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a TRIBUTE TO THE Super Nintendo - by Mr Biffo

7/2/2017

45 Comments

 
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We stand poised on the edge of a new epoch - marked by the release of a brand new Nintendo machine. In just a few weeks, Nintendo launches the Switch - a device that it hopes will be as warmly embraced as some of its earlier home consoles.

​Given that the Wii U was basically the same console as the Wii, but with a unique selling point - actively discouraging people from wanting to buy one - the Switch is essentially the first brand new Nintendo system since 2006. That's a gap of 11 earth years. Mental, bruv.

Like many of us, the SNES is the Nintendo console I embrace most firmly to my pale English bosom (note: I don't have bosoms). Indeed, to this day I raise it aloft as my favourite games machine of all time. 

I hold out hope that I'll like the Switch, while accepting that I'm a toothless old man sustained almost exclusively by a diet of tepid nostalgia. It's doubtful that any new console could ever cause me to fall in love with it the way I fell for the SNES.
STUFF
Having missed out on the NES - a machine so poorly distributed into the UK that it was only available in one corner shop on the Scottish borders - I was desperate for a Super NES. Reading the reports of it in the magazines, it was the first time that not owning a console felt like I was missing out. 

I was poor at the time, working on the scoreboard at Wembley Stadium, earning around £10k a year. I had a two year-old daughter, and we were living in a council flat behind some bins.

On one side of us was an old people's home. On the other a woman and five dogs that barked constantly. Above us, a flat owned by the local Social Service, inhabited by teenagers who had just been released from care, and would celebrate this fact by starting a party at midnight every night for nine months. My then-wife was on unemployment benefit - the only way to ensure we'd manage to pay the rent every month.

It wasn't the happiest of times, and the SNES, with its optimistic colour scheme and rounded edges, seemed to offer hope.

The problem was... it cost £150 - a big chunk of my income, at a time when I was borrowing money off my parents most months, and could still only afford pasta or beans for dinner most nights. There was no way to justify it. Indeed, there was no way to buy one without triggering a massive argument. I had to bide my time and wait for my wife to feel sufficiently guilty about something that she'd agree to the purchase.

It didn't take too long.
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PRIMARY
Everything about the SNES felt different to every other machine I'd ever owned.

From the primary colours of the joypad buttons - we definitely got the best SNES - to how the thing felt in my hand, it seemed considered.

It felt as if its designers had really thought about what would make it feel like the best console.

The SNES (although, again, not the US version, with its muted purples and sharp corners) seemed friendly and welcoming. By comparison, The Mega Drive seemed somehow hollow and cheap, a beta male in a leather jacket, propping up a bar. The SNES was confident enough as the alpha never to display a need to show off. 

​Even the stark difference between the pack-in game I got with my Mega Drive - the godawful Altered Beast - compared to Nintendo's choice - the peerless Super Mario World - highlighted that the SNES was in a different league. Heck, it didn't even seem to bother competing with the Mega Drive. While Sega appeared desperate to beat the SNES, Nintendo was oblivious, merely doing its own thing with an unflappable poise.

Super Mario World sold the power of the SNES beautifully. The graphics were crisp and colourful - not the muted sprites of Sega's rival. It used Nintendo's Mode 7 capabilities in subtle ways that offered graphical spectacle never before seen outside of an arcade.

Oddly, though, the sound was the thing which really drove home that the Super NES was way ahead of its rival - the moment when Mario first enters a cavern, and the music drops, and begins to echo... I remember having to pause the game just so that I could roll around on the floor going "Whaaaaa?!".

The following month's paycheque bought me F-Zero and Super Tennis. Neither disappointed. My planned regular Tuesday night role-playing session was cancelled that week so that I could show these new games off to my mates.

SUPER FAN
The SNES also marked the first time I ever played import games. At a games fair I picked up Smash TV and a converter, which allowed me to play NTSC titles; it sat between the game cartridge and the SNES. Somehow, on my first use of it I managed to damage my SNES cartridge slot pins, and had to send the SNES away to be fixed - a very long month.

Games continued to push the machine's capabilities, firing a shot which holed the traditional arcade market below the waterline. Mario Paint. Starwing/Starfox. Zelda. Street Fighter 2. Yoshi's Island. Yet even with the crappiest Super NES games - and, inevitably, there were plenty of really crap Super NES games - would demonstrate that the machine was more powerful than its most direct rival.

