iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

SNES Central @snescentral.com · 27/09/2026

I just dumped this Satellaview 8M pack that I recently purchased. Unfortunately it was just a barebones RPG Tsukuru 2 save. That is the 8M pack lottery!

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SNES Central @snescentral.com · 21/09/2026

I finally made it to the Showa themed izakaya on my island, and they had a big pile of Super Famicom games. I told the waitress that I own at least half of these!

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SNES Central @snescentral.com · 14/07/2026

No way you can mess around in this game, even on the easiest setting they don't give you much time!

Screenshot from the SNES game Whizz. The timer, which is in the top left corner, is almost expired with 1 second left.

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SNES Central @snescentral.com · 21/06/2026

Kagoshima is a Donkey Kong kind of place.

A picture of me beside a cardboard cutout of Donkey Kong with a big grin. Above is a sign that says "Kagoshima".

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SNES Central @snescentral.com · 12/06/2026

Now here is something crazy, four unreleased games on a single advertisement page! Poor Hi Tech, you did not have enough time.

An advertisement with four unreleased games by High Tech. Mickey's Playtown Adventure for the SNES, Barbie Vacation Adventures for the Genesis, Bobby's World for the Genesis, and Tom Vs Jerry The Chase is On for the SNES.

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SNES Central @snescentral.com · 12/06/2026

I recall a time when the number of "Megs" a game had was a big deal. 24 Megs is only 3 MB! It seems quaint with some games being well over 100 GB now a days.

An advertisement for Final Fantasy III (i.e. VI) in a magazine from 1994. It shows the box art, Mog, artwork from several monsters from the game, and a couple of screenshots. The text reads "This is the first 244-Meg RPG for the Super NES and one of the most anticipated games of the year. A sure Hit for the holidays".

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SNES Central @snescentral.com · 09/06/2026

I am looking through some old EGMs, and I noted that Mortal Kombat 3 made the cover in February, March, April, May, August, September and October 1995. It was like it was the only game that mattered that year! Considering the era, you have to wonder if there was a sponsorship deal.

The covers of the 7 issues of EGM mentioned in the post, featuring Mortal Kombat 3.

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SNES Central @snescentral.com · 09/06/2026

It knocked over the giant banyan tree in front of our institute. 😢

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SNES Central @snescentral.com · 07/06/2026

I haven't done a Link to the Past Randomizer for a while. All dungeons, keysanity settings, as I usually do. I probably could have done it in less than 2:30 if I skipped some items at the end, but I wanted that gold sword!

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SNES Central @snescentral.com · 04/05/2026

Square showed an early version of Chrono Trigger at the 1994 Shoshinkai. It appears that they might have originally planned to have a four character party. Alternatively, one robot is attacking Chrono, I don't know. This is from the January 1995 issue of Nintendo Power.

A screenshot of an early version of Chrono Trigger. It shows a battle screen with a rocky background. The party is fighting three robots that look like Robo, and they all appear to be attacked by Chrono. The party consists of Chrono, Lucca, Ayla and Robo. Chrono has his sword out and may be attacking.

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SNES Central @snescentral.com · 29/04/2026

In Super Castlevania IV, the rotating castle of Stage 4-3 brought the SNES to its knees. On Super ZSNES, it runs smooth as butter. Very impressive!

Screenshot of the Rotating Castle stage in Super Castlevania IV, being played on the Super ZSNES emulator. It shows Simon Belmont along with a skeleton and two candles. One of the enhancements in Super ZSNES is a widescreen mode, which is utilized here, making the scene wider than a typical SNES game.

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SNES Central @snescentral.com · 28/04/2026

When I first found out about Super ZSNES, my immediate thought would be, what would Near think about this? After giving this a go, I think they would be very pleased about the direction the zsnes devs went with this.

