This article was originally going to be another top 5 but I couldn’t get the list down to 5, thus these are the top 6 RPGs to be released on the SNES.
6. Tales Of Phantasia
Tales of Phantasia is the first game to be released in the ‘Tales of ‘ series, although never officially released outside of Japan or in English until the 2006 GBA re-release.
Tales of Phantasia also debut the Linear Motion Battle System, which is a unique real-time battle system as opposed to many other RPGs at the time which were using turn-based combat systems, the LMBS plays similar to games like Street-Fighter.
Legacy
Phantasia spawned an anime series based on the game, has been remade/re-released 3 times, had 9 direct sequels and 16 spin-off titles .
5. Secret of Mana
“There is one force in the universe that keeps good and evil in perfect balance. It is called the tree of Mana. But a magic sword has tricked a young warrior into upsetting this balance, spreading evil throughout the land.” - Official Box Art
Secret of Mana is the second game released in the Mana video game series, and the first to be adapted into English. Instead of using the traditional turn based combat, similar to the aforementioned it used a real-time battle system, although very different to Mana’s it was most similar to how combat was played in Legend of Zelda.
Legacy
7 sequels with the latest being released in 2007 and a manga series based on one the later games.
4. Earthbound
“Intergalactic terror strikes the small town of Onett as a blazing extraterrestrial object crashes in the night! The earth now faces imminent destruction by the universal evil threat known as Giygas!” - Official Box Art
In EarthBound you play as a young boy named Ness, who awakens one night to discover a meteor has landed near his house. Upon investigation Ness meets a friendly alien from the future who warns him of the worlds impending doom, and thus it’s up to Ness and his ragtag group of friends to save the world from certain destruction.
Earthbound like Secret of Mana is the second game in a JRPG series but the first to be translated into English. Although having many traditional RPG elements it is one few JRPGs that takes place in the modern day, and somewhat uniquely among JRPGs it does not have random encounters, instead you can see enemies on the map.
Legacy
EarthBound’s legacy is by far the saddest here, it had high critical praise yet a horrible commercial release in America , a sequel was in the works for the N64 but was scrapped, although years later they did release a sequel for GBA in Japan only.
Luckily for Ness the main character, he has become somewhat of a cult icon in the Nintendo world, and has appeared in every Super Smash Bros. game to date.
3. Final Fantasy 3 - (6)
“Many centuries have passed since the war of the Magi - civilizations have been rebuilt with iron, machines and technology. But the forces of magic have begun to return, and when ancient Esper is discovered, the risk of war resurfaces.” - Offical PSX Box Art
In Final Fantasy III, you play as ‘Terra’ a girl born with the gift of magic, half human and half Esper. She must help lead a group of rebels to overthrow an imperial dictatorship.
Final Fantasy III is by far the best of the 2D Final Fantasy games, and to date still has the largest amount of playable characters in the core final fantasy series. Although released as Final Fantasy III in the west it is the sixth Final Fantasy game.
Legacy
As in the previous top NES RPG article Final Fantasy has the best legacy of all JRPGs, but specifically Final Fantasy 3 has been re-released twice, once for the PSX with added cut-scenes and recently on the GBA with a retranslated script, a new dungeon, and 4 new Espers (and now know as FF6).
2. Super Mario RPG - Legend of the Seven Stars
“Mario’s latest rival is Smithy, a menacing creature who causes fear and treachery in the Mushroom Kingdom. Mario must recover seven stars and repair the Star Road before he can make his way to Bowser’s castle for a final confrontation.” - Official Box Art
During a battle between Bowser and Mario, who was on a routine mission to rescue Princess Toadstoll from Bowser, a gigantic sword crashes into the battle and causes the three of them go flying in different directions. Mario, upon finding his way back to the Mushroom kingdom, finds the princess is still missing and has to unravel the mystery of the gigantic sword and rescue the princess (…again) to save the kingdom.
