- 7 months ago
Get ready to revisit one of gaming's greatest consoles! Join us as we explore the most surprising and fascinating facts about the Super Nintendo Entertainment System! From its revolutionary Mode 7 graphics and iconic controller design to secret development stories and hidden features, there's more to this legendary 16-bit powerhouse than meets the eye. How many of these did you already know?
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00:00When you decide to get serious, there's only one place to come, the games of Super Nintendo.
00:05No one else creates this kind of experience, because no one else creates these kinds of games.
00:12Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're looking at the definitive console of the early 90s,
00:16and seeing if there's still anything we haven't learned about these little plastic bundles of joy.
00:20These are 20 things you didn't know about the SNES. Let's go.
00:24Don't rest a drink on me.
00:25The generation of Nintendo games, it comes only with Super Nintendo, and it's like nothing.
00:30The American version of the NES had a distinct design, which is polite code for so boxy it could double
00:36as a footstool,
00:37because Nintendo of America decided to style it like a VCR to avoid scaring retailers still traumatized by the great
00:43video game crash.
00:44The plan worked, but the design also came with one glaring flaw, a perfectly flat top that begged people to
00:50put drinks on it,
00:52inevitably leading to countless consoles drowning in grape phanta.
00:54So did you know that when Nintendo designed the SNES, they made sure the new system was basically anti-beverage?
01:01A top-loading cartridge slot, a raised and curved surface, and an overall shape that whispers,
01:06please don't use me as a coaster.
01:09It sounds like an old wives' tale, but turns out, it's true.
01:11You find it's just begun.
01:13The new Legend of Zelda, a link to the past.
01:16Now you're playing with power, super power.
01:18In Trouble with Congress
01:20In the early 90s, Nintendo smugly assumed they were safe from violent concerns
01:29thanks to turning Mortal Kombat's blood into what looked like red Gatorade-flavored sweat.
01:33But they underestimated two things.
01:34Sega's ability to be petty, and Congress' ability to get offended by absolutely anything.
01:39Because during a hearing, Sega VP Bill White decided to drag Nintendo into the fire
01:44by whipping out the Super Scope, a bazooka-shaped plastic peripheral so gloriously over the top
01:50that Lieberman immediately declared it looked like an assault weapon.
01:54This was because Sega was in trouble, and was trying to draw focus elsewhere.
01:58Dogs.
01:58Remote-powered and laser-accurate.
02:01Precise work to a single television pixel.
02:04They do turn yellow.
02:06As it turns out, Nintendo accidentally overloaded early units of the SNES
02:11with flame-retardant chemicals containing bromine,
02:14a metal that loves oxidizing so much it basically speedran discoloration.
02:19And while later versions fixed the issue, anyone who bought one near launch
02:23now owns a console that's exact shade is sort of nicotine-chic.
02:27But on the bright side, if your house ever bursts into flames,
02:30your Super Nintendo will bravely refuse to ignite
02:32while you heroically continue playing Super Metroid in a haze of smoke
02:35and poor life choices.
02:39Nintendo avoid the Yakuza.
02:47There isn't much I'm eager to say about the Yakuza.
02:49They're scary, which is why Nintendo once worried the local syndicates
02:53might try and swipe an incoming shipment of highly coveted Super Nintendo units.
02:57This fear led to the creation of the magnificently dramatic Operation Midnight Shipping,
03:02a title that sounds less like a logistics plan
03:04and more like something you'd whisper to yourself at 3am
03:06after panic-ordering 50 tea towels on Amazon.
03:09But despite the cool name, the operation's big strategy was simply
03:12deliver everything ridiculously early in the morning,
03:15getting consoles and copies of Super Mario World to stores
03:17before any hypothetical gangsters wake up.
03:26SNES had online features.
03:31The SNES's big attempt to join the online world came in the form of X-Band.
03:35Think of it as the proto-Nintendo Switch Online,
03:38except held together with hope and phone lines.
03:41Designed for both SNES and Sega Genesis users,
03:44the X-Band let players battle friends online,
03:46download newsletters and even check email,
03:48which in the 90s basically made it a wizard box.
03:51And though it peaked around 15,000 subscribers
03:53and even teamed up with the Sega channel for a bit,
03:55it ultimately shut down in early 1997.
04:03Only came out as revenge.
04:06As popular as the SNES turned out to be,
04:09Nintendo wasn't exactly dying to replace the NES at first.
04:12I mean, if your device reignited an entire industry,
04:16you'd have a good amount of confidence in it as well.
