It's time once again for Defunct Games' 33 Consoles of Christmas, your 33 part guide to the best and worst system designs of all time. Join Cyril Lachel and Chad Reinhardt as they judge 33 different game consoles based on what they think of the look. Forget about actual hardware and software, the only thing these guys care about is talking about their exterior design. Join us every day between November 23 and December 25 for a new console review!
Synopsis:
Released two years after the NEC TurboGrafx-16 and Sega Genesis, the Super NES hit the market with better graphics, new abilities and more colors. It also came with a stable of popular franchises, like Mario, Zelda and Metroid. Along the way the Super NES managed to secure some of the biggest third party games of all time, including Capcom's Street Fighter II and Square Soft's Final Fantasy series. There is still a great debate over who won the 16-bit war, but there's no denying that the Super NES had a lot of great games that are still worth playing.
Best Games:
Street Fighter II, Super Mario World, Final Fantasy III, Super Metroid, Chrono Trigger, Super Mario Kart, ActRaiser and many more!
Don't listen to Chad here; he has completely lost his mind with this review. This is the Super NES we're talking about, quite possibly the ugliest console of the 1990s. I can't help but compare the style of the Super NES with its Japanese counterpart, the Super Famicom. In Japan the system was sleek and attractive; it was the kind of console you want to show off. The Super Famicom is one of the best looking systems of all time. But instead of bringing that beautiful piece of plastic to the U.S., Nintendo hit the system with a big old ugly stick and turned it into the beast it is now.
I hate just about everything about this system design. I hate the look of the oversized power and reset buttons, there's no reason they should be that large. I hate the fact that it reminds me of Herman Munster's head. And then there's the eject button. This is the only cartridge based console to ever feature an eject button, there's almost no good reason for the system to have one. That's like wanting your next console to have a built-in strobe light. Oh Nintendo, you really missed the mark in the 1990s.
This system employed the classic feel of what worked with both the NES and the few things that worked on the Famicom. It sports those switches similar to the Famicom, but still feels a tad cold and uncaring like the NES. I don't want a system that needs impressing, and I feel the SNES pulled that off exquisitely. It reminds me of when Hot Rod transformed into Rodimus Prime after he opened the Autobot Matrix. Had the NES owned a Matrix, it would have turned into the SNES, much to the chagrin of Galvatron.
I never got used to that eject button, though. I'm still tempted to press it while I'm playing a game and get frustrated, just to watch the cartridge fly into the air and get chopped up in the ceiling fan, as I always imagine it would.
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