Best snes puzzle games all time

Whether you enjoy that extra level is up for debate. As is the case with Picross. The game is still all about chiseling squares inside grids to form pictures, with numbers placed on the side providing hints. But if you think that hints make everything too easy, try your hand at the Wario Mode puzzles. These provide no hint whatsoever.

Good luck buddy. Mario features both Tetris and Dr. Mario in their most classic incarnations. The two games, which are both very simple to understand but way harder to master, remain separate until you hop into Versus Mode. Here two players go together while transitioning from one game to another.

You may not need a medical degree to play Dr. Mario, but a certain level of mastery will be needed if you want to be the last one standing. Troddlers is a game that very few Super Nintendo owners have heard of. Tetris strikes back. Or maybe not, as Tetris 2 plays nothing like the original we all know and love.

Not resting on the laurels of the amazing success of the original, Tetris 2 revolutionizes the formula of the Game Boy game in a very clever way on the SNES. Making Tetris 2 a puzzle game within a puzzle game. Mario can team up with three other characters, and the whole thing feels so familiar to an RPG nerd like me. What is there to say about FF3? With 1.

The game follows four orphans who are given powers by a mysterious crystal of light. Leaving their floating continent, the four young warriors must delve into the world below. FF3 remains one of my favourite games to kick back with. The storyline is superb, the graphics are great, and the camaraderie between the four orphan main characters is fantastic.

This game is a must-have for fans of the Pink Peril himself. The games are brilliant and this compendium brings new moves and never-before used abilities to the table. This helper can be used by a second player for those old-school couch-co-op feels! Using a mouse with a Nintendo plastic mousemat might seem like a strange concept on a games console, but Mario Paint had hours of fun hidden away inside it. Two of the most memorable parts of this game were the melody maker, in which you use different character faces and emblems as different notes and instruments in a bid to remake classic Nintendo songs, and the fly swatter game which still remains infuriatingly addictive.

Test it out and see what you can create! While most of the action revolves around running through iconic areas from the film, you will also be able to drive a landspeeder and pilot an X-wing just like in the movie. You can also play as multiple characters from the original story too.

The game follows the plot-line closely with a few adjustements to make it work as a game. Mortal Kombat 3 soaked up so many hours of my childhood life. Cindrel, Liu Kang; my friends and I played as all of them until we were the best!

The Mortal Kombat series is known for its gruesome fatality scenes and pushing the boundaries of fighting games. The game itself was absolutely awesome. While other fighting titles proved more popular, none were as weird or as brutal as Mortal Kombat. Robots that fired missiles, a warrior that could freeze you and break you into chunks of ice. I played this game around the time that the cartoon series came out too. I knew all the good guys from the bad guys watch out, Kano and always fought as my favourite fighters from the show.

Castlevania IV had some of the best music of any computer game ever made. The graphics were cutting-edge for the time, the gameplay makes it impossible to put down, and the expanded play controls made it superior to all of the entries in the series before it.

So what is Castlevania IV? Well, the story follows Simon Belmont on his mission to kill Dracula. You might recently have played this game on the SNES Classic Mini amongst the other pre-installed titles on the system. Many of you will have battled your way through Super Smash Bros. Captain Falcon starred in F-Zero , a futuristic racing game set in the 26th century. Fans of Mario Kart beware — this is not a game that you can play while relaxing back in an armchair.

This is high-speed danger driving at its best. F-Zero was famous for being a hard and challenging game. Bashing into the sides of the track would result in you losing power to your space racer, while special energy strips would fill your bar back up again.

You could race as different characters, all of whom had ships with different attributes. It has one of the coolest game covers ever and stands tall amongst the likes of Fire Emblem and Final Fantasy. Because this game was such a huge hit, it tends to go for a pretty penny on second-hand-resale sites. Just look at that game still above; how many SNES games look that good?

There are multiple endings to uncover too and a storyline that involves time travel and a Grandfather Paradox. Talk about deep! I could quickly swap and change through my favourite Mario games as I pleased without getting out of bed. Super Mario All-Stars featured remastered renditions of the original games, something that Shigeru Miyamoto wanted to bring to the table after the successful completion of Mario Kart.