04:18They figured the little grey box would keep selling forever
04:21as a permanent family room resident.
04:23But Sega backed Nintendo into a corner
04:25with an aggressive marketing campaign
04:27that basically pointed at Nintendo and yelled,
04:29Hey, old man!
04:30So Nintendo eventually realized they had to clap back,
04:33announcing the Super Famicom in 1987.
04:39EarthBound's Anti-Piracy Prank
04:48Most games with anti-piracy measures
04:50just stop you dead the moment they detect funny business,
04:52but EarthBound went full chaotic evil.
04:55If the console detected a pirated copy of the game,
04:57it massively ramped up enemy encounters,
05:00and if you somehow muscled through that gauntlet
05:02and made it all the way to the final showdown with Giygas,
05:05the real trap sprung.
05:06The game would suddenly crash,
05:08forcing a reset, at which point you discover
05:11that every single one of your save files were vaporized,
05:14leaving you with nothing but existential dread
05:16and a very strong respect for Nintendo's commitment
05:19to teaching pirates life lessons.
05:25SNES Bundles
05:34There has not been a console since
05:36that packaged so many games with the console
05:39to make different types of bundles.
05:40Obviously, the big one was the Super Mario World bundle,
05:43as you've probably seen it 10,000 times on eBay.
05:45Early bundles included F-Zero,
05:47and later, The Legend of Zelda A Link to the Past
05:49got its own set once it dropped a year after launch.
05:52There were also bundles revolving around
05:53Super Mario All-Stars,
05:55Donkey Kong Country,
05:56Super Mario Kart,
05:57Street Fighter 2,
05:57Yoshi's Island,
05:58Star Fox,
05:58Killer Instinct Mario Paint,
06:00The Kirby Super Star,
06:01Tetris Attack,
06:02Ken Griffey Jr. Presents Major League Baseball,
06:04and Super Metroid.
06:05I could keep going,
06:06but I'm stopping there for your sake.
06:15A lot of N64 games started as SNES games.
06:25Nintendo managed to keep the Super Nintendo alive
06:27and kicking far longer than anyone expected
06:29by stuffing special performance-enhancing chips
06:32right into the cartridges themselves,
06:33letting the system pull off jaw-dropping feats
06:36like Star Fox's Polygonal Madness
06:38and Yoshi's Island's Wild Visual Wizardry,
06:40and this trick worked so well
06:42that Nintendo briefly considered
06:45putting more ambitious 3D projects onto the SNES.
06:47Super Mario 64 originally started life
06:50as a SNES concept.
06:52Star Fox 64 borrowed ideas
06:54from the unreleased Star Fox 2,
06:55and Rare had an early SNES-based 3D project
06:58called Project Dream,
06:59which eventually transformed into Banjo-Kazooie.
07:08Backwards compatibility almost happened.
07:10Describe the endless challenge of Super Mario World.
07:13So, we let the players do the talking.
07:17Did you know that the SNES
07:19was originally supposed to play
07:21the entire NES library straight out of the box?
07:23It's true.
07:24It would have been a feature
07:25that would have made revisiting the classics a breeze,
07:28but Nintendo, true to form,
07:29never fully committed to backwards compatibility
07:31outside of the Wii era,
07:33partly because their hardware kept bouncing
07:35between cartridges, tiny discs, big discs,
07:37and then cartridges again,
07:38like a company playing console format roulette.
07:40And while the idea likely surfaced
07:42as a response to Sega,
07:43and the PC Engine boasting
07:45their own compatibility perks,
07:46Nintendo ultimately scrapped the plan
07:48once they realized
07:49it would jack up the SNES's retail price.
07:58The rarest SNES cartridge.
08:04Back in the 90s,
08:05Nintendo organized a giant SNES competition tour
08:08to crown the ultimate champion.
08:10And instead of forcing staff to swap game cards
08:12non-stop like overworked DJs,
08:14they built a special single cartridge
08:17containing timed demo-style segments
08:19of three different games,
08:20giving each contestant roughly six minutes
08:22to rack up the best overall score.
08:23Only about 33 of these multi-game cartridges
08:26existed during the tour,
08:27most of which Nintendo later scrapped for parts,
08:30leaving only two known surviving copies
08:32in the wild today.
08:33Both so rare,
08:35they sell for the kind of money
08:36that makes collectors consider different hobbies.
08:42The Ghost of Shiva.
08:47Mortal Kombat 3 originally shipped
08:49with 15 playable fighters.
08:51And when Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 hit the scene,
08:53it slapped on a handful of extra characters.
