A lot of terrific franchises we enjoy playing today got their start on much older hardware. Specifically, a number of them date back to the Super Nintendo, which launched in North America on Aug. 23, 1991. As we celebrate 35 years of memories, we thought it might be fun to look back on some of our favorite franchises that wouldn’t exist without that 16-bit hardware.
As important as it was, we’re excluding Donkey Kong Country and its sequels because that series expanded the existing Donkey Kong concept. The Seiken Densetsu series that found an enthusiastic audience with Secret of Mana might have made the cut, except its first installment actually arrived on the Game Boy (and released in North America as Final Fantasy Adventure). And then there is Super Mario RPG, the first RPG with Mario and friends, but a whole different thing from the Paper Mario and Mario & Luigi franchises that soon followed. With that out of the way, here are 10 classic game series that got their start on the SNES. Many of them continue to thrill to this day (or would, if given the chance).
10
Lufia
First released: 1993
Developed by Neverland, a company later known for the Rune Factory series it developed for Marvelous, the Lufia series made its first appearance with Lufia & the Fortress of Doom. Generally considered one of the better RPGs of that year, the game’s first sequel was actually a prequel. Based on the strength of those first two games (the second one in particular), the series spawned three additional installments on the Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance, and DS, most of them also developed by Neverland. Unfortunately, the developer went bankrupt in 2013, which makes new installments unlikely. A retro compilation would sure hit the spot, though.
9
Tales
First released: 1995
Tales of Phantasia, the first game in a franchise that has been going strong for three decades, didn’t come to North America until it received a Game Boy Advance port several years after its release. That didn’t stop it from kicking off a fantastic RPG franchise. Developed by Wolf Team, the game featured impressive visuals for its time, rendering a beautiful world and characters worth rooting for. It’s one of the most important franchises the genre has ever seen, offering some of the stiffest competition Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest have ever faced. And it all began here.
8
Breath of Fire
First released: 1993
Although we haven’t seen a new Breath of Fire game in far too long, Capcom’s RPG franchise appeared on a variety of platforms after making its grand debut on the SNES. When the game came to North America, Squaresoft served as its publisher. Starting with Breath of Fire 2, Capcom took care of things itself. The series introduced dragon protagonists and plopped them in beautiful fantasy worlds with massive problems. Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter on the PlayStation 2 switched things up more than most fans were ready for, and a mobile follow-up effectively killed the series. But until then, Breath of Fire was something special. With Capcom currently enjoying something of a renaissance, we wouldn’t mind seeing the developer give that world another chance.
7
Mega Man X
First released: 1993
The ‘90s were all about living life loudly. Nintendo even used “play it loud” as an ad slogan at the time. Mega Man X took that policy to the extreme. The kind, almost cuddly version of Mega Man that existed up to that point was replaced by X, a robot living still further in the future who faced the nefarious Sigma and his army of reploids. X could dash, climb walls, ride in mechs, and even charge his special weapons. The environments he explored had more secrets than ever, and the new series continued for another seven installments, many of them memorable in the right ways. Capcom has set the series aside in more recent years, but for a good long while, it was an action gamer’s dream.
6
Ogre Battle
First released: 1993
Ogre Battle: The March of the Black Queen kicked off a short series of games with big impact. It let players lead a revolution against the Sacred Zetaginian Empire, recruiting monsters and mercenaries enough to topple the empress Endora and those who served her (or pulled her strings). The game offered players 13 different endings, based on their alignment and key choices made over the course of a lengthy campaign. The sequel, Tactics Ogre, introduced play mechanics that served as the basis for Final Fantasy Tactics, which probably explains why it was later remade, first for PSP and then with Tactics Ogre: Reborn for PS4. A return to the older style soon followed with Ogre Battle 64: Person of Lordly Caliber. After that, the series was mostly done covering new ground except for side stories, but what a legacy!
5
Star Ocean
First released: 1996
A lot of people got into the Star Ocean series after playing Star Ocean: The Second Story on the PlayStation. It was, as the title subtly suggests, the second story in the series. The first story unfolded on the Super Famicom and never made it to North America until the remake on the PSP, Star Ocean: First Departure. Since its earliest days, the Star Ocean franchise has entertained players by combining brave space explorers with medieval settings on under-developed alien planets. Action combat and deep skill trees, along with “private actions” that add missable events to the story, keep fans coming back for more. Not every installment has been a hit. The more recent entries in particular have struggled to interest wide audiences. But the series is still going, at least for now. And some of us liked Star Ocean: The Divine Force just fine, thank you very much!
4
Mario Kart
First released: 1992
Incredibly, more than 30 years have passed since Super Mario Kart launched on the Super Nintendo. Kids who grew up playing it have had kids of their own, who now play newer installments like Mario Kart World. Nine mainline games in, the series shows no sign of slowing down, even if it’s unlikely Nintendo will ever manage to outsell the various versions of Mario Kart 8, which has sold nearly 80 million copies on Switch and Wii U as of June 2026. People still love racing around the Mushroom Kingdom as their favorite mascots, dropping banana peels and firing off shells as they cheat their way to victory. For multiplayer mayhem, there’s still no peer, even after so much time has passed.
3
Chrono
First released: 1995
When it launched on the Super Nintendo, Chrono Trigger was a huge deal. It combined the creative efforts of key talent from Square and Enix, two of the undisputed kings of the RPG genre. The end result might easily have disappointed everyone, the way ambitious creative collaborations of that sort sometimes do. Instead, it set a new standard that few games have met to this day. With a vibrant world viewed in multiple eras, a twisting plot featuring 12 endings, beautiful visuals, and spectacular music from Yasunori Mitsuda, the game had just about everything a fan might have asked for. (It also introduced the concept of New Game +, where some of your items and experience carry over to a new playthrough.) Then it was followed by Radical Dreamers, which for years stayed in Japan, and finally the blissful Chrono Cross. One of the great injustices in the world of video games is the fact that we haven’t seen a new Chrono game ever since. That’s an awfully long time to do without a new entry in one of the finest series of all time, but somehow we survive.
2
Harvest Moon
First released: 1996
The original Harvest Moon game arrived in Japan in August of 1996, where it was known as Bokujou Monogatari. When it came to North America, Natsume’s US branch gave the game a new name: Harvest Moon. New installments continued to arrive regularly in the years since, until finally Marvelous Interactive began publishing its own output with a new series title: Story of Seasons. For its part, Natsume kept using the Harvest Moon name, now with different developers and its own ambitions. In that sense, Harvest Moon on the Super Nintendo served as the starting point for two franchises, and that’s not even counting Rune Factory spinoff series. Whatever you call them, the games involve turning failing farms into thriving operations near the edge of a village filled with lively townsfolk. In a world full of aliens, soldiers, ancient prophecies, and loud race cars, the simple life is difficult to resist, even three decades later.
1
Star Fox
First released: 1993
If you were shopping for video games in 1993 and you saw a cover featuring a fox, a bird, a rabbit, and a frog, you might have thought you were looking at another mascot-based platformer. But actually, the game was about animals flying through space on their way to a showdown with a giant ape head known as Andross. A few years later, Nintendo followed up on the original Star Fox with Star Fox 64, which followed the same heroes on a new run through the Lylat System. Since then, the series has revisited that same general area numerous times, most recently with this year’s Star Fox on the Nintendo Switch 2. Fans of rail shooters, big explosions, and mutated scientists apparently can’t resist climbing into an Arwing, even if not everyone agreed when we said it’s a good thing the new Star Fox is just another remake.