I'd always enjoyed video games, but the Super NES turned me into something more. That was when I became a fan, when I really understood the potential of games.

​When I really fell in love with them. 
WATCH MR BIFFO, HORSENBURGER & ASHENS DO STUFF - LIVE!!
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45 Comments
rolling, rolling, rolling on a rreeeevuuuhh
7/2/2017 09:51:52 am

I had the Megadrive, the kid down the road had a SNES, so we essentially had both. Top SNES: Mario World (still the best Mario imo), Mario Kart, Super Metroid.

You are 100% correct about the Euro SNES design, it's one of the best console designs of all time. It feels solid in a way that consoles of the time did not

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Paul C
7/2/2017 02:03:05 pm

I had no idea our American cousins had that ridiculous alternate design instead of the classic SNES we know and love. What were they thinking?

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Suspect
7/2/2017 10:22:10 am

Was Goldeneye on the SNES?

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Mr Biffo
7/2/2017 10:31:03 am

Well, that was a stupid error...

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Winston
1/7/2017 11:10:24 pm

Weeeelll..

Apparently Rare did begin developing a Goldeneye game for the SNES - if I recall correctly, it would have been a side on shooter.

On the other hand, this information may be something have misrememberd reading in Edge magazine 20 years ago

vending_machine
7/2/2017 11:01:53 am

Nope

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Bilious Fog
7/2/2017 10:31:25 am

Nice article. Not only is the PAL SNES a work of art, its also amazingly robust. Imagine my horror when I accidentally dropped (and smashed) a whole bottle of sherry over it in 1996. Thankfully a bit of "thorough wiping" meant that it continues to function to this day.

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Blocky Rocky
7/2/2017 03:58:20 pm

I spilled a whole bucket full of manky hash water on my PS2, which immediately died. I left it to dry for a couple of days and it worked again! I was overjoyed

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Matthew Long
11/2/2017 12:19:27 am

"Manky Hash Water" - great name for a band.

Orbit Smith link
7/2/2017 10:52:00 am

I remember everyone raving on about Golden Eye. I remember thinking how completely rubbish it was whilst I was playing Quake on my PC that I had recently upgraded to from my Amiga.

However, I did think Super Mario World was amazing when I didn't seem to have anything close at the time on my Amiga. Even going as far as trying to program my own version using AMOS.

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Voodoo76
7/2/2017 12:19:10 pm

How is Goldeneye relevant?

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James Crabapple link
7/2/2017 12:26:39 pm

It just is okay?

Mr Biffo
7/2/2017 01:17:27 pm

Stupidly... I included Goldeneye in my list of SNES games. This... this is what happens when you write an article at 7am and you're rushing because you have a meeting. For "you" read "I"...

Nick
7/2/2017 11:00:50 am

If this website is going to become about video games I'm off.

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Stoo
7/2/2017 11:03:28 am

I agree, there was always something a bit second-rate about Sega. The Megadrive had some good games, but it was never an equal of the SNES.

I think Link to the Past, Yoshi's Island and Final Fantasy 6 are still amongst the greatest games of all time.

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Obnoxious and Fragrant
7/2/2017 11:09:08 am

I've never understood the love for Yoshi's Island...I liked it fine, but I place it in the 'solid but ultimately forgettable' Mario games, like the new 2D ones

...and that sound effect....

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Voodoo76
7/2/2017 12:25:46 pm

I feel the same Biffo. I made up a complete lie to the police about having a mountain bike stolen just so I could claim insurance which I then used to purchase a SNES. I remember taking it straight round to a mates house who's dad had to put the plug on before we could play. Mario blew us away, such a massive step up in quality. I loved Pilot Wings and i'll never forget my jaw hitting the floor when I first saw SF2 at a mates house! "Look at the size of the sprites spewing virtual vomit". I still adored my Mega Drive but it almost felt technically a generation behind.

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Clive Peppard
7/2/2017 12:57:19 pm

Controversially, i preferred the Mega Drive, while i enjoyed street fighter and mario kart i was never bothered by cutesy nintendo stuff and JRPG's can do one fully.

Road Rash, now that was a game, i struggle to remember many titles from back then due to a memory issue not of my making (much) but i still get that feeling i remember now when i think about nintendo, its hard to explain other than its an internal "meh"

Im also bitter that when my wife spawned our first child in 2008 she insisted on a Wii and Wii fit to lose the baby weight as she didnt want to exercise in public "looking like a whale", she weighed herself twice maybe three times that year, i essentially bought teh worlds most expensive bathroom scales. Now my kids are old enough to play games they shun the Wii as shite and go for the PS3 or PS4 if Im not looking.