This game sold over Ask anyone who the character is with the red hat and blue overalls, and But because, for whatever reason, it bombed in sales. Maybe parents took offense to the creepy demonic art on its box? Maybe the game was too tough for players to handle? Who knows why, but Demon's Crest somehow managed to earn an interesting distinction among the entire SNES library — it became the only Super Nintendo title in history to actual register negative sales at one point.

That means, in the course of one week, there were more people who returned the game to get their money back than there were others who actually purchased and kept it. Breath of Fire was Capcom's original attempt at carving out their own piece of the bit RPG pie, the first installment in a role-playing series that would go on to see four future sequels — including one we've already featured earlier on this list.

It's hard to sum up this one when we've just talked about Breath of Fire II, too, because the games are similar in so many ways. Both of them feature a main character named Ryu whose ancestry dates back to a legendary Dragon Clan.

And both of them have similar gameplay, with turn-based battles and random enemy encounters. But hey, this is the first one! That means it's more original and II was just copying it, right? Far and away one of the most brilliantly original game designs ever conceived, E. The game started you off as the lowliest of lifeforms and tracked your evolution over time — an evolution you could entirely influence. If you wanted your fish to develop powerful jaws, or an angler's antennae — you could do that.

When you made it to dry land you could evolve legs bred for hopping or running. You could grow bat wings or bird feathers. Have a giraffe's neck or an elephant's trunk. It was wild — the combinations were endless, and each choice had an actual effect on how your animal played too. It wasn't just cosmetic. Games like Spore continued the tradition of letting players craft weird, wild creatures to control. But E. The franchise-launching first installments of long-running series continue to appear as our countdown continues, and Ogre Battle is the next to be honored.

This in-depth tactical strategy game had so many different elements included in its design that you could play it for weeks and still not see everything inside — from forming parties of characters to marching across the world map looking for fights, from an alignment system that tracked the morality of your actions to a tarot card mechanic that could change that course of a battle, this game had it all.

Another great series that the Super Nintendo helped to start. How do you make a cybersuit-wearing mutated earthworm superhero even weirder? Give him a backpack stuffed full of snot. That was Shiny's big addition to this bit sequel, as our hero Jim gained a sidekick whose name actually was Snott and who was, in function and form, just a giant sticky booger.

Snott would assist Jim by helping him to stick to and swing from certain ceilings, while also blowing him into a parachute-like snot bubble to help our hero slowfall from precarious heights. The new dynamic, while gross, actually added a lot to the experience — and made us decide to give Earthworm Jim 2 a loftier position on the countdown than its predecessor. Turtle Power! You can't have a nostalgic look back on any part of the '90s without running into the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles at some point, and sure enough here they are clocking in at 39 on our countdown thanks to the SNES port of their incredible arcade brawler Turtles in Time.

This game had it all — bright graphics that perfectly captured the look and personality of the classic cartoon, a cool Mode 7-utilizing throw attack that let you toss enemies into the screen and, best of all, time travel. Seeing Leo, Raph, Don and Mikey warp through history and pop up in the age of the dinosaurs, the wild west and the far-flung future was even more epic and awesome than we could have imagined.

And, spoiler warning, it'll also be his last on the list. Kirby's Dream Course trumps all of the pink hero's other bit efforts in our eyes for how amazingly inventive it was. Because it was, essentially, a mini-golf game with Kirby as the ball. As simple as that sounds, though, this design was deviously difficult to master — you had to use precision tactics and exacting timing to get the rotund hero to roll, hop and drop into the hole and make par.

While also dodging loads of Dream Land enemies, and occasionally absorbing their powers to help Kirby move along.

Proving that Konami's Gradius series wasn't the only shooter worth playing early on in the SNES library, Capcom also offered up an energetic port of their arcade game, U. This game is nuts — a side-scrolling shooter starring real-world jet fighters instead of spaceships and featuring a cast of anime-styled characters, it packed in tons of power-up items, explosive boss battles and even a running cash total for your pilots.

