Player Two Start: An SNES-CD Timeline

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Yamauchi's Fateful Decision

    • RySenkari

    Welcome to Player Two Start! This is a timeline created jointly by Nivek and myself, with contributions from many other users.

    -

    "I honestly don't know where I'd be right now if Yamauchi hadn't made that phone call. The Nintendo/Sony deal, the deal that shaped...practically the last 20 years of video gaming, I can't even envision a world where that deal didn't go down. Certainly not a world where I'd still be playing video games."- Dan "Shoe" Hsu, managing editor of Electronic Gaming Monthly, June 2011

    "Working with Victor and working with everyone in that industry for six great years absolutely prepared me for everything that's happened to me down the road. I can't call myself a gamer, but video games definitely opened the door for me. So I still have kind of a soft spot for them."- Jennifer Stigile, season 1 American Idol winner, in the June 20, 2005 issue of People magazine

    "You know, I almost thought of suing to break them up, like what happened to us in 1999. They were so huge at that time. But I was never one to back down from a challenge. There was a niche for us. A small niche but a niche nonetheless. But it was always going to be an uphill battle."- Bill Gates, in a 2005 Forbes interview

    -

    June 24, 1991

    Howard Lincoln and Minoru Arakawa, two high-ranking Nintendo representatives, were eating a quick breakfast in Amsterdam before their meeting with representatives from Philips later that day. The meeting would solidify Nintendo's new business partnership with one of the top electronics companies in the world, a partnership to design a new add-on for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. The console had yet to debut in North America or Europe, but the future already looked bright for the system, which had been selling well in Japan. The new CD add-on would help to futureproof the console against efforts by competitors, especially their growing rival Sega, to outmuscle their SNES with new technology.

    The men were nervous. They knew the company was reneging on a deal it had already made to produce a CD add-on with Sony. Still, the stakes were too high and Sony's demands were too much. Philips, they were told, would give much better terms and would allow Nintendo more control over its properties, especially the highly lucrative Mario franchise, which had become one of the most recognizable in the world. It was far too risky to allow a company like Sony that much control over an icon like Mario. While the men, especially Arakawa, had their trepidations, both of them prefering a partnership with Sony over the unfamiliar company Philips, it was a deal that had to be made if the SNES-CD was going to happen the way that Nintendo wanted it.


    Half a world away, Nintendo's president Hiroshi Yamauchi sat in the company's Kyoto headquarters, reading and re-reading his company's contract with Sony. The contract, which Nintendo had made back in 1988, gave Sony complete control over all games created for the SNES-CD add-on, including games featuring the company's flagship characters such as Mario, Link, and Donkey Kong. Nintendo, which had built a dominating market presence by maintaining complete control over its games and properties, was ceding an unacceptable amount of control to Sony through the contract. Sony would be allowed to publish anything it wanted for the add-on. Intellectual property concerns aside, this opened the floodgates to the kind of shovelware and porno games that had nearly destroyed the entire industry in 1983.

    But the idea of partnering with Sony, the company that had developed the Super Nintendo's cutting-edge soundchip, was an intriguing one indeed. The company's knowledge of hardware and advanced computer tech was nearly unparalleled and their add-on could give the SNES an incredible amount of muscle. Then there was the question of honor...breaking the agreement by going behind Sony's back would almost certainly be met with anger, perhaps even lawsuits. Yamauchi read the contract again, his eyes scanning over the most troubling clauses. He was in a no-win situation and he knew it. The best solution he saw was partnering with Philips and he'd sent two of his best men to Amsterdam to hash out a deal with them, one that would allow Nintendo far more control over its properties.

    But as much as the idea of giving up so much control troubled Yamauchi... every time he closed his eyes he saw the potential that Sony brought to the table. He could see the games that could be made for the system, the possibilities that abounded. He was far more unsure of what Phillips brought to the table. Their CD-I technology was impressive, but Sony had already proven itself. Ken Kutaragi had risked his CAREER because he saw the potential of the SNES. If Nintendo made this deal, it would always have a champion in Kutaragi, a brilliant and gifted man, a visionary...

    Yamauchi put his head in his hands and took a deep breath. With shaking palm, he reached for the phone.

    "This is Yamauchi. I want to speak with Mr. Ohga right away. I need to see him as soon as possible."

    (This is the POD. IOTL, Hiroshi Yamauchi never makes this call.)
     
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    • Hashing Out The Details

    • RySenkari

    Howard Lincoln: We spent about an hour with the Philips reps. The meeting had gone pretty well. We go enjoy Amsterdam for the rest of the day, we go to bed. As soon as we get up the next morning we've got a note saying to come down and get a call from the lobby. Mr. Yamauchi was in a meeting with Norio Ohga, from Sony. And of course we were told before going to Europe that the Sony deal was off and that we were going with Philips. They asked us how the talk had gone, we said it had gone well and they tell us that Yamauchi wanted to use that as leverage to get Sony to negotiate. So here we are, in a hotel in Amsterdam wondering what the hell's going on back in Japan.

    (You had no idea that this was going to happen?)

    No, none. Minoru and I went to Amsterdam knowing, or thinking that we knew, that the Sony deal was out the window and we were going with Philips. We hadn't put pen to paper yet with them, which of course was good, but we didn't have a clue that entire time that Mr. Yamauchi wanted to go back to the table with Sony. And by the time we got that call they'd finished talking, it was.... well it was in Japan so it must've gone down while we were sleeping.

    (They signed the deal while you guys were sleeping in Amsterdam?)

    Mr. Yamauchi wanted us both to come back to Kyoto immediately. He hadn't signed anything else with Sony but it was pretty much going to happen.

    -Taken from a June 2007 interview in Game Informer magazine


    Mr. Ohga was furious. He didn't show it during the conversation he had with Yamauchi but you could tell that the two were just about as mad as you could be in a civil conversation. Both of them were fuming. I was there watching the whole thing, just sitting there like....like you know how when two parents are fighting and the child just sits there and watches, trying not to make either of them any angrier? That's how I was during that conversation, just wearing a stone-faced expression and trying my best not to make either of them notice me. Later on, Mr. Ohga told me that Yamauchi had called him a scoundrel. I hadn't heard it but Ohga kept saying that he'd implied it. I remember, in a roundabout way I think Yamauchi did call him that. He did say that the contract as he saw it was unfair and it gave Sony far too much control over Nintendo's properties. Then Mr. Ohga asked him if he'd even read what he signed three years ago. They kept talking and then Yamauchi brought up that two of his men were negotiating with Philips in Amsterdam. I thought I saw Mr. Ohga turn red at that point, I thought he might come across the table and there would be a fight, but it never happened. It was clear what Nintendo was doing, using the prospect of that deal as leverage to get us to alter our contract with them. I guess Mr. Ohga thought that 50 percent of billions was better than 100 percent of nothing, because he agreed to work on a new deal pretty soon after that. Things were so tense in that room but I'm glad the way it worked out how it did because I'm pretty sure my career would've been over if Yamauchi had walked out of that room without us agreeing to make a new deal.

    -Excerpted from a translated Ken Kutaragi interview in Japan Tech News on December 8, 2001, shortly after Norio Ohga's death from a cerebral hemorrhage

    -

    June 27, 1991

    Nintendo's new deal with Sony was hashed out rather quickly, with both companies wanting to finalize negotiations over the SNES-CD before CES 1991 began in less than two weeks. Representatives from Nintendo, including Hiroshi Yamauchi and Minoru Arakawa, met with Sony reps including Norio Ohga and Ken Kutaragi in Kyoto. Representatives from Sony and Nintendo's American divisions were patched in via conference call. The new terms were far more favorable to Nintendo than before. Nintendo would retain complete control of all first party games developed for the SNES-CD, which included its Mario, Zelda, Metroid, and other franchises, along with any developed by Nintendo first or second parties in the future. Sony would be given complete control over any games it developed for the SNES-CD via its own game development division or any subsidiary second parties, allowing the company to begin developing its own stable of characters for the system. Control of third party games would be split 50/50, with Nintendo and Sony consulting regularly on what games to include on the new CD software. As it pertained to quality and content control, Nintendo would retain a "right of first refusal" of sorts, but would have to show cause that any games it did not wish to release on the system would cause serious detriment to the company's brand or its profits.

    A point of contention between Sony and Nintendo was the latter company's censorship policies, particularly with games it released in North America and Europe. Certain third parties, most notably Squaresoft and Konami, had expressed to Sony their desire to create more mature-themed games, without the at times heavy-handed censorship guidelines given to them by Nintendo. While Howard Lincoln pointed out that changes between Japanese and American versions of games were small at best, Squaresoft's Hironobu Sakaguchi, one of the third party representatives who had been patched into the conference call, noted that Squaresoft at times had to self-censor its own games before releasing them in Japan, to keep changes between the Japanese and North American versions to a minimum. He said that while he had no interest in creating overly violent or sexualized contest, he wanted to be able to have more creative freedom when it came to his games, with the inclusion of more mature storytelling themes. The discussions over the inclusion of more mature content lasted for nearly an hour before Howard Lincoln and Hiroshi Yamauchi decided on a compromise: First and second party Nintendo SNES-CD and regular SNES games would remain subject to Nintendo of America's censorship guidelines in the West, while third party SNES-CD games and Sony-produced games would be exempt, subject to a few restrictions on violent and sexual content. Also, such games would include a rating descriptor that would advise would-be purchasers of any potentially objectionable content. Sony and the third party representatives thought this was agreeable and it became part of the contract.

    The negotiations, which began early in the morning and paused only a few times for meal breaks, went very late into the night, but when the meeting ended, there was a new contract in place. There would be an SNES-CD add-on, along with a combo system which contained both the SNES and the CD add-on built in. Ken Kutaragi and Howard Lincoln would appear together at CES to show off the add-on and console, while third parties and Nintendo itself could begin to plan out the first generation of games.

    Though the deal had been made, Norio Ohga was still fuming, already unhappy about all the concessions he'd made. Kutaragi reassured him.

    -

    "I remember what I told him right after we closed the deal with Nintendo. 'Our new soundchip was already a resounding success. This deal will put CD players in millions of homes around the world. This will be the best business deal we have ever made.' I forget how many times I told him that same thing over the next 10 months. It would have to be the sales figures that convinced him, because I really couldn't!"- Ken Kutaragi, Japan Tech News, December 8, 2001
     
    • Summer 1991 CES - The SNES-CD Is Announced

    • RySenkari

    CES - Summer 1991

    Nivek asked me to post this for him, all credit for this post goes to him (though of course we both consult on all posts to this TL before posting them).

    "The 1991 Summer CES was dominated by video games, demonstrating the increasing strength of the electronic entertainment industry. The industry has swollen to the point that it's nearly as large as the film and television industries, something that would've been regarded as unthinkable seven years ago during the darkest point of the industry crash. This year's CES featured a number of surprise announcements, but the most important was certainly the     public announcement of the alliance of the home electronics titan Sony Corporation with the very powerful video game company Nintendo Co., Ltd. for work on a brand-new peripheral for the Super Nintendo Entertainment console, set to be released in North America in just two short months. The peripheral in question is a CD-ROM attachment, and while much is yet unknown about the device, it will be able to play both CD-ROM based video games and audio CDs, greatly enhancing the new console's mutimedia capabilities. In other news, Sega announced the production of a similar peripheral, already announced in Japan but now confirmed for a 1992 release here in the States, after a holiday 1991 release in Japan. Along with the NEC TurboGrafx CD, this means that all three of the major Japanese video game consoles will be able to utilize the burgeoning CD format, a massive boon for the format which is already growing rapidly in popularity. Computer Chronicles can only wonder what this means for the future of both the music and electronic entertainment industries, but at the moment that future seems bright indeed."

    -Closing words of Computer Chronicles' 1991 Summer CES Special

    "The news of Sony and Nintendo's alliance at CES made big waves among my colleagues and I. I remember that some NEC people were wary of the implications, back in Japan, since NEC had a de facto monopoly of the CD-ROM tech us before us but they were still getting dominated in sales by Nintendo. They feared that the CD add-on would be the coup de grace, so to speak, and of course we know what happened at the end. It spooked us over here at Sega too, but there was a silver lining. The add-on will take time to enter the market, we'd have about a nine month head start, so we would have the chance to gain market share and endear ourselves to consumers pretty early. Were we intimidated? Of course not, even if the Mega-Drive, as it was called in Japan, was taking a beating against the SNES, here in America thanks to Sonic the Hedgehog we were having our biggest holiday sales ever. I was waiting for Nintendo to make its move, whatever happened, it was definitely gonna be interesting."

    -Tom Kalinske, Former President of Sega of America, in a 2002 interview with Sega Retro

    "Even if the negotiation in Japan were... rough, to say the least, here in the States the whole deal went a lot smoother, mostly thanks to both Mr. Arakawa and Mr. Lincoln being more easygoing and stable than Mr. Yamauchi back in Japan. Of course, Nintendo had to have its own way in the deal, particularly concerning their own interests, and that was about our new role as co-publisher for the peripherical and how we should be in line with Nintendo of America's ‘Content Guidelines’. I mentioned the new ‘Videogame Board of Content Control’ proposed in Japan, with warning labels and age designations for certain games. Nintendo was planning to suggest to its retail partners not to sell certain games to anyone under 17, which we hoped would avoid any problems or controversy. Then, of course, was our contract to produce content for Sega. It was expiring in 1992, and since Sony was partnering with Nintendo, we made the decision, pretty easy at the time, that we would cease support for Sega and decline to re-up the contract when it expired. We'd be making games for Nintendo now and that was fine with us."

     -Excerpted from an interview with Ólafur Jóhann Ólafsson, President and     CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment, Inc., in the July 1995 issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly
     
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    • The Rest Of 1991 - SNES Launch

    • RySenkari

    August 23, 1991

    The Super Nintendo launched in North America with relatively little fanfare. It wasn't due to the 1992 release of the CD peripheral. Instead, it was largely consumer apathy that kept SNES sales unspectacular. Indeed, Nintendo was still primarily focusing on their NES console, which was still dominating hardware sales and even beating the much more powerful Sega Genesis. The Super Nintendo came packaged with two controllers and the newest Mario title, Super Mario World, all for the price of $200. The other launch games, F-Zero and Pilotwings, weren't exactly system movers, though both were well-reviewed.

    As for worries that the announcement of Nintendo's CD peripheral would slow sales, these worries turned out to be largely unfounded. For every person who claimed that the CD-ROM drive made them skeptical of the SNES's staying power, there was another gamer who claimed that the peripheral made them want to buy the system all the more, anticipating the possibility of playing CD-ROM based games and music CDs once it was released. Most consumers, however, didn't even know of the CD-ROM drive's existence, as the average consumer and even the average gamer didn't follow the big trade shows, and even the popular gaming magazines of the time mentioned the peripheral in passing, perhaps in a small article that people skimmed over for other sections of the magazine such as the game previews.

    For the most part, Nintendo shrugged off news of the Super Nintendo's mediocre North American launch, anticipating much larger sales as Christmas drew near.

    -

    "By December 1991, the Super Nintendo's sales had picked up enough in both Japan and North America that we could begin to focus our attention on developing our launch window games for the SNES-CD add-on. Yamauchi-san was pushing Miyamoto-san very hard to have a Super Mario game available at launch, which in Japan was just eight months away. Miyamoto-san had just finished the work on Zelda 3, which he was VERY happy with, and his mind was flooded with ideas for the new Mario game, he knew he wanted to do a sequel to Super Mario World, which had been very well received, but it became clear from the start that this was going to be a much larger game than the original. Every day, he had a new idea for a level, or an enemy, or a power-up, and the game just got bigger and bigger and bigger. At the same time, we were working on a two-player kart racing game, and we had decided that we were going to incorporate Mario characters into that. So I was working on the maps for the new Mario World game at the same time that I was directing this kart game, which we ended up calling Super Mario Kart. Originally we had planned to make it an SNES cartridge."

    -    Hideki Konno, N-Sider interview, September 2007

    "The thing about Shigeru Miyamoto is that he always wanted to make his games as good as they could possibly be, and of course that sometimes takes time. What was it he said once, 'a delayed game will eventually be good but a bad game is bad forever'? Either way, it became a huge point of contention between Miyamoto and Yamauchi over not having Super Mario World 2 ready for the SNES-CD launch, since Nintendo had ALWAYS launched with a Mario game. You had Super Mario Bros. on the NES and Super Mario World on the SNES, and so it was becoming a sort of tradition to have that strong Mario platformer packed in. But with all the stuff Miyamoto wanted to do with Super Mario World 2, that wasn't going to happen. So that's when, I think, the proposal was made to have Super Mario Kart as the pack-in game."

    -Nintendo historian Jeff Ryan, interview with Kotaku.com, October 13, 2011

    "And then came the issue of the two extra ports on the CD-ROM attachment. Could Super Mario Kart work as a four-player game? Was the co-processor strong enough to enable four players at once? The big selling point of the game was that it would allow two players to play, unlike F-Zero which had only allowed one. Once we learned that it was possible to have the four players, I was all for it but Miyamoto-san didn't like the idea of not being able to have all the stages and levels available, since the more complex stages would slow down the game. He didn't want to have the four player mode at all, but once we showed him how fun it would be he gave us the task of designing specific four-player stages for the game, ones that would be fun but that would not slow down the game. And so that was a fun challenge and that's why Super Mario Kart ended up having four-player support."

    -    Hideki Konno, N-Sider interview, September 2007

    -

    Chihiro Fujioka (director of "Final Fantasy: New Generation" and "Super Mario RPG"): Late 1991, that was a hectic time at Square. We'd gotten word that the SNES-CD deal had been done, so development went full-steam ahead on Secret of Mana. Final Fantasy IV had been wrapped and work on Final Fantasy V was in progress for the 1992 release.

    RPGamer: When did the word come down that Square wanted something done for the North American market?

    Fujioka: That came to me probably around the time work on Final Fantasy V began. We had all intentions of bringing that game to the West as Final Fantasy III, and we were hoping to have it ready for the launch of the SNES-CD in both territories, but that wasn't going to be possible, development on V was more of a challenge than we'd thought it would be. Also, RPGs weren't an easy sell in North America and it was widely believed that they were too hard for American gamers, there had been complaints about the original Final Fantasy and sales hadn't been strong enough to bring over the other NES games.

    RPGamer: I know the original idea behind what became Final Fantasy: New Generation was to create a beginner-level Final Fantasy. What was your opinion on the matter?

    Fujioka: Well, Sakaguchi-san always believed that the challenge was part of the game, but he also had an eye on the business side of things and he wanted stronger sales in North America. But the SNES-CD, I think that was a game changer. We had gotten the go-ahead to bring some more mature games to the system, and Sakaguchi-san felt that that included more challenging games, that if the console was going to be played by more mature gamers that they would appreciate the challenge. So we retooled our intended game entirely.

    RPGamer: What inspired the "New Generation" part of the title?

    Fujioka: It was intended that this would be a Final Fantasy for a new generation of players, so to speak. We took some of the things we'd included in IV...the new Active Time Battle system, and we included it in the game, along with a fully CD audio soundtrack. (Ryuji) Sasai-san, he'd already started work on the soundtrack and had done some great work, so it was easy to transfer that over and produce a richer sound with the new technology.

    RPGamer: And that was one of the things that got the biggest praise with the game, was that soundtrack.

    Fujioka: Absolutely. We also tweaked some of the other aspects of the game, we made it a three-character party, we made it so the characters all stayed with you instead of leaving, tweaked the boss difficulty, added spells, added bosses and towns and dungeons, made it a more complex game for a more complex audience, and those changes we hoped would get the response we wanted and also we hoped this game would tide Americans over for Final Fantasy V which we'd release in 1993 contingent on how well this game did. 1993, with Final Fantasy V and with Mana, we hoped would be a big, big year for Square and would change the way RPGs were perceived in North America.

    RPGamer: But it all started with New Generation.

    Fujioka: That it did! *laughs*

    -Excerpted from an RPGamer.com interview with Chihiro Fujioka, December 2003

    -

    This holiday season was one of the most robust in recent memory, partially thanks to the surge in sales for the new electronic gaming consoles, the Super Nintendo and the Sega Genesis. While the Super Nintendo was able to build its install base via the release of new games and through a fierce promotional blitz for the new system with its "Now You're Playing With Power" campaign, the Sega Genesis used the popularity of its exciting new mascot Sonic the Hedgehog to drive sales and gain a large chunk of market share, cutting into market leader Nintendo's sales in a significant way for the first time since the launch of the NES in 1985. With 1992 comes new games and the North American launches of the CD-ROM peripherals for both the SNES and the Genesis. Will 1992 be remembered as the dawn of the optical age? Only time will tell.

    -Computer Chronicles, December 27, 1991
     
    • Early 1992 - The Games Take Shape

    • RySenkari

    Contra III Won't Come To SNES-CD, Snatcher Coming Instead?

    The highly anticipated Contra III, SNES successor to the original two Contra games for the NES, will not be getting a version for the upcoming SNES CD-ROM peripheral, according to Konami's Nobuya Nakazato. Nakazato stated his desire to create a new Contra game, presumably Contra IV or perhaps a spin-off title, for the SNES CD-ROM when it is released. Contra III: The Alien Wars, is set to be released in North America for the SNES in April.

    In other Konami related news, Hideo Kojima, designer of the Metal Gear games, is said to be in talks with Nintendo to port his cult classic PC-8801 game Snatcher to the SNES CD-ROM. There is a rumor that the game is to be ported with the assistance of HAL Laboratory, which is also set to release Kirby's Dream Land for the Gameboy later this year, after young designer Masahiro Sakurai and Nintendo executive Satoru Iwata showed interest in a potential port. The port is still in the early development stages and will likely receive a 1993 release.

    -Article in Electronic Gaming Monthly, February 1992

    -

    Another test of Street Fighter II on SNES CD-ROM today, game showed excellent frame rate even with arcade-level character detail. Processor very fast, special cartridge handles all co-processing enabling the SNES to run this game flawlessly with the CD-ROM. Will keep running tests but this was definitely the best one yet.

    -Internal Capcom memo from February 18, 1992, translated from original Japanese

    -

    SNES-CD UPDATE!

    While Nintendo is still keeping most details of the upcoming CD-ROM peripheral for the Super Nintendo close to its chest, they did share some very promising morsels of info with Nintendo Power so that we can keep our readers informed!

    Work on the peripheral is nearing completion in preparation for its unveiling at this June's CES and its anticipated August release in Japan, but one of the things Nintendo's designers are still hashing out concerns the video resolution of the new hardware. As some of you know, the Sega CD was recently released in Japan, and one of the major criticisms is that its video resolution just isn't up to snuff! The limited resolution of the Sega Genesis keeps full-motion video cutscenes confined to a small portion of the average television screen. This is a hurdle that the SNES CD's designers are dealing with as well, but we're assured that the peripheral will increase the progressive resolution of the SNES, enabling it to display full motion video that will fill your whole TV screen! We can't spill too much info on the CD-ROM's revolutionary co-processing until the big reveal at CES, but rest assured that Nintendo and its partner Sony are hard at work to make the SNES CD-ROM the next step in Nintendo's excellent gaming history.

    -Article in Nintendo Power, April 1992
     
    • Spring 1992 - HudsonSoft And Philips

    • RySenkari

    "Back in Japan, the launch of the Mega-CD had been pretty rocky. We had to use mostly internal tech and that drove the cost way up, all the way up to 49,800 yen, which at the time was $380 in US dollars. $380! More than twice the cost of the Genesis! I knew we up-marketed toward business types and high-profile consumers who demand the latest technology, but you compare that to the price tag of the PC-Engine CD or the rumored price of Nintendo's machine, both of those were launching at around 25,000 yen, 30,000 at the most. And our launch window games, shooters mostly, we didn't have a single killer app to move this thing, so there was nothing to justify paying top dollar for something when you could just wait for a price cut. Nothing to show off the capabilities of the new format to justify the price. Heavy Nova was the best we had and the Super Nintendo had better games than that. We'd lost our contract with Sony Imagsoft when Sony agreed to the deal with Nintendo, so that put us behind in a big way when it came to getting good games on the Sega CD. We started signing deals with movie studios, hoping we could snag a big licensed game... I remember signing with Virgin and doing the Aladdin game, that ended up being huge for us, but that was way down the road. At the time, we were getting killed and a huge part of that was Sony pulling out."- Tom Kalinske

    "In retrospect, the PC-Engine was a console stuck between a rock and a hard place. First in innovation, but now trapped between two big players in Sega and Nintendo. Without proper developer support, stuck with trying endless hardware revisions in a vain attempt to catch up, the PC-Engine was doomed from the start in a lot of ways. The PC-EngineDuo was, in a lot of ways, what the system should have been from the first place. First out with the HuCard technology and the first major console to use CD-ROM, there was plenty of power behind the console... but NEC found itself squeezed out by the growing monster that was Sega and the rampaging beast that was Nintendo, soon to be the mighty Nintendo-Sony alliance. Despite ranking second internationally at the time, behind only Nintendo, NEC was falling rapidly behind and would be overtaken by Sega later in 1992. It's hard to believe it today, but at one time, the partnership of NEC and Hudson could well have shaped console gaming as it is today instead of falling into irrelevancy almost as quickly as it had risen to prominence."
    -    PC-Engine/Turbografx-16, A Retrospective, IGN.com

    Philips Lawsuit Likely To Be Thrown Out, Deal With Sega Not Happening
    There's a bit of interesting news concerning the ongoing legal battle between Nintendo and the European electronics titan Philips. Sources claim that Nintendo, which is currently working on the SNES-CD with the help of Sony, was looking to negotiate more favorable terms which would allow them to retain more control of games made for the new system. To gain leverage, Nintendo entered negotiations with Philips, which then claimed, after Nintendo changed its terms with Sony and re-entered into a deal with them, that Nintendo acted in bad faith and filed a lawsuit for damages related to expenses incurred during the negotiations with Philips. A judge in the Netherlands is now expected to throw out Philips' suit, agreeing to Nintendo's claim that it could have entered into a deal with Philips at any time and that Philips should have done its due diligence before taking the time to meet with Nintendo reps.

    Philips was also rumored to be meeting with Sega earlier this year but those rumors turned out to be false.
    -Electronic Gaming Monthly, May 1992
     
    • Summer 1992 CES - The Hype Builds

    • RySenkari

    Summer CES - June 15, 1992

    "The best CES that I've ever been to, I have to say, was in 1992. You had what was ultimately the beginning of the big CD boom in video games being unleashed on the public that year, with Phillips, Sega, and Nintendo all showing off their shiny new CD-ROM machines. By then Phillips' machine had already been out for a year but this was the first time they were really pushing it hard, probably in response to the CD-ROM add-ons for the big game companies. Speaking of which, you had Sega showing off the Sega CD that year and it looked fantastic, definitely something I knew a lot of Genesis owners would want to have. And then there was Nintendo and Sony's machine. Holy shit, that was some serious tech. Right away I knew it would be the one to have, the graphics were unbelievable and everything was moving so smoothly on the machine, I mean, it was more powerful than the Neo Geo for the cost of what, a Neo Geo GAME? The TurboGrafx guys didn't even show up, they knew they were done. If you're asking me when the 16-bit war was won, it was that day at CES 1992."