Super Mario RPG is the first Mario role playing game to be released and the final Mario game to be released for the SNES. Super Mario RPG was developed as a joint venture between Square (most famously known for their Final Fantasy series) and Nintendo.
The graphics were highly critically praised upon release, and were done in a similar style to the Donkey Kong Country series, using pre-rendered 3d graphics layered onto a typical RPG isometric view.
The gameplay contains many similarities to other Square RPGs, mainly Final Fantasy and Chrono Trigger. The Mario RPG battle system is again a turn-based system. Fortunately battles are not random encounters, instead they occur when you bump into a enemy on the field map.
Legacy
Although no direct sequels were made, two similar series were released the Paper Mario series and the Mario & Luigi series, both have had a highly positive critical and commercial reception. Super Mario RPG is to be re-released on the Wii arcarde soon.
1. Chrono Trigger
“A portal is opened. The chain of time is broken. A young man is transported into the past, altering the course of history and the outcome of the future. He has to find his way home, but first he must travel to the outer edges of time to repair the world’s chronology.” - Official Box Art
Travel through time to save the world from a global catastrophe.
Chrono Trigger was developed by what Square called the “Dream Team” containing developers from the Final Fantasy and the Dragon quest series, music from renowned video game music composers Yasunori Mitsuda & Nobuo Uematsu, and character design and artwork from famed creator of Dragon Ball, Akira Toriyama.
Chrono Trigger is, in my opinion, by far the best RPG to be released on the SNES (albeit never released in Australia *sob*). Although it may have every role playing cliché possible, this game uses them in such a way to make an extremely captivating experience.
If you have played it I need not say more about how great a game Chrono Trigger is, and if you have not played it I suggest you go find a copy ASAP!
Legacy
Sadly not as good as it could have been; Chrono Trigger has been re-released for the PSX with added anime cut-scenes, had one official sequel; Chrono Cross, released for the PSX and a few text-based adventures released in Japan only.
Currently there are no plans for any new Chrono games.
Top 5 NES RPGS | Casualty Gamer:
June 11, 2008 at 5:59 pm
[...] Casualty RSSRetro Wednesday: Top 6 SNES RPGSThe Plan for June.Top #10 PC CO-OP [...]
Greg Richmond:
June 11, 2008 at 10:51 pm
Nice article though I would have liked to see Terranigma in there!! Still must have been difficult to get it down to 6 due to the wealth of quality RPG’s availible!!
Potato:
June 12, 2008 at 6:33 am
Secret of Mana wasn’t the first from its series to be released in English. Seiken Densetsu 1 was released as Final Fantasy Adventure in 1991.
TheImaginator:
June 12, 2008 at 6:52 am
Shame you missed out on Legend of Zelda - Link to the Past, Illusion of Time, oh and there were the Breath of Fire games as well.
Wolfull:
June 12, 2008 at 9:08 am
Hey thanks for the replies,
TheImaginator: In my opinion Legend of Zelda is not an RPG, tis a adventure game. (No leveling up etc).
Potato: oops, my bad. I didn’t look at the gameboy releases.
Greg: yeah, there is so many great RPGs but originally I only wanted a list of 5.
crux:
June 14, 2008 at 2:17 am
EarthBound isn’t technically the first of the series to be translated into English (homebrew translations aside), as the first Mother game received a full localization in 1990 before the North American release was eventually canceled in 1991. It also would have been called EarthBound (the folks that hacked the beta cartridge appended “Zero” to the name to distinguish it for the ROM distribution), so presumably the EarthBound we all know and love would have been called EarthBound 2.
And, as said above, Seiken Densetsu reached the states on Gameboy as Final Fantasy Adventure.
All time best Genesis RPGs | Casualty Gamer:
June 18, 2008 at 9:51 am
[...] done the NES RPGs, the SNES RPGs.. the next logical retro step would be the Genesis(aka Mega Drive), thus these are the top Genesis [...]
