We’ve known about the SNES Classic since it was announced last year, and like the NES Classic before it, I knew I had to have one. When the NES Classic released the year prior, I had a tough time finding one like most people. It turned out that Nintendo didn’t really expect (or purposely decided to under-produce) the demand so these beauties immediately sold out and people started selling them 3rd party and really gouging on the price. Despite retailing for $60 I ended up getting mine for double the price. I was still happy with the product, and wrote about it here.

The SNES Classic was priced a little bit higher with an MSRP of $80. This is probably due to the fact that this time around they included the second controller, whereas with the NES I had to purchase a secondary controller separately. Nintendo must have heard the message loud and clear this time around, as they seem to have produced more of these consoles. My girlfriend picked me up this one on Amazon for $106, which is still over the MSRP, but not marked up nearly as much as the original.

The two consoles are essentially the same size, both fitting in your hand and both are set up pretty similarly. They both output to HDMI and use a micro USB power adapter. They are interchangeable so in my case I used the existing power supply and HDMI to swap between the two as I see fit. The other cords I’ll likely use for when I lug them around. Packed in are 21 games, and there are some great titles here:

Contra III: The Alien Wars
Donkey Kong Country
Final Fantasy III (VI)
F-Zero
Kirby Super Star
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
Mega Man X
Secret of Mana
Star Fox
Star Fox 2
Super Ghouls ‘n Ghosts
Super Mario Kart
Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars
Super Mario World
Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island
Super Metroid
Earthbound
Kirby’s Dream Course
Street Fighter II Turbo: Hyper Fighting
Super Castlevania IV
Super Punch-Out!!

The interface is identical to the NES Classic as well, so users will find it easy to navigate right off the bat. You still have save game states which is great for those challenging games that used to induce rage due to the lack of saving. There are a number of titles here that I’ve never played or completed due to never owning an SNES (I was a Sega kid) so I’m looking forward to checking them out. Over the weekend the fam and I played some Super Mario World, Super Mario Kart, and I checked out a couple other games. I’m not a huge fan of Kirby, Donkey Kong or Star Fox, but I’d love to play through Zelda 3 and FF6 as I’ve never played them all the way through. I’ll report back when I’ve played through a title or two, but if nothing else I’m glad to have another console in the collection!