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Super Famicom's Super Also-Rans

I really just have this list as a notepad file for my own reference, but I figured it might be of some interest to people: These are all the Super Famicom (and the very few SNES) games that I've added to the wiki, as part of an ongoing quest of mine to ensure we have a full page (well, by a fairly loose definition of "full") for each game in the library of Nintendo's sophomore console. It's safe to say that the grand majority of these games are of no interest to anyone whatsoever. I mean... otherwise we would've had pages for them already, right? It's not exactly a shrinking violet is the Super Nintendo.

Instead, the main theme of this list is "Just how many identical-looking mahjong, baseball, shogi and horse racing games did the Super Famicom have?". The answer might surprise you. Surprise and bore you. It's possible to feel those two emotions at the same time, believe me.

(I'm dedicating this list to Bobafettjm, one of our busiest wiki editors and whose Weekly Wiki Update blogs I'm always defiling with reports of this ridiculous crusade.)

(These also-rans have also run over the 100 items limit for ordered lists, so now new ones are getting added to this one instead.)

List items

  • Shogi game #1. Nothing to do with System Shock. Possibly a link to System Shogi, though.

  • This one surprised me. I figured there was a huge fanbase for this series out there including our own head honcho and manager of Dr Tracksuit, Jeff. I want to say I added the very first game in this series to the wiki too, which came out for the PC Engine. Y'all probably know what Fire Pro's all about, so I won't linger.

  • Sengoku-era strategy sim #1. Just Zan, not Rising Zan. No katana-wielding sharpshooters in this one.

  • Shogi game #2. It's like shogi, but superer.

  • Romance of the Three Kingdoms strategy sim #1. This one's based on a manga, at least. That's almost an interesting fact when it comes to Japan-exclusive games.

  • This is an outer space mech strategy sim from Hudson. The odd part is that it's entirely unaffiliated with Gundam and the thousand mech strategy sims that franchise has spawned, despite looking almost exactly like one of those. The mechs in this actually look a bit like more like Bomberman bosses, though I guess that's to be expected given the developer.

  • Formula One game #1. Doesn't actually have any circuses in it.

  • Well, it's like the Kunio-kun dodgeball games, but not quite. It's based on one of the many underdog sports mangas that all essentially read the same. There's even a manga for competitive Famicom gaming: Famicom Rocky. Why didn't they turn that into a game, I wonder?

  • Baseball game #1. This is the Japan-only sequel to Super Bases Loaded, if anyone's wondering. (There actually was a Super Bases Loaded 2, but it's based on an entirely different baseball game. Jaleco only seemed to localize every other sports game they made.)

  • Mahjong game #1. It's like mahjong, but superer.

  • Baseball game #2. Part of the Baseball Simulator 1.000 series. "Jitsumeiban" probably translates to "Freaky Face League".

  • Modern military strategy game. There's a hell of a lot of Daisenryaku (which means "Great Strategy") games out there. I've added at least one other for the Famicom too.

  • Mahjong game #2. It's based on a manga about mahjong that features a very shady-looking fellow, and is a sequel to a Famicom game I also added to the wiki.

  • Space strategy sim. At one point we had a single page for all the Ginga Eiyuu Densetsu games. There's at least seven or eight, so that wouldn't do.

  • Formula One game #2. It is indeed the sequel to the first one.

  • Boxing game! And another game based on a manga no-one over here has ever heard of. I know I hadn't.

  • One of a handful of JRPGs I've added. I know almost nothing about this one, besides that it has predecessors that were around before the SNES.

  • Baseball game #3. The sequel to Extra Innings, in fact. Who gave the Rainbow Islands guy a baseball?

  • Modern military strategy game. Nothing to do with the Jamie Foxx movie. It's actually more like Jagged Alliance, oddly enough. Is that Bill Duke?

  • Mahjong game #3. Notable for all its entirely unnecessary G-rated girly pics. Hey, when there's a hundred of these released per year, you gotta figure out how to make yours stand out.

