20: NBA Jam
Originally an arcade game, NBA Jam had great two on two basketball action which was all about a fast arcade experience rather than an in depth sports simulation experience. The frantic gameplay was appealing to players even if they weren’t into the sport, and was often an entry point for non basketball fans to start to get into the game.
19: WWF WrestleMania The Arcade Game
WrestleMania The Arcade Game is a blend of pro wrestling and Mortal Kombat and is a lot of fun. Featuring over the top special moves and Mortal Kombat style digitised graphics this was unlike any wrestling game that had come before, and the game still has lots of fans who would love to see a modern release in this style.
The one major drawback of the Super Nintendo port of the game is that it only features six of the arcade game’s original eight characters, which is a major drawback of this version, but despite this it’s still a great game to challenge solo or against friends.
18: Street Fighter Alpha 2
Considering that the first Street Fighter Alpha game didn’t make it onto the Super Nintendo, it was a big surprise and achievement that Capcom were able to squeeze the Street Fight Alpha 2 game onto a SNES cart. This game is visually distinct from the other three Street Fighter games on the SNES, and has a vastly different roster of fighters make this a great addition to any fighting game fan’s collection. It may not be as iconic as the other Street Fighter games on the 16-bit machine, but this is still great fun to play.
17: The Lion King
One of the greatest Walt Disney Classics is also one of the best Disney games ever released. With graphics that made you feel like you were controlling the movie, this was about as good an interactive Disney cartoon as you could get. Highlight levels include the stampede and the Just Can’t Wait to be King levels which captures the fear and joy from the movie perfectly.
16: Donkey Kong Country 3
After the brilliant Donkey Kong Country 2, Rare gave us one final dose of DK goodness on the Super Nintendo before concentrating their efforts onto the Nintendo 64. It’s a great game, but truth be told it’s not as good as the first two. With a largely different team working on the game over at Rare, the game has a larger focus on puzzles and it feels a bit more disconnected from the first two.
Where as the first two games had given us a very connected continuation of a single story, this feels a bit more unrelated and we lose favourites like Rambi and Diddy Kong in main roles. Ellie the Elephant steps into Rambi’s role and adds the skill to suck in and spray water with her trunk which is fun, and Kiddy Kong is the new leading Kong alongside DKC2’s Dixie.
