3 SNES RPGs Everyone Owned In The 1990s

Some SNES RPGs in the 1990s stood out drastically. The Super Nintendo Entertainment System, best known as the SNES, built upon the foundation laid down by the NES, but improved the video game industry drastically with new hardware that made the gaming experience totally different. While some of the best games released on the NES introduced several new features that were unseen until then, like the continuous side-scrolling of the Super Mario franchise and the save system in the very first The Legend of Zelda, the SNES was able to run heavier and longer games with enhanced graphics and more. While the NES was revolutionary for its time, boasting 8-bit graphics, the SNES was a 16-bit graphics successor with a lot more to offer than just remarkable graphics. The hardware allowed for much larger games to run – some of which would last dozens of hours. It was also the home for some spectacular games. Some of these games were so good that they are still considered SNES masterpieces in 2026, even if they were released decades ago. Among these gems were also some phenomenal RPGs that everyone with a SNES probably tried out back in the 1990s. Secret Of Mana One of the biggest examples of this was Secret of Mana. The very first official entry in the Mana series was released in 1993 as Seiken Densetsu 2. Its predecessor, Seiken Densetsu, was marketed as Final Fantasy Adventure in North America in 1991, making this sequel the first official Mana game ever. Much like in a Final Fantasy game, however, you control heroes in a high fantasy universe who are tasked with fighting against an oppressive empire seeking to control the world. Secret of Mana was an absolute Square Enix masterpiece on the SNES when it was released. Going against the majority of the movement for RPGs at the time, Secret of Mana featured real-time combat instead of turn-based battles. Another thing that made it ahead of its time was the fact that this combat system allowed for up to three-player cooperative gameplay, meaning that you could take on the story with your friends. Even though the combat was in real-time, players could also pause it with the game's innovative Ring Command menu, which allowed them to swap weapons, select spells, and more. Secret of Mana was met with critical acclaim for its graphics, gameplay mechanics, and much more, and it was an extremely popular title to play back in the 1990s, especially due to the fact that it allowed gameplay with your friends – a thing that most RPGs of the time did not. Final Fantasy VI Arguably the best entry in the pixel-era Final Fantasy games, Final Fantasy 6 was and still is a masterpiece. Released in 1994 for the SNES, FF6 pushed the hardware to its limit, presenting the best graphics the series had seen so far; the game took advantage of the console's Mode 7 graphics, which allowed it to deliver better 3D effects than its predecessors. While the difference nowadays may seem minimal, it was actually stunning back in the day. Of course, what made Final Fantasy 6 so good was how great its story was, led by a group of fantastic characters you couldn't get enough of. With 14 playable characters, each of which was extremely well developed to the point that Terra was not the only protagonist in the game, players would be surprised by the mid-game plot twist. It was a mature campaign and what I consider the benchmark for the series: a story about pushing forward and never losing hope, even amidst the bleakest of futures. The game's deeper themes, including nihilism, felt appropriate for the players who grew up playing the other titles in the series. Back in the day, if you weren't playing Final Fantasy 6, you were missing out on one of the best games on the SNES, and no one would want that. It's just one of those RPGs everyone had to play in 1994, even if one year later, the world would see the release of the greatest RPG of all time. Chrono Trigger There's no overselling how great Chrono Trigger is. The game's premise as a product was unforeseen at the time. Chrono Trigger was developed by what is considered the 'Dream Team' at Square: the father of the Final Fantasy franchise, Hironobu Sakaguchi; the father of the Dragon Quest series, Yuji Horii; and the creator of Dragon Ball, Akira Toriyama. In 1995, Square released Chrono Trigger for the SNES, forever changing the RPG landscape. Chrono Trigger took what RPGs were doing right and made it all significantly better. For example, the game undercut the lengthy, grind-fueled portions of the game, making it a straightforward and linear narrative experience for its players. Instead of lasting the average 40 hours or more, Chrono Trigger was a much shorter RPG, with around 20 hours of gameplay. The catch? It had multiple endings. On top of that, the game featured an absolutely compelling story led by an unforgettable cast of characters. That was integrated into the gameplay mechanics, as it was possible to use combo attacks with multiple characters at once. There is so much to say about Chrono Trigger, but the fact is that its quality also made it one of the most popular RPGs on the SNES, and even if you didn't play it back then, you likely played it in one of its ports later on. Like Follow Followed SNES Brand Nintendo Original Release Date August 23, 1991 Original MSRP $199 Hardware Versions SNES Weight 2.12 lbs See at Walmart See at Amazon Expand Collapse