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SNES vs. Genesis/Mega Drive: Which 16-bit console do you prefer?

Jezbollah

Jezbollah

Member
SNES. But for me it was my first console after coming from years of gaming on a Commodore 64.

Going from a C64 to Super Mario World was insane for young me.
 
C

cw_sasuke

If all DLC came tied to $13 figurines, I'd consider all DLC to be free
This is unfair...SNES has has Chrono Trigger.

Dont even have to include first party releases for me. But to be fair i also didnt own a Mega Drive back then....went from Master System to SNES.
 
J

jaypah

Member
Ferr986 said:
How so? the SNES didn't do much that the Mega Drive couldn't in terms of shaping gaming if you ask me.

Btw, I find weird how we are now in the "graphics doesn't matter I'll rather smooth games" while the talking is totally the oposite when talking about SNES and MD, where the SNES had better graphics but the MD had smoother gameplay in a lot of games.
Click to expand...

"We"? A lot of people on GAF would rather better graphics at 30fps. I'm not one of them but I've seen the sentiment for a while now.
 
L

lazygecko

Member
jaypah said:
But schoolyard shit aside I never hated the Genesis. Sure, I'd talk shit about the colors or sound while I played some games at friend's houses but I never denied that I was having fun.
Click to expand...

The whole system wars bullying stuff is weird to me since it was never something I experienced as a kid with those mythical "schoolyard arguments/fights". Not me or any of my friends or classmates engaged in anything resembling that. Sure, we were all aware of the edgy marketing, but it was all just in good fun and nothing to get worked up over. The more games the merrier was all that mattered to us. I did a poll regarding this on another forum and pretty much everyone had the same experience. It was only with the internet that I discovered how people would actually take this narrative seriously. I get the feeling that in particular a lot of American SNES owners have a huge chip on their shoulder caused by Sega of America's provocative marketing. And in return, those people being so loud and prevalent in games media have fed into a sort of inferiority complex that pervades the Genesis community.
 
R

Red Liquorice

Member
I have more squidgy feelings for the Mega Drive, but I really liked them both. I sold my Mega Drive to buy a SNES relatively early on (by the time Sonic 2 came out I had a SNES) so all my rose-tinted memories are of the earlier MD games and we had some great import shops here.

I think the SNES library is stronger overall, but I don't have sexy thoughts about the SNES like I do the Mega Drive <3
 
D

Doosi

Banned
daninthemix said:
I think if we're being honest, gaming would look a lot different now if the SNES never existed, whereas the Mega Drive had much less of an impact.

However, I'm very glad both exist, and that both were so distinct from one another.
Click to expand...

The SNES wouldn’t have been the SNES without competition from the Mega Drive.
 
K

kubev

Member
Genesis. Not that SNES isn't a great console, but the only reasons that I'd play one nowadays are for Super Mario World and Mega Man X. Genesis just has so much more that appeals to me, and the three-button Genesis controller is my all-time favorite controller. Also, I love me some FM synthesis. It just sounds incredible on newer sound systems, while the too-often-heavily-compressed samples in SNES music doesn't sound so hot. The music from MK and MKII is still among my favorite music on the Genesis. https://youtu.be/gwAHU2zsgM0
 
F

Freddo

Member
Hmm, thinking back on games I still happily play, 25 years later, I guess the Mega Drive have about a third of the games and the SNES have two thirds. So yeah, SNES wins, even if the original Streets of Rage is probably my favorite game of the 16-bit era, I've played thru that game so many many times.
 
J

JeffZero

Purple Drazi
SNES, even though I never owned one and the Genesis was my first console. It's one of those rare instances where I feel 100% confident there is no bias involved in my answer, lol.
 
H

hiredhand

Member
These threads always come down to what console did you grow up with.

SNES certainly had a stronger Japanese support but as a downside it also had a lot more high-profile games that never left Japan (Dragon Quests, Goemon sequels, Bomberman sequels, Tetris Battle Gaiden, Fire Emblems, Secret of Mana 2, Final Fantasy V...).
 
