Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars (Super Nintendo)
http://darth-azrael.tumblr.com/post/160601678201/brandoplayer-super-mario-rpg
When I think about role-playing games, Mario was never the first franchise that came to mind. Admittedly, I like older computer RPGs more than the more “modern” JRPGs like the Final Fantasy series, even among those types of games I never would have though Mario would make a good franchise to base a role-playing game on. However, make one they did.
Super Metroid (Super Nintendo)
Super Metroid (SNES)
http://darth-azrael.tumblr.com/post/160611052639/retrogamingblog-super-metroid-was-released-for
Super Metroid on the Super Nintendo was the sequel to Metroid II: The Return of Samus which had been released about three years earlier on the NES. Super Metroid was released in 1994 which was kind of late in the life of the Super Nintendo. Even though the SNES enjoyed immense success, it really had a relatively short commercial life compared to other successful systems. Next generation CD based consoles like the Saturn and PlayStation were only about a year away at this point. The SNES had been kind of late to the 16-bit party with the Sega Genesis and TurboGrafx-16 having been introduced a couple of years earlier.
Nevertheless, Super Metroid was a huge hit and is widely regarded as one of the best games, not only on the SNES but of all time. It is a side scrolling action adventure game much like the previous games but updated to take advantage of 16-bit hardware. However, it’s really the playability that makes this game so successful.
You don’t even need a Super Nintendo to check this one out. Super Metroid was released on the Wii’s Virtual Console in 2007, on the Wii U’s Virtual Console in 2013 and on the New Nintendo 3DS’s Virtual Console in 2016.
[SNES] [USA] [MAGAZINE] [1994]
http://darth-azrael.tumblr.com/post/160617326765/vgprintads-stone-protectors-snes-usa
Stone Protectors was a toy line and a short-lived animated series that seemed to try to take advantage of the popularity of Troll Dolls at the time. Troll Dolls have a long history and are popular even today. Stone Protectors not so much.
Like many other toy lines that became cartoons (or vice versa), this one also became a video game. It was released by Kemco for the Super Nintendo in 1994. Also, like many others (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles being a big exception) it isn’t terribly good. The game was a side-scrolling beat ’em up that had decent graphics but poor animation and control.
A Sega Genesis version was also completed by Vic Tokai but never officially released. I don’t really know why but I can only guess that after the animated series was cancelled and the toy line didn’t do so well that they determined it wasn’t worth the cost of production. The ROM has since been leaked and can be find in the wild on the net.
