With the new consoles rapidly approaching Nintendo needed something to try to show that the SNES could still compete, and along with Donkey Kong Country this was exactly what they needed. Technical achievements aside though, the all important game play was still there in spades too, with the game giving off the feeling of controlling a spaceship in battles reminiscent of those from Star Wars.

After the impressive original Rare came back with an even better Donkey Kong game, including better designed levels with much more rewarding game play, a more interesting theme and longevity which far exceeded that of the first game.

An action RPG with really beautiful atmosphere, a great storyline and excellent music, Secret of Mana not only excelled in most areas but also included the totally unprecedented feature of an awesome three player co-operative option. The game includes loads of charm, be it the quirky transportation (being fired out of a cannon) to riding on the back of a dragon. Well worth hunting down with a multi-tap.

Has to be one of the first racing games available for a home console with a pretty much perfect and addictive competitive multiplayer component. As with F-Zero the Mode 7 SNES features worked perfectly to bring the courses to life, but the real master stroke was in adding the RC Pro-Am style weapons to give an element of sneakiness to the proceedings.

Epic storytelling at its best, Final Fantasy's story was engrossing, twisting and memorable. It doesn't end there though as the game play was fully honed, with more features than ever and an elegant battle system, there were masses of characters all with their own nuances and personalities, and really memorable set pieces. The game was just extremely ambitious in scope.

Nintendo really had a challenge on their hands to try to better the superlative Super Mario Bros 3, what they came back with was the same classic game play but now with the fantastic addition of Yoshi, a nice minimalistic graphics style, and most importantly masses of different exits which made the game play much deeper than its predecessor (though to my mind, Super Mario Bros 3 still has the edge in charm)

The game which single handedly rescued and re-popularised the one on one fighting genre, with deep and most importantly fun game play as well as a cast of interesting characters, Street Fighter II took the gaming world by storm, and who would've thought that the arcade game could be converted to the SNES quite this well?

After much thought, I've decided to place Chrono Trigger above Final Fantasy VI as the best RPG on the SNES, mainly due to the fact that I like the way that Chrono Trigger eschews the usual melodrama of many RPGs for a more lighthearted, and exciting swashbuckling style. The usual RPG game play is also well represented along with awesome music and the game also brought a bunch of new interesting elements of its own to the RPG genre.

Pretty much excelling in all areas, storyline, action, depth, Super Metroid contained some of the most supremely clever and intricate level designs, a great power-up system with loads of cool to use weapons, really memorable set pieces and boss battles, and a generally first rate style and atmosphere. A commendable achievement.

An amazing design that built on the original in so many ways, very much like Super Metroid this game also excelled in all aspects, game play, graphics and sound. The adventure was pretty long but managed to be a lot of fun from start to finish and finding all the secrets added a level of longevity to the game. Still easily the greatest Zelda game ever made and pure 16-bit perfection in every way.