A

Azure Phoenix

Member
Mega Drive hands down and I owned both as a kid, I've always disliked the SNES sound hardware and its poor quality samples that aim big but often sound like MIDI remixes. Also on a technical level while the SNES seemed more powerful companies like Traveller's Tales proved that the Mega Drive was actually capable of more (see: Toy Story, Mickey Mania, Adventures of Batman & Robin, TT's unused 4096 colour tech or tech demo etc.) without the need for extra hardware in the cartridges.
 
cireza

cireza

Member
I know and play both consoles a lot. But my favorite is definitely the MegaDrive. I love all the adventure games on it (Shining Force, Phantasy Star, Landstalker, Soleil, Story of Thor etc...) as well as a lot of other games in various genres that I find amazing and did not find any equivalent on SNES.

I really like Konami, Sega and Treasure's work on the console. To name a few.

Also the Megadrive has the Sega CD, which is a fantastic expansion with some incredible games.
 
J

jaypah

Member
lazygecko said:
The whole system wars bullying stuff is weird to me since it was never something I experienced as a kid with those mythical "schoolyard arguments/fights". Not me or any of my friends or classmates engaged in anything resembling that. Sure, we were all aware of the edgy marketing, but it was all just in good fun and nothing to get worked up over. The more games the merrier was all that mattered to us. I did a poll regarding this on another forum and pretty much everyone had the same experience. It was only with the internet that I discovered how people would actually take this narrative seriously. I get the feeling that in particular a lot of American SNES owners have a huge chip on their shoulder caused by Sega of America's provocative marketing.
Click to expand...

If it's an American thing to have children attach themselves to a particular "team", whether it's a sports team, an entertainer, a cartoon, a toy line, whatever then I guess it was an American thing. I mean I alluded to the fact that we enjoyed each others consoles so it was no more than friends joking about who had the better console. If that's bullying to you then...that's awesome, you had a less stressful childhood. Or I don't know, maybe you're thinking it was more serious than it really was. No idea what your last sentence is supposed to mean but there were plenty of chips for all lol

Ferr986 said:
Of course I didn't mean all of GAF, but you can see a lof of threads and posts about it.
Click to expand...

Yeah I agree that it's a major topic.
 
J

Joey Ravn

Banned
If you ask me, the SNES is the single best console of all time.

In terms of exclusives, SNES has:

  1. The Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past
  2. Super Mario World
  3. Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island
  4. Super Mario All-Stars
  5. Super Mario Kart
  6. Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars
  7. Super Metroid
  8. Super Punch-Out!!
  9. Final Fantasy IV
  10. Final Fantasy V (the greatest JRPG of all time, bar none)
  11. Final Fantasy VI
  12. Donkey Kong Country
  13. Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest
  14. Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble
  15. Chrono Trigger
  16. Earthbound
  17. Mega Man 7
  18. Rockman and Forte (aka Mega Man and Bass)
  19. Mega Man X
  20. Mega Man X2
  21. Mega Man X3
  22. Secret of Mana
  23. Seiken Densetsu 3
  24. Dragon Quest
  25. Dragon Quest 2
  26. Dragon Quest 3
  27. Terranigma
  28. Illusion of Gaia
  29. Secret of Evermore
  30. ActRaiser
  31. Kirby's Dream Land 3
  32. Kirby Super Star
  33. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time
  34. Contra III
  35. Super Ghouls n' Ghosts
  36. Super Street Fighter II
  37. EVO: Search for Eden
  38. Goof Troop
  39. Magical Quest
  40. Magical Quest 2: The Great Circus Mystery
  41. Magical Quest 3
  42. Lufia & the Fortress of Doom
  43. Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals
  44. Metal Warriors
  45. Pocky and Rocky
  46. Pocky and Rocky 2
  47. The Legend of the Mystical Ninja
  48. Treasure of the Rudras
  49. Super Castlevania IV
  50. ... and probably a few more I'm missing.

I was never a huge SEGA fan. The lack of RPGs was always a massive letdown for me. Of all the Genesis exclusives, I'd only want to play Phantasy Star II, III and IV and Castlevania: Bloodlines. Can't say I'm too fond of Sonic 1, I think Sonic 2 is just OK and I haven't beaten 3 yet. Comix Zone was too punishing for me to enjoy.

Yeah. The SNES is the COAT. It doesn't help that I'm currently in a state of SNES-mania, between the SNES Classic Mini and the SNES-theme N3DS :)
 
K

Kurt

Member
Snes by far. It has also the best arcade ports (besides mk1)
However, i really do like the megadrive as well.
 
D

dani_dc

Member
Growing up I would had told you the Genesis, but now I would tell you the SNES without a doubt.

