THE RETROBATES

WHAT’S THE MOST TECHNICALLY IMPRESSIVE SNES GAME YOU’VE PLAYED?

DARRAN JONES

I’m going to go with Compile’s

Super Aleste. It’s an astonishing shmup that proves the SNES was more than capable of throwing lots of sprites about the screen with little slowdown.

Expertise: Juggling a gorgeous wife, two beautiful daughters and an award-winning mag, all under one roof!

Currently playing:

Guardians Of The Galaxy

Favourite game of all time:

Strider

ANDY SALTER

I’m generally not a fan of racing games but Super Mario Kart is probably my favourite SNES game of all time.

Expertise: Modding games, no ‘vanilla’ versions for me, thanks!

Currently playing: M&B2: Bannerlord… Modded of course

Favourite game of all time: Rome: Total War

ASHLEY DAY

It has to be Starwing. I couldn’t even imagine a game like that at the time, and as a Mega Drive owner it made me super jealous of my Snes-owning friends.

Expertise: Buying MSX games like they’re going out of fashion

Currently playing:

Ys: The Oath In Felghana

Favourite game of all time:

Shining Force III

TIM EMPEY

Street Fighter II. I spent a lot of money in the arcades on this and it looked near identical on the SNES, but I didn’t have one. I did have the Amiga version though, but well, you know…

Expertise: Finishing Game

Pass games before they leave the service

Currently playing:

Halo Infinite

Favourite game of all time:

God Hand

PAUL ROSE

The first SNES game to blow me away was my first SNES game: Super Mario World – the second I heard the echoey sound during the first cave level.

Expertise: Winging it

Currently playing:

Mini Motorways

Favourite game of all time:

Half-life 2

RORY MILNE

I remember Donkey Kong Country being a revelation. Its CGI visuals looked stunning, in part because clever coding allowed them to be rendered in 4,096 colours instead of the standard 256.

Expertise: The game that

I’m writing about at the time of writing

Currently playing: Wipeout

Favourite game of all time: Tempest

NICK THORPE

I was firmly in the Mega Drive camp as a kid, but that didn’t diminish my excitement when I learned my cousin had Donkey Kong Country – it was just on another level, visually.

Expertise: Owning five Master Systems and a Mark III

Currently playing:

Omikron: The Nomad Soul

Favourite game of all time:

Sonic The Hedgehog

PAUL DRURY

The first time I skydived in Pilotwings was revelatory – this machine was a serious piece of kit.

Expertise: Nintendo Switch physical releases

Currently playing: Super Monkey Ball: Banana Mania

Favourite game of all time: Sheep In Space

JOHN SZCZEPANIAK

Skyblazer. From the start it was filled with multiple transparencies, Mode 7 bosses which changed size and rotated, 3D flying sections, curving backgrounds and richly detailed sprites. It constantly managed to impress me.

Expertise: Everything Japanese and anything obscure

Currently Playing: Indiana Jones And The Infernal Machine

Favourite game of all time: Cave Story

Ican still remember my first encounter with our cover game Pilotwings. I was visiting my best mate Paul Staddon because he had a Super Famicom and a number of games for it, including Super Mario World and F-zero. Both were superb, but Pilotwings really stood out for me because it looked like nothing I had ever seen on a home system before.

Seeing Pilotwings’ levels scale and rotate as you completed tasks felt like witchcraft and I knew right then that I had to own Nintendo’s console. It proved to be a solid purchase and even though it wasn’t always the best system for shmups, I nevertheless built up an impressive library of games, many of which pushed the technological limits of the console.

Thirty years ago in 1992, European gamers got to experience Nintendo’s console for themselves, so we felt it was the perfect opportunity to highlight 30 games that truly pushed the system. We’ve also asked a number of developers to reveal the SNES games that impressed them, and there’s even a Pilotwings Ultimate Guide.

There’s plenty more to enjoy in the first issue of 2022. We’ve a feature looking at the greatest C64 games of all time, we quiz a number of Rare developers about the Battletoads series and go behind the scenes of Gremlin’s Top Gear games and Electronic Arts’ The Return Of The King. We’ve even found time to showcase the best games you can play on the Spectrum Next.

Stay safe and enjoy the magazine,

Darran