    -Ed Semrad, former editor-in-chief of Electronic Gaming Monthly, January 2008

    "Oh, I had tons of fun at CES that year! Broderbund and Nintendo invited me up to Chicago after we'd finished all the work on Carmen Sandiego and they asked me to spend the day at the Carmen Sandiego booth. I know nowadays at the trade shows they have these "booth babes" or whatever they call them, but it was much classier then, it helped that I was in my full costume and not some silly bathing suit or something! I mean, with the trenchcoat and the fedora I still looked pretty nice and I got a lot of looks. Everyone was really nice and it was a lot of fun, people did double takes when they were playing the game and they saw me standing there watching them. And teaching high school drama, of course I'll still have students on occasion come up to me and ask me if that's me in the game, even though none of them now were even alive when the game was released, I'll still get people asking!"

    -Jasmine Herrera, excerpted from "20 Years Later: Catching Up With Carmen" on IGN.com, February 23, 2013

    "I think we need to go back to the drawing board."

    -overheard near the Sega booth at the Summer 1992 CES

    -

    Video Games At The Summer 1992 CES!

    Everyone's been looking forward to the big Consumer Electronics Show in Chicago, eagerly anticipating the latest offerings from Sega, Nintendo, NEC, Phillips, Atari, SNK, and all the other major hardware and software producers. In the spotlight this year are the CD-ROM peripherals for the Sega Genesis and the Super Nintendo, so let's give you the skinny on those right now!

    First off, the Sega CD is bringing some major power to the table, but it'll cost you some major coin. It was unveiled at this summer's show and will be appearing on store shelves in October with a $299 price tag. That's a big investment, but you'll be getting the latest tech for your buck. The Sega CD, renamed from the Mega CD (its Japanese name), is packing a 12.5 Mhz processor under its hood, and that will be on top of the Genesis' 7.67 Mhz processor, taking "Blast Processing" to a whole new level! It will display full-motion video at 15 frames per second, which, while not quite cinematic quality, is still good enough to display beautiful animated cutscenes and real-life video footage. Tom Kalinske, Sega's president, mentioned some very intriguing titles for the new system, including Night Trap, a full-motion video game where you'll be able to take control of the action, using tricks and traps to save a group of beautiful girls from some deadly killers! There's also an arcade-quality Final Fight game, a massive new installment of the popular RPG series Ultima, and, perhaps most intriguing of all, a game based on this year's hit movie Batman Returns, integrating real scenes from the movie into the gameplay. Kalinske has also promised a brand new Sonic game exclusive to the add-on. While the Sega CD itself was not on display at the show, prototypes of the system along with a few of the games were available to play and what we saw was definitely impressive.

    Next up was Nintendo's unveiling of the Super Nintendo CD, the official name for its CD-ROM peripheral. The peripheral will hit store shelves in December, and with a surprisingly economic $199 price tag. Hitting store shelves at the same time, for those who don't yet have a Super Nintendo, is something called the Nintendo Playstation Combo Pack, featuring a Super Nintendo with an integrated SNES CD built right in! That will retail for $349. Now, early adopters who bought the Super Nintendo for $199 may feel ripped off that they're paying $50 extra for the added peripheral over people who buy the Playstation combo, but Nintendo has them covered, announcing that a $50 coupon that can be used toward the purchase of any SNES CD game is included in all $199 add-on packages. In addition, Super Mario Kart, which Nintendo had on demonstration at the show, will be included with both the stand alone peripheral and the combo pack. The SNES CD is a technical marvel, and Sony has clearly done some impressive work. It clocks in at 21.477 Mhz, making it by far the most powerful video game device ever released. Nintendo has also addressed the problem of the SNES' limited memory, which would not allow it to utilize the full power of the SNES CD on its own. A special cartridge, which Nintendo calls "H.A.N.D.S." (Hyper Active Nintendo Data-transfer System), is plugged into the Super Nintendo's cartridge slot while the SNES CD is in use. This cartridge allows the peripheral to do most of the heavy lifting, giving the SNES console enough memory to take advantage of the SNES CD's power. The SNES CD also adds two extra controller slots to the system, allowing for four controllers to be plugged in at once (similar to the NES "Four Score" device). One of the games taking advantage of this is the aforementioned Super Mario Kart, which had its special 4-player mode available for demonstration at the show. Other games on display included Super Mario World 2, the sequel to the SNES' launch hit Super Mario World. While this game won't quite be ready for the SNES CD's launch, it is expected to be released sometime in the spring of 1993. Also appearing at the show: Final Fantasy: New Generation. The game is in a lot of ways similar to Final Fantasy II, only with three playable characters at a time instead of five, and with the ATB time bar appearing on screen instead of being hidden as it was in Final Fantasy II. Squaresoft had the game on display at CES, where we were able to play through one of the game's dungeons with the characters Benjamin, Kaeli, and Tristam. It was fun and fast-paced, with a more upbeat and rock-inspired soundtrack than Final Fantasy II, and should be more than enough to tide people over until Final Fantasy V (which will likely be renamed Final Fantasy III in the West) makes it to our shores. Dragon's Lair, said to be a launch title, was also demonstrated at the show, and is a very faithful reproduction of the arcade classic. Also appearing was a version of the popular "Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego?" computer game with full-motion video cutscenes (in fact, the actress who portrays Carmen in the game was demonstrating the game at the booth!) and Capcom's Ghouls 'n Ghosts CD, a sequel to the ultra-challenging Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts. Capcom also had Street Fighter II available for demonstration, but it was the version for the normal SNES, with the SNES-CD version only present via a video showing how smoothly the game would run on the CD peripheral.

    Ultimately, we felt that the Super Nintendo CD had the most impressive showing, and the game of the show would have to be Super Mario World 2. Even from the few levels available to play, it's clear that Nintendo's gone the extra mile to make this a worthy sequel to the SNES classic, with excellent music, very colorful and smooth graphics, and level design that rivals or exceeds its SNES predecessor. We wish Sega had had more to display, particularly from its Sega-CD Sonic game, but though we were more impressed with what Nintendo and Sony brought to the table, it's clear that both CD-ROM add-ons are going to be a tempting (if expensive) purchase for owners of their respective consoles.

    -Excerpted from the debut issue of GameFan, September 1992

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    "Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Summer 1992 CES. I have just a few words from everyone here at Nintendo of America as we eagerly look forward to our company's latest offerings. Our booth at CES 1992 was heavily geared toward promoting our new Super Nintendo CD add-on, and I just want to say that we have never been more excited to release a product. Our partners at Sony have exceeded expectations in creating a peripheral that works in tandem with the excellent Super Nintendo to bring gaming into the next generation. I know that you'll all be as impressed with their work as I have, and I hope that this device will not only create new opportunities for Nintendo developers and fans, but that it will also bring the exciting new medium of compact discs to the public at large, making the Super Nintendo your one stop shop for gaming, interactive multimedia experiences, and high-fidelity music.

    We at Nintendo are proud of our reputation as a family-friendly company, and our partner companies are breaking new ground in interactive content. Some of the games for the Super Nintendo CD may not be for all of our players, and as fans grow and mature, some of their games are growing and maturing with them. We've created a brand new system for rating video game content that we'll be revealing in more detail in the coming months and working with our retail partners to ensure that our games are played by the appropriate people. We also want to address the worries of fans who just purchased a Super Nintendo last year and earlier this year, and who might be thinking of buying one in the months to come. The Super Nintendo CD will present unique gaming opportunities, but it is meant to compliment the Super Nintendo, not supplant it. Games will be released for both the regular SNES and the CD-ROM add-on for years to come, and indeed, though we have many CD-ROM games scheduled, we have more games scheduled for the Super Nintendo than we do for the CD-ROM add-on, and we will also continue to support the NES with exciting new games like Kirby's Adventure. The Super Nintendo is still the primary focus of our creative endeavors, while the SNES CD will allow us to expand our horizons and provide gaming experiences that would not be possible on a cartridge based system. Developers, both first-party and third-party, will have unparalleled freedom to create the games that you, the consumer, will want to play. At Nintendo, we have always been and will always be about the games, and with the Super Nintendo and our new CD-ROM add-on, the possibilities are, and will always be, endless.

    Thank you all for coming.

    -Keynote speech by Howard Lincoln at the 1992 Summer CES
     
    • The Japanese SNES-CD Launch

    • RySenkari

    (This is another of Nivek's posts, all of the quotes and the article are his, only the stuff about the Japanese launch is mine.)

    -

    "It has been two years since the release of our Super Famicom, the natural evolution of our old and venerable Family Computer. A decade ago, we had a vision for the Famicom, that it would be a tool in every family's home for the amusement of people both old and young, and we have succeeded in those aims beyond our wildest dreams. Today as I speak, we are about to release not one, but two new Nintendo products, which were made possible thanks to the support and technical skill of our new business partner, Sony Corporation. These two products will continue the evolution of the market of electronic entertainment.

    The Super Famicom Computer Disk System, much like its predecessor the Famicom Computer Disk System which we released after the original Famicom, will allow our Super Famicom to player bigger and better games, as technically advanced as those currently available in the computer market. As I speak, these games are nearing completion. We have just finished work on our first Mario game for the new Computer Disk System, Super Mario Kart, which will allow four people to experience fast-paced racing action simultaneously. We are also previewing at Spaceworld the sequel to our Super Famicom hit Super Mario World, on which Shigeru Miyamoto has been hard at work. These two games will demonstrate how our new amusement machine will be at the cutting edge of entertainment and bring Nintendo games to an entirely new scope for consumers and developers.

    I believe that the CD-ROM is the future of the market, but Nintendo will continue to develop for and push the limits of our cartridge format for years to come. I believe Nintendo's consumers will be excited as they discover what the future has in store."

    -Translated transcript of Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi's keynote speech at Nintendo Spaceworld, August 10, 1992

    "Hello everyone. It's a pleasure being here today, speaking to the press, video game retailers, and fans here at Spaceworld 1992. For those who don't know me, my name is Ken Kutaragi. I'm an electronics engineer, some of you probably know me better as "Crazy Kutaragi", you said I was crazy when I decided to make the SPC sound chip for Nintendo, but had I not done that we wouldn't be here today so I think I don't look quite so crazy now!

    Many of you here have seen the new CD-ROM add on for the Super Famicom, you've gotten to play with it and look at some of the games. The colors are improved, the graphics move much more smoothly but I think the most important aspect of this add-on is the improvements to the sound of the Super Famicom. Don't get me wrong, I'm very proud of my work on the SPC sound chip but here, with the Audio CD Redbook capabilities, you can have the sound of a real orchestra in a game, or even full voice acting which was not possible on the Super Famicom. We have 4-player games available right out of the box, similarly to some hit arcade titles. Speaking of arcade hits, you've also seen our version of Capcom's Street Fighter II which I believe moves much more smoothly and realistically. We also have the capability to provide a full cinematic experience as demonstrated in Dragon's Lair, which Sony is publishing, this classic arcade game has been compared to an interactive movie and I think you'll agree when I say that this is the most arcade accurate version of the game to date, in fact with the Super Famicom CD's improved color palette, it looks even better than it does in the arcade.

    There are other advantages to this system, utilizing the Super Famicom's cartridge port we will be able to create additional functionality for the consumer. We've explored karaoke as an option, very popular here in Japan but we may expand its popularity throughout the globe by enabling any family to have a karaoke device in their own home, perhaps utilizing a Sony music player as well. Having had a long relationship with Nintendo since 1988, when my own audio chip was accepted as the device that would power the Super Famicom's sound, and continuing through the meeting that created this alliance between Nintendo and Sony that will bring not only the Super Famicom Compact Disk System but the dual combination console known as the Play Station, I am glad to see our alliance opening up the potential of new markets via the proliferation of audio and photo CD technology. These new technologies, combined with the Disk System's incredible video came capabilities, are only the first step into this new potential market, which I call 'interactive entertainment'."

    -Translation and transcript of a speech by Ken Kutaragi at Nintendo Spaceworld 1992

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    Space World 1992 - Super Nintendo CD Unveiled!

    Here in Japan at Nintendo's annual Shoshinkai Software Exhibition, also known as Space World, the main focus of the show has been the new gadgets in town, born out of the partnership between Nintendo and Sony. The Super Nintendo CD, an add-on for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, and the Nintendo Playstation, which combines the SNES and the new add-on into one super-console. The Super Nintendo CD will cost 29,980 yen, which translates to around $210 here in the States. As for the Playstation, it will cost 49,800 yen, or around $350. That's MUCH less than the price of purchasing both the Genesis and the Sega CD together, which in American dollars would currently run you about $500 when the add-on drops in October. That's before the recently announced price cut from Sega, which has cut the price of a Mega CD in Japan to 46,000 yen. That's a significant price cut, but it has yet to be seen whether they'll slash the price in the States. Just how will the company of the blue hedgehog fare? Much of that will depend on the games for both systems.

    As for Nintendo, their early offering for the new CD-ROM is Super Mario Kart. Western gamers will see the game offered as a pack-in when the Super Nintendo CD drops in December, but Japanese gamers will have to buy it separately. Nevertheless, it's an exciting product, with a full range of 256 colors and fast-paced action with a high frame rate. The game's cast of characters is strong, featuring Mario, Luigi, Princess Toadstool, Toad, Yoshi, Donkey Kong, and even a Koopa Troopa and King Bowser will be playable. The game will be the first to take advantage of the added controller ports on the add-on with 4-player capabilities! While only a few tracks will offer the 4-player option, as opposed to the 2-player modes which will allow grand prix play and full selection of all tracks, the game offers some serious multiplayer madness and there were long lines at Nintendo's booth for this game.

    Also demonstrated here in Japan, playable for the first time, is the CD-ROM version of the ultra-popular Capcom fighting game Street Fighter II. Based on the new arcade release "Street Fighter II: Champion Edition", the game is simply amazing, running as smoothly as and in some spots even better than the arcade version. The four boss characters from the original are now playable, and all characters have new moves. The game is full of new graphical detail, with hundreds of voice samples included. Another advantage is that in Japan, the price will be lower than the SNES cartridge, owing to the cheaper price of CDs as opposed to ROM cartridges. This may end up being a general rule, allowing perhaps for the CD-ROM add-on to pay for itself over time via cheaper game purchases. Also announced for next year is a new version of the game, Street Fighter II: Hyper Fighting, which will bring some of the Champion Edition enhancements to the normal SNES and may see a release for the SNES CD as well.

    Aside from Nintendo, Squaresoft had a decent presence at Space World as well, with a Japanese version of their American launch title Final Fantasy: New Generation. The Japanese version is expected to be released in 1993. Another prospective 1993 title is something called "Project Mana", no footage was shown but Square staff did briefly discuss the game which has been in the works for nearly two years now. Whatever Square comes up with for this game will surely be a surprise and likely a pleasant one at that.

    -Excerpted from an article in the October 1992 issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly, written by Peter Molyneux

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    August 24, 1992

    The Super Famicom Computer Disk System, along with its Play Station combination console, launched in Japan with great fanfare. 500,000 units of the add-on and 150,000 units of the combination set were shipped, and most would sell out in the first few days, owing to the Japanese fervor over new technology and the extensive marketing campaign Nintendo had launched in Japan for the console. There were three games available at launch: Super Mario Kart, Street Fighter II: Arcade Edition, and Dragon's Lair, with most purchasers of the add-on and console buying Super Mario Kart and Street Fighter II at the same time. The early sellouts bade well for Nintendo's plans to launch the system in the West later that year and in Europe early in 1993, and with profits from early sales, Nintendo began the marketing and promotion campaigns for the West in earnest.
     
    • The North American SNES-CD Launch

    • RySenkari

    "I remember, last year I was going to put my foot down and say no to the Super Nintendo, I explained how it was just a marketing tool to make you spend more money, but I relented and I ended up buying it for him for his birthday, and now they're coming out with this new thing? I'm pretty ticked off but it just proves that I was right, they just keep squeezing more and more money out of you and this is the trick they use, they sucker you in and make you spend more and more. Well fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice... I won't get fooled again."

    -a concerned mother, quoted from a news report on the Super Nintendo CD, December 2, 1992

    "Parents are in a fury, as expected, on the eve of the release of Nintendo's hot new CD-ROM peripheral, fresh on the heels of Sega's CD peripheral release earlier this year. Those who already spent $200 on Nintendo's shiny new toy are feeling ripped off at the news of a $200 upgrade barely more than a year after the Super Nintendo's release, and the Super Nintendo CD as it's called is not expected to be a hot seller this holiday season."

    -    Phillip Elmer-DeWitt, Time magazine, December 7, 1992

    "Am I excited, yeah I'm excited, this thing is gonna be awesome. You get to play CDs, there's Street Fighter, you can play with four people and I heard that maybe you could watch movies on it some day? I'll definitely be gaming on it as much as I can, I've got a lot of stuff going on right now but whenever I get some downtime I know what I'm gonna be doing."

    -Leonardo DiCaprio, Entertainment Tonight, December 1, 1992

    "...have I heard about the new Nintendo what? ...no, I'm sure it'll be a big boost to the economy. Kids love the games."

    -President-elect Bill Clinton, MTV News, December 3, 1992

    -

    Over the past decade, Nintendo has brought you high quality interactive family entertainment. Now, as we prepare to launch our Super Nintendo CD peripheral, we see that our fanbase has grown exponentially, and that many of our fans who started out playing games such as Donkey Kong in arcades or Super Mario Bros. on the NES are growing and maturing. These fans have made it known that they want some of their games to mature with them. In addition, several of Nintendo's software partners have expressed their desire to produce more mature, story-driven games for our new CD peripheral, with content similar to what you would see in highly acclaimed movies such as the recent Silence of the Lambs or Terminator 2. While Nintendo will always be family company first, we have decided to allow our software partners to pursue new creative avenues on the Super Nintendo CD, and as a result, some of the games that we will be approving for the system may not be suitable for all of our players.

    Nintendo strives to remain a family-friendly company supporting entertainment that all ages can enjoy. We have created a new ratings system for our CD-ROM games, that will be clearly displayed on all games approved for sale, letting you the consumer know the appropriate audience for a certain game. The ratings symbols are as follows:

    A green symbol will be marked with GA - General Audiences/Appropriate For All Ages, letting you know that this game adheres to Nintendo's standards for family-suitable entertainment. All first-party Nintendo games will conform to the standards for this rating.

    A yellow symbol will be marked with 13 - Parental Advisory/13 And Up with additional ratings descriptors. These games may contain mild or moderate violence, mild language, and/or thematic elements that may be objectionable to certain audiences.

    A red symbol will be marked with 17 - Mature Players Only/17 And Up with additional ratings descriptors. These games may contain strong, realistic violence, strong language, and/or some sexual themes. We strongly encourage all of our retail partners not to sell any 17 rated games to anyone under 17 without the presence of a parent or guardian.

    Please also note that Nintendo will never approve games that contain highly graphic violence or strong sexual elements regardless of our ratings system. We encourage parents of children who plan on purchasing the new Super Nintendo CD peripheral to educate themselves on the ratings descriptors with our convenient pamphlets at retail locations wherever Nintendo games are sold, or by watching our brief videos at Nintendo kiosks. We will also be rolling out a television ad campaign alongside our promotional campaign to further educate parents and other concerned individuals about Nintendo's new ratings system.

    With the new Nintendo ratings system in place, our talented software producers will have far more creative freedom to make the games that all Nintendo fans will want to play. We hope that the Super Nintendo CD ushers in a new age of interactive entertainment, where gamers of all generations can come together and enjoy the best of what Nintendo has to offer.

    -Nintendo president Howard Lincoln, from the opening segment of a Super Nintendo CD informational video played at retail kiosks starting in October 1992

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    Super Mario Kart

    Steve: 8
    Ed: 9 (quote: "The 4-player action is this game's biggest attraction, even with only 6 of the tracks and 2 of the battle stages available in 4-player mode, you'll want to race them over and over again with three of your buddies, though all the shells and bananas lying about in the game might test some friendships!")
    Martin: 9
    Sushi-X: 8

    Street Fighter II: Arcade Edition

    Steve: 9
    Ed: 9
    Martin: 9
    Sushi-X: 10 (quote: "The greatest fighting game ever released on any home console, bar none. Save your quarters and buy an SNES CD with this game, the action is just as fast and fierce and the character animations are as smooth as anything you'll see at the arcade. Plus, you can finally take M. Bison and his super-powerful moves for a spin.")

    Final Fantasy: New Generation

    Steve: 9
    Ed: 8
    Martin: 9 (quote: "Better than Final Fantasy II? It's awfully close, but the fact that you get to choose your characters puts this over the top for me. Take your party of three for a spin and restore the crystals as you traverse a colorful new world. The game's rock-inspired soundtrack really shines on the SNES CD's high-fidelity audio.")
    Sushi-X: 7

    Sewer Shark

    Steve: 7
    Ed: 6
    Martin: 8
    Sushi-X: 7 (quote: "It's like playing a Hollywood blockbuster. The only problem is that it's too short, but it's a good show of what the peripheral is capable of. The video plays in a lot more of the screen than on the Sega CD's movie games.")

    Dragon's Lair

    Steve: 5
    Ed: 4
    Martin: 7 (quote: "It's the same as back in the day but a lot more colorful. There are a couple of added scenes but nothing too special, it's still an arcade classic and it's the perfect game for younger players.")
    Sushi-X: 5

    -Electronic Gaming Monthly reviews the SNES CD launch titles, February 1993

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    *Several kids are shown running into the room and turning on a Super Nintendo, having fun with Super Mario World and Zelda: Link To The Past before one of the kid's dads comes into the room with a new box.*

    Kid: Hey dad, the Super Nintendo's great!

    Dad: Don't you wish it could be even better?

    *Some of the kids laugh.*

    Kid 2: There's no WAY you could make the Super Nintendo any better.

    *The dad opens the box and takes out the Super Nintendo CD, connecting it to the Super Nintendo as the kids watch curiously.*

    Dad: You wanna bet? *pops in a CD*

    *Suddenly, the screen is filled with the high-speed action of Super Mario Kart as the kids look on in awe. Dad brings out two more controllers and suddenly him and three of the kids are playing Super Mario Kart, having the time of their lives.*

    Narrator: The hottest thing in video games just got even hotter!

    *Now scenes of all sorts of games are shown, from Street Fighter II: Arcade Edition to Sewer Shark and Final Fantasy: New Generation, along with Super Turrican, Double Switch, and even a couple of quick scenes of Super Mario World 2, interspersed with scenes of the dad and the kids having a great time.*

    Narrator: Ten times the speed, four times the colors, with hi-fi CD audio for maximum immersion! The Super Nintendo CD-ROM peripheral connects to your Super Nintendo Entertainment System, creating richer, fuller, LOUDER experiences that you've never seen or heard before. Play all new games like Super Mario Kart and Super Mario World 2, play your favorite music CDs, play all new interactive movies that bring your favorite games closer to reality than ever before. It's the Super Nintendo CD.

    *Shows both the add-on console and the SNES/SNES-CD combo*

    Narrator: Available as an add-on for your existing Super Nintendo or as the Playstation Combo Set. Comes with Super Mario Kart, an additional controller, and accessory kit.

    The Super Nintendo CD. Take it to the next level.

    -    Super Nintendo CD's initial American launch commercial, first shown during the Cowboys/Giants NFL game on Thanksgiving Day 1992 and played throughout the holiday season. Commercial also displayed a release date of December 4, 1992, after that day it displayed an "Available Now" message.
     
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    • The North American SNES-CD Launch, Part 2

    • RySenkari

    December 4, 1992

    The Super Nintendo CD launched in North America. 600,000 add-on units were shipped with an MSRP of $199, while 150,000 Playstation Combo Sets (SNES/CD-add on combined) were shipped with an MSRP of $349. Included with the add-on was Super Mario Kart, an SNES controller, a set of connecting cables, and a coupon for $50 off any Super Nintendo CD game. The Playstation Combo Set shipped with Super Mario Kart, two SNES controllers, and connecting cables. The launch, though covered by many news outlets, was not nearly as successful as the Japanese launch, with few sell-outs reported in the first week of sales. With the economy still flagging and North American buyers reluctant to purchase an expensive new peripheral so soon after the launch of the Super Nintendo, Nintendo expected the low sales, though sales were a bit lower even than their projections. The CD add-on launched with five games: Super Mario Kart (the pack-in title), Street Fighter II: Arcade Edition, Final Fantasy: New Generation, Sewer Shark, and Dragon's Lair. Among the launch games, Street Fighter II was the highest seller, with a very high purchase rate among add-on buyers (particularly ones who shelled out the full $349 for the SNES/CD combo). As the launch week wore on, Nintendo hoped that the upcoming Christmas season would pick up sales.

    -

    "We had a lot of units shipped. Sega only shipped 50,000 of their Sega CD back in October and they sold through very quickly, while we were hoping that we could provide an SNES CD for everyone who wanted one. And sales in Japan were good, so we shipped far more of them. said we should have shipped around 250,000. Shipping 600,000 units and only selling about 100,000 or so in the first couple of weeks, that looked bad at the time. But we were outselling the Sega CD and our sales were constant. They weren't dropping, we weren't having 100,000 sell one week and only 20,000 the next. People were saving money. They were thinking about the new big game. So that was a good sign. It was still the Super Nintendo generating the big Christmas numbers, but the SNES CD was doing well even with all the unsold units on shelves."

    -    excerpt from an interview with Nintendo of America president Howard Lincoln, Forbes magazine, March 24, 1997

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    IT'S HERE!

    The Super Nintendo CD hits store shelves this month, and you've never seen anything like it. It's 32 bits of power-packed visuals and incredible sound that will take your SNES to the next level. We've got 56 pages of coverage on every single launch game, giving you the tips and tricks you'll need to power your way through these tough new adventures. We'll also take you under the hood of the SNES' newest peripheral to find out just what makes this baby tick. While not every Nintendo fan will be able to purchase the SNES CD right away, we here at Nintendo Power absolutely recommend making the leap at some point in the future. From everything we've seen so far, the possibilities of this thing are absolutely endless!