The credits for SUPER ZSNES, which shows it is version v0.100b, coded by zsKnight and _Demo_ (the original developers). The Special Thanks gives thanks to Byuu/Near (Rest in Peace), Zophar, MVG, GreenImp, all the original ZSNES developers and contributors to the SNES dev and EMU Community.

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SNES Central @snescentral.com · 28/04/2026

I might be playing Super Mario World in wide-screen with enhanced graphics and uncompressed sound samples, but I still play zsnes the same way I did 22 years ago - with my Super Smart Joy SNES controller adapter. Lik Sang sent me one since I was a moderator on the zsnes forums!

A picture showing the new version of zsnes playing on my laptop. It depicts Yoshi's Island 2, where you get Yoshi for the first time. Notably, it shows widescreen graphics, and the graphics are smoother due to the filtering. On the keyboard of the laptop is the Super Smart Joy adapter.

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SNES Central @snescentral.com · 08/04/2026

I got some accessories for my new car. ;)

A photo taken outside of my car, showing the passenger side dashboard, with a Super Mario red mushroom and invincibility star.

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SNES Central @snescentral.com · 08/03/2026

Mario event at Kumamoto Station!

A picture of me standing in a green pipe like in Super Mario Bros. I am holding my right arm in the air. Behind me is a mural of Mario series characters and Kumamoto written in Super Mario World font. It is outdoors.

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SNES Central @snescentral.com · 24/01/2026

Watching Chico-chan this morning and one of the questions was "why do people in Japan associate the colour purple with poison?" The cultural impact of Dragon Quest V was so great that the purple colour of the poison swamps caused all games to use purple to mean poison.

A picture of the TV show. It has four pictures from different video games (Including Super Mario Galaxy and a recent Street Fighter game) that use purple to show "poison".

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SNES Central @snescentral.com · 20/01/2026

Clearly the devs of this game were expecting people like me to poke around. ;)

If you look at the ROM image of NHL 96 for the SNES in a hex editor, there is a message from the devs at the start. It reads:

Tiburon Entertainment, Inc. developed this product for Electronic Arts. Tiburon is a small developer located in Longwood Florida, a suburb of Orlando. We develop entertainment software for console systems, and IBM Compatibles. If you're a talented programmer or Artist please fax us your resume at 407-862-4077. Although formal education is a plus, it's not required. This message is directed to all you hackers and demo coders out there who might be looking through our ROMs. We have good benefits, and pay competitive wages. We understand that while your resume may not reflect jobs programming, that you may still be very talented, and the opportunity may not have been available. In this case we ask your to mail us you're demos, or examples of work you have done. Tiburon Entertainment c/o Hey! I'm good, and I want a job 900 Fox Valley Drv. Suite #202 Longwood, FL 32779

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SNES Central @snescentral.com · 15/04/2025

Who wants to play Asagiri Quest, an RPG set in the town of Asagiri? Asagiri is a small town in rural Kumamoto.

A picture of a poster advertising Asagiri Quest. The text is all in Japanese. There are four anime style people on the advertisement, the left two are men, and the right two are women. In front of them is a frog character.

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SNES Central @snescentral.com · 04/04/2025

When you see this, what do you think it is (Japanese residents, do not give it away!)?

A wrapper of some Koala treats, with a special mascot. It is a blue and red mascot. The face has a big white smile, with some red bulbous thing around it, with multiple eyes.

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SNES Central @snescentral.com · 02/04/2025

There is a temporary Pokemon shop in a shopping center near where I live. They have this massive Pikachu at the entrance.

A picture of the entrance of a shopping center. The doors are on the left side. On the right of the doors are a bunch of windows with a large image of Pikachu appearing to leap upwards. It only shows the top part of Pikachu, and its tail.

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SNES Central @snescentral.com · 12/03/2025

I am definitely happy to celebrate 30 years of Chrono Trigger! My old cart that I have had since the 90s is not doing so well in the Japanese climate, though.

