Intensive Gaming Diary

The blog about videogames.

Tag: snes

Some Thoughts About Nintendo

Posted on by Viljami

This blog post is dedicated to some thoughts about Nintendo. First of all I have to respect this company. Back in the 1980s when NES (Nintendo Entertainment System) was released it really brought video games back to life again. There was a huge depression on video games. This was mainly because many low quality titles were getting released and consumers were disappointed in the overall quality of games. Nintendo showed the way for Sega and many other companies while we started to head for the video game competition of the early 1990s.

In my mind Nintendo is a company that has deep roots in gaming historically and also even today. Now I am a Sega fan and my first console was Mega Drive. That doesn’t mean that I couldn’t like some stuff that Nintendo has released. I have had a keen interest in past consoles, like NES and SNES, with some GameCube and Wii stuff also and I do have Switch, Switch Lite and Switch 2. I also do like some Game Boy titles that have been released through the history of video games. For me it isn’t all about Nintendo. I am a huge fan of Sega, Xbox and PlayStation also.

Last year I did buy Switch 2 very soon after it was released. When I had my latest vacation I brought my Switch Lite with me while I was at our summer cottage. Switch Lite is a very nice handheld type of gaming device that has some very good games. During this trip I played some Disney Illusion Island. IT was a good game and I played it for maybe three hours. Somehow I didn’t continue playing when I was back at home. I really don’t know why. The game is a good platformer type of game.

When thinking about the whole history of Nintendo you definitely have a huge library of games on several gaming consoles. Nintendo has been a bit strict against its old titles. It is a known fact that Nintendo doesn’t like its retro titles to be shared freely. This is a difficult issue to think about. Nintendo has tried to solve this with its online service that offers many retro games if you pay for the service. The price of this service is 20 euros for a single user. This service offers also some other features that I am not going to go so deeply into. There has been some serious debate about some GameCube emulators. The most popular of them seems to be Dolphin emulator.

I have really enjoyed Switch 2. When it was released last year (2025) it was thought to be an expensive product. If you think about the price today it seems to be a low price for such an advanced console. We have seen the prices of PS5 and Xbox Series consoles rising recently. We shall see how high the price of PS6 is going to be when it gets released. It is considered that the release will happen maybe at late 2027 or early 2028 or something like that. We are not going to get PS6 or a new Xbox this year. That can certainly be said at this stage.

I have really liked the Switch 2 Pro Controller that I bought with my Switch 2 back in the last year. It is of a very good quality. We have seen many awesome games already getting released for Nintendo Switch 2. I have really liked titles such as Donkey Kong Bananza, Resident Evil Requiem and Pragmata. There are many Switch exclusive titles. Someone might say that Nintendo’s exclusive games are a bit childish. I don’t really have an opinion about that.

What more can I say? I very much enjoy playing every game that I own for Switch 1 and 2. I do have maybe one hundred (I really haven’t counted them) games for Switch 1 and some tens of games for Switch 2. I also like very much of the fact that Nintendo is keen on releasing some games from smaller or independent developers. The library of games is convincing. This is all from me this time. See you soon!

The Role of SNES In The History of Gaming

Posted on by Viljami

There was a time in history of gaming when SNES was the most powerful and the most newest gaming console in the markets. This period of time was followed by many years of dominance from Mega Drive, or Genesis as the system was called in the USA, that in turn was a following of dominance from Nintendo Entertainment System, or for short, NES. What had happened earlier, before Nintendos dominant era, would be known as video game crash. It was a time when video games weren’t selling so well. NES begun the new era when video games started to begin to be popular again.

What makes Super Nintendo, or SNES, so significant is reflected in these games that were released for it. They were beginning to look like something that could be considered a true form of art and not just some entertainment for kids. There were stories that were told through these games. There were some limitations about the amount space available and also some considerations about how to, for example, save a game with this technology. However the progression was fast and SNES had its time when it was actually considered the greatest gaming console of all that were available.

Now, you can debate on which one is better, Mega Drive or SNES but actually the way I see it is something like this. NES was the best during 1983 to 1988. Mega Drive dominated from 1988 to 1991. And SNES was the greatest console between 1991 and 1995. After that it would be the era of PlayStation 1 which would continue all the way to the era of the generation in which PS2 would belong to. Take this as just an idea and not something I could somehow actually prove to be true. This is a sort of a theory.