    -Introduction to Nintendo Power's coverage of the SNES CD launch, December 1992

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    SUPER NINTENDO CD-ROM
    Nintendo Co. Ltd./Sony Corporation

    The Super Nintendo CD-ROM peripheral connects to the Super Nintendo Entertainment System to provide arcade-quality gameplay and high-fidelity sound for your favorite video games. Of note: Super Mario Kart, a fast-paced go-kart racer that can support four players simultaneously.

    -Popular Mechanics, "Design and Engineering Awards 1993", January 1993

    -

    The Super Nintendo CD is undoubtedly an impressive piece of technology. The processor and storage capacity of the games not only rivals the hyper-expensive Neo Geo, it surpasses it. Street Fighter II plays just like it does in the arcade, maybe even a little bit better. The Mode 7 action of Super Mario Kart zips by just as fast as anything in Sonic the Hedgehog, and there's no slowdown in 4-player mode, even if only a limited selection of tracks are available. The FMVs of Sewer Shark fill MUCH more of the screen than Sega CD's version and the visuals are significantly clearer, making the Sega CD seem outdated by comparison. Make no mistake, Nintendo is going all out in supporting this thing and if it catches on, it's likely this will end up being a successor console to the Super Nintendo rather than a mere add-on. While Nintendo promises to continue supporting the Super Nintendo and while their policy requiring publishers who put out a game for the CD to also produce an SNES cartridge game, either a dual-release of the same game or a cartridge-specific title should keep the SNES alive and ticking as long as the NES has been in the post-SNES release world, the fact that Super Mario World 2 will be a CD-ROM game and not a cartridge game is telling. Normally I'd be worried about such a thing but I'm so impressed with the Super Nintendo CD that I for one welcome our new optical overlords. Let's hope that Sega learns from what Nintendo is doing and puts more support toward its new CD peripheral. Sonic CD is looking excellent and there are some other promising titles on the horizon. 1993 is looking quite promising indeed.

    -Dave Halverson, GameFan Magazine, February 1993

    In conclusion, we didn't get quite enough time with the Super Nintendo CD to provide a numerical rating in time for this year's buyer's guide, but my initial impressions were all positive. The SNES CD seems like much more of a natural progression than Sega's peripheral, with an increased focus on the gameplay rather than just showing off the tech. At $199, the price is surprisingly low for what you actually get, and indeed, for new SNES buyers I'd recommend springing for the $349 combo set. If you're unsure (or on a tight budget), reviews for Super Mario World 2, the system's first truly major game, will show up in EGM sometime around May or June. Again, despite the lack of a numerical score, my two word summation of the SNES CD thus far is this: "Highly recommended."

    -Ed Semrad, 1993 Electronic Gaming Monthly Video Game Buyer's Guide

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    December 25, 1992

    In Petaluma, California, an 11-year-old girl opened her last Christmas present. It's a big box and even her mother doesn't have a clue what's inside.

    "Oh my God, dad!" shouted the girl as she looked at the large box sitting in front of her, a brand new Playstation Combo Set. "This is so cool!"

    The girl's mother looked incredulously at her husband, glad that her daughter liked the gift but unsure if a $350 video game system was the best thing to be buying for her.

    "We needed a CD player too," said her father. "Her birthday's coming up next week, figured this could count for both. The guy at the store showed me one of the games, it looked really fun."

    The girl's mother still wasn't quite sure but the smile on her daughter's face as she looked at the back of the box removed some of her doubts... plus, she did want to hear some of her favorite songs on CD if she could find them in the stores.

    "Okay... but she can only play it an hour a day. On weekends."

    "Sure," said the girl, still looking at the pictures on the back of the box. "This Carmen Sandiego game looks kind of fun. Is it...around here somewhere?"

    "The guy at the store said they only had four games for it but it comes with a game," said the girl's father, pointing out the Super Mario Kart logo on the box. "I asked about other games and he said they'd be coming later on."

    "Here, you should open up your last present now, Marc," said the girl's mother, handing her husband a much smaller box. The girl pushed the Playstation Combo Set gently aside to watch her father open the gift. Unlike many of the other lucky kids who'd gotten the expensive new toy that year, she wasn't an avid gamer and could contain her excitement enough to wait until the Christmas festivities were concluded before tearing open the box and playing the SNES CD.

    But make no mistake, when she got back to school, Polly Klaas would be the envy of her friends when she told them about what she got for Christmas.
     
    • Early 1993 - The Slow Start

    • RySenkari

    “I remember when the call came in from Square in January 1993. The early sales figures from New Generation were out and they were going to make a really quick decision on whether or not to bring Final Fantasy V over. I know it was really close. The game had sold well, but it wasn't a major hit like Street Fighter II was. I got the call at work in the afternoon. Final Fantasy V, which would be called Final Fantasy III in the States, was a go. They wanted a summer 1993 release which gave us about three months. I told them I could do it in two.”

    -Ted Woolsey, excerpted from an interview with RPGamer.com in 2002

    “If you're asking about the moment when my sister and me decided that we wanted to make video games for a living, it had to be when we first got Pickton Lake. Ariel and I got it with the Super Nintendo CD for our 8th birthdays and it was the best birthday ever. That game was amazing, I know it's more of a cult classic now but for us it was just awesome, those two kids were just like us and we loved the spooky atmosphere and fun dialogue. We couldn't stop playing it, we'd take turns beating it over and over trying to get through it the fastest or get all the secret items. It was so much fun. It was a big inspiration for our first game, Terror Trip. The idea of the brother/sister protagonists? So Pickton Lake.”

    -Alex Hirsch, co-founder of Pyramid Games, excerpted from the Kotaku.com article “Meet The Twins Who Are Taking The Indie Gaming World By Storm”, January 14, 2013

    “The definitive version of 'Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego?' appeared on the Super Nintendo CD in February 1993. Considered the first major post-release title for the add-on, it featured challenging new geography puzzles, a variety of memorable suspects and characters, and it was one of the first games to use both live-action and animated FMV sequences. Yes, some of the acting seems cheesy now, but it helped set the mood of the game and kept things fun and interesting.”

    -Quoted from “The Top 10 Educational Video Games Of All Time: #2- Where in The World Is Carmen Sandiego? (SNES CD)” on Screw Attack

    “The new CD-ROM peripheral for the Super Nintendo video game system may have its first controversy. Mad Dog McCree is a new western-based video game where you use a realistic-looking play gun to shoot characters, played by real life actors, on screen. While there's no blood or guts in the game, some say that gunning down real people is beyond the pale. It's the first game to earn a rating of 17 from Nintendo's in-house ratings board, but parents say that retail stores often ignore the ratings to sell this game to kids. Tonight at 11, we'll talk to some local parents who think that the fun's gone too far.”

    -reporter at WKRC-TV, Cincinnati, from the March 25, 1993 newscast

    “You let go of my sister you bug-eyed vampire creep!”

    -Cody, Level 16, Pickton Lake

    “I would've loved to stay in Paris, but they ran out of crepes. It seems you just missed me. Better luck next time, kids.”

    -Carmen Sandiego (Jasmine Herrera), Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego? (SNES-CD version)

    -

    And at the end of January, the Super Nintendo CD finally gets some post-launch love with a pair of new games sure to tickle the fancy of anyone who's starting to get bored of Super Mario Kart. On the 18th, it's Atlus' Run Saber. Also releasing for the Super Nintendo, the CD-ROM version features enhanced audio, two additional levels, and a higher level of graphical detail. Then we've got Double Switch, launching on the 25th. While we wait to hear any word about the controversial but sexy Night Trap on Nintendo's peripheral, Double Switch is a much more family-friendly trap 'em up game sure to appeal to older kids and their parents alike. You have to work to free the game's protagonist, Eddie, from a basement before criminals and mobsters get to him. With a little bit of Universal-style horror thrown in, the game is actually considered somewhat better than Night Trap and should be a welcome addition to the SNES-CD's growing FMV library.

    -Excerpted from the February 1993 issue of GamePro

    -

    Nintendo Working With The Jim Henson Company?

    Nintendo recently announced a partnership that they've been keeping secret for the last year, but that we can finally announce here in Nintendo Power. Nintendo creative staff have been in talks with the Jim Henson company on a number of still-secret projects, one of which is an upcoming video game for the SNES CD peripheral. In fact, Shigeru Miyamoto and puppeteering legend Frank Oz recently appeared together at the Jim Henson Company Lot, where a Nintendo creative team has been working for several months. More details are soon to come and we can't wait to announce them in a future issue!

    -Excerpted from the January 1993 issue of Nintendo Power

    -

    February 15, 1993

    “Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego?” was released for the Super Nintendo CD. Based on the classic educational PC game, the Super Nintendo CD version featured a brand new set of crimes and clues and an interface optimized for the Super Nintendo CD. While keyboard support, utilizing the optional keyboard peripheral that had been quietly released a few weeks after the SNES CD's release, was available, the game also offered a non-keyboard mode that allowed for multiple-choice guessing for most of the game's inputs. The game was influenced heavily by the successful PBS game show released a couple of years earlier, and Lynne Thigpen played The Chief in some of the game's live-action segments, while relatively unknown actress Jasmine Herrera played the tricky thief Carmen Sandiego. The game also featured about 30 minutes worth of animated segments, notably the intro video (utilizing Rockapella's theme song from the game show, with the line “Monday thru Friday at 5!” changed to “Super Nintendo CD!”) and some animated travelogues of the various geographic locations in the game.

    -

    Pickton Lake

    Take brother and sister Cody and Cassie through 16 levels of platforming horror action in this exciting new game for the SNES CD as they try to rescue their abducted friends from spooky ghosts and zombies. While comparable to the NES horror game Friday the 13th, this is a FAR better made game and you'll actually have quite a bit of fun. With the ability to detour off the beaten path for hidden items and with about 300 different voice acted lines, the game utilizes the SNES CD's capabilities well while remaining a super-fun platformer at its core.

    Graphics: 4.5
    Sound: 4.0
    Control: 4.0
    FunFactor: 5.0
    Challenge: Intermediate

    Super Turrican

    An incredibly fun run-and-gun game in the vein of Contra, it's comparable to Contra III in terms of play-style and with the SNES CD's enhanced graphics it's in some ways the superior game, offering a lot in terms of smooth animation and graphical detail. We're glad Seika decided to create this game for the CD peripheral in lieu of the planned SNES version, though a dual release might have been nice for those who have yet to hop on board with the peripheral yet. Make no mistake, this might just be the best game for the SNES CD to date.

    Graphics: 5.0
    Sound: 5.0
    Control: 5.0
    FunFactor: 5.0
    Challenge: Advanced

    Mad Dog McCree:

    This light-gun game, the SNES CD's first, is a fun diversion despite its cheesy dialog and at times spotty controls. The option to use the SuperScope for those who have it from the SNES is nice, but you'll do a lot better with the Justifier gun (though it's sold separately). It's definitely fun, but a little bit on the short side, making it a difficult sell if you're buying at full price. It's a nice demonstration of the SNES CD's abilities but hopefully we get a meatier light-gun game in the future.


    Graphics: 4.5
    Sound: 3.0
    Control: 3.5
    FunFactor: 3.5
    Challenge: Intermediate

    -Excerpted from GamePro's reviews of March 1993's SNES CD releases, from their May 1993 issue

    -

    List of Nintendo Power cover subjects from October 1992-March 1993 (italics signify OTL cover):

    October 1992- The Simpsons: Bart's Nightmare
    November 1992- Super Star Wars
    December 1992- Super Mario Kart
    January 1993- The Magical Quest: Starring Mickey Mouse
    February 1993- Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego?
    March 1993- Tiny Toon Adventures: Buster Busts Loose

    -

    April 1, 1993

    Hiroshi Yamauchi reviewed the sales numbers from the first four months of Super Nintendo CD sales in North America. Nearly 350,000 units had been sold, more than half of them before Christmas 1992. Sales had been progressing at a slow but steady pace after the sharp drop-off from the holiday season. There'd been a brief spike in sales from the Carmen Sandiego game, but it was a very small spike and sales were beginning to dip slightly. The true test, of course, would come once Super Mario World 2 was released later that week. It had already been released in Japan in February and had done extremely well, pushing total sales of the SNES CD in Japan past the one million mark, while reviews had been excellent, including the first ever perfect 40 from Famitsu.

    Yamauchi couldn't be blamed for his trepidation. The Sega CD was outselling the Super Nintendo CD in North America, though it was by a very small margin. Big games could only do so much, if sales didn't pick up soon, more than a few people would start to consider the peripheral a failure. Only Ken Kutaragi's words of encouragement over the last few days calmed his fears, though Kutaragi had been doing that for Norio Ohga as well. He thought about calling up Howard Lincoln and telling him to think up ways to boost sales, but he didn't want to cause friction with his North American branch the way that Sega had begun to do. The continued robust sales of the Super Nintendo were another comfort to him. The company hadn't placed all of its eggs in one basket...indeed, with the continued success of the Gameboy and even the old NES, the company had four. There would be time to worry about the future of the SNES CD later. For now, Hiroshi Yamauchi would be content to wait and see.
     
    • April 1993 - Super Mario World 2 (and the rest)

    • RySenkari

    We're baaaaack...

    “Super Mario World 2 is the best Mario game I've ever played and quite possibly the best video game I've ever played. The world is enormous, the music and graphics are quantum leaps from the original game...indeed, it makes the original Super Mario World look like a tech demo. You wanted a reason to buy the Super Nintendo CD? Here it is.”
    -Ed Semrad, from his 10/10 review of Super Mario World 2 in the May 1993 issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly


    “So you finally get to the final boss, which of course is Bowser, and he's in this big tank thing, which looks awesome and has so many moving parts, way more than anything seen in a Nintendo game before. The background is this hellish firescape of burning parapets, it's like Toadstool's castle but in an Ozzy Osbourne video or something, and then Toadstool (she's Peach now of course) is lowered on a rope and she's tied up and gagged, and you see her eyes go wide when she sees Mario and then she kind of moves around a bit (great animation here too by the way), and the gag comes down and she lets out this loud “MAAAAAAARRRIIIOOOOO!!!!” before she gets lifted back up and the fight starts. We've never even HEARD her talk before but that yell for Mario gets you so hyped up for the fight. I mean you knew this was going to be awesome.”
    -Ravi Arikanian, from the article “Mario Memories: Super Mario World 2” on IGN.com, published February 17, 2009


    “I must confess, the big reason for the delay of Super Mario World 2 from the SNES CD launch to the following spring was mostly on me. Miyamoto-san asked if I would create some extra music for the game, of course we remembered the last Super Mario World only had a few basic themes for the level music but he wanted about 15 different tracks to be played, instead of just the three or four from the original game, so it took a few months longer to compose those. Miyamoto-san and I both wanted them to be perfect, it was pretty much the last thing we nailed down was the score for the game.”
    -Koji Kondo, Game Informer interview, January 2007


    “You collected all eight parts of my time machine! Thank you so much! It's time for me to take you to the Mushroom Kingdom of the future!”
    -Professor Toadstein, preparing to take Mario to the first of two secret worlds once all eight time machine parts are gathered in Super Mario World 2


    -


    SUPER MARIO WORLD 2: The Basics


    Super Mario World 2 is a direct sequel to the SNES cartridge game Super Mario World. The game takes place almost immediately after the original. Upon returning from Dinosaur Land, Mario, Luigi, and Princess Toadstool throw a massive party at Toadstool's castle, celebrating their return and also honoring Yoshi for his help. The party, however, is crashed by an angry Bowser and his Koopalings, who kidnap Toadstool and Yoshi and send the brothers flying to the other end of the Mushroom Kingdom. Bowser's Koopa Troop has taken over the entire kingdom and the two Mario brothers must fight their way back to Toadstool's castle to save her.


    The game has eight main worlds, unlike the original which had only seven. Also unlike the original, each level has a name, so instead of something like “Yoshi's Island 1”, you'd have “1-1: Koopas On The Beach”. There are 120 total “goals”, with around 75 total levels spread out over the eight main worlds and two secret worlds. Once the second secret world is clear, you can elect to play as Luigi in a single-player game (otherwise he's only available for multiplayer). The eight worlds are as follows:


    World 1: Mushroom Beach (A beach-themed world similar to Yoshi's Island in the original, with a few more swimming parts added in.)
    World 2: Steamy Jungle (A jungle-themed world)
    World 3: The Crystal Sea (An entirely aquatic based world except for a large undersea dome at the end where a couple of levels take place)
    World 4: Creepy Caverns (A world of caves and mysterious passages, somewhat similar to Vanilla Dome)
    World 5: Heroic Heights (A sky-themed world with a mountain level or two)
    World 6: Toad City (A big city with towering crystal buildings)
    World 7: Barrel Volcano (Fire-themed worlds)
    World 8: Bowser's Factory (Bowser's stronghold, a massive factory complex he's built around Toadstool's castle)
    Secret World 1: Mushroom Kingdom 3000 (A group of futuristic levels)
    Secret World 2: Rainbow Road (Based on the Rainbow Road from Super Mario Kart, features eight ultra-challenging levels, equivalent to SMW's Special Zone)


    The game can be regarded as sort of the Super Mario Bros. 3 to Super Mario World's Super Mario Bros., more of an incremental update than a total gameplay overhaul. Graphics and sound are vastly improved, the SNES CD allows for improved animation on the characters and very detailed and animated backgrounds, with a well-defined soundtrack. Gameplay-wise, a double jump has been added to Mario's repertoire, if he's running he can jump once and once he lands he can jump again to reach new heights. The Fire Flower and Cape return, along with the Frog and Tanooki Suits from Super Mario Bros. 3. In addition, there's a Mini Mario “power-up” that allows Mario to get smaller to reach secret passages, and finally there's a Jet Mario powerup that enables him to travel incredibly fast (some critics pointed out that this seemed to be deliberately aimed at Sonic's speedy reputation), when Mario is running fast he can blast right through enemies and leap long distances but it takes a while to slow down so pitfalls become a major hazard. The Koopa Kids return as bosses, one per world, with Iggy first as usual, then followed by Larry, Roy, Morton, Wendy, Lemmy, and finally Ludwig. The Koopa Kids don't fight Mario directly, however. Instead they either mount huge machines or summon large creatures to battle Mario, always related somehow to the world's main theme. Secret exits are of course still present, with one secret exit even present in the initial beach world. The game is a BIT more difficult than Super Mario World overall but still a fairly easy game for platforming veterans, however, the level design is much more intuitive and creative. Branching paths in some levels give players more choices about what sorts of challenges they want to tackle (and add to the replay value of the game), other levels (particularly ghost houses, fortresses, and castles) feature a variety of hidden doors and traps to keep players guessing.


    The game also notably featured the debut of Charles Martinet as the voice of Mario and Luigi. Mario's voice could be heard mostly in the form of shouts or a few words as he made his way around levels. The game introduced the idea of a more mild-mannered, friendly Mario, as opposed to the gruff Brooklyn voice from previous adaptations of the game. The game featured a few cutscenes (not animated, but shown in a series of images and on-screen narration) between worlds, showing Mario and Luigi adventuring, or Toadstool in Bowser's castle (sometimes trying to escape, sometimes showing kindness to the Koopa Kids or once even to Bowser). It gave the main characters of the series some personality and the game received praise for its limited but amusing narrative which added a bit of flavor and plot to the action of the game.


    -


    April 5, 1993


    Super Mario World 2 is launched in North America for the Super Nintendo CD (the PAL release would come on April 26). The game is launched to rave reviews from a variety of gaming publications, including two of a possible four perfect 10s in Electronic Gaming Monthly, a perfect 40 in Famitsu (the first ever), perfect 5s from Gamepro, and many many more. The game sells over 200,000 copies on launch day in North America, making it thus far the biggest opening day for an SNES CD game. The game gets a 24-page cover story in Nintendo Power, which covers the first five worlds of the game (the magazine teases the remaining three worlds and mentions the existence of at least one secret world, then advises readers to buy the 204 page Official Player's Guide for more tips). It also becomes the second SNES CD software release to get coverage on mainstream news stations (the first being the controversial light gun game Mad Dog McCree) and the first to be mentioned in a positive light. It drives sales of the peripheral and combo set in both North America and Japan, the former to its largest sales week to date (in Japan the launch week was slightly better). Nintendo executives, particularly Hiroshi Yamauchi, are pleased with the game's success. There are two other games released for the Super Nintendo CD on that day: Classics Of Great Literature, more of an educational tool than a game, which featured the texts of ten great classic novels and offered quiz games based on them, and an adaptation of SimEarth: The Living Planet, which would later that year make its way to the Super Nintendo cartridge system in a slightly less detailed version. Due to being overshadowed by the juggernaut release of Super Mario World 2, the game becomes an instant cult classic, though it's not as well loved as the SNES' 1991 release of SimCity. Super Mario World 2's release signals to the gaming world that the SNES CD is here to stay, and signals to Sega that Sonic CD will need to be an all-time great to top it.


    -


    “Super Mario World 2 was THE killer game of April 1993 for the Super Nintendo CD, but hey, what about all the other games that got released that month? Yes, there were other games that got released that month and I played them all. Here are some mini-reviews. You're welcome.


    Classics Of Great Literature (released April 5): Wait, this isn't a game! And I'm not about to read all ten of these books. I've read two of them, Moby Dick and Tom Sawyer. They were okay, I guess. This was the first game in a line of educational software that all the optical-based systems seemed to have in spades. Nobody bought this. 1/5


    SimEarth: The Living Planet (released April 5): Hell yeah, it's SimEarth! I had fun with this game back in the day. Actually this was the only game from this month besides SMW2 I played back in the day. It was pretty killer on SNES CD. They gave you a lot more options and the graphics were much better. 4/5


    Dragon's Destiny (released April 12): This was a kind of 3-D graphics game they tried out but the graphics were pretty lousy. Basically you fly around on a dragon and there's another guy on a dragon and you're trying to kill each other. Remember Firebreather on Action 52? It's like that but not god awful. But still pretty bad. 2/5


    Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective (released April 19): An FMV game, this puts you in the shoes of Sherlock Holmes. There are three different mysteries to solve and you can look for clues. The acting's pretty lousy but I still had some fun with this. As far as FMV games go, it's okay. 3/5


    P.T.O.: Pacific Theater Of Operations (released April 19): This was actually a really neat little war game and Koei put some nice graphical touches on it for the SNES-CD. The maps look a LOT less awkward. There are some pretty cool in-battle animations and several more battles to play. One of the system's best turn-based strategy games and probably the month's best game besides Super Mario World 2. I had trouble putting this down to finish the article. 4/5


    Katie Corner (released April 19): I wasn't expecting much from this at ALL. Basically there's a little girl named Katie, who is actually played in some cutscenes by a real child actress, and she helps you solve puzzles and play mini-games and stuff. It's supposed to be an educational game but I had actual fun with parts of this. I'm astonished. This game is rare as balls today, by the way. Like $150 on Ebay rare. 3/5”


    -article from Captain Retro at Games Of The Past, June 8, 2011


    -


    No SNES-CD? No Problem!


    While Super Nintendo players who don't have the CD peripheral may feel left out in the cold in the wake of the release of killer app Super Mario World 2, there's little to be bummed out about this month, with nearly a dozen new releases set to land on the SNES in April alone. Headlining them is the first game to use the SNES' heralded Super FX Chip, “Super Squadron X”. Featuring out-of-this-world polygonal graphics, Super Squadron X is the sequel of sorts to the cult Gameboy classic X, a Japan-only release. Created by Argonaut Software, the game is a space shooter that centers around an effort by an elite team of starfighters to liberate a besieged planet. Originally, Star Fox was planned to be the first Super FX chip release, but that game is headed to the SNES CD this summer. Also scheduled to be released is Battletoads and Double Dragon, which hits the SNES in June. Perhaps the biggest SNES release of all, at least over the next 12 months, is Super Metroid, the third game in the Metroid series, which will feature the legendary bounty hunter Samus Aran once again battling space pirates on Zebes. We'll have more information about Super Metroid in the coming months, but it's clear that Nintendo is keeping its promise to support both the cartridge and CD incarnations of the Super Nintendo, and it doesn't look like that will be changing any time soon.


    -excerpted from GameFan Magazine, May 1993


    -


    BREAKING NEWS: Nintendo Teams Up With The Jim Henson Company For “Star Fox”


    We've been sitting on this bit of juicy info for quite some time, and now we can finally give you the first scoop! We've reported that Nintendo has been teaming up with the Jim Henson Company, famous for its work on “The Muppets”, “Sesame Street”, and many other hit properties across the film and television worlds, but now we can reveal that the company has also provided resources for the in-game cutscenes that will appear in Star Fox, coming to the SNES CD in June. During your flights through the game's levels, you will be occasionally hailed by your wingmen, commanding officer, or even some of the dastardly villains, and all of these animations, including the voice acting, were done by the Jim Henson Company, very closely partnered with Nintendo. The company's staff of writers, camera crews, and “Muppeteers” were all on hand to provide the game's nearly one hour of FMV footage, which Nintendo's talented programmers have seamlessly integrated into the fast-paced action of the game. We'll be able to give you more looks at Star Fox in next month's issue, but for now we're all eager to start playing and be the first to let you know what an awesome game this is shaping up to be!