  • Sumo game #1. I hope one of these is called "Secret of the Oozumou".

  • Quiz game #1. Aren't many SNES/SFC games with an eight-player mode.

  • Some kind of fantasy strategy game that looks superficially like Populous. I imagine it'd be difficult to figure out even if everything wasn't in a foreign language.

  • This one's a neat boss-rush brawler of some kind. You hit giant youkai monsters with a spear. You can also play as a tiger demon. Based on yet another manga, obviously.

  • It's Sokoban. I probably should've just named the page "Super Sokoban" than trying to get fancy accurate with the romaji. This one restricts how often you can move, as if these games weren't hard enough already.

  • Try to guess what this one's about.

  • Or this one. Yes, it's different to the other adaptations. You can stroll around Rich Uncle Pennybags's manse, for one thing.

  • Baseball game #4. So many Famistas out there. I believe Namco made one every year.

  • Quiz game #2. This one poses a bunch of moral quandaries and silently judges you based on your answers.

  • An interesting looking sci-fi RPG. It's broken up into scenarios, and each one has different mechanics. Oddly, it's a game that got a fan translation but still didn't have a page.

  • A strategy game that had you download fighters into the game through barcodes via the Barcode Battler. Not even kidding. The Barcode Battler dongle it came with could even be used with other games from the same publisher.

  • Go game #1. At no point do you kill a giant with a sling and one of its black and white stones. (To be boring for a moment: Goliath is actually the name of some sophisticated Dutch Go-playing AI that the game imported.)

  • Anime RoboCop. The first game was a bit Metroidvania-esque (it reminded me of Zillion), but this one's a straight up Final Fight brawler. Only with android cops with lightsaber batons.

  • Mahjong game #4. There's like a dozen games with this title. I have the sinking feeling I'll be adding most of them to the wiki eventually.

  • Soccer game. Japan-only sequel to Super Soccer. Oddly, developers Human didn't think to isometric this one up like they did with their Fire Pro Wrestling games. It'd be a while longer until EA's FIFA games think of it.

  • Shogi game #3. Just take in that exciting box art. These are the sorts of games that belong on a bookshelf nestled between accountancy textbooks.

  • A Spyhunter clone that mixes in elements of Mad Max and The Punisher. Pretty badass.

  • Romance of the Three Kingdoms strategy sim #2. This is actually an RTS, rather than the languid turn-based Koei games.

  • A game based on the All-Japan Pro Wrestling (AJPW) circuit. The very first, in fact.

  • Formula One game #3. And another from this series. Still don't know where they expect to fit in all the clowns and elephants wearing tiny hats on a racecourse.

  • The Daibakushou Jinsei Gekijou series, which has many entries, are all The Game of Life clones. This one's all about being a teen and how parents just don't understand. #teens!

  • Baseball game #5. This is a baseball game from Human Entertainment (they made Fire Pro and Clock Tower) rather than a game where you hit humans with baseball bats. There's plenty of that to be found elsewhere.

  • Baseball game #6. There were a number of sequels to this. No doubt I'll be adding those too.

  • So here's an interesting one: Sword World is a table-top game in Japan, sort of their own distinct take on D&D like how Germany has Das Schwarze Auge/The Dark Eye. The SFC in the title signifies that this is the Super Famicom version, rather than the board game version. I couldn't make heads or tails of it, but it's a bit more like a traditional western RPG where you make your own party before starting.

  • Horseracing sim #1. Japan loves horses.

  • Horseracing sim #2. I couldn't make heads or tails of its morass of menus, but if there's breeding to be done I'm sure it's very thorough.

  • And here's a game based on Japan's other big wrasslin' circuit, New Japan Pro Wrestling (NJPW). It has Big Van Vader in it! How many SNES games did that guy ever show up in?

  • Four-player tennis game. I guess it didn't do so well if they couldn't localize this one. How do you mess up a four-player tennis game?

  • Mahjong game #5. Tetsuman sounds like a superhero name, but it actually just means "playing mahjong all night".