It had such a strong library of games that I don't think it's even a fair comparison.
 
G

gelf

Member
lazygecko said:
The whole system wars bullying stuff is weird to me since it was never something I experienced as a kid with those mythical "schoolyard arguments/fights". Not me or any of my friends or classmates engaged in anything resembling that. Sure, we were all aware of the edgy marketing, but it was all just in good fun and nothing to get worked up over. The more games the merrier was all that mattered to us. I did a poll regarding this on another forum and pretty much everyone had the same experience. It was only with the internet that I discovered how people would actually take this narrative seriously. I get the feeling that in particular a lot of American SNES owners have a huge chip on their shoulder caused by Sega of America's provocative marketing. And in return, those people being so loud and prevalent in games media have fed into a sort of inferiority complex that pervades the Genesis community.
Click to expand...
Yeah that was my experience growing up (UK). Didn't really get in huge system war arguments outside of mild jabs. It was cool if someone had a different system because that meant new games to play. The only real evidence of a war I saw was in the magazines of the time.
 
I

iidesuyo

Member
What the heck was Nintendo thinking when they designed the SNES. If it had a decent CPU, it would have destroyed the Mega Drive.
 
D

Dreamwriter

Member
iidesuyo said:
What the heck was Nintendo thinking when they designed the SNES. If it had a decent CPU, it would have destroyed the Mega Drive.
Click to expand...
In the US and Japan, it did destroy the Mega Drive (Europe though...) They were probably thinking that having better system features was more noticeable to end users than having a faster processor.
 
E

Elephant

Neo Member
I was a Sega Kid. Master System, Game Gear, Mega Drive. So out of pure nostalgia, Mega Drive is my preference.

Looking back though, I'm happy to concede that the SNES had the better games overall.
 
AdamisFox

AdamisFox

Member
I grew up with a Megadrive, so that's my choice.

Sonic, Rocket Knight Adventures, Ristar, Comix Zone, Garfield, Shining Force, Dynamite Headdy, Quackshot, Castle of Illusion, World of Illusion... All fantastic games !
 
D

Dreamwriter

Member
cireza said:
In the end, it is the fast processor that opened up for so many possibilities entirely based on the software side. And that still impresses us even today with some tech-demos. Fascinating console.
Click to expand...
Yeah, but Mode 7 also opened up many possibilities, and I wonder if Square’s games would have been considered such classics without that sound chip. It really added to the emotions in story scenes, and the feeling of epicness in boss battles.
 
S

Savitar

Member
SNES

It has the games I loved and cherished when I was young, the other system might have had a few good games too but I think in the end the SNES simply has the bigger hits and lots of overall variety. Sega feels a bit more style over substance in some cases.
 
B

Breakaway

Member
I grew up playing the SNES and didn't even know about the Genesis at the time and I still prefer the Genesis. It has more of my favorite games from that generation like the Shinobi series, Ristar, maybe the best Castlevania game in Bloodlines, Road Rash, and Streets of Rage. And if the Sega CD is allowed to count for anything since it's an add-on, Snatcher and Sonic CD are among my favorites. I also think the Model 1 Genesis is one of the coolest looking systems ever made.
 
L

lazygecko

Member
jaypah said:
If it's an American thing to have children attach themselves to a particular "team", whether it's a sports team, an entertainer, a cartoon, a toy line, whatever then I guess it was an American thing. I mean I alluded to the fact that we enjoyed each others consoles so it was no more than friends joking about who had the better console. If that's bullying to you then...that's awesome, you had a less stressful childhood. Or I don't know, maybe you're thinking it was more serious than it really was. No idea what your last sentence is supposed to mean but there were plenty of chips for all lol
Click to expand...

I wasn't really responding to you in particular but more adressing the general notion of the system war and people's relation to it. The Sega marketing in Europe was similar to the US but not completely the same. I'm going to assume that America has much laxer advertising laws allowing companies to be much more on the nose with directly mentioning your competition.

What I mean by the last part is that there have been a lot of predominantly American commentators/forum posters, writers, and media personalities (most notably AVGN) going out of their way to deride the Genesis, almost as if they want to get back at Sega for hurting their feelings when they were kids. I think this has started to visibly change in the more modern retro gaming climate, but back in the 00's this was certainly very prevalent across the internet. Even when you saw retro articles positively covering Genesis games, it seemed like they just couldn't resist doing it without back-handed compliments. And this overarching narrative has made lots of Genesis fans very defensive to the point where they constantly feel they have to prove this narrative wrong, and I think that kind of emotional reflex is still very ingrained in spite of the tides turning.
 