    -Article in Nintendo Power, May 1993
     
    Last edited:
    • BONUS - The March-April 1993 SNES-CD Nintendo Power Charts

    • RySenkari

    A really quick update here and something I'm going to try to do for every "month" of the timeline is the Nintendo Power Chart for the SNES CD. The Power Charts were published once a month in Nintendo Power, ranking the top 20 games for each system based on a combination of three factors: Players votes, where Nintendo Power readers voted on their current favorites, Pro votes, where Nintendo Power editors and Nintendo employees voted on their current favorites, and Dealer points, which tabulated a score based on sales for that month. Sales had a delay of about three months, so, for example, December 1992's sales would show up on the March 1993 chart, April 1993's sales would show up on the July 1993 chart, and so on. For games not yet released, Player and Pro votes still factored in, so hype/anticipation for upcoming games could get them spots on the charts (and indeed, in the first few months of the charts, most games made the charts this way)

    -

    SNES-CD Power Charts - March 1993 (debut of the SNES-CD section of the Power Charts)
    1. Street Fighter II: Arcade Edition - 19,713
    2. Super Mario Kart - 17,055
    3. Final Fantasy: New Generation - 15,604
    4. Super Mario World 2 - 11,883
    5. Sewer Shark - 10,274
    6. Final Fantasy III - 7,840
    7. Super Turrican - 6,443
    8. Dragon's Lair - 6,371
    9. Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego? - 5,844
    10. Run Saber - 4,905
    11. Lethal Enforcers - 4,881
    12. Star Fox - 4,560
    13. Alien 3 - 4,186
    14. Mad Dog McCree - 3,755
    15. Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts CD - 3,747
    16. Shadowrun - 3,051
    17. Dragon's Destiny - 2,348
    18. Double Switch - 1,950
    19. MechWarrior - 1,752
    20. The Simpsons - 1,711

    SNES-CD Power Charts - April 1993

    1. Street Fighter II: Arcade Edition - 16,844
    2. Super Mario Kart - 16,350
    3. Final Fantasy: New Generation - 13,863
    4. Super Mario World 2 - 13,500
    5. Run Saber - 9,884
    6. Final Fantasy III - 9,500
    7. Star Fox - 7,417
    8. Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego? - 7,154
    9. Sewer Shark - 6,608
    10. Super Turrican - 6,542
    11. Lethal Enforcers - 5,201
    12. Double Switch - 4,473
    13. Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts CD - 4,100
    14. Dragon's Lair - 4,072
    15. Alien 3 - 3,651
    16. Mad Dog McCree - 3,052
    17. Shadowrun - 2,980
    18. Snatcher - 2,457
    19. MechWarrior - 2,124
    20. Battletoads II - 2,056
     
    • May 1993 - The Library Builds

    • RySenkari

    “If April 1993 was all about Super Mario World 2, the following month was about diversity. May 1993 was when the SNES-CD's lineup really started to fill out with quality games. You had Super Bomberman CD, which was an excellent four-player game, you had the arcade hit Lethal Enforcers which was by far the best lightgun game to date, there was Alien 3, an outstanding adaptation of the hit movie, there was MechWarrior, one of the best PC games to be adapted to the system, and finally you had the great cult classic Shadowrun. Even that Scatterbeans game was a fairly addicting puzzler. By the end of that month you had no less than a dozen games that were at least decent, with Star Fox AND Final Fantasy III coming out that summer. I think a lot of us were starting to realize that SNES owners on the fence about buying the CD add-on were running out of excuses. Nintendo was doing everything right and sales were increasing every week. It was around that time that Sega began to get somewhat desperate.”
    -Former GameFan staffer Tim Lindquist, quoted in “The 90s: A Decade Of Gaming – 1993”, on Gamespot.com, July 21, 2001

    “The game that convinced ME to get the SNES CD add-on was Shadowrun. Really great graphics, really fun gameplay, and such a mature narrative, I had to remind myself I was playing this thing on a Nintendo system. The SNES CD is still probably my favorite console of all time and Shadowrun was one of my favorite games for it. A shame it didn't sell very many copies.”
    -Adam Sessler, from the X-Play SNES-CD 20th Anniversary Retrospective, December 7, 2012

    -

    And “Fallout: The Boneyard” Week continues with our interview of actor/comedian Ray Combs, who voices a sadistic gameshow host who forces your character into a fight for their life (and the lives of several innocent wastelanders). Combs is probably best known for his hosting of Family Feud in the early 90s and his stint on the late 90s sitcom “Fair Play”.

    (…)

    UGO.com: This isn't the first video game you've worked on.

    Combs: Right, I did the Family Feud video game back in.... 1993 I believe?

    UGO.com: For the Super Nintendo CD, yeah. That looked like a lot of work that you did, you had to read over 1000 questions and film quite a bit of footage for the FMV scenes.

    Combs: The game was pretty involved from what I could tell, I don't play games myself but the footage I saw was pretty cool, it looked a lot like the real show and I got paid pretty well for the sessions, so it wasn't bad. I enjoyed it for the most part. It was kind of a rough time for me though, it was just before I got fired from the show and I was pretty depressed for a while afterward.

    UGO.com: We did read about that, I don't know how much you want to talk about it but-

    Combs: No, no, it's okay, I've given some motivational talks where I relate my experiences with depression. I think I was just about at my lowest point when I nearly got into a car accident one day, the guy just barely missed me but it was a close and scary call and I started to really re-evaluate my life, I realized even with everything that was going on I had a lot to live for and that's when I started getting help.

    UGO.com: We talked to Mary Kay Bergman yesterday, she voices a lot of the female characters in the game and she told us about her own struggles with depression and anxiety.

    Combs: Oh, I did a guest voice on South Park a few years back and I got a chance to talk to her, she's a wonderful person and she's made such a good recovery. People don't understand how bad it can be, mental health struggles should be getting a lot more attention. With the shooting at North Carolina State last year, I think it's been getting more coverage in the news but it's still not enough.

    UGO.com: People are blaming the games!

    Combs: Yeah, they don't want to confront these issues. But I got the help I needed so I'm doing better now. If you're struggling with it, depression or anger or whatever it is, there's help out there.

    UGO.com: One more question, would you ever go back to hosting Family Feud?

    Combs: I don't think so, Bernie Mac is doing such a good job. He's hilarious isn't he?

    UGO.com: He is!

    -Excerpted from an interview on UGO.com, November 18, 2008

    -

    Super Bomberman CD

    Ed: 9
    Danyon: 10 (quote: “The most fun I've ever had with a multi-player game. With a huge slate of options, eighteen different arenas, and tons of items and power-ups, grab three friends and bomb the night away with this amazing game! The single-player mode is a ton of fun as well.”)
    Al: 9
    Sushi-X: 9

    Scatterbeans

    Ed: 7
    Danyon: 7
    Al: 8 (quote: “Really reminded me of Bust-A-Move, but shinier, more colorful, and it moved a lot faster. Probably the best puzzle game available on the SNES-CD, it provides addicting gameplay and some serious challenge.”)
    Sushi-X: 5

    Lethal Enforcers

    Ed: 7
    Danyon: 6
    Al: 9
    Sushi-X: 9 (quote: “A pitch-perfect adaptation of the arcade game and the number one reason to buy a Justifier gun, the arcade hit shines here with thrilling action, tricky stages and lots of ways to rack up points and rescue hostages.”)

    Alien 3

    Ed: 9
    Danyon: 9
    Al: 8 (quote: “It's not faithful to the film but it doesn't need to be, it's a great work all its own, with its dark environments and intuitive action, the SNES-CD version of the game is the best looking and best playing and if you're a fan of the film, you're missing out if you don't pick this up.”)
    Sushi-X: 8

    Family Feud

    Ed: 5
    Danyon: 5
    Al: 9
    Sushi-X: 6 (quote: “I'm not a gameshow fan but this is about as close to being on the show as it gets. The FMV is smooth and there are lots of questions to keep you from having to play through repeats for quite some time.”)

    VideoMash

    Ed: 2
    Danyon: 1
    Al: 4
    Sushi-X: 2 (quote: “When are companies going to learn that we don't want to use our CD add-ons for remixing crappy music videos? This is worse than Make My Video and that's really saying something. They actually went out and filmed original music videos just for this game. A huge waste of time and money for both the makers of the game and anyone who buys it.”)

    MechWarrior

    Ed: 8 (quote: “A fun adaptation of the PC hit, MechWarrior puts you in the cockpit of a giant robot and sends you to battle other robots across a huge battlefield. The graphics are updated from the PC version, with colorful backgrounds that put you right in the thick of battle.”)
    Danyon: 8
    Al: 7
    Sushi-X: 8

    Shadowrun

    Ed: 9
    Danyon: 9 (quote: “The best RPG available for the SNES-CD, this makes Final Fantasy: New Generation look positively old-hat. This game is the future of the RPG genre.”)
    Al: 9
    Sushi-X: 9

    -reviews of May 1993's SNES-CD releases in the June and July 1993 issues of Electronic Gaming Monthly

    -

    New Software Bundle And An Exciting New Peripheral For Music Lovers!

    With two of the most anticipated SNES-CD releases, “Star Fox” and “Final Fantasy III”, set to debut this summer, Nintendo is giving people more reasons than ever to purchase the SNES-CD! Starting in May, which means that these bundles are already in stores as you're reading this, Nintendo will be including the critically-acclaimed hit “Super Mario World 2” with every SNES-CD add-on and Playstation Combo Set! For those who pine for the four-player racing action of Super Mario Kart, don't fret, as the game is still available for separate purchase on store shelves everywhere. In addition, music lovers will want to buy the Nintendo CD Companion. The CD Companion is a control deck which includes a set of stereo speakers and an LED display, so that you can use the Super Nintendo CD as a stand-alone CD player without the use of a television. The CD Companion will retail for $49.99 and will be available for purchase starting in late May.

    -Excerpt from the June 1993 issue of Nintendo Power

    -

    SNES-CD Power Charts – May 1993
    (italics signifies an unreleased game without sales figures included, bold signifies a newly released game with sales figures included for the first time)

    1. Super Mario Kart – 16,418
    2. Street Fighter II: Arcade Edition – 16,370
    3. Super Mario World 2 – 14,389
    4. Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego? - 11,105
    5. Final Fantasy: New Generation – 10,884
    6. Star Fox – 8,705
    7. Final Fantasy III – 8,364
    8. Super Turrican – 7,906
    9. Run Saber – 5,606
    10. Lethal Enforcers – 4,851
    11. Alien 3 – 4,700
    12. Sewer Shark – 4,158
    13. Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts CD – 3,712
    14. Battletoads II – 3,155
    15. Mad Dog McCree – 2,840
    16. Double Switch – 2,750
    17. Shadowrun – 2,667
    18. Dragon's Lair – 2,253
    19. Super Bomberman CD – 1,886
    20. Final Fight II – 1,824
     
    • Summer 1993 - Star Fox and Final Fantasy III (V)

    • RySenkari

    “Frank Oz and Mr. Miyamoto bonded right away. I mean they were really inseparable during the months they spent working on Star Fox. Sure, there was the language barrier, but I think the language of creativity sort of bridged the gap. I have never seen Mr. Miyamoto so happy as when he was working on that game with the people at the Jim Henson Company, but especially Frank Oz. I think if it was up to Mr. Miyamoto, he'd have worked on all his games with him. It was just a really close connection, and I think that's why the original Star Fox was as good as it was. I think it kind of got lost in the fold a bit among some of the other great games that came out in '93, but that game was Mr. Miyamoto's favorite, I think, out of all the games he did for the SNES-CD.”
    -Howard Lincoln, interview with TIME Magazine, July 1, 2002

    “Final Fantasy V brought me out of my rut in a lot of ways. I had done New Generation of course, but this game was much more fulfilling. It was the first time that Squaresoft really let me do a translation without so many restrictions, of course back in the early SNES days there had been a lot of restrictions because of Nintendo's content policies, but here, I could do a bit more of a mature script. I mean, I wasn't going to go overboard, I think I ended up using 'damn' twice and 'hell' once, but it was a big step for a game series that had previously been so squeaky clean in terms of language in the US. I guess the censorship policies brought us 'you spoony bard', but that was about it in terms of the good that they did. I self-censored for the most part, but having the extra freedom was nice.”
    -Ted Woolsey, excerpted from an interview with RPGamer.com in 2002

    “A lot of people don't know this, but the first character to swear in an American Final Fantasy game was Faris, a woman. I actually remember the first time I saw the words on screen: 'Damn it, Syldra!' as her beloved sea dragon was sinking into the whirlpool. Of course at that point the game was still trying to make you think Faris was a man, but the fact that the first swear word in a game that Nintendo promoted heavily in the United States came out of a woman's mouth was a groundbreaking moment for gender in video games. Yes, the series and the medium had a LONG way to go for gender equality, but Faris and her potty mouth were an oasis in a desert of male domination.”
    -Anita Sarkeesian, “Tropes vs. Women In Video Games Part 2”, Youtube.com, May 17, 2013

    “Do a barrel roll! To barrel roll, press L or R twice!”
    -Peppy Hare, Star Fox

    “By CES 1993, it was clear to me that Nintendo wasn't interested in what we could do for them, they were happy with the direction that Sony was taking them. With the success they'd been having with their CD add-on we couldn't really blame them, but there was another intriguing offer that I knew was worth a second look.”
    -Ed McCracken, CEO of Silicon Graphics, interview with Wired Magazine in October 1999

    -

    *Sergeant Pepper, in animated form, is shown seated at his desk.*

    Pepper: Star Fox, we need your help! Andross has invaded the Lylat System and only you can stop him!

    *A variety of quick scenes from the game are shown, showing off the graphics and the fast-flying action.*

    Pepper: You must hurry! Soon, Lylat will be- *the screen goes static and soon Pepper's face is replaced by that of Andross, laughing loudly*

    Andross: Don't even try to do battle with me! I control the galaxy and I will not be stopped! *laughs again*

    *More scenes of the game are shown as the narrator speaks.*

    Narrator (Don LaFontaine): It's Nintendo's most epic adventure yet, an interplanetary war with you at the controls of the Arwing, the fastest, most heavily armed fighter ship in the galaxy! Join up with your wingmen and take the fight to Andross as you fly across more worlds than you can imagine. Will good prevail or will Andross conquer all? Only you can save the Lylat System in Star Fox, the newest game for the Super Nintendo CD. Take it to the next level!

    -Nintendo's commercial for Star Fox, which began running in May 1993

    -

    Star Fox: The Basics

    Nintendo's Star Fox, released in North America on June 7, 1993, stood as its second biggest first-party release for the SNES-CD in 1993, and the game was groundbreaking at the time in terms of FMV production values. The Jim Henson Company directed and created the game's full-motion video, which appeared during between-mission cutscenes, pre-mission briefings, and most ubiquitously, during missions in brief clips that would play as various characters conversed with Fox McCloud, whether they be Fox's wingmen, Falco, Peppy, and Slippy, or the various enemy characters who populated the stages, including the game's main antagonist, the planetary conqueror Andross. The game itself was a fairly standard space shooter, though the SNES-CD's fast processing and memory capacity allowed for polygonal graphics at a fast framerate, providing arcade-quality visuals as your Arwing zipped through the game's stages. At the start of the game, you would choose one of three routes to take on the planet Corneria, an easy route, a medium route, or a hard route. Depending on the route taken, you would advance to a different second stage, with a total of seven stages in all. On the easy and medium routes, hidden objectives in the second and fourth routes would allow you to advance up a stage, so for example, if you were on the easy route for stage two, you could complete the hidden objective and advance to the medium route for stage three and onward. These hidden objectives were added late in production to allow a variety of routes through the game's stages so that there were more than three possible runs the player could take, the route changes enabled the potential for eight different runs through the game, with a total of fourteen worlds and eighteen stages (three different Cornerias and three different Venoms). The cutscenes themselves were integrated fairly seamlessly into the gameplay, they were criticized among some game journalists for being cheesy or silly, but compared to other FMV efforts on the SNES or Sega CD, they were downright excellent, especially with veteran Muppeteers like Frank Oz, Jerry Nelson, and Fran Brill, among others, providing the voices.

    -

    Star Fox

    There's a new star in town and it's Star Fox, the exciting new space shooter from Nintendo. Take your team of hot-shot space pilots through more than a dozen worlds as you seek to take down the galactic conqueror Andross! Some of the FMV is a bit silly at times but it adds atmosphere and character to this already excellently produced game.

    Graphics: 5.0
    Sound: 5.0
    Control: 5.0
    FunFactor: 5.0
    Challenge: Adjustable

    The Lost Vikings

    Blizzard's Amiga hit comes to the SNES-CD and out of all three console versions it's the best of the bunch, with graphics far outstripping its SNES and Genesis cousins. The gameplay hasn't changed though, and taking Erik, Baleog, and Olaf through the game's challenging levels has never been more fun!

    Graphics: 5.0
    Sound: 4.0
    Control: 5.0
    FunFactor: 4.5
    Challenge: Intermediate

    ClayFighter

    This irreverant fighting game looks great on the SNES-CD, but while we got lots of laughs while playing it, it's still no Street Fighter II, and with Mortal Kombat coming to home consoles in a few months, we don't think we'll be spending much time with this one. If you're looking for something sillier than your usual fighting fare, this is great, but if you're looking for something more robust, look elsewhere.

    Graphics: 4.5
    Sound: 3.0
    Control: 3.5
    FunFactor: 3.5
    Challenge: Advanced

    --Excerpted from GamePro's reviews of June 1993's SNES CD releases, from their August 1993 issue

    -

    *Several people are sitting outside an office. There's a voice from inside the room.*

    Voice: Next!

    *A young man sits down across from the person behind the desk.*

    Employer: What makes you think you can handle saving the world? What are your skills?

    Applicant: Well...

    *A succession of applicants are shown seated in the chair, each one names one of their “skills” which happens to be a skill in the game. There are five in all, some are shown more than once.*

    Applicant: I can wield a sword...

    Applicant 2: I'm the world's greatest thief!

    Applicant 3: I can rain fire down on enemies!

    Applicant 4: I can summon powerful magical creatures to do my bidding!

    Applicant 5: I can make the earth open up beneath the battlefield!

    Applicant: I can wield TWO swords at once!

    Applicant 3: I can strike over and over in the blink of an eye!

    Applicant 2: I can do whatever the last guy does.

    Applicant 5: I can mix any two things together and cook up something awesome!

    Applicant: I got a huge cannon!

    Applicant 4: I can take flight on the wings of a dragon!

    Applicant 3: I use my enemy's own attacks against them!

    Applicant: I can freeze time!

    Applicant 2: I can toss money to destroy my enemies!

    Employer: *has a stone-faced expression and then he smiles* Great! When can you start?

    Applicant 1: Right away! So...what job did I get?

    Employer: All of them!

    *Scenes from the game begin to play.*

    Narrator: Use the brand new Job system to defeat your enemies and save the world in the brand-new Final Fantasy III, the biggest adventure ever to hit the Super Nintendo CD. Create any team you want and explore the world, but watch out because the evil Exdeath doesn't mess around. It's Final Fantasy III and it's only on the Super Nintendo CD. Take it to the next level!

    -North American advertisement for Final Fantasy III, which began playing in June 1993

    -

    Final Fantasy III: The Basics

    Final Fantasy III, originally released in Japan as Final Fantasy V on the SNES, is virtually unchanged in gameplay terms from its SNES cousin, save for the addition of two new jobs, the Pirate and the Gladiator. The graphics, however, were given a bit of an overhaul, particularly the character sprites. Squaresoft had been working on advanced character sprites for Final Fantasy VI, but they got their first test drive on the SNES-CD Final Fantasy V, allowing for significantly more character animation and expression. The monsters also got a bit more detail, and the music was enhanced for CD audio, though it too remained largely unchanged from the original score by Nobuo Uematsu, with only the addition of more instrumental clarity enhancing the game's songs. The game, released on July 12, 1993 in North America, saw a release in September 1993 in Japan as “Final Fantasy V: Special CD Edition”.

    -

    The Shores Of Whitesea

    A fairly bad FMV game, this fantasy-based adventure tries to spice things up by playing like an old-school RPG dungeon crawler in the vain of Dungeons and Dragons, but hopelessly difficult gameplay and terrible acting don't make this game worth the trouble. Get Final Fantasy III instead.

    Graphics: 3.5
    Sound: 2.5
    Control: 2.5
    FunFactor: 2.0
    Challenge: Advanced

    Time Gal

    A quirky but rather fun FMV-based anime adventure, Time Gal has some show-stopping moments if you can navigate your way through its tricks and traps. It's not quite Dragon's Lair but anime fans should love it and it's heroine is fairly endearing.

    Graphics: 4.0
    Sound: 3.5
    Control: 3.0
    FunFactor: 3.5
    Challenge: Intermediate

    Final Fantasy III

    Squaresoft's epic adventure is the best Final Fantasy game yet. It's tough as nails, but the Job system lets you customize your party to meet a variety of challenges. Believe me, you'll need to get VERY familiar with it to make it to the end of this game.

    Graphics: 5.0
    Sound: 5.0
    Control: 4.5
    FunFactor: 4.5
    Challenge: Advanced

    Dark City

    This FMV detective game takes after the old film noir serials, where you're a detective in a grungy place called Dark City and you have to take down a gang of nasty thugs who have kidnapped the husband of your beautiful client. While there are a few redeeming moments, the game can be rather frustrating at times and the clues it gives you to solve the mysteries are really vague. Only the most hardcore FMV or detective game fans need apply.

    Graphics: 3.5
    Sound: 4.0
    Control: 3.0
    FunFactor: 2.5
    Challenge: Advanced

    Clue

    Based on the classic board game and somewhat on the movie, this fun FMV game is perhaps the best detective game to hit the SNES CD. In a sea of FMV games this month, this is the only game that potentially rivals Final Fantasy III as being the best game of the month. All your favorite characters are here and you never know who's the killer until you solve the clues. A really good execution on the SNES CD.

    Graphics: 4.5
    Sound: 4.0
    Control: 4.0
    FunFactor: 4.5
    Challenge: Intermediate

    --Excerpted from GamePro's reviews of July 1993's SNES CD releases, from their September 1993 issue

    -

    “This is really, I think, a game that just wouldn't have been possible without the SNES-CD, and that's the first game we've done at Squaresoft that we can honestly say that about. I designed this game with that extra memory capacity in mind, this world and this quest is just so huge that this game could only have happened on the CD-ROM. The complexity of the music and all the things going on on the screen at once, this is the reason why we pushed so hard for this unity between Nintendo and Sony.”
    -Koichi Ishii, designer of Secret of Mana, translated from comments in Famitsu magazine, August 1993

    “So I'm hearing all the praise for Final Fantasy III, which is a well-designed game from a production aspect, but in terms of the gameplay it can hardly be called a role-playing game. There's a scene in there where a main character dies and there's nothing you can do about it. No choice, no freedom, you just have to watch him die. But in Ultima, a game where you have limitless freedom, you could save a character like that. Your actions determine everything that happens in the game, for better or for worse. The Ultima series has always been about the freedom to determine what kind of hero you're going to be, and that's why I think that ultimately, players enjoy the Ultima series more than any other role-playing game. Including non role-playing games like Final Fantasy.”
    -Richard Garriott, excerpted from an interview at the Summer 1993 CES promoting Sega-CD's version of Ultima Underworld II: Labyrinth of Worlds

    Summer 1993 CES Special

    Summer 1992's CES was all about the new optical CD add-ons on the video game front, but this year it's all about the games, and all the major players in the industry had something to show at this year's event.

    The Nintendo booth was a fun place to be, with a variety of games on display for the Super Nintendo and its CD add-on, as well as the Gameboy. Super Mario All-Stars was the headlining game at the Super Nintendo display, with a massive banner promoting the game and a large number of demo kiosks. This game is an updated re-release compilation of the NES Mario Bros. titles and even includes the original Super Mario Bros. 2, which has been re-branded as the Lost Levels. Street Fighter II Turbo, which brings most of the gameplay enhancements of the SNES-CD's Arcade Edition, along with a new Hyper Fighting Mode, was also prominently displayed here. We got a glimpse of Super Metroid, which wasn't yet playable, as well as Star Tropics II, which was originally announced for the NES, but is now making its way to the Super Nintendo sometime next spring. One more title that we were really intrigued by was “Earthbound”, a remake of a very quirky NES RPG called “Mother”. The game has had a lot of work done on it, including graphical enhancements and re-balanced difficulty, along with a re-scored soundtrack that should make it a big hit among RPG lovers.

    The SNES-CD had plenty to show off as well. We got a quick preview of Hideo Kojima's PC hit “Snatcher”, which looks to make its way to the SNES-CD sometime early next year. We also got glimpses of movie-based games “The Terminator” and “Jurassic Park”, and a playable demo of Battletoads II, which looks really nice and should be out this December. The SNES-CD's most intriguing title for this year, however, appears to be a game that's more than two years in the making. It's the long-awaited Project Mana, known in Japan as “Seiken Densetsu 2” and has been revealed as Secret Of Mana in the West. The game looks extremely promising, Nintendo and Squaresoft are saying that the main quest has over 60 hours worth of gameplay and the graphics and sound are among the best we've ever seen in a video game. The game also takes advantage of the SNES-CD's multiplayer capabilities, allowing three people to play at once, a first for an RPG such as this. A nearly-completed version was available for demonstration at the SNES-CD booth and it was one of the most crowded booths at the show.

    Sega also had an impressive CES, something they needed in the wake of Nintendo's rising sales. They showed off the Sega Genesis and Sega CD versions of Disney's Aladdin and the game looked quite good, especially the Sega CD version of the game, with very fluid animation and lively music. Gunstar Heroes was one of the more surprising hits of the Sega booth, rivaling Secret of Mana's display as one of the most crowded of the whole show. The very fun run-and-gun shooter game from Treasure looks to be one of the best Genesis exclusives of the year and it's one we can't wait to review. There were two huge Sega CD games on display, the first being Sega's answer to the hit Super Mario World 2... Sonic CD was fully playable and looked amazing, the gameplay involves time travel as Sonic travels between past and future versions of worlds to make changes that effect one or the other. The graphics looked as good as anything we've seen on a console and the music is typical Sonic awesomeness, perfectly fitting the stages and levels it accompanies. For our money, Sonic CD is in a dead heat with Secret of Mana as our Summer 1993 CES “Best Of Show”, with our editors unable to decide who comes out on top. Sega was also keen to show off its newly acquired property, the Ultima series, just purchased by the company to provide an RPG rival of sorts to Nintendo and Squaresoft's Final Fantasy. The Sega CD's Ultima Underworld II looks like a perfect port of the PC version and Sega is really hyping it up as one of their biggest games of the year, it's a classic dungeon crawler where you explore a dark labyrinth while fighting countless hordes of enemies, and Richard Garriott was present at Sega's booth to answer every question that reporters could throw at him. The SNES-CD has had an outstanding year but if Sega's CES was any indication, this company is poised to strike back in a big way, and this Christmas could go down as the holiday that Sega finally knocks Nintendo off its throne.

    -Electronic Gaming Monthly's Summer 1993 CES recap, from their September 1993 issue

    -

    SNES-CD Power Charts – June 1993
    (italics signifies an unreleased game without sales figures included, bold signifies a newly released game with sales figures included for the first time)

    1. Super Mario Kart – 16,982
    2. Super Mario World 2 – 15,774
    3. Street Fighter II: Arcade Edition – 15,081
    4. Final Fantasy: New Generation – 11,486
    5. Super Turrican – 11,374
    6. Star Fox – 9,648
    7. Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego? - 8,845
    8. Mad Dog McCree – 8,742
    9. Final Fantasy III – 8,405
    10. Pickton Lake – 6,075
    11. Lethal Enforcers – 5,629
    12. Alien 3 – 5,051
    13. Run Saber – 4,645
    14. Battletoads II – 4,113
    15. Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts CD – 3,611
    16. Sewer Shark – 3,218
    17. Super Bomberman CD – 2,842
    18. Shadowrun – 2,804
    19. Final Fight II – 2,114
    20. Double Switch – 1,995

    SNES-CD Power Charts – July 1993

    1. Super Mario World 2 – 37,186
    2. Super Mario Kart – 14,382
    3. Street Fighter II: Arcade Edition – 13,906
    4. Final Fantasy: New Generation – 10,766
    5. Star Fox – 9,841
    6. Final Fantasy III – 8,641
    7. Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego? - 6,642
    8. Super Turrican – 6,124
    9. Lethal Enforcers – 6,066
    10. SimEarth: The Living Planet – 4,865
    11. Mad Dog McCree – 4,772
    12. Battletoads II – 4,305
    13. Dragon's Destiny – 3,862
    14. Pickton Lake – 3,730
    15. Alien 3 – 3,641
    16. P.T.O.: Pacific Theater of Operations – 3,179
    17. Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective – 2,840
    18. Super Bomberman CD – 2,826
    19. Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts CD – 2,617
    20. Run Saber – 2,446

    -

    July 23, 1993

    James Jordan slept in his car just off Interstate 95 in Lumberton, North Carolina. He was heading back home from attending a funeral, and he'd pulled off the road after he felt himself getting sleepy behind the wheel. No sense in risking another hour on the road, not when he had so much going well for him. His son Michael was the greatest basketball player in the world, having just won his third straight NBA championship. He loved seeing his son succeed. Michael had talked to him just recently about having become bored with the game and intimated to him an idea about taking up baseball, the sport James loved to play. How had Michael put it? He had “no more mountains to climb”? But James knew of plenty more accomplishments for his son to go after. He still had seven fingers without rings, after all. Or currently, nine fingers, as James was holding onto two of his son's championship rings as he slept in that car that warm summer night.

