The Super Nintendo launched in the United States on August 23, 1991. For every kid that grew up in the late 80's and looked on with great envy at the Sega Genesis, which flaunted its 16-bits and its gritty, rebellious sound that its known for, the Super Nintendo turned home console gaming on its head   for its fans and would usher in a golden age of video games, cultivating an electronic entertainment culture that made not only some of the best games on the planet, but created some of the fondest memories for a generation. It was lit, son!

Even Ant-Man loves the SNES!

While generally I'll resort to "it's subjective" when it comes to what was the best era. and taking nothing away from what video games would become. But witnessing the medium go from dot matrix screens to detailed sprites that spring to life and display such detail.

The word "Super" in Super Nintendo meant that EVERYTHING would be that much better.
When you played Super Mario Bros. 3 thinking, "it can't possibly get better than this", only to turn on Super Mario World, it's almost like stepping out of a log cabin and into the colorful world of Oz. There's giant Banzai Bills, football player enemies, Big Boos, the first time you hop on a Wiggler's head, and instead of being vanquished, he grows angry and rushes at you. EVERYTHING you thought you knew about Mario was essentially different, virtually everything was a surprise. Warp whistles are one thing, but how's about TWO full secret worlds, that upon completion, will change the aesthetic world completely? While Mario 64 was a very important video game, Super Mario World is practically timeless and remains very fun to revisit in any era.

Original Metroid was a decent game, but Super Metroid is near video game perfection, improving on every single aspect on the NES game by introducing new weapons, bigger boss battles, and large, expansive map, tight controls, and establishing a haunting atmosphere that shed the narrative that Nintendo was only the place where the kids played. Super Metroid is one of the single most important video games made, laying the groundwork for search action, a genre that remains very much in demand to this day. Games like Axiom Verge, Cave Story, and Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night owe their influence to Samus' bounty hunting escapades.

The Legend Of Zelda was one of console gaming's early open world titles, you could explore anywhere you desired, providing you're capable of dealing with the obstacles that await you. And though getting started can be cryptic, it felt refreshing to traverse as you please. The Legend of Zelda: A Link To The Past adds some structure and nuance to the lore that give it a narrative driven purpose, but the aesthetic world is larger and filled with various enemies, secrets, and items. Add to it an amazing score, and a whole other dark world to navigate, it set a standard for the Zelda series that (I'm going to say it) has had a hard time coming close to that feeling, even with its ventures into 3D.

The SNES's progressive Mode 7 technology which allowed the ability to rotate and stretch pixels, and the Super FX processor that could render basic 3D shapes, gave it some very fascinating visual effects on many games, an early peak into emulating 3D graphics. Certainly primitive for its time, but the effort was very impressive.

It's not easy to sum up how much the Super Nintendo meant to a generation that grew up with it, and what it meant for many of the minds behind plenty of independent developers who took such great inspiration. Whether you're hopping through the end of time to try and save it in Chrono Trigger, or smashing your way through barrels and crumbling platforms in the Donkey Kong Country series (regarded as some of the best games Rare developed), launching shells and banana peels at opponents in Super Mario Kart, battling Kefka and an evil empire in Final Fantasy 6, there was no shortage of games from a solid range of genres to enjoy on the Super Nintendo. Whether you enjoy multiplayer, sports games, role-playing games (it took a long time for Nintendo to mend its relationship with Square Enix), The SNES remains one of Nintendo's best consoles. Happy three decades, SNES, and thank you for the memories.