Comment by anonymous908213 3 days ago
A Link to the Past, Super Mario World, Yoshi's Island, Kirby Super Star, Donkey Kong Country 1-3, Super Metroid, Megaman X series, Dragon Quest series, Final Fantasy series, Chrono Trigger, Earthbound... just off the top of my head, are all very much worth playing today.
There is indeed a very strong and deep library of JRPGs to recommend, but I strongly disagree that DQ is not among the best. I recently replayed two of them in the past two years and both were still 10/10 experiences for me. They are conservative, sure, but that's not a bad thing. One of the points I was making about limited hardware is that polished simplicity can trump overeager complexity, and I think the DQ games are a shining example of that.
I love DQ. My point wasn’t that they were bad RPGs. Simply that they don’t fit within OP’s point.
Most of them could just as easily be NES/SMS games with slightly tuned down graphics; they don’t push the SNES in any meaningful way. As mentioned, that’s an intentional decision and not intended as a slight.
I get your point, but "slightly tuned down" is a bit hyperbolic.
Secret of Mana/Seiken Densetsu 2 11/10.
Seiken Densetsu 3 is good too. Only released in Japan but got translated by fans to be played on emulators. Now part of Collection of Mana for Switch and officially remade in 3D for Switch, PS4, XBox and Windows named Trials of Mana.
Yeah, I had great memories of secret of mana and SD3 (emulated in translation, I think that was Aeon Genesis?) and I replayed them with my partner in 2020. For a few hours. Honestly, kinda miserable.
Single player it was less fun than I remembered, multiplayer it was awful. SD3 is a beautiful game, and very overrated.
The Dragon Quest series, while beloved, is hardly the epitome of peak SNES gaming. It’s always been (purposefully) extremely conservative and dated in its design.
If you’re gonna go for quality SNES RPGs that show the console shining, you’d be better off with Terranigma, the Final Fantasy series, Tales of Phantasia, Chrono Trigger, etc, etc.