 Every once in a while I get someone asking me what my personal favorite Super Nintendo games are, and rather than answer that with a boring video that highlights the same old games everyone already knows about, like Chrono Trigger and Mega Man X and Star Fox and Ken Griffey Jr. presents Major League Baseball and on and on, I thought I'd make a quick video about some of my favorites that I only recently discovered through making videos for this channel, plus I figured this might actually be a useful video for some people since there's nearly 400 videos here now, and I can't possibly expect anyone to sit through every one of those, so here are my favorites that I'd either never played before, or I'd just never given a real chance since I started this whole SNES drunk channel thing. 13. We'll start with one I covered just a couple months ago, Uncharted Waters New Horizons is a game from developer Koei, responsible for many bulky, unwieldy games that are really tough to get into, but New Horizons is really fun and worth the effort. There's six different storylines you can play through, there's battles, there's rules, there's trading goods, earning money, and politicking to earn allies. A lot of those Koei games were difficult to play back then, let alone today, but New Horizons is a pleasant surprise that offers a huge variety of gameplay and replay value. 12. And we bounce to the other end of the spectrum with a completely different game, NBA Given Go is a simple, straightforward arcade style basketball game that's compatible with up to four players. The viewpoint here is a little goofy at first, but this is a really fun game. No, it's not quite NBA Jam, but there's no fouls, lots of scoring, and a really fast pace so you can finish an entire game in just 10 or 12 minutes. If you're looking for an under-the-radar basketball game that's aged really well, NBA Given Go from Konami is fantastic. 11. Energy Breaker is a tactic-centric role-playing game for Super Famicom that never left Japan but it has since received an English patch so it's playable today. The developers Neverland were responsible for this one, the same folks behind the Lufia SNES games, and this is one I had a hard time putting down. The weird leveling system is kinda strange, and the battles can be somewhat slow, this game isn't perfect, but the story really drew me in and I was hooked on finding out what would happen to Lyra, the game's main character who starts the game trying to recover her memory and find out about her past. Yeah, objectively there's better role-playing games out there, but this one has stuck with me. 10. Kuan Pa is another Super Famicom game that never left Japan, but this is one you don't even need an English patch for. It's a single-screen puzzle game where you play as a colored cube rolling around a grid matching colors. This is one of those games where when you're just sick of everything else and burnt out on the same old stuff, it's simple to pick up and play, easy to figure out, but really tough to master. Some of the grids get to be pretty inventive. This is one of those games I'd just like to relax to. 9. Before doing this channel thing I'd always assumed Sparkster was just an SNES port of the superior Rocket Knight adventures for Sega Genesis, but it turns out Sparkster is actually its own game with brand new levels and bosses. I won't argue with you if you think Rocket Knight adventures is better, but Sparkster is still such a satisfying playthrough. It's really fun to just crank through the first few levels as fast as you can, blowing up anything that moves, and enjoying that sweet sound design. Konami really nailed it with this game, and it's become one of my favorites. 8. The Super Nintendo is of course known for having some of the best role-playing games ever made in its library, but the sheer number of RPGs the system has can cause games to get lost in the shuffle. That's why I appreciate a game like Liv-a-Liv so much. This is a game that really tried something different within the genre, setting out with seven different storylines, each with their own unique theme and gameplay style that can be played in any order, and all seven converge at the end for one final sequence. On paper that might sound like it's different for the sake of being different and weird for the sake of being weird, but Liv-a-Liv hits a good balance of being innovative without being too gimmicky. It's a great playthrough and well worth checking out if you love JRPGs. 7. Dragonview is an action RPG that alternates between first-person exploration and side-scrolling beat-em-up style action while incorporating item and equipment management and a leveling system. When I first read that this was supposed to be the sequel to Drakken, my expectations were not high, but this is a great game. I wish more action RPGs did this style of side-scrolling gameplay. It makes grinding actually kind of fun instead of just leaning on a button. But yeah, this is another one I like to go back to occasionally since I first found it. It's a surprisingly quality title. 6. I remember first stumbling across King of Dragons and thinking, what's the point? There's already stuff like Magic Sword and Knights of the Round if you want the medieval beat-em-up experience. But King of Dragons is arguably the best beat-em-up on the SNES not named Turtles in Time. It cuts a quick pace, features 5 different playable characters, all with different weapons and ranges of motion, and there's smart enemy design here that'll force you to fight each enemy differently instead of just mashing buttons. And some of the boss battles here are great looking as well. King of Dragons is the total package in a beat-a-bug. No, it's not as good as the arcade, but if you'd rather play on the Super Nintendo hardware, you can't go wrong with this one. 5. Similar to Kuonpa earlier on this list, Don't Ramey Fantasy is another game that's just something I play when I'm burnt out on everything else. There's something about the visual design and the music of this one that's relaxing, and it helps that the controls are spot-on and the level design is interesting. This is another game that originated on the Super Famicom and never made it to the SNES in North America, but was later made available on the Wii virtual console. So if you're looking for a relaxing, low-stress platformer, I'd recommend getting into this one anyway you can. 4. Moving on from cutesy hop-and-bop platformers to gunning down enemies with oozzies and making stuff go boom, True Lies is maybe the biggest surprise I've found in the Super Nintendo library, an Arnold movie game that doesn't totally suck, and you get shotguns and grenades and even a freaking Tom Arnold cameo. What's not to love here? What you see is what you get. Not a lot of nuance, but who cares? True Lies is just plain fun. 3. Front Mission Gun Hazard is a game I've talked about a lot on here. It's my pick for the best game to never leave Japan, because it's like if a game like Cybernator or Metal Warriors were in action RPG, it features all sorts of customization options for your mech, lots of different weapons, people fight alongside you in real time and you can adjust their stats like how aggressive or defensive they are, and in addition to all that, there's a well-told story with some spectacular looking pixel art and a soundtrack made by Mitsuda and Oematsu. This game is freaking unreal. If you like action games, if you like RPGs, hell, if you like video games, you gotta check this one out. 2. I played through Illusion of Gaia and Terranigma long before I ever decided to play Soul Blazer and I put off playing it for the longest time because I always stupidly perceived it as a step backwards, but Soul Blazer has aged extremely well. The way the game is structured lends itself really well to how games are played today with autosaving and all that, you can crank through a section of a dungeon, go back and save, and those monsters will stay destroyed, and that structure works really well with how the story is told as well. So yeah, Soul Blazer might not measure up in the sound and visual department when it comes to its contemporaries, but it's definitely aged well and it's well worth playing today. 1. And my favorite game that I've discovered since doing this channel is Axelay. This was my gateway game into the shoot em up genre. I'd always wanted to get into shoot em ups, but they were usually too difficult and too unforgiving for me. Axelay was the first one I'd played where everything just clicked and it enabled me to dive off the deep end into the crazy world of 16 bit shoot em ups. Everyone's gateway game is different. For many it's you on Squadron or Space Megaforce or Gradius 3, but the shoot em up genre never really made sense to my brain until I played Axelay, and I'm so grateful for that. It's quickly become one of my all time favorite SNES games. Alright that's all for now, thanks for watching and I hope you have a great rest of your day.