Kev:
July 3, 2008 at 1:34 am
Man, that Secret of Mana box art brings back memories, it’s so different and captivating in it’s own way. By far my favorite on SNES, though there’s just so many good rpgs to choose from during that time.
zman:
July 8, 2008 at 10:47 am
this is the best “Best SNES RPG” article!
Everyone forgets about Secret of Mana and Earthbound
Too bad Mother 3 is Japan only =/
Super Mario RPG never gets ranked that high, which is awesome.
And Chrono Trigger is the best hah.
Something about time travel, and changing things in the past to change the future is incredible.
[KwZ]:
July 10, 2008 at 10:44 pm
There is going to be a Chrono Trigger game for the DS, square has announced it on their website, but this is not going to be a sequel… I feel sad for that… They should have never cancelled “Chrono Resurrection” it was fan-based after all.
Ian:
July 23, 2008 at 12:00 pm
I liked Secret of Evermore better than Mario RPG
Leathersoup:
July 23, 2008 at 1:39 pm
I can’t accept this list. There’s no Shadowrun…
Hamad:
July 23, 2008 at 3:29 pm
Big Gigantic failure,
Shadowrun by DataEast was the best of them all.
Troll#728:
July 24, 2008 at 1:36 pm
Why is Terranigma not on this list?
I have the feeling you simply wanted in on the grand Chrono Trigger circle jerk and simply searched to find a few lesser known titles, ie Earthbound, Tales of Phantasia to round out this failure of list while ignoring superior games like Shadowrun and Terranigma.
You fail my good sir, a pox upon you and your ilk.
Amanda Kerik:
July 24, 2008 at 2:03 pm
I’m usually disappointed Lufia 2 doesn’t make these lists, but perhaps it’s because a lot of people haven’t played it?
Rick:
July 24, 2008 at 2:14 pm
What about Lufia 2? It’s comparable to FF6!
ironiridis:
July 24, 2008 at 2:23 pm
Come on; Secret of Evermore. That game made me cry… I admit it.
zacharias:
July 24, 2008 at 2:30 pm
what? no FF4? list fail.
Payback:
July 24, 2008 at 2:34 pm
Just wanted to say that there is a remake of Chrono Trigger being made by SquareEnix atm for the DS. Pity to not see Zelda 3: Link to the past on the list - but hey, can’t please everyone!
Other then that, great article
dude:
July 24, 2008 at 2:36 pm
FF4!
Illusion of Gaia!
LTTP!
P.S.
- Earthbound is Japan’s “Mother 2″. You should play “Mother 3″ as it is fan-translated into English and is just as good
- Secret of Mana is Japan’s “Seiken Densetsu 2″. You should also play “Seiken Densetsu 3″ as it is also fan-translated into English and is just as good
vuduuu:
July 24, 2008 at 2:42 pm
this list is such epic fails without shadowrun at #1
mehdi:
July 24, 2008 at 3:15 pm
zelda 3! zelda 3! oh no, it’s not on the list. You just killed me.
Cypher:
July 24, 2008 at 3:44 pm
Damn it, Ive played them all, Kinda lookin for a new one. Wishing I couldve played Bahamut Lagoon, except my Japanese sucks………
Gato:
July 24, 2008 at 4:54 pm
Chrono Trigger has a release on the DS check square enix website for more details
just for the internet cliche ill add in this “asshole”
Phyrehawk:
July 24, 2008 at 4:56 pm
Excellent choice of number one =] Though that musta been a difficult list to put together (especially with the suggestions people are making above, Terrainigma, Shadowrun etc.)
For anyone that is interested - Chrono Trigger is getting a remake for the DS due to be released in the winter
http://www.square-enix.co.jp/ctds/
~Phyre
blah:
July 24, 2008 at 5:13 pm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_Fantasy_Adventure as you can see, Secret of Mana was NOT the first Mana game to be translated to english. Final Fantasy Adventure for the Game Boy was (though it was not marked as a Mana game at the time). The game has since been remade as Sword of Mana for the GameBoy Advance.