You could use that money to buy more planes and wilder weapons, of course. Even crazier was the fact that Capcom went the extra mile for this SNES port, actually infusing it with even more options and upgrades than the arcade original had. Home console ports usually go the other direction, sacrificing content in order to fit the home format. Not U. It soared. Professional basketball has never been as much fun as in NBA Jam, the '90s arcade great that took nearly every rule of the game and threw it out the window — replacing them with a vision of the sport where every contest is reduced to a two-on-two matched between superpowered superstars who can leap 50 feet into the air, drain jumpshots from the farthest reaches of the court and literally catch on fire without being burned.

NBA Jam was an absolute blast in its coin-op cabinet, and when it came home to the SNES it got even crazier with a wide variety of secret codes and hidden playable characters — like President Bill Clinton. The game that made Will Wright a household name and really put the simulation genre on the map, SimCity had already been a success on home computers for a couple of years before the SNES was released — and Nintendo, liking what they saw, worked out a rare deal to develop their own version of the title for the new bit console.

Nintendo's SimCity launched alongside the Super Nintendo in , and it supported its core gameplay of city management and construction with a generous helping of Nintendo fanservice — Bowser would rampage through your 'burg as a Godzilla-sized monster and a Mario statue was available as a unique city landmark. Wright, the new host character created for this game, even went on to become a minor Nintendo star himself with cameo roles in The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening and Super Smash Bros.

Contrary to its numbering, Lufia II is actually a prequel to the first Lufia released on the SNES — it's set years earlier in the timeline and chronicles the events that led up to the first game's story.

Those events? The rise of the Sinistrals, of course, a group of villainous would-be gods who appear suddenly on the planet and challenge any of the world's warriors to try to oppose them. The combination of Gundam-like mobile suits and Americans taking a break from the galaxy far, far away turned out to be a great one, though, as Metal Warriors was a total blast to play.

The game also broke new ground by including a two-player split-screen versus mode, another rarity thrown into the already odd mix of uncommon elements. Ganbare Goemon! It's a bit upsetting to get to The Legend of the Mystical Ninja here on our countdown, because it reminds us how many different Goemon games have never been localized for American audiences.

We've got to celebrate the ones we have received, though, and this SNES sequel served as the series debut for our audience — and it was a great first pick.

Though it called him "Kid Ying" at the time, The Legend of the Mystical Ninja introduced us to Goemon's world — a wacky take on feudal Japan where cartoonish demons are just as likely to goof around and crack a joke as they are to attack you. This sequel was also supported by a variety of fourth-wall-breaking nods to other Konami properties, like a playable Gradius mini-game.

Following up the explosive debut of the Mega Man X series was no small task, but Mega Man X2 accomplished the job admirably. X2 also succeeded in bringing series sidekick Zero back to life. After his sacrificial death in the first X game, our hero Mega Man could complete a set of sidequests to restore his friend to working order. Good thing, too — otherwise Zero would have just been a one-and-done cameo character in a single game.

Erik the Swift, Baleog the Fierce, and Olaf the Stout are a trio of time-traveling Norsemen who've gotten themselves into quite a puzzling predicament.

They've been kidnapped by an alien emperor who wants to put them on display as part of his intergalactic zoo, and they've got to escape and make their way back home to good old Norway. The puzzle dynamics Blizzard created for The Lost Vikings were nearly perfect, as each level was a head-scratching brainteaser that you could only solve by taking full advantage of each viking's unique skills — Erik's speed, Baleog's bow and Olaf's ability to stand there and get stepped on. OK, Olaf could do other things too.

This was an early masterpiece for Blizzard, and thankfully we also got a sequel, The Lost Vikings 2, before the company moved on from Nintendo development. This first-party puzzler is mostly known for the distinction of its NES edition, as it served as the last officially released game for that 8-bit system when it shipped to stores over 9 years after the NES first went on sale in America. A SNES version debuted that same day, though, and it was such a great game that it deserves this lofty placement on our bit list — no boost from its NES version needed.