    The sound of sirens stirred the man from his slumber. He sat up just in time to see a car speeding past with three police patrol vehicles in hot pursuit. The two 18-year-olds inside the speeding car had just shot a truck driver to death, just to steal a few of the video game consoles he'd been hauling.

    James didn't care about video games and he had no idea why that car had been going so fast. All he knew was that he'd been having a good dream about his son winning a fourth NBA championship and the police chase had roused him from sleep.

    “Damn fools,” James muttered to himself, rolling over in an attempt to get back to sleep. He needed his rest. He still had quite a drive tomorrow.

    -

    August 2, 1993

    Ken Kutaragi couldn't help but smile as he read the latest sales reports from North America. The Super Nintendo CD had had another outstanding mouth, posting its biggest sales month yet in fact. Star Fox had been a major hit, and Final Fantasy III was currently the fourth fastest selling SNES-CD game in North America, behind only Super Mario World 2, Star Fox, and Super Mario Kart. It was even outselling Street Fighter II, though that would likely change as the game's initial sales rush died down. The SNES CD was rapidly catching up to the Sega CD in total sales and it would only be a matter of time at the current pace before Sega's peripheral was overtaken. Though the future of Nintendo and Sony's joint venture had seemed in doubt just three months before, things were looking brighter every day.

    At the same time, Kutaragi had something else to be overjoyed about. The promise he'd made to his boss Norio Ohga about music CD sales was coming true. CD sales were soaring around the world, the highest they'd ever been, and business and music news sources were all in agreement: The Super Nintendo CD was a major factor. Indeed, the peripheral was the world's best-selling CD player of 1993, with tens of thousands flying off the shelves daily. Every CD sold was money in Sony's pocket and the money they'd put into production and development of the SNES-CD was rapidly being replenished. Even Norio Ohga was cracking a smile from time to time. As humble as Kutaragi tried to be, he couldn't help but feel that the gratification he got from Mr. Ohga made all of the risks he'd taken worthwhile.

    -

    Across the world in Redwood City, California, Tom Kalinske had been expecting a call for the last few days. While his bosses at Sega of Japan had told him that his latest endeavor was not something he should be pursuing, he had promised that if this venture paid off, it would be Sega's ace in the hole, the one thing they had that could counter the powerhouse combination of Nintendo and Sony. If this venture failed, Kalinske knew that Sega would be playing catch-up for years...indeed, that they might never recover.

    Kalinske's phone rang. He picked it up and when he heard the voice on the other end of the line, a smile crossed his face. He even let out a small chuckle.

    “Mr. Kalinske, this is Ed McCracken with Silicon Graphics. How are you doing today?”

    “I'm quite good, thank you,” Kalinske replied. “I was actually waiting for your call.”

    “Ahhh, that's a good sign I think,” said McCracken with a chuckle of his own. “So that means it's a go?”

    “Yeah,” said Kalinske with a nod. “If your company's willing to help us with Project Saturn then it's absolutely a go. My bosses are gonna need some convincing, how soon can you start work on a tech demo?”

    “We've got one ready to go. We can fly to Japan this week. We're really looking forward to working with you.”

    “So am I, Ed, so am I.”
     
    • August 1993, Part 1 - Silicon Sega

    • RySenkari

    (Before this next update, I'd like to mention the excellent book "Console Wars" by Blake Harris, about the 90s battle between Nintendo and Sega. While the events depicted in that book are largely butterflied away by Nintendo's fateful decision in the POD, it was still a great source to glean from in terms of what Sega's mindset was during this whole time, and I recommend it to anyone interested in video game history. "The Chase", mentioned in this update, is basically TTL's version of that book. :p)

    -

    “I did my best not to look it, but I was so nervous during that meeting. The future of Sega hinged on what the guys in Japan thought of Ed's presentation. In order for them to give the go-ahead to working with Silicon Graphics, we'd have to convince them that this technology was the right way to go for Project Saturn. I wasn't used to letting someone else do most of the talking for me, but Ed and the Silicon Graphics people really blew them away. I had to keep myself from cracking a smile every time I saw one of those stoic Japanese businessmen raise an eyebrow at what they were seeing on the screen. It was like the World Series of Poker in that room, everyone trying not to show what they were really thinking. Of course, like in poker, the only thing that mattered was having the best hand, and Silicon Graphics was holding a royal flush that day.”
    -Tom Kalinske, “The Sega Saturn Story (Part 1 of 3)”, IGN.com, September 16, 2005

    “When we first got the Project Saturn dev kit, which at that time was super top-secret because Sega did NOT what Nintendo to know what they were up to, I was pretty blown away at the kind of things this new game system was capable of, way more than anything on the Super Famicom or even their new CD system. Aladdin for the Super Famicom had just come out and it had been a big hit, so I was pretty confident that I could do something with this new hardware. I had an idea for a game, it was kind of like that old Sweet Home game for the Famicom, something that would involve horror, and it was really the kind of thing you couldn't do yet on any of the Nintendo devices. The Super Famicom CD was doing some nice stuff with point and click, but this game I wanted to be in real time and Sega's new console would be the first home gaming device capable of that.”
    -Shinji Mikami, interview in Famitsu magazine, February 1998

    “We're not too worried about what Sega's doing with their new partner. We have a big year ahead at Sony and we're looking forward to putting out the best games on the market for the Super Nintendo CD.”
    -Ólafur Jóhann Ólafsson, interview at the 1994 Winter CES

    “Sega CD: A whole new world of entertainment.”
    -”Whole New World” marketing campaign for Sega CD, which began airing a new series of commercials in October 1993

    -

    August 10, 1993

    Tom Kalinske couldn't have been more pleased with how the meeting between Sega's top brass in Japan and the team from Silicon Graphics had gone. They'd put together a demo package of gameplay that utilized one of their newest graphics chips, a chip that could be put into Sega's next console to provide PC-quality visuals on a home gaming device. They'd shown how their chip could make Sega's console capable of real-time 3D graphics that far outstripped anything the Sega CD was capable of, with four times the processing power and speed that made Sega's “Blast Processing” look archaic. Hayao Nakayama had personally given his approval to Tom Kalinske to make Silicon Graphics' new chip a critical component of Project Saturn. While most of Sega's creative energy would continue to be put into the Sega Genesis and its CD add-on, development on Project Saturn, Sega's next generation console, would now begin in earnest, with a target release date sometime in 1995.

    -

    Once I had Silicon Graphics behind me, and Japan's support, I knew the real work was about to begin. I had to get third-party support for this thing, which I was having trouble securing for the Sega-CD. However, once we started sending out feelers toward potential partners, the responses we got were extremely encouraging. Capcom was behind us from the start, which was fantastic and was something I couldn't help but do some celebratory fist pumps over. I knew there was no way we'd be able to poach them from Nintendo but they'd been playing both sides of the console wars for quite some time and they were happy to continue doing so in the future. We learned that one of their development teams had been given the go-ahead to start working on this horror game for the new hardware, and what they were able to produce after a few months was really promising. We also heard from a team of British developers, Core Design, about this idea for an action-adventure game starring a woman protagonist, and as a guy with daughters at home, it was nice that there was going to be a hero that girls could possibly identify with. I mean, Nintendo did have Samus, but she was kept hidden in a suit for all of her games, and the other major female characters at Nintendo were all damsels-in-distress! Then there was Crystal Dynamics, who were working on games for 3DO at the time. They were EASY to convince to start working on Project Saturn games, because they were struggling with the 3DO's limitations. It was rumored that the 3DO wasn't even as powerful as the Super Nintendo CD, and Trip Hawkins wanted to charge $700 for it? When the 3DO became one of the biggest flops in gaming history, I think it more than justified their decision to hop on board with us. Then there was Silicon Knights, who'd been so impressed by our Project Saturn specs that they not only offered to make games for it, but also agreed to port their Fantasy Empires and Dark Legions games to the Sega CD in 1994, which boosted that system's library at a time that we sorely needed it.

    It's hard to express how happy I was to have picked up Silicon Graphics after Nintendo snubbed them for development of their own next generation console. It was funny, because they'd told us that they'd sought out Nintendo before us BECAUSE of their alliance with Sony, and then Nintendo's alliance with Sony was the reason they'd turned Silicon Graphics down! Nintendo had been stealing our thunder for quite some time. I remember one of the moments when I was quite annoyed with them, we were all set for the Sega CD launch in 1992 and we'd gotten a really good slogan, “Welcome To The Next Level” to use in our advertising. We go to trademark it and lo and behold, Nintendo had trademarked “Take It To The Next Level” for their Nintendo CD just three weeks before we came up with our slogan. We had to launch the Sega CD with some other silly phrase, I don't even remember it off the top of my head, and I know it hurt our sales once the Super Nintendo CD was out. We eventually borrowed “A Whole New World” from Disney around the time they helped us with our Sega CD Aladdin game, we used “A Whole New World Of Entertainment” for our big Sega CD promotional push in late 1993 and I think that moved some CD add-ons for us, so it came out all right in the end. But I knew that picking up Silicon Graphics after Nintendo turned them down would be a huge coup for us.

    And, for a time at least, I was right.

    -Tom Kalinske, “The Chase: Sega's 20 Year Struggle To Take Down A Giant”, released in May 2014

    -

    “Going into the winter of 1993, we had damn good reason to be confident. Super Nintendo CD sales had passed those of the Sega CD, but we were still selling more Genesis consoles than Nintendo was selling Super Nintendo systems. In addition to that, the SNES CD's holiday lineup looked pretty lousy. Their big three games of the holiday season were looking to be The Terminator, Secret Of Mana, and Battletoads II, while on the Sega CD, we had Aladdin, Ultima Underworld II, and Sonic CD. The Sega CD's Aladdin was set to be THE definitive version of the game. There were versions coming out for the Super Nintendo and our own Genesis, but the Sega CD version had smoother animation, better music, more levels, and it was the only one that was going to have cutscenes from the movie itself. We were working with Disney on putting together a big marketing push and it was going to be a big system seller. Then we had Ultima Underworld II, which was going to include the original Ultima Underworld as a pack-in. That was two games in one, and we were going up against a totally new franchise in Secret of Mana. At that time Ultima was THE premiere name in video game role-playing, and on name recognition alone we felt confident that we could outsell Secret of Mana no problem. Finally was Sonic CD, that was the big one and we thought it would put CD units in homes the same way Super Mario World 2 had done for Nintendo. Tom was going to slash the Sega CD's price to $149.99, and on top of that, if you bought a $99.99 Genesis that holiday season, you'd get a $20 mail-in rebate on the Sega CD! That meant you could get both for $229.99. Even though we knew Nintendo was about to cut the Super Nintendo's price down to $149.99 and the price of their Playstation CD combo set to $299.99, we'd still be coming in at $70 less. With all those games AND Sonic 3 set to come out for the Genesis, buying Sega consoles would be a no-brainer that year and we were going to launch an aggressive marketing blitz to that effect. We knew that the biggest battle of the console wars would be waged over Christmas 1993, and we were going to throw everything into it.”
    -Excerpted from an interview with Al Nilsen, “1993: The Year That Changed Gaming Forever (10 Years On)”, Gamespot.com, January 18, 2003

    -

    RPG Update!

    Nintendo is set to release big RPGs for the Super Nintendo this winter, both here and in Japan! First is an update on “Earthbound”, which is still set for release for the Super Nintendo this December. From the mind of Shigesato Itoi, Earthbound is a remake of the 1989 NES RPG “Mother”, about a young boy who sets out on an incredible adventure to battle a mysterious alien menace! It's a bit stranger than some of the role-playing games you might be used to, but we think that players will be pleasantly surprised at how quickly the story will pull players in!

    Meanwhile in Japan, the third installment of Nintendo's Fire Emblem series is set for release for the Super Famicom. It's the console's first ever 24-bit cartridge and we have to say it looks absolutely fantastic, putting every one of those 24 bits to work! So far, there aren't any plans to release the game in the United States, but with the success of the Super Nintendo CD add-on, the fourth installment of the series could well find its way to Western shores! Stay tuned!
    -From the August 1993 issue of Nintendo Power

    -

    SNES-CD Power Charts – August 1993

    1. Super Mario World 2 – 32,065
    2. Super Mario Kart – 17,045
    3. Super Bomberman CD – 14,071
    4. Star Fox – 12,686
    5. Street Fighter II: Arcade Edition – 12,285
    6. Lethal Enforcers – 11,726
    7. Alien 3 – 9,227
    8. Final Fantasy: New Generation – 8,341
    9. Final Fantasy III – 7,886
    10. MechWarrior – 7,501
    11. Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego? - 5,806
    12. Shadowrun – 5,564
    13. Super Turrican – 5,206
    14. Battletoads II – 4,701
    15. Mad Dog McCree – 4,161
    16. SimEarth: The Living Planet – 3,819
    17. Pickton Lake – 3,548
    18. Final Fight II – 2,981
    19. P.T.O.: Pacific Theater of Operations – 2,504
    20. Family Feud – 2,014
     
    • August 1993, Part 2 - Skeleton Crew

    • RySenkari

    “So on the Super Famicom CD, we have this new technology that allows for full-motion video. And my philosophy has always been and probably always will be that it's unnecessary. If the game is fun to play, it doesn't need the full-motion video. But it can be nice....to have it, in a game, a little bit of it. I see it like, it's ketchup. And a good game is like a delicious hamburger. And if you put a little bit of ketchup on the hamburger it can make it taste better. But you wouldn't want to eat an entire bowl full of ketchup and nothing else, right? *laughs* So these games that are just full-motion video and nothing else, if it was up to me we wouldn't have them on here at all. I know the Sega CD system has lots of them, and we're seeing more and more of them on the Super Famicom CD, but I don't want them. There's a terrible game, a game that was on the Sega CD, with these girls in a house, and it showed video of the girls and you clicked buttons to set off traps and trap the girls or something like that. And some people wanted to put it on the Super Nintendo CD and I was absolutely against it, I rarely get mad but when I thought about the possibility of a game like that on there I was furious. That's not a game. That's just a movie that you push buttons to. It wasn't up to me but I made my opinion known. I think....I think the idea behind some of the full-motion video is that companies are trying to fill the whole disc. You have these compact discs, and they have so much memory and you can put so much on them, but you don't have to fill up the whole disc! It's like, when we were making Super Mario World 2. We had all that space and that let us put more music on there, rich music, and that took up most of the memory of the game if I recall. We had better animations for the characters, and some voice clips, and it let us put more levels in the game, more secret levels which are nice, but we had...I think it was a little more than half the disc was just empty space! And that was fine. There might have been the temptation to put animated scenes on there but we told our story with the still shots and the on-screen narration and we did it very effectively. We didn't need to fill up the disc. I don't see why there's this big need among all these game makers to fill up the whole disc. We could put 10,000 Super Mario Bros. games on one of these discs. As long as the game is fun, it doesn't matter.”
    -Shigeru Miyamoto, translated from an interview in the October 1993 issue of Famitsu magazine

    “One of my favorite Super Nintendo CD moments is at the end of Deadman Sam, the underworld wedding scene! That scene was adorable, you have Sam and Nellie and all their little friends in the afterlife, and it doesn't matter that it's a skeleton marrying a ghost, it's just the cutest thing! That was one of my favorite games.”
    -Comment from a “Talk Amongst Yourselves: SNES-CD 20th Anniversary Memories” post on Kotaku.com, December 5, 2012

    “And he's off! And we're off on the 1993 Super Toy Run! And he's going right for the Super Nintendo CD! He's going right for it first thing and he's grabbing it and all the games he can carry! Holy cow look at all those games!”
    -Mike O'Malley, announcing the 1993 Nickelodeon Super Toy Run

    -

    Though the Super Nintendo CD featured many installments of long-running video game franchises, the add-on launched a number of franchises of its own. By 1993, when it was entering its full swing, the SNES-CD played host to a growing number of original franchise games. People remember games like the kiddie horror classic Pickton Lake, but it was Deadman Sam, which was released in North America in August of 1993, that was perhaps the system's biggest early franchise launch. Created by Tecmo, Deadman Sam is a horror platformer somewhat comparable to Ghouls 'n Ghosts, though it's considerably easier and more forgiving. You can pick up a variety of weapons and powers to help defeat the myriad of enemies standing in your path. The game's graphics were considered quite good for a 1993 Super Nintendo CD game, featuring excellent animation on the character of Deadman Sam and a great variety of colorful and spooky levels to venture through, eighteen in all over the course of the game. The music is both upbeat and haunting, with the game using the SNES' CD capabilities to full effect, providing one of the most audibly deep soundtracks on the system. There's also voice acting, not much but in certain scenes, Sam, Nellie, Scagwell, and a few other characters have some spoken lines. It PROBABLY could have been done on the SNES (and was done on the Gameboy in 1995 in Deadman Sam's Spooky Quest, a scaled down sort-of remake of the original featuring only seven levels), but the Super Nintendo CD really brings Sam's world to life, allowing for the kinds of animation and auditory detail that wouldn't have been possible on the vanilla SNES. You could tell that the SNES CD's capabilities inspired the creators of this game and that without it, Deadman Sam the game and franchise (with nine main series games and seven portable and side games) probably wouldn't exist.

    The game's storyline is a bit macabre but in its own sweetly fun little way. You're put into the role of Samuel, a young nobleman engaged to be wed to the beautiful Nellie. But on the eve of Samuel's wedding night he is the victim of murder most foul at the hands of Baron Scagwell, a rival for Nellie's hand. Samuel is sent to the underworld, where he becomes a skeletal hero now known as Deadman Sam. As Deadman Sam ventures through the underworld in order to liberate its denizens so that they might afford him a chance to see Nellie once more, Scagwell, who has gotten away with the crime, woos Nellie and eventually arranges a wedding between the two of them (though it is Nellie's cruel parents and not Nellie, who is suspicious of Scagwell and investigates the crime while Sam is venturing through the underworld, who insist upon Nellie marrying him). Eventually, Deadman Sam defeats the cruel demonic tyrant who is making the lives of his new underworld friends a living, well, hell, and he is afforded a chance to return to the world of the living (though still in his skeletal form which he has gradually taken a liking to). Meanwhile, Nellie has solved the mystery of Sam's death and confronts Scagwell...which turns out to be a fatal mistake. Just as Sam arrives, Scagwell murders Nellie, who whispers her last words of love to Sam just as she passes away. Sam and Scagwell engage in single combat, but as Sam seemingly defeats the murderous baron, he invokes a dark spell to transform into a hideous monster. Just as all seems lost, Nellie returns as a ghost of pure light, taking the form of a magical sword that Sam uses to defeat Scagwell once and for all. The skeletal Sam and the ghostly Nellie then descend to the underworld where they have a glorious wedding surrounded by all of Sam's new friends.

    While Deadman Sam was overshadowed both in sales and critical reception by some of the other great games to come out for the Super Nintendo CD that year, it's an enduring reminder of what great technology can inspire in the minds of game creators, and it still holds up to this day.
    -Excerpted from “Early Gems Of The Super Nintendo CD”, an article posted on Gamesovermatter.com, December 17, 2013

    -

    Super Caesars Palace CD

    Steve: 6
    Ed: 5 (quote: “This slightly upgraded version of the SNES game features unnecessary FMVs and little else to distinguish it from its cartridge cousin. If you want Vegas on your home console, stick to Vegas Stakes.”)
    Martin: 8
    Sushi-X: 6

    Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys

    Steve: 5 (quote: “The classic characters don't really make this stand out from the other point-and-click mystery games for the SNES-CD, and the lousy acting from the actors playing the titular characters made me pine for the books instead.”)
    Ed: 6
    Martin: 7
    Sushi-X: 3

    Final Fight II

    Steve: 8
    Ed: 7
    Martin: 8 (quote: “This virtually arcade perfect brawler is better than the original! Mike Haggar returns in this fast-paced and really fun beat 'em up, and while not much has changed from the first game, the smooth graphics and realistic sounds offered up by the SNES-CD make this game refreshingly fun.”
    Sushi-X: 7

    Dune

    Steve: 7
    Ed: 9 (quote: “An incredible adaptation of the classic Frank Herbert science fiction novel, blending adventure and strategy elements into a fantastic quest. The music is probably the best part of this game and it shines on the Super Nintendo CD. Now you no longer need a computer to experience this instant classic.”)
    Martin: 8
    Sushi-X: 8

    Syndicate

    Steve: 8
    Ed: 7 (quote: “A brutally fun strategy game offering up a variety of weapons to eradicate your foes. Between this and Dune it's been a really good month for sci-fi strategy games on the SNES-CD.”)
    Martin: 8
    Sushi-X: 8

    Flashback: The Quest For Identity

    Steve: 9
    Ed: 9
    Martin: 9 (quote: “This sequel to Out Of This World features the best graphics I've ever seen on a home console game. It looks like a cartoon come to life and the full-motion video sequences take up the entire screen. A beautiful showcase for the SNES-CD's abilities.”)
    Sushi-X: 8

    Deadman Sam

    Steve: 9 (quote: “This spooky action game from Tecmo is a breath of fresh air. Great music and lovable characters make this one of my favorite platform games of the year!”)
    Ed: 8
    Martin: 9
    Sushi-X: 8

    The Swarm

    Steve: 7
    Ed: 7
    Martin: 7
    Sushi-X: 7 (quote: “This game puts you in the shoes of a hotshot pilot who's trying to take down an alien invasion. I'm not a big fan of flying games but as far as those go, it's decent enough. The play controls are nice and if Starfox is a bit too corny for you, give The Swarm a shot.”)

    -reviews of August 1993's SNES-CD releases in the September and October 1993 issues of Electronic Gaming Monthly

    -

    “Yeah, I remember when Syndicate came out, in August 1993 I believe, we had some problems with that. There'd already been a bit of controversy over Mad Dog McCree, but that had blown over fairly quickly. We put out Syndicate, completely uncensored with a 17 rating and we still saw some complaints about the level of violence, with all the blood and the fact that you could kill lots of people. Mad Dog McCree, it was realistic but there was no blood and all the people you killed were criminals. Here, in Syndicate, the graphics weren't very detailed, but, you know, the number of people you could kill in the game, it was a lot more and there were parents who got the game who wrote us some angry correspondences. We'd made the decision to allow pretty much any game on the Super Nintendo CD though, so we were ready for all of that.

    And, of course, compared to the shitstorm that we were about to face, well...let's just say people forgot about Syndicate very quickly.”
    -Peter Main, excerpted from an Electronic Gaming Monthly interview, June 2006

    -

    Nintendo and Telenet Japan Team Up For Future SNES-CD Projects

    It's been announced today that Nintendo has signed on software producer Telenet Japan for a series of Nintendo exclusive games, particularly focusing on the Super Nintendo CD! What's more, they're planning to have these games available for both Japanese and American consumers, with Telenet Japan particularly citing North America as a great new source of potential sales. Telenet Japan recently released the FMV game “Time Gal” for both the Super Nintendo CD and Sega-CD systems, though this new deal covers games in many different genres.

    First up is “Soulqueen”, set for a release next spring. It's a space shooter in the style of Gradius and Axelay, but in addition to its fast-paced space shooting action, the game's story will be told through animated full-motion video sequences between levels and through voiced lines during the levels themselves. Said a Telenet Japan representative, “The presentation capabilities of the Super Nintendo CD will open up new opportunities to create memorable characters and worlds.” Space shooters are frequently cited as a way to test the capabilities of a game system, and with an SNES-CD version of Axelay coming out next month, Telenet Japan's “Soulqueen” may well be striking while the iron is hot!

    As for other future projects, no information has been officially stated, but the rumor mill is buzzing that the action series “Valis” may receive an SNES-CD installment sometime in the future. There's also some news that Telenet's development division Wolfteam has caught the eye of Nintendo and that a possible fantasy-based project could be in the early stages of development. Watch this space for further details!
    -excerpted from an article in Gamepro, August 1993

    -

    Interviewer: Tell us about Night Trap, because... looking back, I cannot believe that Sony was prepared to fight so hard to get it onto the Super Nintendo CD. Of all the games that they could have invoked their “show cause” clause over...

    Tom Zito: Oh, I know. I mean, here's the thing. Night Trap had been released for the Sega-CD, like almost a year before. At launch. And it WAS going to be a launch game for the Super Nintendo CD, but Nintendo kept stonewalling Sony, who had our backs and wanted it on there. Howard Lincoln kept saying it was never gonna happen. We heard Shigeru Miyamoto had thrown a fit when the idea of this game being released on the SNES-CD had been floated over there in Japan. Miyamoto! A fit! Can you believe it? But we thought, at the time, that it'd be a huge hit. It had sold well enough to turn a profit, they loved it over in England, we thought if we released it in like October 1993 it would fly off the shelves that holiday season.

    Interviewer: But Nintendo kept saying no.

    Tom Zito: They kept saying that they absolutely weren't going to allow it, and of course they had right of first refusal on any potential SNES-CD games...but Sony had a clause that would force them to show cause for that. They'd have to go up in front of an arbitrator and explain why Night Trap would hurt Nintendo. And, of course this was before all the Congressional hearings and all the Joe Lieberman stuff, this was in like summer of 1993. So they had no reason, besides, you know, it being a bad game...

    Interviewer: Yeah, I think we had it ranked like...third worst game of all time in our recent list? One slot behind “Who Kidnapped Santa Claus?”.