R

redcrayon

Member
I had both at the time, and while my brother and I constantly argued about which was better, we spent more time with the multiplayer games on the SNES than their equivalents on the Mega Drive.

The only exception is the Streets of Rage games, that we far preferred to Final Fight. SoR2 is pretty much the only Mega Drive game I go back to, whereas Megaman X, Super Metroid, LTTP and Castlevania 4 are all annual replays for me.

All in all I prefer the SNES but a lot of it comes down to preference for individual games, they both had shedloads of great titles. That's not even including the RPGs, as most of them didn't release here.

Jack The Nipper said:
But games like shibobi, splattrhouse etc have no equal on snes
Click to expand...
Once you get past the gore, I really don't think Splatterhouse is that good. I went back to it a few months ago after watching a YouTube video and going 'hey, I liked that at the time!' and found it really slow and clunky compared to Streets of Rage, Final Fight etc.
 
F

FreedomFighter

Member
SNES - no contest. It just had the better library overall. That's not to say the Genesis was not awesome because it too was an awesome system with amazing games. But when it came to games they both shared, the SNES version came out on top like 80% of the time. Also, SNES had better hardware overall. Gotta with the SNES.
 
M

MightyHedgehog

Member
I bought both at launch and enjoyed both tons throughout that gen. SNES was mostly a lot of 'one and done' amazing, very linear exclusives for me, but I was always right back to Sega's machine for faster, snappier action in multiplayer and more replayable, open-ended games. Genesis.
 
C

C-Drive

Member
I just wish Sega would kill their deals with those off brand mini console makers, partner with Nintendo, and release a Sega Genesis Classic Edition. Just something that isn't a piece of shit that comes with six button Gen controllers.

I'd also like a Neo Geo one that wasn't junk or overpriced as well.

But on topic - SNES all the way.
 
Petrae

Petrae

Member
The Super NES is my pick here, and it ain’t close. While the Genesis generally has better-performing sports games and STGs, I prefer the RPGs, platformers, and coin-op conversions on the Super NES.

The difference in controllers can’t be understated for me, either. I find the D-pad on first-party Genesis controllers to be complete and utter shit, versus first-party Super NES controllers. That’s a pretty big deal.
 
S

Shaneus

Member
alienator said:
Megadrive , no doubts , and i still play these two systems up until these days. , the snes is just a cheat system with its overclocked NES chip and addon chips on every cart , our megadrive demo OverDrive 2 totally obliterates the snes on every level , graphics, effects, sound and 3d. Until today, the fading active snes community has not found an answer for it, to beat it or match it.




this is a semi satirical joke spam post nevertheless, i love both systems, but only one of these systems has GUNSTAR HEROES , and a way better selection of different shmups , Megadrive for the win!!
Click to expand...
Still waiting for that physical cart for OD2 ;P

Oh, and Mega Drive. Had a music synthesizer rather than a wavetable sequencer, the greatest arcade titles from Sega backing it up as well as a slew of other arcade-type games that I never really noticed on SNES.
 
L

lordmrw

Member
Still an SNES guy to this day. Having started reviewing games myself six years ago and really exploring both libraries I still like the SNES library more.
 
S

shoryukens

Member
SNES has the GOAT platformer with Yoshi's Island and the GOAT Metroid/Metroidvania game with Super Metroid.

However, Genesis has the GOAT puzzle game with Puyo Puyo 2 and the GOAT beat em up with Street of Rage 2. Hard.

Street Fighter 2 looks and sounds better on snes so Im going with that.
 
F

Fularu

Banned
Shmups/belt scrollers fan here

The Megadrive shits on the SNES from so far above that it's not funny

Of course for shmups the PC Engine shits on both so...
 
P

PrimeBeef

Member
As a teenager the SNES by a long mile. While Genesis had Phantas Star, Madden, and red blood, I always thought the games looked cheap and sounded tinny compared to SNES games for the most part.

As an older adult it's still the SNES, but I can appreciate the differences between the two consoles and don't get caught up in the fanboism(sp) of systems. Both had a great library. It was really a great time to be a gamer especially those lucky enough to have both systems.
 
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