  • Baseball game #7. There are so many of these baseball games with cariactures on the box art. I guess it's cheaper than paying for likeness rights.

  • Horseracing sim #3. And like the seventh game on this list based on some random manga.

  • Horseracing sim #4. They have a lot to say about horseracing in Japan.

  • Baseball game #8. I've come to the conclusion that Japan has baseball, but they just don't treat it very seriously. A wise stance.

  • Shogi game #4. That cover feels like I'm peering through a middle-aged Japanese person's yearbook at a thrift store.

  • Sumo game #2. Man, those box art guys are adorable. Why did Kirby never become a sumo wrestler? He's built for it.

  • So yeah, about this one: There were four pages made for Terminator 2 (five if you include the pinball page), and they all referred to the on-rails Arcade shooter and its home system ports. None actually related to the side-scrolling brawler from LJN (that was deservedly consigned to oblivion, frankly). So I decided to make a page for it. The rest, as they say, was sent back in history to eliminate John Connor.

  • Mahjong game #6. Adding vaguely erotic mahjong games to the wiki. Yep. This is how I'm choosing to spend my time.

  • Baseball game #9. This one actually seems kind of fun with its roided up goofiness, like that Super Baseball 2020 where half the dudes were robots.

  • Mahjong game #7. I'MAX saw what Super Nichibutsu Mahjong were doing and added bunny girls to this sequel. Some bad habits forming among the SuFami Mahjong game crowd.

  • Baseball game #10. This one's the sequel to the other Ganba League, above. Apparently "ganba" means the same as "ganbare", as in "do your best!".

  • Another incomprehensible JRPG. Seems to be an open-world sort of affair, where you take on quests from a hub and can complete them in any order, presumably including a few story-important quests that moves you towards a conclusion.

  • Another JRPG. There is almost no information out there for this one, so the page is kind of barren. The developer was System Sacom, whose name I keep hearing but only because they made a lot of equally obscure stuff that I've been adding to the wiki (including that Battle Mobile game, above).

  • Took a while to decipher what that title means ("Yume" and "Maboroshi" both mean dream, sorta, and Gotoku is apparently the subordinating conjunction "like" or "as if"). Turns out the game itself is another JRPG I can't figure out, albeit one that's set in the Sengoku era. I like the protagonist, at least. He looks like me.

  • Another Fire Pro Wrestling game missing from our database until recently. What's up with that? I thought this site was supposed to be full of Wrasslin' marks after Rowdy Roddy Ryckert was hired?

  • See above, though I guess this series is a little more obscure. It's basically the same as the other AJPW game, but with more tag team stuff (and a Fatal 4-Way mode!).

  • Romance of the Three Kingdoms strategy sim #3. The sequel to the other one. It was also the very last game released for the Super Famicom in 1993!

  • This... is a sequel to a game that was originally developed in the UK for UK computers that, randomly, got a SNES release. We never even saw this sequel in the UK, but the original developers (Denton Designs) is still credited. Unsettling. So is learning that the SNES had at least two rugby games.

  • Pachi-slot Sim #1. Strap yourself in, folks, there's going to be a lot of these.

  • It's a strategy RPG, but it once again features the unstoppable chibi team-up of Ultraman, Kamen Rider and SD Knight Gundam. I'm frankly shocked that I haven't had to add more of these endless Compati Hero Series games. There's more games with those three on the Super Famicom than there are games featuring Mario.

  • An isometric real-time strategy RPG. Don't see those often, especially for the SNES. Looks hard as balls.

  • Mahjong game #8. It's based on an anime where the hero invariably loses at Mahjong because of his misfortune ("Zugan" is apparently a slang-ish Japanese term for "bad luck"). I'm not sure why they thought playing as a guy who is destined to lose all the time would make for a good game?

  • Baseball game #11. I swear these things never end.

  • Sweet name, dull strategy thing with mechs. I dunno, might be less dull if I could comprehend it.