    Tom Zito: Yeah, that's another thing, they approved Who Kidnapped Santa Claus the very next year, but not Night Trap? Are you kidding me? But Nintendo had put their foot down and they were prepared to fight to keep the game off their system. But at the same time, Sony also wanted Nintendo to allow them to put an uncensored version of Mortal Kombat on the Super Nintendo CD, with all the blood and gore and everything. And Nintendo relented on that to keep Sony from pushing the Night Trap issue.

    Interviewer: Are you still bitter? I know at the time you thought Sony had sold you out.

    Tom Zito: Well, now, I mean, it's the best thing that could've happened probably. I was mad about not getting our game on there, sure, but looking back...Night Trap really wasn't that good. I defended the hell out of it in front of Congress, but even among the games we did, Corpse Killer, Maximum Surge, those games were a lot better. And those made it to the SNES-CD. And in the meantime, Nintendo had to face the full front of all the backlash from putting uncensored Mortal Kombat on their system. When I wasn't up there sweating it out in front of those Congressmen, I was laughing, because they took a beating up there.

    -interview with Tom Zito, CEO of Digital Pictures, from GameInformer magazine, March 2004

    -

    SNES-CD Power Charts – September 1993

    1. Star Fox – 27,158
    2. Super Mario World 2 – 26,883
    3. Super Mario Kart – 16,481
    4. Street Fighter II: Arcade Edition – 13,744
    5. Final Fantasy III – 11,052
    6. Super Bomberman CD – 10,741
    7. Lethal Enforcers – 8,166
    8. Final Fantasy: New Generation – 7,701
    9. ClayFighter – 7,528
    10. The Lost Vikings – 6,580
    11. Alien 3 – 6,422
    12. MechWarrior – 4,705
    13. Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego? - 4,686
    14. Shadowrun – 4,621
    15. Battletoads II – 4,517
    16. Super Turrican – 3,554
    17. Final Fight II – 2,755
    18. Mad Dog McCree – 2,504
    19. SimEarth: The Living Planet – 2,322
    20. Pickton Lake – 2,208

    -

    September 13, 1993

    On what was known throughout the gaming world as “Mortal Monday”, the home console version of Mortal Kombat was released on the Super Nintendo, the Sega Genesis, the Gameboy, the Sega Game Gear, and the Super Nintendo CD. Though the Super Nintendo, Gameboy, and Game Gear versions were all censored, with all the blood, gore, and the worst of the game's brutal “Fatality” moves cut out, the Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo CD versions had the blood and gore completely intact...the Genesis version required the entry of a code to unlock the uncensored game, while the Super Nintendo CD version, which came with a larger than normal, red, 17 and up label that took up nearly a quarter of the space on the front of the CD case, did not. The Super Nintendo CD version was also the only version to feature arcade quality graphics that easily surpassed those available on the Sega Genesis.

    Though the Genesis version was the top seller from the start, easily dwarfing sales of the censored Super Nintendo version, the Super Nintendo CD version was close behind...and like Super Mario World 2 had done five months earlier, Mortal Kombat was moving add-on consoles and combo sets at a significant pace. Needless to say, both Nintendo of Japan and Nintendo of America had incredible trepidation over allowing this bloody and brutally violent game on any of their home consoles, even with a big red warning label on the cover and explicit and repeated instructions to all their retailers not to sell the game to anyone who even looked like they were younger than 17.

    “I regretted it as soon as I gave my approval,” Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi would later be quoted as saying. Over the next few weeks, the decision to port the uncensored version of Mortal Kombat to the Super Nintendo CD would be both the dumbest...and the most brilliant decision Nintendo had ever made.
     
    • MOOOORRTAAAL KOOOMBAAAAAT!

    • RySenkari

    MOOOORRRRTAAAALLL KOOOMMMMBAAAAT!!!

    (Once again, I've got to credit Blake Harris' “Console Wars” for providing a lot of the background into the video game violence hearings of 1993. Even as butterflies take this TL farther and farther away from OTL, it's been an invaluable resource.)

    -

    “Since 1985, Nintendo has been committed to providing a family-friendly entertainment experience. Our company chose to put limits on the kind of content that we would allow on our systems. The Nintendo Entertainment System and the Super Nintendo Entertainment System both have restrictions on the kinds of games that are allowed to be produced for those consoles. When we decided to allow less restrictions for our CD-ROM accessory, we knew we were making a conscious decision that more violent and more potentially controversial games would be allowed and that those games might end up in the hands of younger players, IF we did not do our due diligence to inform our retail partners that those games were not to be played by anyone under the age of 17. Nintendo has gone above and beyond to inform retailers, advertisers, and most importantly, parents about the kinds of content in certain games released for the device. Nintendo has spent millions and millions of dollars in advertisements and retail kiosks to allow parents to make informed decisions about the kinds of games that their children will be allowed to play. We are proud to be an industry leader in establishing a ratings system for those games, a rating system which, I must remind the committee, Sega did not have until June of this year.”
    -Howard Lincoln, testifying before a Senate committee on the effects of violent video games, September 30, 1993

    “The problem, Mr. Lincoln, that I have with your games, is that when you go to buy a video game in the store, the violent games, the sexually explicit games, are right next to the games intended for children. You've got Mortal Kombat right next to the uh, the Carmen Sandiego game, and when a kid looks up at those games, which one is he going to want to buy? A parent might be trying to buy a game to encourage their child to learn but when they see the Mortal Kombat game, you think they're going to want to get something educational? I mean...you wouldn't see a store putting the vibrators and the fuzzy handcuffs next to the Barbie dolls would you?”
    -Senator Joseph Lieberman, Senate committee on the effects of violent video games, September 30, 1993

    “This gun, this automatic machine gun that Nintendo puts out for their games... *holds up the Super Scope 6* this can be used for Yoshi's Safari. This is for a game they've got rated for general audiences. This game came out three days ago. For a kids' game with a green dinosaur and fun, colorful graphics, this gun is used. Oh, and this is the newest issue of Nintendo Power, their official magazine that they put out every month. *holds up the October 1993 issue of Nintendo Power* They have The Terminator on the cover, this is their big game this month. This is based on a rated-R movie.”
    -Bill White, testifying before a Senate committee on the effects of violent video games, September 30, 1993

    “And that was like the kill shot, right there. Once Bill pulled out that gun and that magazine, I could just see the look on Howard Lincoln's face. He'd been so composed for that whole time but once that took place he kind of lost his cool a bit and I could see that Bill was getting a lot more comfortable. And you see Lieberman and Kohl, they're kind of looking at each other and sort of nodding their heads, I mean, Nintendo had totally lost the moral high ground and for the first time that day it was Sega starting to look like the good guys. I knew we were all sort of in the doghouse with the Senate but if Nintendo got the worst of it it'd be a lot better for us.”
    -Tom Kalinske, “The Chase: Sega's 20 Year Struggle To Take Down A Giant”

    “Well, I know that my movie The Terminator came up, and I looked at the game, and it's not as violent as the movie, there's no blood or anything like that. I'm not a big fan of the video games anyway, I think that America's youths need to be out exercising, I think that the games are putting a lot of kids on the couch, and they don't realize how fun physical activity can be. I don't know if the government should step in and censor games but I know they should be doing more to encourage physical activity in schools.”
    -Arnold Schwarzenegger, from an Entertainment Tonight interview on October 2, 1993

    -

    September 17, 1993

    Bill Andresen could hear some very loud noises coming from the TV in the living room. His son Chris was having some friends over, and one of his friends had brought the newest sensation for the Super Nintendo CD: Mortal Kombat. Bill had never seen the game in person before, and he decided to take a look at just what was making his son and his son's friends so excited.

    He entered the room and watched the action on the screen. The vivid colors and lifelike animation showed a fairly realistic looking fight between two characters, Sub-Zero and Raiden. His son Chris was using Sub-Zero and was winning quite handily, delivering a flurry of fierce blows before freezing his opponent solid.

    “Well that's pretty neat...” Bill thought, before Raiden went into a daze and the words 'FINISH HIM!' appeared on screen in bright red letters.

    “Oooh, yeah yeah yeah, rip his head off, rip his head off!” shouted one of the boys, prompting Chris to input a series of button presses on the controller that triggered Sub-Zero's fatality. Sub-Zero walked over to Raiden, yanking Raiden's head right off his neck with a shower of blood. Raiden's spine dangled limply from his severed skull. Bill's eyes went wide with horror as Chris and his friends cheered and laughed at the gruesome sight.

    “What in God's name...?” said Bill, walking over to the television. “Chris, turn that game off, that's the worst thing I've ever seen in my life!”

    “Awww, dad.... it's just a game, it's not even real.”

    “I don't care, you need to turn that game off right now,” said Bill, looking around the room at Chris' friends. “Which one of you boys brought this kind of filth into my house?”

    “Uh...sorry Mr. Andresen, I mean, Kevin and Rick's parents are cool with it...” said one of the boys with a sigh, going over to the SNES-CD and ejecting the disc before turning off the console.

    “Sorry Mike,” said Chris apologetically, embarrassed that his dad had caused such an abrupt end to the fun. “Dad....!”

    “I don't ever want you playing that game again.” Bill said, wondering just how these games could have gotten so violent. He hadn't had any problem letting his son play games like Super Mario World 2 or Star Fox, heck, he thought the Muppet characters in that game were really funny. But this was completely over the top, especially on a Nintendo system! He knew Sega had violent video games but he thought Nintendo knew better than that.

    The next day, Bill's boss would be hearing all about what he'd seen his son and his friends having so much fun playing together.

    Bill's boss? Senator Joseph Lieberman.

    -

    Tonight on Nightline... there's a new video game that's sweeping the nation, but parents everywhere are mortified that the graphic violence featured in the game might be causing the nation's children to become more violent themselves. We'll talk to Senator Joseph Lieberman, who's calling for a Senate hearing into the increasingly violent and graphic content of today's most popular games.

    -Ted Koppel, ABC's Nightline, September 20, 1993

    -

    Nintendo Brings The Action Of The Big Screen To The SNES-CD!

    Two of the hottest Super Nintendo releases of the year are set to come out over the coming weeks, and we've got the scoop on both of them! First up is Jurassic Park, based on the hit Steven Spielberg film that took the box office by storm this summer. Ocean is releasing a different version of the game for each of Nintendo's four big systems, the NES, the Game Boy, the Super Nintendo, and the Super Nintendo CD, and the CD-ROM version of the game looks outstanding! It's a mixture of real-time action and a point and click adventure game that involves hunting for mysteries and clues as you try to escape the mysterious island where a pack of dinosaurs have broken loose! Once you've completed your search, you're dropped into various action scenes that involve running and gunning your way through hordes of dinosaurs. The game is Super Scope compatible for extra accuracy when hunting down dinos.

    Then there's The Terminator, released for the Super Nintendo CD by Virgin Games. It's similar to the version released earlier this year for the Sega CD, which was renowned for its acclaimed musical score. The Super Nintendo version adds a few minutes of FMV cutscenes to the mix, depicting the horror that the Terminators have wreaked on Kyle Reese's desperate future and adding some pathos to the game's quest to take the Terminators down. Nintendo's actually pushing this game fairly hard and they expect it to be a top seller this fall. With Sega CD starting to push their big movie-based game in Aladdin, it's clear that cinematic games will have a huge bearing on how this holiday season goes in the world of video game sales!

    -From Gamepro magazine, October 1993

    -

    Axelay:

    Steve: 9
    Ed: 8
    Martin: 10 (quote: “A downright flawless upgrade of the SNES original. This challenging but oh-so-addictive shooter looks and sounds beautiful on the CD-ROM. An instant classic.”)
    Sushi-X: 9

    Battle Chess:

    Steve: 8
    Ed: 8
    Martin: 8 (quote: “Chess has never been more fun than in Battle Chess! Play against the computer with over 20 difficulty levels, or play against your friends and watch your pieces whale on each other.”)
    Sushi-X: 6

    Mortal Kombat:

    Steve: 9
    Ed: 8
    Martin: 9
    Sushi-X: 8 (quote: “This is the best home console version of Mortal Kombat for sure. The fighting is a bit clunkier than Street Fighter, but the game’s realistic graphics make it fun to play nonetheless.”)

    Red Line: F-1 Racer

    Steve: 7
    Ed: 5 (quote: “This ho-hum racing game moves just a bit more quickly on the SNES-CD, but there are much better racing games out there. Wish it could have made better use of the CD-ROM’s capabilities.”)
    Martin: 7
    Sushi-X: 5

    Jurassic Park:

    Steve: 7
    Ed: 8
    Martin: 8 (quote: “This hybrid action-shooter-point-and-click sometimes tries to be too much at once but is still a great adaptation of the film.”)
    Sushi-X: 8

    Axes Of Avenglia:

    Steve: 8 (quote: “This Taito RPG features some of the best graphics I’ve seen in any SNES-CD game and a very good soundtrack as well. The story isn’t quite as good as the SNES’ Lufia, but it’s a really nice glimpse at what the system is capable of putting out.”)
    Ed: 6
    Martin: 8
    Sushi-X: 7

    Art of Fighting:

    Steve: 8
    Ed: 7
    Martin: 7
    Sushi-X: 9 (quote: “Just as good as on Neo-Geo, Art of Fighting brings one of the best fighting games in the arcade home to your SNES-CD. There’s even more character detail and animation than Street Fighter! Mortal Kombat might get more sales and more press but this is the month’s best fighting game.”)

    Yoshi’s Safari:

    Steve: 8 (quote: “This rail-shooter makes great use of the Super Scope 6 and looks absolutely great on the SNES-CD. It’s not quite as pretty as Star Fox but the cutesy graphics are appropriate and this game’s a bit easier for younger players.”)
    Ed: 8
    Martin: 6
    Sushi-X: 6

    Ghouls ‘n Ghosts CD:

    Steve: 7
    Ed: 9
    Martin: 8 (quote: “The staggeringly difficult series gets a brand new edition for CD-ROM in this sequel to Super Ghouls ‘n Ghosts. The difficulty is definitely intact in this one but the great character animation and CD soundtrack are a huge plus.”)
    Sushi-X: 8

    Frantic Flight:

    Steve: 9
    Ed: 9 (quote: “Frantic Flight is a fantastic airplane combat game, featuring a huge amount of ship customization and procedurally generated wingmen that make every mission feel brand new. Koei did a great job capturing the feel of a PC dogfight game in this SNES-CD original.”)
    Martin: 9
    Sushi-X: 8

    Ys Collection:

    Steve: 7
    Ed: 6 (quote: “Nihon Falcom’s classic Ys series arrives on the SNES-CD in the form of a collection of the first three games. It’s a faithful collection but maybe a bit too faithful, the graphics and gameplay are just too dated when compared with other RPGs on the system.”)
    Martin: 7
    Sushi-X: 4

    The Adventures of Willy Beamish:

    Steve: 5
    Ed: 5
    Martin: 4
    Sushi-X: 3 (quote: “Another example of a crap point and click that bored me to tears. I hated this brat and I hated this game.”)

    The Terminator:

    Steve: 8 (quote: “This was a really fun run-and-gun shooter in the style of Contra. It featured some of the best music on the system to date, and while it wasn’t a straight-up movie adaptation, it still felt like it could be a part of the Terminator universe.”)
    Ed: 8
    Martin: 8
    Sushi-X: 8

    True Golf: Wicked 18:

    Steve: 4
    Ed: 5
    Martin: 4
    Sushi-X: 1 (quote: “Even if I LIKED golf I would have hated this game. It barely looks like an SNES game, let alone an SNES-CD game, and the play controls were god awful. True golf? I doubt it.”)

    Super Detective Club:

    Steve: 7
    Ed: 9 (quote: “Even with all the other point and click detective games available for the SNES-CD, this one stands out. I’m really glad Nintendo decided to bring this game (actually two games, it’s both Famicom games in one!) to our shores. You’ll be gripped by the mystery and won’t want to stop playing until it’s solved.”)
    Martin: 7
    Sushi-X: 7

    -From Electronic Gaming Monthly's reviews of September and October 1993's SNES-CD games in their October, November, and December 1993 issues

    -

    Super Detective Club is the first American release of the Famicom Tantei Club series originally released in Japan for the Famicom system. This remake of the first two games combines all the cases of the Famicom titles into a graphically enhanced detective adventure for the Super Nintendo CD! With three fun cases to solve, you'll spend hours delving into the incredible mysteries within.

    -from a Nintendo Power “Pak Watch” article in the October 1993 issue

    “Super Detective Club, of course known as Tantei Club here, was one of those games that I did not think would be a success with Western players. We had a long discussion about releasing it there, but Yamauchi-san thought that the more older players of the Super Nintendo CD would appreciate the game. If I recall properly, it did very modest sales, but sold just enough to justify the decision to localize it. I know there is a devoted fanbase in America to this game who appreciates the fact that we did release it there. I am looking forward to seeing their reaction to the sequel, as it has sold extremely well here in Japan.”

    -Gunpei Yokoi, translated from the September 1997 issue of Famitsu magazine

    -

    September 30, 1993

    A three-and-a-half hour long Senate hearing into the effects of violent video games took place in Washington, DC. It was chaired by Senators Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and Herb Kohl of Wisconsin. Of particular concern to the senators' was Nintendo's decision to allow violent and graphic games, particularly the uncensored version of Mortal Kombat, on their Super Nintendo CD-ROM device. Of additional concern was Sega's strange advertising campaigns involving the use of seemingly 'subliminal' messages and their reliance on marketing games such as Mortal Kombat to court older players. Both Howard Lincoln of Nintendo and Bill White of Sega testified extensively at the hearing, along with Parker Page from the Children's Television Resource and Education Center, Marilyn Droz from the National Coalition on Television Violence, and several other experts from the fields of juvenile justice and child psychology.

    -

    Howard Lincoln: These games are very clearly marked with ratings symbols that show that these games are not appropriate for children. Here, on the Mortal Kombat case, we have a huge red box that takes up about a fourth of the cover, with a big “17” on it as plain as day. No parent who buys this game for their child will be able to do so without seeing that 17 and the big letters saying “MATURE PLAYERS ONLY”, and an additional ratings descriptor that says “GRAPHIC VIOLENCE”.

    Joseph Lieberman: But parents are buying these games for their kids anyway. My chief of staff, his son's friend brought the game over just a couple weeks ago.

    Howard Lincoln: It's not up to us what parents decide to purchase for their children, that choice is up to the parents and the ratings boxes-

    Joseph Lieberman: But my friend's son was exposed to this when his friend brought it over. Kids are being exposed to this content without their parents even knowing about it. Are parents going to have to ask about these games every time they let one of their children sleep over? This game gets out there and eventually all the kids are going to hear about it and see it. It's all they talk about at school.

    Herbert Kohl: Mr. Lincoln, I understand that you don't like being put in a position to censor your own games. But you've got to take a position of responsibility here. Parents can't be looking over their kids' shoulder all the time. There's got to be some limitations because sooner or later, every child is going to see something from these games whether the parents like it or not.

    Howard Lincoln: I feel that the parents of America are responsible enough to keep these games out of their homes if they don't want their children exposed to them. Time and time again, I've gotten letters from parents thanking me for implementing this rating system. I understand that there's still a possibility that these games are going to be played in situations that parents haven't given their consent for, but I feel that part of the job of being a parent is being there and making sure that if you don't want your child to play one of these games, that you're there to say no to it.

    Joseph Lieberman: I know a lot of single mothers, they have to work 60, 70 hours a week to support their children. They don't have the money to hire a sitter, so their kid has to be home alone two, three hours a day. Two hours of Mortal Kombat a day, that's going to damage a kid beyond repair.

    -

    Bill White: So Nintendo has been pushing their bazooka and their Terminator game, and they've got Mortal Kombat and they say that this CD-ROM device is for adults but then they release all kinds of little kid games for it and push it for families.

    Herbert Kohl: But they don't advertise those games in the same way that your company does. You're advertising Mortal Kombat and you're pushing the Sega Genesis in the same commercial. We've talked about Nintendo having these violent games but at least they don't advertise them for little kids.

    Bill White: We don't either. The average age of the Sega Genesis player is nineteen.

    Herbert Kohl: But you show a teenage boy in the commercial.

    Joseph Lieberman: I mean, it's clear that the video game companies are trying to push these games onto our children. Nintendo just takes a more passive approach about it.

    Bill White: We absolutely, unequivocally do not try to push violent video games onto young players. We have a ratings system just like Nintendo does and our Mortal Kombat game is rated for 13 and up.

    Joseph Lieberman: But you have just as much violence as Nintendo's game does. It's hidden behind a code but every schoolboy in America knows that code by now.

    -

    “I remember that we were both getting burned pretty badly by the senators during that hearing. Howard was doing the best that he could up there and he did make some of the senators understand that Nintendo's rating system was effective in keeping violent video games mostly out of the hands of children. It was just that damn Mortal Kombat game that got everyone in such an uproar...but of course while all of this was going on, it was just driving sales of the game up more and more. I think there was even a rumor that we were going to recall Mortal Kombat for the SNES-CD, and once that rumor was floated, sales spiked even more! People were so scared that we'd recall it and censor it that they rushed to buy the game because they were worried it was the only chance they'd have to play it!

    As I recall, Mr. Yamauchi did think seriously about recalling it, but he decided not to pull the trigger at pretty much the last moment. I don't think we'll ever know for sure if he really considered it or not, but I'm sure glad that rumor got out there. It went a LONG way toward putting the SNES-CD into people's homes at the end of 1993 and for that, I've even got to thank Vice President Lieberman.”
    -Peter Main, excerpted from an Electronic Gaming Monthly interview, June 2006

    -

    Howard Lincoln: The reason we even decided to relax our censorship policies in the first place is because our third parties wanted to make certain games that would appeal to older players. We had spent a long time, and I mean a LONG time censoring our games, but our partnership with Sony over these last couple of years has been very constructive and even I've started to see that Nintendo has had to change with the times. The vast majority of Nintendo games are still appropriate for families and for the select few that are only appropriate for mature players, we have the ratings system.

    Joseph Lieberman: I feel like this was a move to make money. You wanted to appeal to older players with more money to spend on games and you allowed these violent, graphic games to attract more sales.

    Howard Lincoln: We were doing just fine before the SNES-CD was released. We controlled 90 percent of the gaming market. We didn't need these games to make money. We did it to protect creative freedom. I want to show you some footage from a video game called Final Fantasy III, released by one of our third party partners, Squaresoft, who was one of the biggest advocates for relaxing our censorship policies. This is a game that's rated 13 on our rating system, it explores some mature themes but doesn't contain any graphic violent or sexual content, but it wouldn't have been possible without the relaxation of our rating system.

    -

    “I was fudging the truth a bit there, I'll admit. We'd censored Final Fantasy IV for Western audiences and we could have done the same with Final Fantasy V. But I wanted to show the committee the possibilities that you had when you released games with more mature content. We showed the senators the scene where Galuf is killed by Exdeath. It's a very emotionally charged scene. I think it moved a couple of the older senators, the ones with grandchildren. I know Marilyn Droz was interested in the game because it featured three female protagonists. I think we won her over a bit with Final Fantasy V.

    In the beginning, I was one of the biggest advocates for Nintendo's censorship policies. I'd mentioned before that if it wasn't for Nintendo, the industry would be full of pornography. But when I went in front of that Senate hearing I was put in the position of defending the right of video game producers to make any kinds of games they wished to make. I hated Mortal Kombat, I never would have let my kids play such a game. But I was defending Nintendo and I had to hitch myself to that wagon. That was part of my job, being an attorney before I joined up with Nintendo meant that sometimes I had to defend people and practices that I disagreed with.

    But ultimately, I don't regret the direction Nintendo went. I knew that kids were always going to be able to get their hands on these games no matter what ratings we put on the box. But part of our job at Nintendo was making sure that those games stayed out of the hands of as many of those kids as possible, and I think we did a fine job of that. I never set out to profit off of kids playing violent video games. But if I could profit off of transforming the industry and expanding the creative horizons of game creators everywhere, I was just fine with that.”

    -Howard Lincoln, from an interview with GameInformer, September 2008

    “I think on that day, that was the start of the Super Nintendo CD becoming something that would replace the Super Nintendo intend of merely supplementing it. With the opening of the gates for more mature games, which is something Sony had pushed for from the very beginning, it made the transition to the Super Nintendo CD a true evolutionary leap in the production of video games. Nobody knew it at the time of course, and it wouldn't happen for at least a couple more years, but when the news from those Congressional hearings got back to Japan, everyone here at Sony was extremely pleased. I wish I could have been there.”
    -Ken Kutaragi, from an interview on IGN.com, October 17, 2010

    “I was very dismayed at all of the controversy these games had created. I had merely set out to create toys, not so much create something that would be regarded as violent or graphic or bad for children. I was very troubled by all of this, and so I asked my friend Mr. Frank Oz what he thought of the whole situation. He told me about Jim Henson and that though Mr. Henson had set out to create something children could enjoy as well, he always believed that children were very smart and could handle many things that adults did not believe they could. He told me of their very lovely film The Dark Crystal and how it had been controversial at the time as well, and that I should not worry so much about children being harmed or scared by these games. It was this conversation that encouraged me to ask Yamauchi-san to allow our friends at Argonaut to go ahead with their follow up game to Star Fox. Squad Four, I believe they called it, was said to be just a bit too mature for the audiences Nintendo wanted to appeal to, and at first I had agreed, but after talking to my friend I encouraged Yamauchi-san to reconsider. I was very pleased when he told me he would.”
    -Shigeru Miyamoto, translated from an interview with Famitsu, March 1995

    -

    October 1, 1993

    Senator Lieberman had not been entirely pleased with the responses from either Nintendo or Sega at the Senate hearing. If it had been entirely up to him, he'd have likely moved forward with his plan to push a bill through Congress requiring federal oversight of video game content, or at the very least, a mandatory, government-controlled game ratings system.

    But....Howard Lincoln had held his own at the hearing, and the senator knew that any government bill regulating the sale of video games would mean a tough fight against an increasingly powerful industry. He also knew that the representatives from the game industry, particularly Lincoln, had won over a few of his colleagues with their call to allow creative freedom in video games, and his promises that Nintendo would do even more than they were already doing to raise awareness of their (admittedly very effective) ratings system, including threatening to withhold shipments of certain video games from stores that did not comply with Nintendo's ratings policies and using secret shoppers to enforce that compliance. The fact that Howard Lincoln said that he'd even promised to pull games from Walmart, the growing retail giant, if it didn't do a better job of avoiding selling violent video games to children, impressed some on the committee even more.

    In the end, Lieberman and Kohl decided that they'd give the game industry a chance to regulate itself, though another hearing would be called in February 1994 to assess its progress in fulfilling its promises. Those promises would lead to something called the Entertainment Software Ratings Board, or ESRB for short, that would introduce the ratings of EC (Early Childhood, 3 and up), E (for Everyone), T (for Teen, 13 and up), M (Mature, 17 and up), and AO (Adults Only, 18 and up), utilizing Nintendo's green (for EC and E), yellow (for T), and red (for M and AO) color coding scheme in their ratings symbols. The first games to be rated by the ESRB would begin to roll out in March 1994, with Konami's Snatcher being the first M-rated game for the Super Nintendo CD.