DONG (Nintendo death knell)

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Jareth Smith
7/2/2017 01:38:52 pm

The best games console of all time, in my opinion! Unmatchable quality on so many classic games.

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DEAN
7/2/2017 01:43:24 pm

Oh Nintendo. I'm fawning right now like Holly Willoughby at a premature baby.

My first love was the NES - after feeling embattled by the Spectrum, the NES was just instant gratification.

Still my No.1 but sure, the SNES was the big boy on these shores. I think the NES was tremendously successful in the States, though. Maybe not as ubiquitous as a Gameboy but still big enough for the word Nintendo to become like Hoover and Sellotape.

Funnily enough I remember playing SNES games on a seat back TV on a Virgin Atlantic flight and with that I also remember playing them on a TV (built in) at a cheap motel on International Drive.

But yes, it was a sweet looking thang. I loved how the primary plus one colours reminded me of Mario and Link and also a bit like a red and a blue Pac-Man being sick..

I can't wait for the Switch. I'm going on holiday next week and wish we had one to take with us.

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Carlos Nightman link
7/2/2017 02:00:27 pm

Round my way, as they say, almost everyone had a Mega Drive. I had a SNES of course as I had no interest in being cool and just wanted to play the best games. Nevertheless, being able to dump my schoolbags off and walk 2 minutes to a mate's house to play the Mega Drive (and vice versa for them) was a luxury long since lost.
I still rank the N64 as my favourite console - that's the one I sunk most of my time into, but it's difficult to compete with F-Zero, Link To The Past, Mario World, Mario Kart, DK Country, ISS Deluxe etc etc. Getting friends round and some show-off bringing the multi-tap, meant we could have 4-player sessions on Bomberman. Nowadays I have a Wii U as i still have no interest in being cool, but also have no friends.

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AC
7/2/2017 02:16:58 pm

"Somehow, on my first use of it I managed to damage my SNES cartridge slot pins, and had to send the SNES away to be fixed - a very long month." I did the same fecking thing when I got a US Street Fighter 2 and a converter TWO DAYS AFTER THE SUMMER HOLIDAYS STARTED...managed to convince Nintendo it was damaged using a regular cartridge.

I got the SNES back about 4 days before school started again...

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RichardM
7/2/2017 02:19:51 pm

Loved the SNES. Was always a bit jealous of friends with a Mega Drive, but grass is always greener, etc. Both consoles occupy different headspace for me: Mega Drive for throwaway arcade thrills, SNES for Square RPGs and Nintendo 1st party stuff.

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Elvo
7/2/2017 03:00:26 pm

I remember how as a lad of 8 years old I put a game on to the converter the wrong way around just to see what it would do. Anyway then machine wouldn't work. So thinking it might have been a fuse I took the back off the plug and changed it for a known good one. And I remember how in my haste to do all this before my father found out I'd purposefully broken the SNES I decided to not put the back of the plug back on so the fuse could be returned to the desk lamp. Anyway, I tried to push the plug in to the socket and as the back was off the plug the pins didn't go in so I just pushed them in with my hand

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sintospanger
7/2/2017 03:22:37 pm

I once took the pad out of my Megadrive at an angle or something, as all the receiving pins on the console were bent. My brother took a pair of pliers to them while it was still plugged in, and delighted me by making the device sputter and produce sparks. It actually worked afterwards too

In the end I gave him the Megadrive controller as he realized they worked on C64 with no setup or anything

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Jay
7/2/2017 03:09:33 pm

International Superstar Soccer (SNES) - The best game evah.

Friday evenings in winter - a couple of friends round for another session of ISS. Sometimes we'd be so consumed in the game, and the beer etc, that we had no idea of the time and only realised we were well into Saturday morning when we heard the milk being delivered. It was like a time machine that made 12 hours seem like 4. Oh happy days.


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Ken Russell
7/2/2017 03:19:08 pm

I have a very large soft spot on my inner thigh for Altered Beast, it's a so-bad-it's-good gaming equivalent of something like Steven Seagull's Under Siege - patently crap but hugely enjoyable. I find it still very playable today, more so than other scrolling big hitters like Double Dragon or....erm....Caveman Ninja?

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King of Duckhenrys
7/2/2017 03:52:33 pm

Does anyone know what the SNES logo was supposed to represent? I can see that the colours match the buttons, but I don't get what the shapes are supposed to be. It looks like a blue and a red Pacman sicking up or something.