08:55But the SNES didn't exactly have room
08:58to store the entire violent circus,
08:59so the developers had to start trimming the fat.
09:02Several stages vanished,
09:03voice clips were axed,
09:05Animalities got the boot,
09:06and even poor,
09:07four-armed Shiva was cut
09:08to make space for all the new goodies.
09:10Though,
09:10cut is a generous term
09:12because instead of deleting her completely,
09:14they only removed her graphics
09:15while leaving everything else in the code,
09:17which becomes a problem
09:17thanks to a secret 8v8 endurance mode
09:20that allows players to select random characters.
09:22Meaning,
09:22you can accidentally end up choosing Shiva,
09:25or whatever abstract art piece
09:27is standing in for her that day.
09:28Her moves still function,
09:30her hitbox still exists,
09:31but visually,
09:32she shows up as a chaotic soup of pixels.
09:36Flawless.
09:37Victory.
09:38Fatality.
09:39SNES doesn't care what you think.
09:47Tool-assisted speedruns
09:49are usually delightful chaos,
09:50letting you watch some
09:51and absolutely annihilate games
09:52that once destroyed
09:53your childhood confidence.
09:55Sometimes by exploiting glitches
09:56so wild they feel illegal.
09:58But the greatest tool-assisted speedrun
10:00ever created
10:00is the legendary
10:01Family Feud SNES play around
10:03because that game
10:05has an unbelievably goofy
10:06answer-checking system
10:07where you don't need to type
10:08the exact answer,
10:09just a string of letters
10:11that contain the correct answers
10:12letters in order.
10:13Even if you stuff in
10:14full nonsense in between,
10:16and thanks to that loophole,
10:17you can blast out answers
10:18much quicker.
10:25Sequel to Link to the Past
10:30Six years ago,
10:31the hero Link
10:32threw down the king of evil,
10:34Gannon.
10:35Since then,
10:37the land of Hyrule
10:38has basked in a time of peace.
10:40As it turns out,
10:41there really is a hidden sequel
10:42to The Legend of Zelda
10:43A Link to the Past
10:44that most players
10:45never knew existed,
10:46set several years
10:47after the original
10:48SNES classic,
10:49it has you once again
10:50playing as Link,
10:51this time hunting down
10:52the titular
10:52Ancient Stone tablets,
10:54whilst also learning
10:55about the younger brother
10:56of a major NPC
10:57from the first game.
10:58Why didn't we get it?
10:59The entire game
11:00was delivered
11:01through Satellaview broadcasts
11:03and can only be played
11:03in one-hour chunks
11:04during specific scheduled times,
11:06and while a shockingly
11:07accurate reconstruction
11:08has been pieced together
11:10from recovered memory-packed data,
11:11the true original experience,
11:13complete with timed episodes
11:14and live audio,
11:15can never be fully recreated.
11:21Cloud Gaming Before the Cloud
11:25Oh, speaking of,
11:27let's break down
11:27the Satellaview a bit more.
11:29Satellaview was an add-on
11:31that let the system
11:31receive and decode
11:32satellite TV signals
11:34so you could literally
11:35tune into games
11:35like TV shows.
11:37Titles were broadcast
11:37at specific times,
11:39streamed direct
11:39to your console,
11:40and once the hour-long window
11:41ended,
11:41you had to stop playing.
11:43Nintendo created a bunch
11:44of Satellaview exclusive games,
11:46and the Satellaview
11:47was actually pretty successful,
11:49staying supported by Nintendo
11:50and their broadcasting partner
11:51from 1995
11:52all the way until 2000,
11:54proving Nintendo
11:55was experimenting
11:56with cloud gaming
11:57long before anyone
11:58had the bandwidth for it.
12:07PlayStation started
12:08as an SNES add-on.
12:10Compact,
12:10smaller than an existing
12:11single,
12:12and this is how it fits
12:13into the player,
12:14like so.
12:16Yes,
12:16the mighty PlayStation
12:17was originally
12:18Nintendo's own
12:19half-baked baby,
12:21because back in the late 80s,
12:22Nintendo and Sony
12:23teamed up
12:24to make a fancy
12:25CD add-on
12:26for the SNES,
12:27and everything was going great,
12:28until Nintendo
12:29actually read the contract
12:30and discovered
12:31Sony would get
12:31most of the profits
12:32from CD-based games,
12:34which instantly triggered
12:35Nintendo's
12:35absolutely not reflex.
