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Iloved my Mega Drive, but the SNES made me cheat on it. Back in the day, consoles were expensive and money was hard to come by, so many of my friends had a single games machine, and I was no exception. I loved Sega’s Mega Drive, but when I saw those early screenshots of Super Mario World and F-zero, I knew that I also needed to own Nintendo’s console somehow. I wouldn’t actually get a machine until late 1991 and the system I plumped for was the US version, mainly because there were no Super Famicoms in stock at the Video Game Centre.

I traded in my Mega Drive and countless games in order to get my hands on a brand-spanking-new SNES and about six games, including Super Mario World, F-zero, Pilotwings, Legend Of The Mystical Ninja and A Link To The Past. I was not disappointed with my purchase at all. Nintendo’s machine felt exceptionally capable, and while it clearly struggled with a lot of shmups (Super R-type immediately springs to mind), it felt like a sizeable step up over Sega’s console. The affair wouldn’t last, of course. I went back to Sega’s machine and then flip-flopped between both until the next gen came out, but I’ll never forget how games like Star Fox, Super Castlevania IV and Pilotwings constantly blew me away.

This month’s feature celebrates the actual hardware that made Nintendo’s machine such a great console, and hopefully the featured developers will offer an interesting peek behind the curtain and reveal why the SNES remains such a beloved system.

Stay safe and enjoy the magazine!