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Two military games and a brawler. The games aren't great, but the conversation is still interesting. What every became of Microprose and the folks who founded it? Does Super Strike Eagle take flight sims on the SNES in a bold new direction? Can Link learn to love Super Conflict despite the hexagonal tiles? Does The Combatribes live up to its spiritual predecessor, Renegade? Did we really need another Renegade when Double Dragon was already out? Will Link and Emmy find out something about the creator of those games that will make him seem really problematic in hind-sight?  Find out the answers to these questions and more by giving the episode a listen.

Can you call something a mini-episode when it's still 45 minutes long? I dunno, but that's what we're calling this anyway because we're not ranking any new games. Instead, we're re-ranking some games based on suggestions from our guests on the Holiday episode. Derek felt that Mario Kart should be higher than Top Gear and Kamijace felt that Soul Blazer should be higher than Final Fantasy II. Upon repeat playing, will SteampunkLink and Emmy Zero agree? And Trevor feels that both Axelay and Final Fight are too low on the list. Will one or both of them get a bump in the standings? Big thanks again to Derek of Rolling Misadventures, Kamijace of the Weekly Cooldown, and Trevor of Catching up on Cinema for their suggestions. If you want to make suggestions about changes to our list as well, you can reach SteampunkLink on Twitter @snescapades. Finally, one more big thanks to our guests from the Holiday Episode. Follow all of them on Twitter... @RMisadventures, @Kamijacegaming, @LoreTogether, @playcomicscast, @gkwordsmith, and @CatchingCinema And speaking of Catching up on Cinema, Emmy and Link were on that show last month and you should go listen to that. They all talked about the Super Mario Bros. movie and it was a lot of fun.

Today's episode of SNEScapades puts a big ol' spotlight on Star Fox. If you're not familiar, it's a game about animals in space. I'm sure that explains everything. So how is this one? Does it hold up? Can long-time Star Fox fan Emmy Zero convince newcomer Steampunk Link of the game's greatness? Does the debut Super FX chip-enabled SNES game still impress today. Or does it come off as a glorified tech demo for decades-old tech?  Come for the lengthy discussion of this (at the time) new Nintendo franchise and stay for the lovely Star Fox tunes. Good Luck!

March of 1993 starts out with a thud as Link and Emmy discuss two games with UK roots that landed on the SNES.  First, they discuss Spindizzy Worlds which is a follow-up to the 1986 computer game Spindizzy. What does the creator of the original game think about this unsanctioned sequel? Does it work at all on the SNES? Could this game possibly have ever been fun on it's original hardware. Emmy and Link have answers to some of those questions for you. And finally they discuss King Arthur's World. This one was so close to being a real banger. Link and Emmy take no pleasure in tearing this game down over its huge Achilles' heel. It's a week that left our hosts pretty disappointed. Here's hoping StarFox can pick them back up next time.

Let's face it. It's been a rough year. We thought it would be fun to get a bunch of other podcasters to talk about some of their favorite holiday memories involving video games. It's a long one, so pull up a chair, grab a mug of hot chocolate, and settle in for some pleasant conversations. If you aren't already listening to them and/or following them on Twitter, you really should be. A HUGE thanks to all of these people who helped make this possible... Mystic and Saphy from Lore Together (@LoreTogether) Kamijace from The Weekly Cooldown (@WkCooldown) Chris from Play Comics (@playcomicscast) Trevor from Catching up on Cinema (@CatchingCinema) Derek from Rolling Misadventures (@RMisadventures) Greg from Nerds from the Crypt and Starlite among other things (@gkwordsmith) And thanks to you for listening. From SteampunkLink and Emmy Zero, we want to wish you all Happy Holidays and a happy (and hopefully healthier) New Year!

The first two games of March 93 aren't leaving us with the best impression. We get a substandard (but functional) fighting game and a Koei game that's not as hard to parse as some of their strategy games, but is incredibly slow to get started. Link and Emmy were so disappointed with Inindo: Way of the Ninja that they have decided that the rest of the Koei library on SNES will get its own episode in the future so they can just be done with it. Doomsday Warriors is a fighting game with a few interesting characters but lacks the gameplay to back it up.  Is there anything to redeem these two games at all? And where will they land on the list? Listen and find out.  And keep an eye out, because the SNEScapades Holiday Special is just around the corner!

This is a big one folks! We do some deep dives on all sorts of topics while flipping through the pages of Nintendo Power from March 1993. We talk more about the art, specifically the covers from this era of Nintendo Power. We also chat about the Storm of the Century, Canadian media review shows for kids, obscure cartoons only SteampunkLink seems to remember, Capcom, Tiny Toons, the poorly chosen Nintendo Power award nominees, and lots more. Schedule yourself some time and have yourself a listen.