12:36So in true dramatic fashion,
12:38literally hours
12:39after publicly announcing
12:40their partnership
12:41with Sony,
12:42Nintendo spun around,
12:43plunged a metaphorical knife
12:44straight into Sony's
12:44metaphorical back
12:45and told the world
12:46that they were dumping
12:46them for Philips.
12:47If you know anything
12:48about the Philips CD-i,
12:50you know this was
12:50a pretty big mistake.
12:51Look after that body,
12:52it's my favourite model,
12:53built for speed
12:54and pleasure.
12:56Don't worry about that.
12:57I intend to keep up
12:58the maintenance
12:59on this model.
13:00Super Arcade Nintendo
13:01And without further ado,
13:03this is my little showcase
13:05of my Nintendo Super System.
13:07Back in the 80s and 90s,
13:08arcades were still thriving
13:10like neon-lit ecosystems,
13:12full of teenagers,
13:13cigarette smoke
13:13and constant sound
13:14of coins clinking,
13:16even though home consoles
13:16were taking over
13:17living rooms worldwide.
13:18Nintendo just wasn't ready
13:20to give up that sweet
13:21arcade money,
13:22and that meant launching
13:23the gloriously obscure
13:24Nintendo Super System
13:26in 1991,
13:27a machine so unpopular
13:28that even Bigfoot
13:29has better name recognition.
13:31With estimates suggesting
13:32only about 1,200 units
13:34were ever sold,
13:35a microscopic number
13:36compared to other cabinets,
13:38we can say
13:38it was a pretty big failure.
13:45Mario Kart vs F-Zero
13:55This is a fun piece
13:56of gaming trivia.
13:57Without F-Zero,
13:59we wouldn't have Mario Kart,
14:00because Mario Kart originally began
14:02as an attempt to make
14:03a multiplayer version
14:04of F-Zero's high-speed
14:05futuristic chaos.
14:07Takeya Imamura,
14:08the artist behind
14:08Captain Falcon himself,
14:10recently said in an interview
14:11that the new F-Zero
14:12would cost a fortune to make,
14:14while Mario Kart continues
14:15printing money faster
14:16than Nintendo can count it.
14:17So, from a business standpoint,
14:19F-Zero is basically
14:20standing outside
14:21the Mushroom Kingdom
14:21wanting a cardboard sign
14:23that says,
14:23we'll race for a budget.
14:24The irony of all this,
14:25of course,
14:25is that Mario Kart only exists
14:27because Nintendo
14:28wanted to adapt F-Zero.
14:31The Original SNES Mascot
14:37Captain Falcon
14:38is a man of many talents.
14:39Galactic hero,
14:40bounty hunter,
14:41race car driver,
14:42professional martial artist
14:43who fights like he's being paid
14:44per explosion,
14:45but his original job
14:46was supposed to be
14:47way cushier
14:48and maybe involving a red hat.
14:49He was meant
14:50to be the official mascot
14:51of the Super Nintendo
14:53Entertainment System,
14:54complete with a grey colour scheme
14:55to match the console.
14:57Because nothing says,
14:58buy the system
14:58like a mysterious helmeted man
15:00who looks like he moonlights
15:01as a traffic cone.
15:02Eventually,
15:03Nintendo realized F-Zero
15:04needed a recognisable face
15:06more than SNES
15:07needed a space cop spokesmodel.
15:09So,
15:09Falcon got recolored,
15:10repurposed,
15:11and shoved into a hovercar
15:12at Mach 7.
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15:33Disrupted Society
15:44In Japan,
15:45the Super Famicom
15:46launched on a Wednesday
15:47and the results
15:48were absolute chaos.
15:49The Super Famicom's release
15:51was such a cultural earthquake
15:53that the Japanese government
15:54straight up intervened,
15:56realizing that having
15:56the entire population
15:57lining up on a weekday
15:58just to sprint home
15:59and play the living soul
16:00out of Super Mario World
16:01was slightly disruptive
16:03to society.
16:04So,
16:04officials politely insisted
16:05that all future consoles
16:07be released on weekends,
16:08a rule that continues today.
16:10Bastards.
16:11I don't want kids
16:11getting in the way
16:12of my PS6.
16:13A bit more friends.
16:14A bit more sound.
16:15A bit hotter.
16:15A bit cooler.
16:16A bit weird.
16:17A bit more revolutionary.
16:18A bit more Mario.
16:19A bit more of what you want.
16:21It's 16-bit
16:22and it's yours
16:23only if you get
16:24new Super Nintendo.
16:25Now you're playing
16:25with power.
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