J Rock:
July 24, 2008 at 6:42 pm
Umm… Anyone else like 7th Saga? I thought it was dzope. I would have bumped earthbound sorry.
Tobias:
July 24, 2008 at 9:42 pm
Would be nice if a single one of these was on Virtual Console =P poop on Nintendo!
SniperJoe:
July 24, 2008 at 10:41 pm
I can agree with everyone except Tales of Phantasia, just because I have never played it. Secret of Evermore Illusion of Gaia were also off the chain.
V:
July 24, 2008 at 11:28 pm
There was a translation for the Earthbound 3 Game in the works. Of course, this was only going to be a ROM release only, but from what the site suggests, it’s 90% complete.
http://mother3.fobby.net/
V:
July 24, 2008 at 11:29 pm
Earthbound 2 (Mother 3) Sorry…
Adam:
July 25, 2008 at 12:06 am
Tales of Phantasia I wasn’t too pleased with. You should have just left it at top 5 and cut that one out.
jmpavlec:
July 25, 2008 at 12:16 am
7th Saga was awesome. Terrinigma was decent, doesnt deserve to be top 6 though.
Cro-mos:
July 25, 2008 at 1:04 am
I liked breath of fire. Maybe not top 5 but it was lots of fun.
Sal Cangeloso:
July 25, 2008 at 1:14 am
Shadowrun?
Secret of Evermore?
Some good calls, but IMO Mario does not make it to that list…
Locke:
July 25, 2008 at 2:01 am
Mario better than FF6?
Where’s Breath of Fire 2?
Earthbound make it and Lufias, Zelda and, specially, Secret of Mana 2 not?
Mr.Spore:
July 25, 2008 at 3:02 am
Ah sweet memories. My favorite has got to be “Secret of Mana”. Nice list, dugg.
Chaosmos:
July 25, 2008 at 3:39 am
How can you seriously make a “Best RPG” list and not include Zelda? A Link to the Past is one of my favorite video games of all time, let alone on the SNES. And I spent a *lot* of time playing my SNES.
hazmat151:
July 25, 2008 at 4:18 am
uh, Secret of Mana #5? Beaten by Earth Bound, and Super Mario RPG, of all games?!?!? Super Mario RPG should not even be on a list like this. Secret of Mana was more enjoyable than Chrono Trigger, and I think is still the best RPG of the SNES. Chrono Trigger was good but the gameplay and awesome soundtrack that accompany Secret of Mana really cannot be rivaled.
erichansa:
July 25, 2008 at 7:25 am
I played almost all of those. Now what is most popular, that must be video games:
http://www.zeeol.com/index.php/PC-Games/the-universe-of-video-games
Adi Moga:
July 25, 2008 at 8:56 am
next time try do not miss a link to the past.. if you come on digg again
Level: 2
July 25, 2008 at 8:58 am
Zelda is NOT an RPG, it’s an adventure game.
Mr. X:
July 25, 2008 at 11:41 am
Seiken Densetsu III was far better than Secret of Mana, in my opinion. Maybe I’m just on crack.
tony:
July 25, 2008 at 8:08 pm
I AM SHOCKED & DISGRACED NOT TO SEE THE LEGEND OF ZELDA IN HERE! SHAME ON YOU!
Level: 2
July 25, 2008 at 9:06 pm
LOL Tony, read the comment a few above.
tony:
July 27, 2008 at 5:27 am
woops Q(^.^Q)
Free Apple Gear:
July 27, 2008 at 10:51 am
Heh, I could think of a few other games that deserved to be on this list.
Level: 3
August 12, 2008 at 12:27 pm
Theres always something missing in these, mainly due to the fact that they always have the same top 5/7.
Chat Marchet News Digest » The Best 6 SNES RPGs:
August 13, 2008 at 2:19 pm
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