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DEAN
7/2/2017 04:26:15 pm

I know right!

I've just spent about 3 minutes (give or take) staring at it and here's my stream of consciousness report:

Mario rolling off of a flattened Link.

I think it's representing 2 different planes and the indents are just there for design flow. Probably to reinforce the much touted Mode 7, that the new pad featured 4 face buttons and it has a real sense of fun and bouncing energy about it whilst also looking appropriately Japanese.

I don't think it's wrong to see Pac-Man-like characters being sick - it's broadly on message and akin to Jesus wept. I also think being able to determine Mario and Link in extreme abstract is no accident.

In terms of there being a definitive explanation for what's actually going on... I'd love to think the answer is out there!

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Nick
7/2/2017 03:59:19 pm

I don't remember the NES being difficult to buy. They were in Woolworths.

I loved the SNES but N64 and Dreamcast were my two favourites. My ownership of them overlapped whilst at university and my memories of them are entwined with that time.
My housemates and I would play Mario Kart 64 to decide who had to wash up, go to the shop etc. Crazy Taxi became a favourite game whilst drinking and Rez whilst doing things additional to drinking.

I drifted away somewhat after uni. I had an Xbox and Gamecube and would play them on and off when a game stirred my interest but I couldn't really call myself a gamer until the Xbox 360, my next love, arrived.

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Nikki
7/2/2017 04:07:08 pm

Getting SF2:Turbo on the SNES is one of my fondest gaming memories.

SNES is best.

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Balrog
7/2/2017 04:44:26 pm

But you can't be Balrog!

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Elvo
7/2/2017 06:00:13 pm

Remember Mean Machines trolling about that code to play as M Bison

Nikki
7/2/2017 06:47:15 pm

Um... you could play as any of the bosses on the SNES. That's why SNES is awesome and Mega Drive sucks ;)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fXmuBJlk0Y

colincidence link
8/2/2017 11:42:28 pm

The Mega Drive version was Champion Edition (and then Super). Balrog is playable in both.

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Kelvin Green link
7/2/2017 05:22:26 pm

I only ever saw one NES when I was a nipper; perhaps they didn't get across the border into Wales. They seem to be ubiquitous in the US, so I can see why Sega had such a difficult time cracking America.

A couple of years ago someone dumped a SNES in the street. It had been raining for hours but I thought I'd give it a go and after a night of drying out I plugged it in and it worked good as new. They left working copies of Super Mario World and Super Mario Kart out there too, the maniacs.

It's a great little machine and you have to admire Nintendo's confidence in giving away a game as good as Super Mario World as a bundled title, instead of as a big retail release.

I do love the Mega Drive, but sticking Altered Beast in as the bundled game was absurd. At least Sega replaced it with Sonic a few months later.

That recovered SNES sits under my TV, ready for a quick game of SMK or SMW. It's next to my Mega Drive, shelfmates at long last, now that the 16-bit console wars are long behind us.

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DEAN
7/2/2017 07:46:54 pm

"...the 16-bit console wars are long behind us."

Still raging along nicely, thanks.
Clive, for example...Toad Trash.

I always thought the volume fader on the Megadrive was, along with the weird diagram on the Master System, the very early warning signs that Sega was.... you know... like Jimmy Saville.
Seen 'The Trip' with Steve Coogan and Rob Rydon and you'll know what I mean. Nnnnggg buzzz wwwwwhip speeee

Nintendo, by way of contrast, was more like a perfumed Casanova or a washed Don Juan.
To the lay person, great numbers and a seemingly common MO but.... you know.... Uncle Sega...

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Kingsturg
7/2/2017 08:14:35 pm

I received a SNES for my birthday in 1994 (Super Mario All-stars pack). It still works and sits proudly beneath my TV. My first love.

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Spiney O'Sullivan
8/2/2017 08:38:05 am

Yeah, but it didn't have Sonic The Hedgehog or Road Rash. Or radical 90s 'tude.

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Cyber Razor Cut
8/2/2017 09:35:26 am

SKITTCHIIIIINNNNN'

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DEAN
8/2/2017 11:30:35 am

True. I mean on some level you gotta hand it to Sega:

The products always felt inferior. The plastics, button presses: cheap.
Seriously, compare Nintendo cartridges, SNES, Gameboy... any, to any Sega ones. One is tangibly better, unquestionably. Sega are low rent plagiarists and their cynicism knows no bounds.