While most other games in the genre just had you direct the falling blocks themselves, Wario's Woods innovated in the puzzler category by actually giving you a character to control inside the playing field — Toad from the Mario franchise, who's taking on the oddball Wario and trying to keep him from wreaking havoc in a friendly forest.

It was a great design, and also served as Wario's first title role. Donkey Kong Country is the game that saved the Super Nintendo. When Sony's first PlayStation arrived, people started getting drawn to its modern media format and promise of 3D visuals. Many thought the bit SNES just wouldn't be able to keep up anymore. But a little company called Rare shocked us all by developing such an amazing and eye-catching new graphical style that no one could imagine the Super was actually capable of such graphical feats.

But it was, and CGI graphics burst onto the scene to redefine and redirect the entire industry. Donkey Kong was entirely reinvented in the process too, transforming from a girlfriend-napping arcade villain to a necktie-wearing headlining hero. He's been restored as one of Nintendo's most notable mascots ever since. Two great tastes that taste great together. Mario at first appeared to be a simple bit repackaging of Nintendo's two most popular 8-bit puzzler — the classic falling block puzzler from Russia, Tetris, and the color-matching capsule-dropper, Dr.

But the most unique thing about this joint cartridge wasn't that you could play those games separately — it was that you could play them together. Mario included a unique multiplayer mode that challenged you to play both games at the same time.

You clear some lines in Tetris, jump over to zap some viruses in Dr. Mario, then head back over to Tetris to wrap things up. It was a great idea and a great way for two puzzler lovers to square off in a head-to-head challenge too.

The last of the three installments released in the Super Nintendo's groundbreaking Super Star Wars series, Super Return of the Jedi featured the same tough-as-nails, action-heavy version of its adapted film as the two titles preceded it — but it eclipsed them in gameplay variety. The roster of playable characters grew to five different heroes here, as in addition to controlling Luke, Chewie, and Han, you also now got to step into the role of the rugged, bow-wielding Ewok Wicket and wear the gold bikini as slave-costumed Leia.

Leia wasn't showing that much skin for the entire adventure, of course, as she also wore her bounty hunter disguise and Endor forest survival gear at the appropriate points in the story — which just added more variety to the gameplay, since each wardrobe change gave her all-new moves and abilities.

Mortal Kombat II is considered by many to be the pinnacle of the series. The cast of characters got larger, the moves were expanded, and the fatalities got bloodier. Seriously, all the best character got introduced in MK II. Kung Lao, Kintaro… not to mention awesome locations like the acid pits and the living forest.

Mortal Kombat II is still one of the most fun bit fighters to play, and it looked awesome on the SNES, with huge, colorful characters, and lots of blood unlike the previous censored Mortal Kombat. Konami used every trick up the Super Nintendo's sleeve to make Contra III: The Alien Wars the ultimate SNES shooter: Giant bosses, synthesized hard rock sounds, a crazy, spinning Mode 7 top-down mode and a boss fight where you freaking hang from flying missiles were just some of the things that made Contra III the most "extreme" game available at the time.

While previous Contra games drew inspiration from action movies like Rambo and Aliens, Contra III features some suspiciously Terminator-like cyborgs, an evil Boba Fett wannabe and whole host of other blockbuster movie references that add to its distinct early s charm. In fact, the company was so good that many of its licensed titles would rival even the efforts of Nintendo itself. DuckTales, anyone? The Magical Quest Starring Mickey Mouse was seemingly yet another title starring the iconic cartoon character, but it mixed spectacular platforming with costume-based action to great effect.

While the SNES Mouse peripheral never really took off in the grand scheme of things, it did give us Mario Paint, a Nintendo themed creativity studio complete with drawing, animation, music composition modes Dozens of familiar Mario shapes appeared in the forms of stamps and brushes and players could even recreate the tunes from popular Nintendo games using the sound effects from the games themselves, leading to hundreds of 1UP sound cover versions of popular songs that are still a blast to listen to today.