  • Sengoku-era strategy sim #2. It's one more than Zan II.

  • Horseracing sim #5. I wish I had something, anything, to say about these jockey games. Horses are neat?

  • Mahjong game #9. It's that skeezy guy with the shades again only now he's hunting dragons. But, like, mahjong tile dragons.

  • Unlike Daibakushou Jinsei Gekijou, this one is an officially licensed video game adaptation of the Game of Life. Or its Japanese equivalent, at least.

  • A golf game, albeit one that features Spike McFang and his Groovy Ghoulie buddies. That's how you get me invested in golf games, people.

  • An ice hockey game released in Europe and Japan and not, say, the North American continent which is home to anyone who gives a shit about ice hockey. Maybe Russians do, I dunno. I think EA's NHL series was in full swing at this point, so who cares?

  • Go game #2. Gomoku Narabe Renju is a fairly obscure variant on Go, the black and white checkers game that isn't Othello. The original Gomoku Narabe Renju was actually one of the first NES-exclusive games ever created. That's about as interesting as I can get with this (though the duder who wrote that list about games with nothing but Japanese characters on their box art is gonna be so stoked).

  • Mahjong game #10. Hey, "Japanese characters on box art" guy: you're welcome.

  • Mahjong game #11. Dude, whaaaat are you doing with this box art? You're going to give all the 60+ year olds who buy Mahjong games a heart attack. "Japanese characters on a calming background"! Compete in the established marketplace!

  • Go game #3. Wake me up, before Igo Go-ou.

  • Gambling game. Heyyy, close enough with that spelling. In Spanish, the game is known as "The The Vegas".

  • This is straight up a clone of Sanrio World Smash Ball, only you play a dog who is adopted by a Yakuza family. He saves the Oyabun, or something. Look, do you want your anime dog Sanrio World Smash Ball or not?

  • Pachi-Slot sim #2 AND Mahjong game #12. Value for money! (And still way more bunny suit girls than is entirely necessary.)

  • Waratte Iitomo! was apparently a really long-running Japanese variety show; the type where they'd show weird clips and have the guests in tiny boxes in the corner reacting to them. Anyway, here's a party mini-game collection based on it.

  • Japanese stock car racing sim. Stock car racing's fairly rare in Japan, from what I can tell, but they still made a ton of these Shutokou games. (Shutokou refers to a stretch of Tokyo highway that is a hotspot for illegal street racing. Where else would you learn how to drift?)

  • Shogi game #5. Now even more superer.

  • Formula One game #4. Released to coincide with the Genesis game, Super F1 Bread 3 (this is not true).

  • The sequel to the original Sword World SFC. Couldn't even make it out of the first town with this one.

  • Mahjong game #13. I told you there'd be more Kiwames to come.

  • A Fire Pro Wrestling game with an entirely female roster, based on the Zenjo (AWJ) promotion. The first of a handful of Fire Pro Joshi (Women) games.

  • Apparently there's a number of these illegal street racing games in Japan. Well, the racing is illegal, not the games. Except I guess it wouldn't be illegal if it was all virtual SFC racing. Man, linguists are going to have a hell of a time with this blurb in a thousand years.

  • Baseball game #12. Because baseball can't just be super OR ultra.

  • Mahjong game #14. Nichibutsu switched out the bunny girls for Japanese comedian caricatures. I'm sure all the hormonal teenage boys who pre-ordered it after the last games appreciated the change.

  • Pachinko game #1. Wait, is this really the first pachinko game I've had to add? Lemme tell ya, there ain't nothing super about pachinko.

  • Baseball game #13. Can never get over the idea of selling baseball with exciting, action-packed titles. Who are they trying to fool?

  • Hanafuda game #1. Back to the card game that kept Nintendo's lights on through those early years. There were three hanafuda games made that year, for some reason. Folk were really clamoring for more Japanese Uno, seems like.

  • Baseball game #14. That localized title was a wild swing. In fact, most of the time I was grabbing screenshots it involved wild swings too.
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