    The congressional hearings of 1993 wouldn't be the last time that video games faced the threat of censorship and regulation from the government, but the game industry had weathered its first major storm of controversy, and Nintendo's decision to agree to Sony's terms when it came to video game content censorship had been justified at last, despite those tenuous weeks when Hiroshi Yamauchi and Howard Lincoln believed they'd made a fatal mistake.

    -

    SNES-CD Power Charts – October 1993

    1. Super Mario World 2 – 25,780
    2. Star Fox – 22,164
    3. Final Fantasy III – 18,056
    4. Super Mario Kart – 14,988
    5. Street Fighter II: Arcade Edition – 12,750
    6. Super Bomberman CD – 9,641
    7. Clue – 7,540
    8. Final Fantasy: New Generation – 7,316
    9. Lethal Enforcers – 6,252
    10. The Lost Vikings – 6,148
    11. Alien 3 – 5,992
    12. ClayFighter – 5,651
    13. The Terminator – 4,372
    14. Battletoads II – 4,052
    15. Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego? - 3,951
    16. MechWarrior – 3,544
    17. Dark City – 2,988
    18. Shadowrun – 2,957
    19. Time Gal – 2,544
    20. Secret Of Mana – 2,206

    -

    “Over the last couple of weeks, video games have been in the news for all the wrong reasons and last Thursday, there was a Congressional hearing into the detrimental effects of video game violence on today's youth. But a few nights ago in Petaluma, California, a video game device is being credited with possibly saving lives in a most unlikely fashion. Richard Allen Davis is being charged with burglary, criminal confinement, assault with a deadly weapon, and a host of other charges after he attempted to abduct a young girl from her home. He'd broken into the house during a slumber party, brandishing a knife at a girl and her friends before ordering the girl to leave the house with him. But as he was dragging the girl away, he tripped over a Super Nintendo CD-ROM console that the girls had been listening to music on. Davis fell into a dresser, sustaining a head injury that knocked him out long enough for the would-be victim to free her friends before summoning her parents for help. While her father kept the injured Davis at gunpoint, police were called and Davis was arrested.

    When asked about the incident, the relieved father told reporters that he'd told his daughter several times not to keep the game device on the floor in the middle of her room because people might trip on it, but that he was glad that she hadn't listened to him this time. He was then asked about the ongoing video game violence controversy, and he replied that he didn't let his daughter play any of those violent games and that she enjoyed playing Carmen Sandiego. It seems that the Super Nintendo CD is catching criminals in both the virtual world and in the real world. This has been the NBC Nightly News. I'm Tom Brokaw, goodnight.”

    -from the NBC Nightly News, October 4, 1993
     
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    • November 1993 - Secret Of Mana

    • RySenkari

    “This is, without a doubt, the greatest video game I've ever played. It far surpasses Final Fantasy II and III, and even A Link To The Past. It's a perfectly polished, truly epic, and all-around brilliant video game that absolutely justifies the purchase of a Super Nintendo CD. It touched my heart on a level that a video game has never done before, and I'm telling you right now, go out and buy this game. It is a flawless video game and one hell of an adventure.”
    -from Martin Alessi's 10/10 review of Secret Of Mana in the December 1993 issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly

    “I can't say all video games are bad. I got the opportunity, thanks to some of my younger interns, to play a game that I thought was really fun and really well made. I had an hour or so to kill and some of my interns invited me to play this game, it was called, I think, Secret of Mana. And it wasn't a really violent game, you had a sword but you were fighting monsters, it was a lot like the Lord of the Rings books I read as a kid and I really loved those. And you could play with two other people, and they let me play it for about an hour and it was a lot of fun. It had....it had the kind of music you wouldn't expect to hear in a game. I mean, not bleeps and bloops like in the old games but real music, like in a movie. And everything was so colorful and I had a lot of fun playing it. You could tell the people who made it put a lot of heart and work into it. So I do think that there is a redeeming value to video games. I mean, if all of them were more like that Secret of Mana game, I don't think there would've been a problem.”
    -Al Gore, Larry King Live, November 22, 1993

    “Oh yeah, one of my very first acting gigs was in this video game called 'Nightfall'. It was like this fantasy game, I think, like a medieval slasher type game, REALLY cheesy and campy but it was a lot of fun to work on. I played this witch who helped the main character, and I wore all these outfits that kept showing off my boobs. I mean this was around the time that Nintendo was in trouble with the government, so one of the games that got a lot of press was this Nightfall game because it was all violent and sexy. Of course compared to some of the games now it was REALLY tame, but I have good memories of working on it.”
    -Kelly Hu, from the September 2010 issue of Maxim

    “Sheex, no matter what happens to me I am not letting you go, not again, do you hear me? Dammit...the Empire's closing in....stay with me, I'm sorry I pulled you back into this but stay with me!!”
    -Jerrica, boss of the “Scorpion Army”, Secret of Mana

    “This was, without a doubt, the work I'm most proud of in my entire career. This was the translation I'd waited my whole career to do. I poured my heart and soul into it, but the game deserved nothing less and I'm glad Squaresoft gave me the time I needed to see it through to completion. I still get praise for it to this day and it warms my heart to know how much people appreciated the work I did.”
    -Ted Woolsey, recalling his work on Secret of Mana in an RPGamer.com interview, March 3, 1999

    -

    November 8, 1993

    Secret of Mana is released in North America for the Super Nintendo CD, three months after a blockbuster release in Japan. In Japan, the game was critically lauded, receiving only the second 40/40 ever from Famitsu magazine (with Super Mario World 2 receiving the first earlier that year). The game was three years in the making, an enormous undertaking of time and energy from Squaresoft, the collaboration of dozens of talented game makers. Simply put, this game was the reason that Squaresoft lobbied so hard for Nintendo and Sony to come to an agreement, with a large chunk of its development already completed before pen was put to paper. Its North American release was accompanied by a large promotional push by Nintendo, who was somewhat determined to make the public forget about the Mortal Kombat controversy. Secret of Mana was as critically praised in North America as it was in Japan, perhaps even more so. It scored a 37/40 from Electronic Gaming Monthly, 5s across the board from Gamepro, a perfect score from Gamefan, and was awarded Game of the Month in nearly every magazine where such an award existed, even over Sega's massive November release Sonic CD. The reviews used words such as “epic”, “brilliant”, and even “masterpiece” to describe the game. The game sold 46,000 units on the day of its release in North America, which paled in comparison to smash hits like Super Mario World 2 and Mortal Kombat, but for the genre it was an unprecedented number. It would top 100,000 North American sales by the end of the week, and the coming holiday season and glowing reviews kept its legs strong. Eventually, after several years of sales and “greatest hits” reprintings, it would become the first JRPG to achieve one million sales in North America, an absolutely incredible milestone. But more importantly, it, like Super Mario World 2 and Mortal Kombat had done before it, would sell SNES-CD systems. Lots of them.

    -

    Secret of Mana – The Basics

    Secret of Mana's status as a CD-ROM game provided it with graphics that mildly exceeded those of its OTL counterpart (mostly in backgrounds and animation quality). What the CD medium truly allowed was that it made Secret of Mana a much bigger, longer, more epic game. The Empire and the Republic were fleshed out massively, with several large areas added to each. The game didn't have any voices or animated cutscenes, instead, the majority of data on the CD was actually taken up by its sprawling, epic musical score, now in full CD glory without any of the audio glitches that plagued the OTL game. It could also have much more text, especially in the North American version, which did away with the fixed width font that Squaresoft had used for previous English translations. This gave Ted Woolsey incredible flexibility with the translation quality, making it much more accurate to the original intent of the script. He was also given three months time to complete the translation, unlike the one month afforded to him IOTL.

    The game's battle system, involving active attacking and defending by the player, was the same as IOTL. However, because of the additional boss battles, the player was given enough weapon orbs that weapons, including the Mana Sword, reached level 9 as a matter of just playing through the game instead of hunting down secret orbs for the final level (with enemy difficulty in the final dungeons rebalanced to keep pace). The item and equipment ring system was kept the same as OTL. You were limited to five of any one item at a time, but you have a reserve that you can access outside of a battle at any time by pressing Start to switch items/equipment into your active inventory (a system introduced IOTL by Seiken Densetsu 3).

    The game also fleshed out and expanded upon a number of minor characters, particularly those of Emperor Vandole's lieutenants, Sheex, Fanha, and Geshtar. It also greatly expanded on the “Scorpion Army”, particularly its boss, now given the name of Jerrica and a much nobler purpose revealed late in the game. Dyluck was given more of a personality and the player was given more time to get to know him and the nature of Thanatos' dealings with the underworld were revealed. In brief, here's how some of the characters were expanded in game.

    Dyluck- Remains the true love of Purim (the girl), though the prophecy surrounding him (“one born in darkness and raised in the light of Mana”) gets explained in game: The god of the underworld created him with the express purpose of serving as a body for Thanatos, but Thanatos was attacked by knights of the Republic before completing the ritual and was raised as Jema's son with Luka serving as a surrogate mother to him.

    Geshtar- Trained since birth to be the Empire's perfect fighter, though we later find out that he seeks a destiny other than being the Empire's lap dog. We also eventually learn that he and Fanha are lovers.

    Fanha- Born a sorceress in a Republic village that rejected her because of her strange powers, she joined the Empire for the purpose of getting revenge.

    Sheex- Originally born in the Underground City as one of the last members of Silvira, the ancient futuristic civilization that once dominated the planet, he rejected a life in hiding and used the cybernetic implants given to him to serve the Emperor. However, he still holds lost feelings for Jerrica, leader of the Scorpion Army (aka the Keepers of Silvira)

    Jerrica- “Boss” of the Scorpion Army, ostensibly seeking out Mana energy for their own nefarious purposes but in truth her group is attempting to keep the Underground City of Silvira going, since without Mana energy their technology will fail and the lives of her people depend on her group's work.

    Krissy- Still the leader of the Resistance but we see a bit more of her as the Empire part of the game is expanded. She develops a very close friendship with Purim's friend Phanna.

    Phanna- Purim's best friend, though the two are currently fighting because Purim stole Dyluck from her. Phanna later restores her friendship with Purim and is also deeply close with Krissy, to the point where fans suspect that the two of them may be a couple (indeed, it's confirmed by the game's creator in 2013 that Krissy and Phanna indeed do become a couple, with Phanna being revealed to be bisexual, of course it couldn't be confirmed in the actual game itself, only very VERY vaguely alluded to)

    The plot of the game itself is greatly expanded from the OTL game, with the possibility for three different endings. The game is essentially divided into three main parts, which are...

    Part I: The Early Quest

    This is the part of the game most similar to the game IOTL, with only a few minor differences. It essentially consists of the hero Randi's journey beginning with him pulling out the sword, being banished from Potos, teaming up with the sprite Popoi and the girl Purim and gathering up the powers of Undine, Gnome, Sylphid, and Salamando. Again, it's very similar to how this part of the game was IOTL with a few minor differences (the first visit to Pandora is somewhat longer, you meet Dyluck and Purim first there, see the tension between Purim and Phanna, and even spar with Dyluck). Another part that gets expanded a bit is when the heroes pass out in Kakkara Desert and are taken aboard Morie and Meria's ship, you get some more background on the war between the Republic and the Empire, and Fanha tags along with Geshtar, you also see him actually getting into his motorcycle armor to fight you for the first Mech Rider fight. Morie also acts like a bit less of a jerk and we see that he genuinely has feelings for Purim, this will come into play later on.

    Part II: The Empire Wars

    Here's where things start to change significantly from OTL's Secret of Mana. The Southtown/Northtown segment is largely the same, though there's a boss to challenge you in the sewers instead of you just emerging into the Resistance's headquarters. Instead of the Emperor's palace being in Northtown, it's just a fort, Fort Vandole (named after the Emperor), and Geshtar doesn't burn it down because he's crazy, he burns it down because he legitimately considers the minor fort expendable. After Flammie rescues you, King Truffle points you to Tasnica instead of to Sage Joch, and in Tasnica, you're given the task of liberating three villages from the Empire. One of them is controlled by Sheex whom you fight in his Dark Stalker form after a brief quest, the second is controlled by Fanha (it's her childhood village and we get some sympathetic background on here), and the third is controlled by Thanatos. It's during this third quest that you actually free Dyluck from Thanatos and he joins the Republic Army here. Once the villages are liberated though, this is when you notice the King acting strangely. Indeed, the power of Lumina has taken a hold of him, and he and the Republic become hostile for a time, causing the party to seek out help from the Resistance. You're pointed to the Lofty Mountains, which are also greatly expanded, as an old Silviran city used to be on the mountain (those mysterious radios from the OTL game, this expands on those). You run into the Scorpion Army, who has kidnapped Sage Joch and wants Shade's power in trade for him, but instead of giving them what they want, the party fights them and they run. Joch points you to Shade as the only power that can contain Lumina, but that the party must be strong enough to contend with the darkness within their souls, leading to the maze from the first game where you fight your dopplegangers. After getting Shade's power, the party then visits a lighthouse (this was also a location expanded on from the OTL game, it's now a dungeon) to sever the King from Lumina's power. After doing that, the party returns to Tasnica, where Lumina tests you by sending out a boss monster (that's weak against Shade's magic) before also joining your group. With the King restored to normal, the final assault on the Empire can begin. There's a big battlefield that the party must traverse to reach the Empire's City of Gold (no longer a random island as IOTL but instead it's the Empire's capital city), as the party crosses it, fighting the empire's troops along the way, you can actually see the Empire's and Republic's troops fighting one another, it's a pretty epic scene. Finally, the party reaches the capitol and climbs up the Emperor's palace, a huge tower of gold to face the Emperor (another boss monster). Defeating the Emperor seems to take out the Empire for good, but in fact it's just a diversion, the Emperor was a fake and the huge battle a farce to divert attention away from the Moon Palace, where Thanatos is once again trying to collect more Mana energy (you learn the Empire's true goal here, to break the seals and raise the ancient Mana Fortress). Dyluck has already gone out ahead in an advance team to try and head off the Emperor. The party returns to the desert only to see Admiral Meria's ship under attack, there's a brief quest where the party helps him, then it's off to the Moon Palace. After a fight at the palace gates with the party vs. Sheex, Fanha, and Geshtar (all in their normal human forms but still a very tough fight with Sheex using speed, Geshtar straight up brute force, and Fanha powerful magic), the party manages to reach the Moon Palace staging room where Thanatos is waiting, the party stops him from breaking the seal but he manages to re-capture Dyluck. Next it's off to the Forgotten Continent where the Tree Palace awaits, here the party battles a transformed Sheex (as a giant plant monster, as IOTL), but in this game defeating him here doesn't kill him, it just opens up the rest of the palace (which is an actual dungeon), the party can't stop Thanatos and the Emperor from breaking all the seals and as IOTL, the continent and the Grand Palace are raised, thus ending part two of the game.

    Part III- The Hero's Decision

    After the events in the Tree Palace, Geshtar and Fanha confront the heroes outside, demanding to know what happened to Sheex. It seems that some masked people have abducted him and the two lieutenants blame the heroes, who decide to flee. During the course of their fleeing, they fall down a trap door to the Underground City. Unlike the game IOTL, the Underground City is not just one quest or dungeon but a series of them, during which you learn the full truth behind the Scorpion Army and its leader, Jerrica, and also the truth behind Sheex, whom Jerrica is trying to convince to return to helping them. You also learn the truth about the Mana Tribe...it's not entirely as benevolent as it seems, it in fact was somewhat of a quasi-religious organization, keeping technology down all in the name of preserving the power of Mana, and they heavily persecuted the Silviran civilization, leading it to ruin. Eventually, the Empire's troops invade the Underground City, though Jema and the forces of the Republic bravely clash against them. The party is presented with a choice...help Sheex and Jerrica defend themselves from Thanatos, or help save Jema's army from being routed.

    Saving the Republic Army (Ending 1- “Harmony”): Saving the Republic Army immediately locks you into the first ending path. Sheex sacrifices his life to save Jerrica while the Republic army is saved from destruction after the party wins a boss fight. This leads to the ending most like the original game. You go on to the Grand Palace, where Fanha meets her end transformed into Hexus and Geshtar meets his transformed into the final Mech Rider (though in this version of the game, their deaths are tragic and noble, Fanha dies confronting Thanatos and Geshtar dies trying to avenge her). You move on to the Mana Holyland (the Pure Land IOTL), fighting five of Thanatos' monsters along the way, Thanatos wipes out the Mana Tree, you then go to the Mana Fortress and battle two more of his monsters before the final confrontation. Here, however, things once again divert from OTL's game. Instead of fighting Thanatos as the Dark Lich, you fight Jerrica as a huge scorpion monster (in her grief over Sheex's death, she hunts down Thanatos but is transformed by him and you have to fight and kill her), and then Thanatos in Dyluck's body. Despite being in a normal human body, this is probably the toughest final boss, with an incredible array of powerful magic and physical attacks. Once you defeat Thanatos, the hero, Popoi, and Purim manage to heal Dyluck, saving his life. The game ends with humanity free to choose its own destiny, with Dyluck and Purim as king and queen of a free and victorious Republic, and Randi as their loyal knight. It's considered the “canon” ending and probably the best ending as well. Though Mana is depleted, it's not entirely gone, and humanity is free to progress its technology, embrace the light of Mana, or both. Popoi's fate is left somewhat ambiguous but it's implied he'll eventually return as well.

    However, if you go to save Sheex and Jerrica instead, you're locked out of Ending 1 and instead fight another boss before progressing to the Grand Palace. Here things progress as somewhat normal, but in the room where the Snapdragon would normally be, you're confronted by Jema instead. His entire army was killed by the Empire's troops and he barely made it out alive. He demands to know why Randi seems to have rejected his destiny. It's then that Jerrica shows up and says that Randi should fight Jema, that Jema is just like those self-righteous Mana Tribe people who decimated her civilization.

    Defeating Jema (Ending 2: “Silvira”): Defeating and killing Jema locks you into this ending. After Jema's defeat, you confront Thanatos on the roof of the Grand Palace, and he decides to initiate the ritual to send himself into Dyluck's body. Dyluck fights him off but Thanatos is able to transform him into a monster before fleeing. Defeating Dyluck breaks Purim's heart but she steels herself and it's off to the Mana Holyland where the hero is to confront the Mana Tribe. After battling through six bosses sent by the holy power of Mana (the same bosses as IOTL's game), the hero finds the Mana Tree and learns the truth about Mana from his mother, that the women of the tribe are forced to become the tree, that they didn't volunteer to do so as Randi was once told. She says that the power of Mana is worth protecting and preserving but that the Mana Tribe has become corrupt and that is what led to the rise of the Mana Fortress and the world's downfall. Before she can say anything more, however, she is struck down by Thanatos' magic. The heroes, along with Sheex, Geshtar, Fanha, and Jerrica, journey to the Mana Fortress to liberate it from Thanatos. In this ending path, the final bosses are the same as in IOTL's game, you fight Dark Lich Thanatos, followed by the Mana Beast (this time a vengeful being sent by the Mana Tribe to destroy the fortress and human civilization). Defeating the Mana Beast leads to the second ending...the return of Silviran civilization will mean a great flourishing of human technology, and you have successfully redeemed Sheex, Geshtar, Fanha (who forgives the people of her old village), and Jerrica, but Mana is dying out and without it the world faces an uncertain future. In addition, Dyluck and Popoi are dead and gone for good.

    Sparing Jema (Ending 3: “Mana Knight”): If you spare Jema's life, Jerrica angrily lashes out at the heroes, piloting a large mech in an attempt to kill them. After a boss fight, a dying Jerrica forgives the party and apologizes to them, but it's too late, her wounds from the battle prove fatal. The party goes on to confront Thanatos on the roof of the tower. This time, Dyluck sacrifices his life, and Thanatos confronts the party in human form (but still wielding formidable magic). After Thanatos' defeat, the party goes to the Mana Holyland, but after they leave the palace, the underworld forces decide to take advantage of an enraged and grief-stricken Geshtar, along with Sheex and Fanha, corrupting their souls for good and compelling them to make war on Mana itself. As the party ventures through the Mana Holyland it comes face to face with dangerous mechanical creatures attacking them, culminating in the Mana Fortress, controlled by the trio, opening fire on and destroying the Mana Tree. The Mana Tree still tells of corruption within the Mana Tribe, but her tone is more forgiving and it's revealed that there were many good people in the Mana Tribe as well, including the hero's brave father, and that without the Mana Tribe's measures, the Silvari would have taken over and destroyed the entire world. The party then goes to the Mana Fortress. After fighting a boss powered by stolen Mana energy (that takes the form of each of the eight elements in turn after one is defeated), the final boss is an enormous mecha controlled by Sheex, Fanha, and Geshtar. After the mecha is defeated, the ending takes place. Mana flourishes in a world ruled by the hero, influenced by the Mana Tribe, who even may be able to restore his mother to life in human form. However, though the natural world flourishes, human innovation and freedom are somewhat suppressed and even Jema questions the hero's choice.

    The three endings are presented with their own pros and cons. Though there is one ending considered by fans to be the “good” ending, all three can be considered happy endings with their own caveats, letting the player truly choose their own path according to their own actions.

    -

    “Thank you, thank you from the bottom of my heart for letting me make this game the way I wanted to make it. Secret of Mana wouldn't have been possible without you. Thank you, thank you, thank you.”- Koichi Ishii, while bowing repeatedly to Ken Kutaragi during a private meeting in Kutaragi's office shortly after the Japanese release of Secret of Mana. Kutaragi would later recall this as one of the three moments that most justified his work on creating the Super Nintendo CD in a 2004 interview.

    -

    Actraiser 2:

    Steve: 9 (quote: “The SNES-CD really shows off its ability to create great music in this game. It's incredibly tough, but the atmosphere tops pretty much any other game on the system.”)
    Ed: 9
    Martin: 9
    Sushi-X: 9

    Nightfall:

    Steve: 8
    Ed: 6
    Martin: 6
    Sushi-X: 7 (quote: “This is an FMV game actually worth playing. It's gritty, though cheesy at times, and you'll find yourself actually wanting to play things through to the end and find all of the hidden scenes.”)

    Secret Of Mana:

    Steve: 9
    Ed: 9 (quote: “Three years of hard work from Squaresoft is worth the wait. This is the best RPG on the system, hands down, and one of my favorite games of the year. It features one of the best soundtracks ever and it's a long and rewarding journey. You won't want this game to end.”)
    Martin: 10
    Sushi-X: 9

    Ninja Warriors:

    Steve: 5 (quote: “This silly beat-em-up by Taito features some nice character detail, but as far as actions goes it's pretty repetitive and the music can be annoying at times.”)
    Ed: 4
    Martin: 5
    Sushi-X: 3

    The Simpsons:

    Steve: 7
    Ed: 8
    Martin: 9
    Sushi-X: 9 (quote: “I love seeing faithful arcade translations and this game is as faithful as they come. It's right up there with TMNT IV as one of my favorite beat-em-ups on a home console. Forget Bart's Nightmare, this is THE definitive Simpsons game and you can take the whole family for a spin with three of your friends.”)

    Cliffhanger:

    Steve: 3 (quote: “It's a shame that this game couldn't be as good as the movie was, and the movie itself was pretty bad. I guess The Terminator spoiled me on movie-to-game adaptations because this is just awful.”)
    Ed: 6
    Martin: 6
    Sushi-X: 5

    Neighborhood Wars:

    Steve: 5
    Ed: 7 (quote: “A pretty fun game that puts you in the role of a kid trying to hit other kids with water balloons and various other implements of mischief. I know the humor's pretty juvenile and the sound bites are dumb, but the gameplay was still pretty solid.”)
    Martin: 4
    Sushi-X: 2

    -From Electronic Gaming Monthly's reviews of November 1993's SNES-CD games in their December 1993 and January 1994 issues

    Sonic CD:

    Steve: 9
    Ed: 9
    Martin: 9 (quote: “The best Sonic game yet is on the Sega CD! With a great CD soundtrack and lots of fun levels, expanded greatly by the game's excellent use of time travel, Sega really shows what this franchise is capable of and it rivals Super Mario World 2 as my favorite action platformer of the year.")
    Sushi-X: 8

    Ultima Underworld II:

    Steve: 7
    Ed: 8
    Martin: 8
    Sushi-X: 7 (quote: “This is a really good dungeon crawler, offering tons of ways to create your character as you explore one of the spookiest dungeons to ever appear in an RPG. Giving us two games in one is a nice deal too, but I did take some issue with how repetitive the dungeon crawling got to be after a while.”)

    -from Electronic Gaming Monthly's reviews of Sega-CD games in their December 1993 issue

    -

    *The familiar blue sky with white clouds appears on the screen, followed by a chorus singing that iconic title... “The Simpsons....”*

    *Various scenes are shown of Homer, Lisa, Marge, and Bart fighting off enemies with various silly weapons.*

    Narrator: America's favorite family arrives on the Super Nintendo CD, and they're fightin' mad!

    *Homer is shown fighting off a variety of enemies, only to get hit a couple times and shout “D'oh!”*

    Narrator: Now you can play the hit arcade smash at home with three of your friends any time you want! Use Homer, Bart, Marge, or Lisa to do battle against a variety of Springfield's nastiest foes!

    *More scenes of the game are shown, featuring Bart and Lisa, we hear Bart shout “Ay carumba!”*

    Narrator: It's “The Simpsons”, for your Super Nintendo CD! Take it to the next level of power!

    -Advertisement for The Simpsons for Super Nintendo CD, which began airing in November 1993. Along with Secret of Mana, it was one of the first commercials to combine Nintendo's “Take it to the next level” slogan for the SNES-CD with the SNES' classic “Now you're playing with power”, to form a new slogan, Nintendo's subtle marketing attempt to get people who hadn't yet bought an SNES at all to buy the combo pack.

    -

    Out of the games Enix America published during the SNES and SNES-CD era, which were the most successful?

    Well, our collaborations with Quintet were fantastic, I mean, you had Illusion of Gaia sold a lot of copies on both, and of course there was the original ActRaiser. That was probably the most popular game. I mean, then we had Terranigma, and that was an SNES-CD exclusive. It was definitely the most complete and probably the best game that Enix ever released on a Nintendo system. It came out toward the end of the SNES-CD's life, of course, but I think it did pretty well and the review scores reflect that. I believe it even outsold Dragon Quest VI, which was pretty amazing.

    And which didn't perform as well as you'd hoped?