The Castlevania series has a long and distinguished legacy, and Super Castlevania IV is among the best it has to offer. A perfected and greatly expanded on reimagining of the first Castlevania for the NES, IV follows the trials of Simon Belmont as he and his legendary whip, The Vampire Killer, attempt to defeat Dracula and restore order to the world. Castlevania IV took the original premise and added five new levels including ones that take place outside the castle , as well as tighter controls and a few additional gameplay mechanics like enhanced whip functionality.

All of these reasons make it one of the best the SNES has to offer. Crazy, right? Still, when you're talking about the first three Super Mario Bros. Before remakes and upgrades were common, Nintendo pulled together some of Mario's grandest adventures, included the original Super Mario Bros. In some ways these games are so good that it was hard not to make this compilation 1 on our list.

How do you sell the usually PC-centric building simulation genre to a generation of console gamers? Easy, you just sandwich those parts inside of an awesome action game. Half sidescrolling platformer, half godly action game, ActRaiser manages to juggle both genres brilliantly and with excellent pacing to boot. Way back when the racing genre was still finding its bearings, F-Zero came along and set the standard. This futuristic racer was hard and fast, with mind-bending Mode 7 graphics and an impressive variety of tracks to challenge even the most seasoned racing fan.

The game also introduced Captain Falcon, a talented driver and mysterious bounty hunter who came to be the poster boy for the series, and we'll never forget when he first showed us his moves 20 years ago. As awesome as it was fighting Mike Tyson, the more surreal and exaggerated characters of Super Punch-Out!!

The gameplay of Super Punch-Out!! It's the same hooks, uppercuts and super punches as always. However the precision-based action of each match is truly spectacular, boiling down to studying each outlandish opponent for weaknesses. Best of all was finding a boxer's instant KO point. While it was certainly possible to wear an enemy down, even taking advantage of low defenses, most of your foes featured openings that would instantly take them down.

Bigger, badder, and more barrel-filled than the original, Donkey Kong Country 2 took the DKC recipe and pumped it up with gorilla steroids. Along the way they enlist a wacky cast of ride-able animal buddies like a spider and a rattlesnake to kollect koins, kill kreatures, kartwheel over kanyons and… do other things that inexplicably start with the letter K. Tetris Attack is an early entry in a series of puzzle games that began with the Japan-only Panel de Pon.

This game was localized by adding the cast and settings of Yoshi's Island in the US, and then remade again as Pokemon Puzzle League for the Nintendo If you've played any of these games, you know how addicting and clever the dual panel-switching mechanic is. What really makes Tetris Attack stand out is its competitive mode in which you can send evil blocks raining down on your opponent's game.

Back in , the term "rage-quit" hadn't been coined yet, but many SNES controllers suffered, nonetheless. Final Fantasy IV is all about character development, with copious amounts of dialogue and back stories for each of the wildly different fighters on your team: the young wizard twins, a kung-fu master, a girl who can summon crazy gods to kick butt. Characters like Cecil, Rydia, and Kain are memorable not only for their varying ability to beat up dragons, but as tiny, pixelated actors on a digital stage.

However, its hilarious commentary on American culture, psychedelic premise, and unique take on the RPG genre instantly cemented it as a cult classic. The story follows Ness, a character who grew to know greater popularity than his game thanks to his inclusion in the Super Smash Bros. A prophetic alien bee named Buzz Buzz changes the course of the young boy's life, setting him on an adventure that those of us who have experienced it would never forget. The evolution of the original series, Mega Man X changed the game by introducing new mechanics, new characters, and a new take on the Blue Bomber.

The addition of wall jumping and dashing propelled X into a class of its own, allowing the player to interact with practically every square inch of the entire game. Rousing rock tunes offset the frantic, fast-paced gameplay. Killer bosses like Chill Penguin and Sting Chameleon give you ample motivation to perfect your skills. X was the first — though certainly not the last — reinvention of Mega Man.

It somehow managed to build upon the brilliant foundation of the original, and for that alone it more than deserves a spot on this list. This delightful action RPG shook up the genre with its fun and deep battle system, incorporating real-time action with a brilliant use of timed attacks. Players are required to know just when to evade and when to go in for the kill, and the depth only increases as the story progresses.