How were the games that were released for SNES? I would point out that there were games like Street Fighter II and Super Mario World. They were full of action and included graphics that were very impressive at their time. There were also some role-playing games that I think moved gaming very much forward at this time in the history of gaming and playing video games. These games brought us closer to the games that could be later found on PS1. I think that when PS1 came actually as popular as it would show to be we were actually starting to realize the full potential that video games actually had. RPGs on SNES were something like a bridge to more complex and modern gaming.

So, the whole scene of gaming was advancing very fast at this time. Everything I have told you here makes me think how little I have spend playing SNES. I have several RPGs to explore if I choose to go to that path. I am thinking that this system, SNES, has some great games. But the question in my mind seems to be “are they actually worth playing”? I ma thinking this because they are old games. I don’t have so many memories of playing SNES back in the 90s. I have more memories about Mega Drive.

I am still thinking about this. Some good games for SNES include titles like many of Final Fantasy titles, Secret of Mana, Dragon Quest VI and III, Chrono Trigger and Super Mario RPG. It also had many good games that weren’t actually RPGs. These titles include Super Mario World, Super Mario All-Stars, Donkey Kong Country, Star Fox and F-Zero just to mention some of them.

If you are a retro collector you must have heard how there was a device that would have actually been a Nintendo console that would have had a CD drive of some kind included with it. This was actually something that would have been a collaboration of Sony and Nintendo. We never saw this machine and Sony went on to release its own gaming console. PlayStation, later. This leaves my imagination with many possible outcomes of what we would have had as video gamers if it would have come to reality.

SNES is a huge part of history of video games. As I am more of a Mega Drive and PlayStation 1 fan I have lots of playing to do if I wish to get into SNES a bit more. There is a lot to explore. Some games might not be ones that I will spend tens of hours or even hundreds of hours playing since they are already a bit old as video games. I might play some newer video games instead. However it is great to acknowledge how these games shaped the way we experience gaming today.

Super Punch-Out!!

Posted on by Viljami

Super Punch-Out!! is a nice boxing game for Super Nintendo. It is kind of a remake made out of the NES title Punch-Out!!. It includes updated and better graphics and also very unique opponents that have special ways to box. For example the last opponent of The Minor Circuit, Bald Bull, has a punch that knocks you down to the floor no matter how much health your boxer has. Piston Hurricane has a long combo that you must dodge if you wish to win this boxer.

I really like how the game progresses. It is a bit repetitive as any 16-bit eras game can often be. In Super Punch-Out!! you have to box against the same opponents in the same tournament some times to achieve the progressing. I like how the opponents are designed. They look nice. I managed to get through Minor Circuit. There are also two other tournaments that you can compete in after you finish Minor Circuit. There is also one more tournament that is called Special Circuit. So, there are four tournaments in total in Super Punch-Out!!.

It took me some hours just to complete Minor Circuit. The way you actually play the game is simple but can take some time to adjust to. Super Punch-Out!! utilizes the SNES controller that already had several buttons along with directional buttons. This makes playing the game more easier and I think it makes the game also more enjoyable. You could think about some of the limitations of Sega Mega Drive controller that only has three buttons along the directional buttons.

You actually play Super Punch-Out!! with two buttons that you can land a punch with. If you press also forward button your boxer tries to land a punch to the head of the opponent. If you don’t press forward the punch gets directed to stomach area. You can also block and try to dodge your opponents punch. You can dodge to back or to left or right. You can also block a punch directed to your head or stomach area.

Every punch you attempt doesn’t necessarily hit. I think there is some randomness about when your punch actually hits. You cannot actually see clearly when to attempt to punch. And every opponents punch also doesn’t land also. This makes the game a bit more entertaining and more funnier to play. Some people might say that this makes the game a bit less realistic. I think this just improves the overall game-play after all.

There is another boxing game for this era of 16-bit gaming that I also like. This game is Greatest Heavyweights and it was released for Sega Mega Drive in 1993. If you like boxing games I think you will like Greatest Heavyweights also. If we compare this game to Super Punch-Out!! we can definitely see how Nintendo has invested in designing the details of the game. The characters are all very unique compared to Greatest Heavyweights and it tries to be more realistic and this might even seem to be a bit ordinary. In any way both of these games are very good products and very solid as video games.

All-in-all there are several good video games released originally for Super Nintendo. I think Nintendo dominated the field after it was released. I think the progression can be seen clearly from NES to Mega Drive and then to SNES and on to Sony PlayStation 1 and onward from there all the way to today’s devices. The technology seems to be developing even further. Sometimes it is definitely nice to play these retro games and try to enjoy these devices and the ways that they utilize the technology of their time.