Welcome to Talkin' Toons. This episode of SNEScapades is going to feature a lot of talk about cartoons because both games being discussed today are adaptations of cartoons from the early 90s.  We're discussing The Addams Family: Pugsley's Scavenger Hunt which is based on the 90s Hanna Barbara cartoon (not to be confused with the 70s Addams Family cartoon also made by Hanna Barbara) and acts as a sequel of sorts to the first Addams Family SNES game which Emmy and Link enjoyed quite a bit. Will they like this one as much? Well... no. But listen anyway and find out why. Then it's time to talk about a much better game which is based on a much better cartoon. At least we assume Tiny Toons is a better cartoon. We've never actually watched that Addams Family show. But Buster Busts Loose is a surprisingly good licensed platform game. We'll tell you what we like (and a few things we didn't) about this colorful game. So come and join the fun. And now our description's done.

It's been a rough year and the salt in the wound that is 2020 is that most of us have to spend Thanksgiving alone or at least can't gather with our extended families like we have in the past. So if you're doing the responsible thing and staying home, maybe this podcast can help you pass the time.  This year for our Quick, Change the Channel special, we're talking about 1994's Double Dragon. We went into this one expecting a fun cheese fest like the Street Fighter movie, but sadly this was a much less-fun cheese fest. Bad dialogue, mostly unimpressive fight scenes, and uninspired sets (with the exception of the slime factory) topped off with unintentional (we hope) bad politics make this a mess that even Alyssa Milano's cute pixie cut couldn't save.  So don't watch this movie, but do enjoy our fun(?) breakdown as we clumsily try to remember what happened in this thing since we both refused to watch it more than once.  Stay safe out there!

WHOO HOO! EPISODE 50! We didn't really do anything special for this one other than talk about Super Valis IV and Sonic Blast Man, but they were fun to talk about! Sonic Blast Man has nothing to do with a certain blue hedgehog, but is instead a belt-scrolling brawler adapted from an arcade game that people were meant to literally, physically punch! Is this game any good when removed from its novel arcade accessories? Can it's fun presentation overcome the fact that it's a one-player game? We'll tell you what we think! And we have Super Valis IV. It's a game with some really good controls and graphics. But does it do anything with its strong foundations? The fact that I would even ask that question should probably suggest that it does not. But listen anyway? We also talk about the history of the Valis series. That's about it. We hope you enjoy it!

If you listen to the show at all, you know that Link and Emmy aren't really sports people. They say it every time they have to review a sports game after all. So to make the sports games a bit easier to handle, they will be cramming every game by sport and year into their own episodes as they come across them. Today, the duo are talking about three hockey games that came out on the SNES in 1993. Those games are the brutal Hit the Ice, the lackluster Super Slap Shot, and the fairly impressive NHL 94. Expect these episodes to be a bit on the shorter side when they happen.  So put on your mouth guards, offer your prayers to Mr. Hockey, and get the puck outta here!

Continuing the streak of 1993's "Games that are fine"; we have three more games that are perfectly, astonishingly okay.  We've got Harley's Humongous Adventure, a game we were fully expecting to be awful and turned out to be a fine and competent run and jump platform game. We've got Shanghai II: Dragon's Eye. If you love Mah Jong Solitaire, but wish it cost $49.99 rather than nothing, you will love this one! Finally, there's SimEarth which is another complex sim but a better one of those than any of the Koei games have been. Look, it's been a long week. Why not stop doom-scrolling and settle down with us for an hour and let us tell you about some 30-year-old games that are fine?

So this magazine might not be quite as packed to the gills like the previous month's bonus issue was, but Link and Emmy still find plenty to talk about in this issue. The prospects of a less-than-stellar February lineup are somewhat alleviated by the promise of more exciting things to come (like Cybernator) and they further speculate on the reason's why certain NES games might not have sold as well as Nintendo hoped they would. This episode features talk of 90s cartoons, horror franchises marketed to children, and forgotten franchises that just fizzled out. Remember the comic series Zen: The Intergalactic Ninja or the band Trixter? Neither did they, but they talk about them anyway. Honestly, there was so much ground covered here, that I don't even remember everything as I write this. I think there was a thing about Eric Clapton. OH! And a Star Fox comic!

Shiver me timbers, it's time for some adventuring on the high seas (or low seas depending on the vehicle.) We start with a review of The Hunt for Red October, a SNES game based on a movie based on a book. It also gives us a chance to do a deep dive (heh heh) into the somewhat short-lived Hi-Tech Expressions. Then we trade our high-tech sub for a 16th Century Galleon as we set sale in Uncharted Waters. It's another Koei game and we've got a lot to say about it despite our limited time with it. How well does Red October follow the book? Is this finally the Koei game that gets us hooked? What was the deal with that strange Mega Man game for DOS back in the day? What do we think of Tom Clancey? Should you feel bad about... you know... that one thing that happened? We'll answer all of these questions and more on today's episode!

