of my head from NES <-> SNES where SNES did not end up having the better game/improvements immediately the Mega Man franchise on the whole went downhill.  MM7 wasn't as nice as the others, soccer was strange but ok, and I make it and never have that MMX is pretty much garbage to me other than the original given the poor way they handle gimping the character until you use that broken way to get into stages over and over to get the upgrades ...plus the stages tend to be too easy and the bosses infuriating or vice versa.

Not a specific game, but DISNEY titles based on cartoon franchises, they're worse on SNES on the whole.  Sure Aladdin is really nice, and Magical Quest is stunning and awesome which almost pains me to write this, but when you stack it against both Duck Tales and Rescue Rangers along with Darkwing Duck and the others, the NES did that better.

Someone already wrote it but Punch-Out is obvious, the SNES one sucks compared.  One 3min round only is bs, and it went way into left field with weird gimmicky non-boxing type stuff not that the old one didn't get a little strange but nothing on the same level at all.  Spitting, kung fu, clowns, etc is just too stupid/much.  Visually better and audio too sure, gameplay/design nope.

 

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