    Well, there was ActRaiser 2, which we decided to do SNES and SNES-CD versions of. The SNES-CD version flopped, despite it being the more complete version. Obviously coming out right before Secret of Mana really hurt us, but that was Enix of Japan's decision, not mine.

    I remember that Dragon Quest V was localized around that time and it almost didn't get localized.

    Well you can thank Squaresoft for that one. With them focusing a lot on the SNES-CD, and kind of neglecting the regular SNES at that time, Enix saw an opportunity to kind of slide a game in there and we got the go-ahead to localize Dragon Quest V for Spring 1994 despite the expense. It made a profit, if I recall correctly. We did a lot of duel-releases at that time, ActRaiser 2, E.V.O., and Illusion of Gaia were all released for both the cartridge based and the CD-ROM, but Enix kept Dragon Quest V as a cartridge and it did really well in both territories.

    -excerpted from a Gaming.moe interview with Robert Jerauld, former Enix USA producer, November 24, 2014 (OOC: inspired by this OTL interview from November 15! http://gaming.moe/?p=331 )

    -

    November 16, 1993

    Sonic CD is released for the Sega CD in North America. The game was heavily promoted by Sega in the months leading to its release, and Tom Kalinske wanted it to be the game that put Sega CDs in every household in America. A huge amount of Sega's creative efforts went into the creation of the game and it even went a month beyond its expected release of October, but as long as it was ready for the holiday season, Kalinske would be satisfied.

    But despite glowing reviews, many of which called Sonic CD the best Sonic game ever and a sure-fire Game of the Year contender, Sonic CD wasn't doing the one thing Sega needed it to do...sell Sega CDs. Sure, it was selling plenty of copies among Sega CD owners, and would eventually become the best selling Sega CD game of all time. But most Genesis owners were content with waiting for Sonic 3, which was just three short months away. A new Sonic game just wasn't enough to get them to put down 150 bucks. Ultima Underworld II had been similarly disappointing on a sales front, and though it was good on its own, nearly every game critic who compared it to Secret of Mana said it paled in comparison.

    Aladdin was coming next month, but even Tom Kalinske had his doubts about the game being able to get people to buy a Sega CD. Sonic CD had been the game that was going to do that, and Sega CD sales were barely showing a minor blip, certainly not the massive spike he'd anticipated. The Super Nintendo CD was crushing the Sega CD in America and humiliating it in Japan. The one tiny consolation Kalinske had was that the Sega Genesis was still beating the original Super Nintendo in sales...though when sales of the Playstation Combo Set were added to the figures, it became a dead heat.

    It was going to be a long holiday season. And it was about to get even longer.

    -

    SNES-CD Power Charts – November 1993

    1. Super Mario World 2 – 23,669
    2. Star Fox – 19,184
    3. Final Fantasy III – 17,753
    4. Super Mario Kart – 14,041
    5. Final Fight II – 12,571
    6. Street Fighter II: Arcade Edition – 12,281
    7. Super Bomberman CD – 7,571
    8. Deadman Sam – 7,215
    9. Final Fantasy: New Generation – 6,806
    10. The Terminator – 6,664
    11. Syndicate – 6,155
    12. Lethal Enforcers – 5,445
    13. Dune – 4,931
    14. ClayFighter – 4,705
    15. The Lost Vikings – 4,319
    16. Alien 3 – 4,115
    17. Clue – 4,090
    18. Battletoads II – 3,957
    19. Secret Of Mana – 3,224
    20. Flashback: The Quest For Identity – 3,155

    -

    TO ALL NINTENDO RETAILERS

    MSRP ADJUSTMENT – EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY

    SUPER NINTENDO - $99.99
    SUPER NINTENDO W/MARIO ALL-STARS+WORLD BUNDLE - $129.99 (FROM $149.99)
    SUPER NINTENDO CD W/SUPER MARIO WORLD 2 BUNDLE- $149.99 (FROM $199.99)
    SUPER NINTENDO CD PLAYSTATION COMBO SET W/MARIO ALL-STARS+WORLD/SUPER MARIO WORLD 2 BUNDLE - $249.99 (FROM $349.99)

    -from a fax sent out to all Nintendo retail partners on November 22, 1993

    -

    “FUCK!” -Tom Kalinske, throwing a crumpled-up sheet of fax paper across his office, November 22, 1993
     
    • December 1993 - How Nintendo Stole Christmas

    • RySenkari

    “What a lot of people don't know is that we needed to use a lot of tricks to get the Super Famicom CD to do exactly what we wanted a lot of the time. A lot of the games that used CD-based audio, we couldn't put the whole soundtrack on the CD for some of the games, especially some of the big ones like Secret of Mana or Final Fantasy VI. We could have, if we'd done multiple discs, but we didn't start doing that until a little while into the system's lifespan, so we had to make do with only having, maybe half of the soundtrack, the best songs, on the CD and then using the soundchip for the others. It let us do some neat things later on, like dynamic soundtracks, and the CD system had a more advanced soundchip than the Super Famicom itself, so the music quality, a lot of times you couldn't tell unless you listened really hard that it wasn't coming from the CD. I get a lot of people asking, was it hard to program for? And there were certainly things that were challenging, but in actuality the H.A.N.D.S. cartridge that Sony and Nintendo came up with to use really mitigated a lot of those issues. It kept the load times to a minimum. There were obviously still loading issues with some games but for things like entering a menu, or entering a building, those load times were cut down to a bare minimum or eliminated entirely for most games. The ones that were programmed well, anyway.”
    -Akihiko Matsui, Squaresoft video game developer, translated from a March 2003 Famitsu interview

    “That big price cut for the US in the holiday season of 1993, I remember that being an issue of contention at first. When Nintendo asked if we could get the price down, I remember that we were going to lose money on each CD add-on we sold, so there was some internal friction when it came to that. I was in favor of it because I knew we could sell more CDs and more games, and we were making lots of money on the games, especially on Mortal Kombat and later on Secret of Mana. That was the reason we were able to do the price cut, because of that extra money we'd gotten. And Nintendo agreed to give us a few percent more of a cut on third-party game sales and that helped convince the brass at Sony to let them cut the price!”
    -Ken Kutaragi, speaking about the 1993 SNES-CD price cut in a January 2005 Electronic Gaming Monthly interview

    “The reasons for the big 1993 price cut were two-fold. One, and this was an increasingly pressing issue with all the developmental effort we were putting into the SNES-CD and its games: we had to get it into more households. At that time, only about, maybe 15 percent of SNES buyers had the SNES-CD. And with some of our best games coming out for it, we had to get that number up. Our goal was 50 percent, I was hoping for 60, but I would've been happy with 40. That $350 price point, $300 with occasional sales and promotions but essentially $350, was a tall order even if we had the games to back it up. At $250 though, I knew that would be the magic number for people to start buying it. Secondly, at that point, Sega was reeling, and an animal is most dangerous when it's wounded. I knew the Sega CD was coming down to $150, I knew it was at that $250 price point and I didn't want them to get their foot in the door at all, so that was the other big reason for the price cut was to cut off any chance of the Sega CD getting a leg up on us that year. We were already beating them in sales but now we had to put the nail in the coffin.”
    -Howard Lincoln, speaking in a Comic-Con 2014 panel promoting the book “The Chase”

    “Well, what about the Sega CD? You can get a Sega CD and a Genesis for Christmas.”
    “I don't want the Sega CD, I want the Super Nintendo CD! The Sega CD doesn't have any good games!”
    “You heard what the worker said, they might not have any more in until after Christmas, you'd be okay with waiting until after Christmas?”
    “Yeah, yeah, I'm okay with it, I can wait! I want a Nintendo CD, it has all the Mario games!”
    -overheard at a Walmart electronics display, December 20, 1993

    “You Battletoads have annoyed me the for last time! I've had enough of this, I'm going to tear you all limb from limb!”
    -the Dark Queen, just before the final boss battle of Battletoads II

    -

    “This season's hottest toy is flying off the shelves, and stores are struggling to keep it in stock. It's the Super Nintendo CD, a CD-ROM based attachment for the popular Super Nintendo game console. The attachment was actually released for last year's holiday season, but a sparse game selection and high price tag kept skeptical parents at bay. Nintendo's slashed the price of the add-on to just $149, and if you don't already have a Super Nintendo, you can get them both along with a collection of their popular Mario games for $249. The most popular games? Super Mario, of course, along with The Simpsons, Secret Of Mana, and the controversial Mortal Kombat. We asked parents who were out looking for the Super Nintendo CD just why they couldn't resist the allure.

    We took a trip to an area Target store, where a new shipment of the Super Nintendo CD has just arrived. Already, we've seen three area parents pick up the item, and we asked them about this season's latest craze.”

    Woman: Oh yeah, this was all they asked for, this and the new Simpsons game. I think it's a lot to spend, since we just got them a new system two years ago, but they've been asking for this for a year now and I finally, you know, caved in.

    Interviewer: Are you worried that in a couple more years there will be another new thing that you'll have to buy?

    Woman: Well, there's always something new. I mean, it's Christmas and they kept their grades up so, you know, they earned it I guess.

    “We also talked to a father who was in buying a Super Nintendo CD, including this year's most controversial game, Mortal Kombat.”

    Man: Well, my two boys are 13 and 11.

    Interviewer: And it says right there on the case, 17 and up. Are you worried about your sons playing such a violent game?

    Man: I mean, it's just fantasy. It's not real and they know it's not real. It's no more violent than the movies I let them watch. And it's the only game they want.

    Interviewer: They're not interested in Super Mario Kart?

    Man: Oh no, they don't like Mario games. They play the Street Fighter, and uh, the wrestling game. They watch a lot of wrestling.

    “We also talked to a grandmother who was here with her grandson to purchase the device. She says that she doesn't understand these games, but her son couldn't stop talking about the games he was planning to play.”

    Grandma: He's not getting it until Christmas, I just brought him here so he could pick out the games he wants.

    *A tall skinny boy wearing glasses who looks to be about twelve holds up Secret Of Mana and Final Fantasy III to the camera.*

    Boy: These are the best games, right here. Secret of Mana, this one is supposed to be awesome. You can fly a dragon and you have a sword.

    Grandma: I'm not getting him that violent game I saw on the news, that Mortal Kombat game. That game is vile.

    Boy: I don't want Mortal Kombat, it looks stupid.

    Grandma: Good, it is stupid.

    “Of course, judging from sales figures, many people would disagree. Mortal Kombat is thus far the second best selling game of the holiday season, behind only Super Mario All-Stars on the Super Nintendo. We got a chance to speak with Nintendo of America president Howard Lincoln about the company's recent success.”

    Howard Lincoln: We feel like the Super Nintendo and the CD-ROM peripheral are perfectly positioned to sell very well this Christmas. We feel like there's a lot to offer on both the Super Nintendo and the CD-ROM.

    Interviewer: You recently cut the price, do you think that's going to move a lot of game systems this year?

    Howard Lincoln: Oh, absolutely. We believe that, for those families that might have waited to buy in to the Super Nintendo, that now is the perfect time. If you're in the market for a CD player, that $250 price tag is comparable to most CD players currently on the market, and you're getting the capability to play both cartridge-based and CD-ROM games as a bonus. And with the combo set, we have both Super Mario All-Stars, which in this case is a special edition packaged with Super Mario World, AND the new Super Mario World 2 game, those games are free and you don't have to worry about anything else, you can just buy the set and you'll already have six Mario games to play, all six of our main series Mario games, because we feel that Nintendo's built its legacy on the back of Super Mario and so those games are perfect to represent what Nintendo's all about, so that anyone who buys any Nintendo product this year will hopefully be a Nintendo fan for life.

    -from a WISN-TV evening news report on December 14, 1993

    -

    *A man parodying pitchman Ron Popeil stands in front of a crowd, showing off his latest item*

    Pitchman: It's time for the next item on “Incredible Innovations”, and let me tell you, this is the best thing we've ever seen! It's the Super Nintendo CD Playstation Combo Set!

    Crowd: What does it do?

    *The pitchman speaks while footage from various SNES and SNES-CD games plays on the screen.*

    Pitchman: It plays Super Nintendo game carts like Street Fighter II Turbo, Super Squadron X, and the brand new adventure game Earthbound! It plays the hottest new Super Nintendo CD games, like Secret Of Mana, Battletoads II, and The Simpsons! It even plays your favorite music CDs!

    *Shows the pitchman and some attractive ladies jamming out to some music*

    Pitchman: But that's not all! It also comes with Super Mario All-Stars AND Super Mario World 2! That's six of Mario's greatest adventures! See Mario jump, see Mario throw fireballs, see Mario race into the air, see Mario race on the ground, see Mario shrink down to miniature size, see Mario visit dozens of worlds, hundreds of levels, hours upon hours of endless Mario fun!

    *The crowd cheers wildly*

    Pitchman: With all of that, what do you think this incredible innovation costs?

    Crowd Member: $1500!

    Pitchman: No way!

    Crowd Member: $1000!

    Pitchman: Are you kidding me?

    Crowd Member: $700!

    Pitchman: Not even close!

    Crowd member: $500!

    Pitchman: *just laughing*

    Crowd Member: $349.99!

    Pitchman: That's what it USED to cost, before I went completely insane! Because I'm now offering the Super Nintendo CD Playstation Combo Set, that plays game carts, game discs, music CDs, AND comes with six awesome Mario games for the brand new low price of $249.99!

    *The crowd goes wild*

    Pitchman: The Super Nintendo CD Playstation Combo Set! Take it to the next level of power!

    *Another strange item is brought out.*

    Pitchman: *points at it* I have NO idea what that thing is!

    -from a commercial for the SNES-CD combo set that aired in December 1993

    -

    Battletoads II:

    Steve: 9
    Martin: 9
    Ed: 9 (quote: “A great game that takes full advantage of the CD-ROM format to provide excellent graphics and sound, while also featuring seven more levels than the NES classic. It's not quite as punishingly difficult as the original game but it's pretty tough.”)
    Sushi-X: 9

    E.V.O.: The Search For Eden:

    Steve: 8
    Martin: 8 (quote: “This game is great on both the SNES and the CD, though this CD-ROM version provides improved graphics and enhanced music, along with a few extra nifty evolutions.”)
    Ed: 7
    Sushi-X: 7

    Utopia: The Creation Of A Nation:

    Steve: 8 (quote: “It's not instantly fun like SimCity, but Utopia is still a really fun god-sim for the SNES-CD. It's a bit confusing with all the different variables involved, but once you learn everything it offers a level of customization that surpasses even SimEarth.”)
    Martin: 7
    Ed: 8
    Sushi-X: 5

    Mansion Of Hidden Souls:

    Steve: 7
    Martin: 9
    Ed: 8
    Sushi-X: 8 (quote: “This was a really enthralling horror game, relying on atmosphere instead of blood and guts to scare players. It might not be as action packed as some other games on the system, but it makes up for that in providing a suspenseful adventure that you won't be able to easily put down.”)

    Super Carnival:

    Steve: 4 (quote: “Like a real carnival midway, you should stay far away from this game if you don't want to waste your money. I wanted to punch the guy playing the carnival barker in the face, he was THAT annoying and the games are just as boring and impossible to win.”)
    Martin: 5
    Ed: 5
    Sushi-X: 3

    Novastorm:

    Steve: 6
    Martin: 6 (quote: “It does nice things with full-motion video, but so did Starfox and that game had the gameplay to boot. This one doesn't, it's just some occasionally pretty FMV sequences interspersed with unimaginative and repetitive gameplay.”)
    Ed: 8
    Sushi-X: 4

    -reviews for December 1993's SNES-CD games in the January and February 1994 issues of Electronic Gaming Monthly

    -

    December 6, 1993

    Battletoads II is released on the Super Nintendo CD. It had replaced Rare's original plan to make a Super Nintendo Battletoads game, “Battletoads in Battlemaniacs”, though the Battletoads/Double Dragon crossover game had been released on the Super Nintendo in June with some level of success. The game was a fairly basic sequel, returning the popular Battletoads to a brand new adventure. The game featured 20 levels that took the Battletoads across a variety of environs and saw them facing a number of bosses, some of them quite large and graphically impressive. The game took a few aspects from the scrapped “Battlemaniacs” game, but for the most part was an entirely new creation, dropping Silas Volkmire and focusing on the Dark Queen as the sole major villain, the game spent some time fleshing out her personality and showing some of her origins, adding a somewhat sympathetic aspect to her character, though she remained a wicked villainess for the most part, committing a variety of evil deeds throughout the game. The game allowed for three players at once, featuring Rash, Pimple, and Zitz as playable characters (in the original Battlemaniacs, Zitz was intended to be held hostage by the villains). The game features some voiced lines by the Battletoads, some of the villains, and the Dark Queen, but cutscenes take the form of still pictures and sprite animations, forgoing animated FMV sequences to tell its story in the form of in-game animation. After the Dark Queen is defeated, she vows revenge as she did in the previous Battletoads game, living to fight another day. The game sells decently well in its position as a major holiday release and is considered a success for Rareware.

    -

    December 10, 1993

    The first-person shooter Doom is released as shareware for the PC. While barely a blip on the radar to those embroiled in the Nintendo vs. Sega console wars, for PC gamers it's a revelation and a soon-to-be sensation that would eventually sell millions of copies and become one of the most beloved and controversial video games of all time.

    Even before the game's release, however, both Nintendo and Sega had been paying attention to the game's development. Nintendo, which had begun to woo PC game developers and had plans to port such PC games as Secret of Monkey Island and Cannon Fodder to their Super Nintendo CD, began to explore what it might take to make a game like Doom run on their CD-ROM peripheral as smoothly as possible. They knew they might be courting even more controversy than they had with Mortal Kombat, but they hoped that by the time any prospective Doom port was completed, such issues would die down. For the moment, the game would remain a computer phenomenon.

    -

    “The news about that holiday price drop for the Super Nintendo CD was a big shock. We'd known they were going to drop the Super Nintendo to $129 and maybe to $99, but hearing that the CD was coming down too, well... that and the fact that Aladdin failed to push any Sega CDs for Christmas '93...I mean, the writing was pretty much on the wall. Once 1994 rolled around, we knew that the Sega CD wasn't going to be able to beat Nintendo's CD add-on no matter how hard we pushed it. We decided that we were going to redouble our efforts to push the Genesis, which was still beating the Super Nintendo in America in head-to-head sales. We had Sonic 3 coming down the pipeline and that was a damn good thing. Hell, the Genesis port of Aladdin, the one without the animated cutscenes, barely half the levels, and good but not great music, it was selling like hotcakes, we probably sold ten times more of those than we sold on the Sega CD! So we knew that while the Sega CD was pretty much a non-starter, we still had a winner in the Genesis and I was damned if I was going to let it fall below the Super Nintendo. The going was getting tougher and we'd just have to get tougher with it.

    I remember though, one moment that Christmas that hurt more than anything else. I was on my couch, about a week before Christmas, and my oldest daughter walks in. And she's kind of got a look on her face like 'oh, I'm in trouble', so I thought, you know, she'd gotten a D on her report card or something, which would've been pretty surprising because she's always been a great student. So I ask her what's wrong and she says that she played a game at a friend's house, and it was a really amazing game and that she wanted it for Christmas. And I was thinking 'oh no, it's Mortal Kombat, you're not getting that', but no, she had been playing Secret of Mana on her friend's Super Nintendo CD. And she loved it. And she wanted us to get a Super Nintendo with the CD attachment so she could play Secret of Mana. And of course, I told her no, that daddy can't get you a Nintendo system because that's our competitor and if anyone saw me buying it....but she was really REALLY begging for this thing. And I wasn't mad at her, I mean...Nintendo had some amazing games, that's why they were such a damn tough competitor. But for my own daughter, my own flesh and blood to be begging for a NINTENDO system? I felt...betrayed! Just...how could she do that to me? *he laughs, obviously he's joking and being overdramatic* I told her I couldn't get her the game. I told her she could play it all she wanted at her friend's house but that for the time being we couldn't have anything Nintendo. And she said she understood, and then I promised her that I would make sure that Sega would have a game like Secret of Mana someday. That it would be like Secret of Mana, but better.”
    -Tom Kalinske, in a 2002 interview with Sega Retro

    -

    Enix Looks Toward 1994

    Enix has had a big last couple of months with a pair of cross-platform game releases! Both the SNES and its CD add-on saw versions of ActRaiser 2 and E.V.O.: The Search For Eden, and that cross-platform strategy will continue into next year as they release Illusion of Gaia, their follow up to the SNES cult classic Soul Blazer. Made in collaboration with the game studio Quintet, this action-RPG is slated for release sometime late next year, and the company is said to be pushing it hard, hoping it will join Secret of Mana from rival company Squaresoft as a big action-RPG hit for Nintendo.

    While Enix continues to release versions of most of its games across both the SNES and the SNES-CD, it will have two big exclusive games early next year, one for each of Nintendo's big consoles. First up, it's February's Phaedra's Heart, exclusive to the Super Nintendo CD. It tells the story of a goddess seeking to regain her power by finding human companions, in a somewhat similar story to the previously mentioned Soul Blazer, though unlike Soul Blazer, this game is a more traditional RPG in the vein of Final Fantasy. It did big business in Japan when it was released there in September and Enix is hoping it will repeat that success in the West! Coming exclusively to SNES carts in April is Dragon Warrior V, a game that was not expected to make it to our shores. It's a tale of a young warrior who must overcome a difficult struggle, including becoming a slave and even being turned into stone, in order to reunite with his family and save the world from a terrible evil!

    It's clear that Enix is making plans for a big 1994, but can they find the same success that Squaresoft has found in 1993? Only time will tell...
    -from an article in GameFan magazine's 1994 preview in their January 1994 issue

    -

    “I was very pleased to have the opportunity to see Mother released in the West. It took more than four years and a complete remake of the game, but I feel that my original vision remained intact and the translation was, I was told, handled very well. The game was received well in the West. Sales were decent, reviews were great, and I enjoyed seeing the reaction to the game from a different set of players, whose culture was quite different from mine.”
    -Shigesato Itoi, commenting on the Western release of the first Mother game, known in the West as “Earthbound”, in a 1996 Japanese TV interview translated by Earthbound Central

    December 13, 1993

    Earthbound, the remake/localization of the Famicom's Mother, is released for the Super Nintendo in North America. The game received significant changes from its Japanese counterpart, including a reduction in difficulty to reduce the need for grinding present in the original game, a major graphics overhaul, and an enhanced soundtrack. Unlike Nintendo's OTL marketing for Mother 2/Earthbound, which missed the mark by centering on some rather juvenile aspects of the game (scratch 'n sniff ads, etc.), TTL's Earthbound marketing was more subtle, with Nintendo playing up the game's similiarities to the real world and positioning its protagonist Ninten as a sort of “everyboy” hero in a marketing campaign that enabled Earthbound to carve out just enough sales to justify the game's translation and release (the fact that it had few other quality SNES RPGs to compete with at the time certainly helped). The game had been released in Japan for the Super Famicom in October and had performed excellently there, outselling the Famicom original by about 50,000 copies. Work would soon begin on Mother 2 for the Super Nintendo CD and Nintendo planned to release it as Earthbound 2 in the West, sometime in 1995.

    -

    SNES-CD Power Charts – December 1993

    1. Mortal Kombat - 38,440
    2. Super Mario World 2 - 24,817
    3. Star Fox – 17,165
    4. Final Fantasy III – 13,468
    5. Jurassic Park – 12,907
    6. Super Mario Kart – 12,568
    7. Street Fighter II: Arcade Edition – 12,421
    8. Final Fight II – 9,868
    9. Deadman Sam – 9,407
    10. Yoshi's Safari – 8,060
    11. The Terminator – 6,851
    12. Super Bomberman CD – 6,244
    13. Secret Of Mana – 5,794
    14. Final Fantasy: New Generation – 5,506
    15. Axelay – 5,287
    16. Lethal Enforcers – 4,763
    17. Art Of Fighting – 4,154
    18. Syndicate – 4,086
    19. ClayFighter – 3,850
    20. Battletoads II – 3,749

    -

    “So we'd been working on Donkey Kong Country for a few months, that was of course our next big Super Nintendo game, and the next game we were doing after Battletoads II, which had sold pretty well for the Super Nintendo CD. I get a call, it's from the big man himself, Hiroshi Yamauchi. And he wanted to know.... if we could make Donkey Kong Country for the CD instead. An exclusive CD game. This was the game we'd been making to push the limits of the Super Nintendo, to show off the capability of that system, and he wanted us to do it for CD instead. In some ways of course it'd be easier, but we knew it would be a challenge too because now we'd be pushing the CD system's limits and those were a lot higher.”
    -Dan Owsen, project manager for Donkey Kong Country

    “We had acquired a large portion of Rare in 1993, and we had given them permission to make a Donkey Kong Country game. At the time, we were looking at that as a big Super Famicom title for holiday season 1994. But the more and more popular the Super Famicom CD-ROM had gotten, the more that people within Nintendo, myself included, were looking at the possibility of making this game for the CD-ROM system instead.”
    -Hiroshi Yamauchi, president of Nintendo

    “And of course, there were many within Nintendo who were adamantly opposed to this move, because...all of us knew that if Donkey Kong Country became a Super Nintendo CD game, it would mean...it would mean the end of the cartridge-based Super Famicom. Not right away, of course, we were planning on supporting the Super Famicom well into 1995 and 1996, but... the writing on the wall would be pretty clear that the CD had supplanted the cartridge. Miyamoto-san, he was very much opposed to it. Kutaragi, from Sony, of course was heavily in favor and he had Ohga-san pushing very hard for this as well. Myself and Howard Lincoln, we were both very neutral on the situation but we understood the gravity of moving Donkey Kong Country to be on the CD exclusively. It was an enormous decision, and it was Yamauchi-san's to make.”
    -Minoru Arakawa

    “Yamauchi-san asked to see two people before he made his decision on Donkey Kong Country. He asked for Arakawa-san of course, and then... well, if he had asked Miyamoto-san to speak with him, I knew that it might have gone the other way. But once I'd heard that he was calling on me to speak with him, I knew the decision had already been made.”
    -Ken Kutaragi

    “For those who could read between the lines, the real announcement that Nintendo made at the end of 1993 wasn't that Donkey Kong Country was going to be released on the Super Nintendo CD... but that the Super Nintendo CD was now the successor console to the Super Nintendo and not just an add-on peripheral. Sooner or later, the CD-ROM drive was going to supplant the cartridge games entirely. There would be Super Nintendo cartridges released for a few years afterwards... but the Super Nintendo would pretty much peak with Super Metroid a few months later. For the Super Nintendo and for cartridge-based games in general, it was all downhill from there.”
    -Blake Harris, “The Chase: Sega's 20 Year Struggle To Take Down A Giant”
     
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