My favorite console is the Super Nintendo. The NES may have been the new beginning after the crash, the console that established gaming as we now know it, but the Super Nintendo is where modern standards started to be established. Instead of making things as difficult as possible to extend the length, it was all about seeing how much you could do, how much more impressive you could make everything. Take Metroid, for instance, in the original game, it was nearly impossible to complete without a map of some form. You were just expected to spend your time shooting every available block, so there's no reason you should miss that stupid Varia Suit, and then have to spend even longer just to FIND THE HIGH JUMP- What was I saying? Er, right, improvement. Metroid II definitely upped the standard for the series, which is strange when you consider how few played it, but Super Metroid is where the series really got its identity. Its world was bigger, more immersive, more interesting, more deadly, more fair, more... Well, more everything. Games like A Link to The Past, Super Mario World, and Super Castlevania IV are where the games' formulas and worlds were really established, not to mention some of the best those series have to offer. It was a strange and exciting time, and dear god, if the RPGs weren't fantastic back then, I don't know when they were.
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