Sega often misguidedly/desperately believed they needed to offer extra benefits to purchasing one of their consoles....

Mastersystem - a complete 'basic bitch'. Nothing more to say (already covered the diagram for dumbfucks).

Megadrive - okay, now they mean business but why make it resemble a CD player? To fool you into thinking it's cooler than it really is, that's why.

Game Gear - like Nintendo's Gameboy but with piss poor battery life. Tetris? We got something better. Look: Columns.
No? Okay, TV tuner anyone?

32X - ......

Mega CD - Remember Night Trap? Essentially this was Sega's attempt to hawk their wares with quasi-filth. Third party, sure, but they including it in their marketing.

Saturn - you could plug a Video CD card into it. Very useful if you're a lunatic.

Dreamcast - The romanticised darling of every Sega fanboy.
Funniest thing I recall about this was seeing how retailers took to bundling them with ALBA,CROWN,AKAI,GOODMANS DVD players to try and help the ill-fated (ill conceived) Virtual Pet docking piece of shit win your money.

Let me just say that I owned and love them all (apart from the 32X) but Sega were always 2nd best. Maybe you love an underdog, and that's cool. Maybe you loved it for the handful of decent games they had. True enough. But, let's all be honest here, if you were heralding a console as the best ever, much as I subjectively prefer the NES, I gotta admit, the best console ever is the SNES.

Radical 90s 'tude? You mean Virgins (the UK distributors) attempts at edgy marketing? They were funny, especially some of the ones in VIZ, but marketing never really got it right until the Playstation. That was a masterclass.

Arcade games are a different matter entirely...

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Chris Dyson
8/2/2017 06:17:11 pm

I like pasta and I like beans.

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applelemon
8/2/2017 09:22:08 pm

Good to see the usual SEGA bashing here. The SNES offered graphics never seen outside the arcade, did it? Nah, the Mega Drive had done that a couple of years earlier with Altered Beast and Space Harrier. SEGA weren't desperate to "beat" Nintendo, by the way, they just wnated to be able to complete with them. Read up on how the Master System flopped horribly, then with the Mega Drive, they got 50% of the video game market for themselves, something that Nintendo had total control over at one point.

And then of course, they got greedy and egotistical, and threw it all away.

I'll need an explanation on what "muted sprites" is supposed to mean, please.

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DEAN
9/2/2017 01:40:17 am

I don't want to be some kind of self-appointed buffer between you and Mr Biffo but if I may offer a little arbitration (disclaimer - I'm a Nintendo fanboy).

The SNES had better graphics than the MD.The PC Engine arguably beat both to the punch but was only available in the UK through importers and that could be a headache and expensive too; reasonable to casually disregard it like any ape might it's own faeces.

The MD was a success story, absolutely. It was 1st to market and it was well advertised. SEGA were definitely at the right place at the right time with it, but it also stands out as being possibly the only thing they ever got right, and then you have to consider how lady luck may have had her svelte hand wrapped around SEGAs burgeoning rise to glory.
They failed to capitalise on this new found market share and the privileges and leverage that afforded them. They blew it all.

Nintendo's fall from grace is different. I'd argue that their story is far more complex and in the interest of not going on and on, I'll leave that for another time (Nintendo's biggest mistake was fucking Sony about.)

Greedy and egotistical? Yeahhhhhhno-sortofabit.
Greed is a given but it's naive to apply it. Egotistical we can work with:

Nintendo are aloof & idiosyncratic, and that's the kind way of saying arrogant & bizarre but this is what makes them what they are.
They had to earn them stripes, and far from sitting on their laurels, they continue to be insane to this very day. How many ice-cubes?!!!
There's no forgiving that bastard WII U controller, though. That was, portentously maybe, such a SEGA move.

By 'muted sprites' I assume what's being described is indistinctiveness - Look at some screenshots for Revenge of Shinobi and I - think - that sort of thing. SNES sprites look comparatively 'cleaner' and more discernible.

I'd like to address your Sega Bashing remark.
You can't talk about Gillette without bringing up Wilkinson sword.

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Alastair
9/2/2017 11:47:30 am

Ugh, the NES and the rest of that awful 8-bit era really required the sugary brain bleach that the SNES provided.

The past Nintendo console I pull out to play most often and likely the one I'll sell off last. There are a tonne of games I'll never get around to playing that I'd really love to, way more than any other console.

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