Review: Nintendo Classic Mini: SNES

We test out Nintendo’s latest micro-console…

I sadly missed out on Nintendo’s Mini NES last year but was overjoyed to hear that it’ll be making a comeback next summer and for the past few weeks, I’ve been playing the Nintendo Classic Mini SNES and it’s 21 game library. Let’s dive straight in…

The console itself is absolutely tiny as you can imagine and it comes with 2 SNES controllers, a HDMI cable and a USB cable, but no AC Adapter…which isn’t new as Nintendo has done the same with the 3DS in the past and the same cable works. But most TVs these days have USB slots, so that shouldn’t be too much of an issue overall.

Now for the games list:

Contra 3: The Alien Wars
Donkey Kong Country
EarthBound
Final Fantasy 3
F-Zero
Kirby Super Star
Kirby’s Dream Course
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
Mega Man X
Secret of Mana
Star Fox
Star Fox 2
Street Fighter 2 Turbo: Hyper Fighting
Super Castlevania 4
Super Ghouls ‘n Ghosts
Super Mario Kart
Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars
Super Mario World
Super Metroid
Super Punch-Out!!
Yoshi’s Island

The biggest surprise here is the inclusion of the never-released Star Fox 2, which itself is worth the price of the console alone. As you can see, the console contains all the major hits from the SNES library such as Link to the Past, Super Metroid and Super Mario World.

The console itself has some neat features too such as the Rewind feature that lets you rewind your game by a minute or so before resuming it. This can come in handy when you mess up jumps in Super Mario World or blow up in F-Zero, the only issue is that to access it as well as the library of other games you need to hit the reset button on the console each time. It would have been nice to have a button on the controller that led back to the menu, but then I guess the controller wouldn’t have been authentic in its design.

The games are all in 4:3 mode, which I thought would look terrible on a big TV, but it actually looks damn good. There are visual filters you can use to either make the games look crisper or even make it look like it’s on an older CRT TV. You can also choose to wrap a border around the game or just have a black background instead.

The controllers have a nice long cable so you can compete alongside a friend in Super Mario Kart with no issues about the cable being too short. As for the price tag, it’s a bit heftier than the Mini NES was…but I think lessons have been learned there, especially when it comes to scalpers. It looks like demand will be met on this one, so there’s no need to pay 4-5x it’s value.

Of course, it could still run out of stock or they might choose to end production like they did with the Mini NES until the announcement for its return in 2018. We’ll be keeping a close eye on what happens, but I think it’s going to be okay this time.

The Verdict

A nostalgia trip is more than guaranteed with the Nintendo Classic Mini SNES. While it would have been nice to get some more classics like Super Mario All-Stars, Chrono Trigger or Pilotwings, the line-up is impressive and adding in the never-released Star Fox 2 was a stroke of genius. If supply keeps up with demand, it’s going to be a great holiday season for Nintendo fans everywhere.

Score: 9.0