There are also plentiful characters and weapons to equip, making for a highly strategic, and highly satisfying, RPG experience. Secret of Mana, which is actually the sequel to Final Fantasy Adventure for the Game Boy, also allows for co-op gameplay, which was highly unique for an RPG at the time.

Throw in beautiful music and a timeless story and you have a delightful mash between Final Fantasy and The Legend of Zelda that shouldn't be missed. With just one entry, Square and Nintendo created a game that is not only noteworthy for its crisp gameplay and clever JRPG innovations, but also for its ability to let Mario work side-by-side with his nemesis Bowser.

That might seem fairly standard today, but back then Nintendo fans across the globe were blown away. Adding Mario or not, Nintendo and Square pulled out all the stops, creating an RPG that stands alongside some of the best products from either company. Now if only we could get a true sequel…. Long before Fox McCloud barrel rolled into our lives, his father, James, was already facing off against Andross with his fellow furry flyers.

In addition to fast-paced, frenetic gameplay, this action-packed flight simulation game was also distinguished as being the first Nintendo title to feature three-dimensional graphics, back when this was still incredibly rare. Throw in some beyond memorable characters Falco, Slippy, and Peppy, for instance , and you have a title that is worthy of being remembered. Mario has visited many established genres and franchises, but with Super Mario Kart he started something new.

Prior to Kart, racing games were fairly straightforward, leaning towards simulation or arcade, but rarely deviating too much from either path. Kart took racing through the jungle and off a cliff, imbuing players with power-ups and all sorts of crazy antics, including a highly addictive multiplayer mode. It's impossible to calculate how many hours we spent chasing each other around maze-like battlegrounds or avoiding ricocheting shells in an effort to pop balloons.

Regardless, Super Mario Kart quickly became one of the most addicting SNES experiences ever, long after all of the races had been won and the shortcuts had been discovered. The game defined Yoshi as a character, giving him some of his most iconic moves like the flutter kick and egg throw. Another genre-defining masterpiece that is arguably still one of the best in its class.

Super Street Fighter II Turbo was, for its time, the best fighting game available for a home console, and the pinnacle of evolution for this particular title. While it couldn't quite match what was available in the arcades, if you wanted to pit Ryu against Ken in the comfort of your own home, you couldn't do much better than this. Street Fighter had a certain elegance and simplicity back in the early '90s, something that no doubt contributed to its lasting appeal.

To this day, it's hard to forget the first time we pulled off a Hadouken or when we fought M. Bison for the first time. Street Fighter was truly the beginning of a huge boom for the fighting game genre, and a trailblazer for dozens of other franchises.

How do you follow up a masterpiece like Super Mario Bros. That question no doubt lingered in the minds of many as the launch of the SNES approached. Super Mario World was given the impossible task of attempting to perfect platforming perfection -- finding power-ups, level designs, graphics, and music that would outdo or stand alongside what most consider to be the best NES game ever. Somehow, Nintendo managed to do just that. Mario World doesn't reinvent platform gaming, but it does find a way to make it seem fresh again, introducing ideas like Yoshi, expanding the Mushroom Kingdom's zany cast of characters and blowing our minds with some truly excellent visuals and audio.

Upon its debut, the SNES managed to make the impossible somehow possible. That's mighty impressive. Visually, acoustically, and mechanically, FFVI was leaps and bounds ahead of the competitors. The item customization and battle mechanics are tight and intuitive, and the game is one of the most well balanced RPGs to date. What makes the game stand out to this day are the characters and storyline. FFVI touches on issues few games had the guts to, and presents a large casts of characters, all of whom are fleshed out and relatable.

The opera scene is one of the most memorable moments in Final Fantasy history. With flawless action, impeccable level design, out-of-this-world atmosphere, a totally badass heroine, and an enormous overworld to explore, few games can hope to reach its rung on the ladder of pure gaming bliss.

From the moment you set foot on Zebes to the moment you leave it exploding in your wake, every moment of this game is unadulterated fun, and it only gets better the further you get. It certainly won't be the last.