1993 is officially starting now! We're done with the specials for a bit and kicking off January 93 with Power Moves and California Games II.  Power Moves is perhaps the first (but certainly not the last) fighting game that wants to be Street Fighter II but falls well short of that lofty goal. Still, it's not a complete flop and we'll tell you where we think the game succeeds and where it fails. It may be a long way from Street Fighter, but it's certainly no Pit Fighter either. We also discuss California Games II, a mini-game compilation that originated on personal computers and probably should have stayed there. It's not great, but at least it gives us a chance to talk about Epyx, the company that started the project that would become the Atari Lynx.  As far as we know, January 93 only saw the release of four games on the SNES, so we're only covering two in this episode. We'll see ya next week to talk about the other two.

Our first Playing With Power episode of SNEScapades has us taking a long trip down memory lane as we explore the big January 1993 bonus issue of Nintendo Power. We'll talk about games we've already discussed on the show (like Magical Quest: Starring Mickey Mouse), some that we haven't gotten to yet (like Shanghai II), and at least one we won't actually see of a while (Equinox). We'll also talk about all of the fun bonus features that this magazine had to offer, like Mario Paint ideas, Star Fox papercraft, and strange eye spy games featuring the very messy room of a very rich kid. This issue also features a lengthy article about the state of gaming and the future of games which is even more interesting when contextualized with Nintendo's failed relationship with Sony and the Philip's CD-ROM add-on for the SNES that never bore fruit. Finally, we'll talk a little bit about the history of the magazine itself and what we're missing out on starting as late as we are in the magazine's run. This was SO much fun to talk about and we hope you'll have fun listening. If you want to check out the magazine for yourself, look for issue 44 of Nintendo Power (Jan 93) on the Internet Archive. For the time being, all of the issues are available there, and hopefully that won't change.

WARNING: THIS EPISODE CONTAINS EXPLICIT LANGUAGE! With another year of SNES games behind us, we decided that this was a good opportunity to have Willie and Ginger (The Grand Rapidians Play Games Podcast) on to talk about their history with the SNES and other games and consoles they played in the 90s. We also talk beverages, strange video game peripherals, and... a whole lot of random stuff. They also give us suggestions for games we ought to re-litigate in a future episode. This was a pretty fun and mostly free-form conversation. We hope you all enjoy listening. Maybe this will cause you to think back to some of your favorite 90s games. Also, make sure you're listening to the Grand Rapidians Play Games Podcast which you can find on your favorite podcast app or right here: https://linktr.ee/GrandRapidians And follow them on Twitter: https://twitter.com/grand_video

We've come to yet the end of another year. And once again, we conclude the year with a racing game on the cover. I wonder if that's going to keep happening? Regardless, the last two games we're covering for 1992 are Test Drive II: The Duel and WarpSpeed. Neither of these are amazing, but Accolade published both of them, so that'll make the history segments a little easier for this episode. We have a special to get to next time but after that, it's time to tackle 1993. We'll see you then.

Link and Emmy breath a sigh of relief today as we begin the end of December 1992 off on the right foot. First, we need to talk about the simply-named Pro Quarterback. It's a football game. It's probably an okay one of those if you're into football games. Link and Emmy are not. Next, it's time for another one of those block-toppling beats as Link and Emmy discuss the snack food-peddling (in the UK at least) domino puzzle game Push-Over. You'll hear a pretty rare split from Link and Emmy on this one. But at least they can both agree that G.I. Ant is a bad name for a character. (Please note, having just spelled out the name G.I Ant, I suddenly realized what they were going for there. G.I.Ant? GIANT? You get it?) Finally, it's time to talk about the far less simply-named The Magical Quest Starring Mickey Mouse. Mickey will get magical powers turning him into a magician, a fire-fighter, and Bionic Commando. This one was flawed but a ton of fun and a huge breath of fresh air after the last several games.

December 1992 is winding down, but the games have not been great and they really start fraying Link's nerves in this episode. Link and Emmy talk about Gemfire which was a more approachable strategy game for the duo than Romance of the Three Kingdoms before it, but still not their cup of tea.  Then it's on to Gods, a janky sidescroller that seems ill-suited to the SNES. Can Emmy and Link come up with something nice to say about it? Finally they talk about Goal! a soccer game that pales in comparison to the soccer games that have come before it on the system. It's a rough trio of games in a month that's had a lot of rough an mediocre-at-best games.