SNES vs. Genesis: Part 1 – Recap and Concensus

Well, Part 1 is now in the books and I barreled my way through about fifty games over the past ten days. Honestly, I wish I hadn’t started this because I’ve become completely obsessed with the idea and can’t get anything else done until I finish. The main problem with that is that there are probably about a thousand games between the two systems that I might reasonably be expected to play. At a rate of fifty games per ten days, it would take me about half a year to finish. I don’t like that at all. But, I digress, let’s recap Part 1 and get it over with.

Top Five Genesis Games:

1. Gunstar Heroes

2. Contra: Hard Corps

3. Landstalker

4. Beyond Oasis

5. Popful Mail

Honorable Mentions: Strider 1, Crusaders of Centy, Mega Turican, Alien Soldier, James Bond 007, and Shinobi III.

Top Five SNES Games:

1. Super Metroid

2. The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past

3. Front Mission: Gun Hazard

3. The Firemen

4. Super Turrican 2

Honorable Mentions: Demon’s Crest, Vectorman, Wild Guns, Contra III, Metal Warriors, EVO: The Search for Eden, Mega Man series, Pocky and Rocky 2, Super Castlevania IV, and Gunman’s Proof.

Top Developer: Capcom, for developing Demon’s Crest, Super Ghouls & Ghost, the Mega Man series, Strider, and Magic Sword

Runner Up: Konami, for developing Castlevania: Bloodlines, Super Castlevania, Contra III, Contra: Hard Corps, and Legend of the Mystical Ninja.

With the top ten out of the way, it’s now time for some point allocations. The points are based on the number of titles in the genre, my personal enthusiasm for said genre [yeah, it’s subjective, but that’s just how it is], and the quality of the titles from each console in said genre. The winner of this round will get a hundred, the loser will get slightly less. That’s an arbitrary number, but numbers from the next parts will be based on how they compare with this part’s genre offering, so all other numbers won’t be arbitrary like the first one. All the points for each console will be added up at the end and a proper winner will be determined. Explanations aside, here’s the winner and the loser of Part 1:

SNES – 100

Genesis – 80

Final Thoughts: Although the Genesis had some strong showings in its top five, which even rivaled some of their SNES counterparts, once the top five was out of the way the quality dropped steadily. On the other hand, the SNES had a very strong showing it its top five, along with some all-time classics and best game ever contenders, and kept going all the way past the top twelve. SNES wins this round by a nice margin, but there are still many more genres to take a look at, including a few that the Genesis has some very, very strong contenders in, so don’t think this battle’s already over.

Coming soon in Part 2: Platformers!