Super NES Classic Edition Review

The Super NES Classic Edition shrinks Nintendo's 16-bit console to palm size and fills it with 21 games, among them Super Mario World, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, Super Metroid, Final Fantasy III, EarthBound, Super Mario Kart, Yoshi's Island and Street Fighter II Turbo. It also gave the world its first official release of Star Fox 2, finished two decades earlier and shelved. Two wired controllers come in the box, output is 720p over HDMI, and every game gets four suspend points plus a rewind feature.

The consensus is warm. The selection reads like a greatest hits of the era, Nintendo's own emulation is clean and accurate, the display options run from pixel perfect to 4:3 with a CRT filter, and the controllers feel just like the originals. Critics found it a clear improvement on the NES Classic before it, not least because the controller cables are longer.

The frustrations are about hardware choices. The cables are still short for a living room, returning to the menu means pressing the reset button on the console itself, there is no official way to add games, and North American units shipped with a USB cable but no wall adapter. Those niggles aside, it remains one of the best value retro packages Nintendo has sold.