On the left is a cartridge of the US version of Chrono Trigger for the Super NES. The plastic shows signs of fading. On the right is the box from the Japanese version of Chrono Trigger for the Super Famicom.

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SNES Central @snescentral.com · 05/03/2025

New Tekken just dropped! (Note, in this case "Tekken" means something like "wise building" rather than "iron fist".)

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SNES Central @snescentral.com · 12/02/2025

I bought a bunch of Yellow Magic Orchestra CDs a couple of weeks ago. It cannot be overstated how much Solid State Survivor influenced the sound of Super NES soundtracks.

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SNES Central @snescentral.com · 11/02/2025

A couple of weeks ago, I picked up the Final Fantasy VI soundtrack, so I now have IV-VII. One CD is not enough for IV!

A picture showing the CD collections of the Final Fantasy IV, V, VI and VII soundtracks.

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SNES Central @snescentral.com · 09/02/2025

The Pokemon cheering for the future of Nagasaki, Denryu! I have to admit I don't know enough about Pokemon to know the English name.

A picture of me standing next to a cardboard standy of a Pokemon, "Denryu". It has a ribbon that says "ながさき未来応援ポケモン　デンリュウ". This means "Denryu, the Pokemon cheering for the future of Nagasaki".

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SNES Central @snescentral.com · 09/02/2025

I am at the Nagasaki Lantern Festival, and someone put a Luigi hat on this camel.

A photo of silk lanterns shaped like animals. From left to right, a kangaroo, a gorilla and a two humped camel. The camel wears a green Luigi hat.

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SNES Central @snescentral.com · 31/01/2025

Did you know there is a funk/jazz remix of the Chrono Trigger soundtrack? I picked this up today.

A picture of the CD of "The Brink of Time - Chrono Trigger Arranged Version". The cover art shows a plate with two sunny side eggs and a cherry tomato, a metal fork on the left side of the plate, and a metal knife on the right of the plate. To the top right is a glass of orange juice.

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SNES Central @snescentral.com · 30/01/2025

I was retro shopping today and saw the Final Fantasy Mystic Quest soundtrack. It is one of the best soundtracks on the SNES, but 8800 yen is a steep price. I later saw a boxed copy of the SFC game for 2500 yen, as a point of comparison.

The picture shows 6 video game soundtrack CDs on display. Final Fantasy Mystic Quest is at the top right with a price of 8800 yen.

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SNES Central @snescentral.com · 26/01/2025

Nintendo Power really hyped of Ultrabots, a mech first person shooter, when the SNES first came out. They even included it as a poster! It ended up being cancelled for the SNES, and the PC version came out in 1993. This is the first mention of the game, in the September 1991 issue.

Text from the "Super Rumors" section of the September 1991 issue of Nintendo Power. It reads:

Ultrabots: Sanction Earth

Data East has begun an ambitious development project for the Super NES with Ultrabots: Sanction Earth. The action is set in the far future and the player takes control of an Ultrabot, or giant robotic war machine. The viewpoint on the action is from the cockpit of the machine, making this one of the first vehicle simulation type games for the SNES. Data East is also working on Caveman Ninja, a translation of the humorous arcade game Joe & Mac.

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SNES Central @snescentral.com · 25/01/2025

The poster in the July 1991 issue of Nintendo Power shows a screenshot from Final Fantasy IV with a party lineup that is not possible in the final game.

A screenshot from Final Fantasy IV (labeled with the US title II). It shows a party containing Kain, Rydia as a child, dark knight Cecil, Rosa and Yang. They are fighting enemies found in the Tower of Zot, and Rydia has cast Quake.

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SNES Central @snescentral.com · 25/01/2025

One of my favourite pieces of Nintendo Power trivia was how Steve Wozniak was obsessed with getting the highest score for Game Boy Tetris in the high scores listings. He ended up having to start using an alias because Nintendo Power stopped publishing his scores!

Scan of Steve Wozniak's letter to Nintendo Power in the January 1991 issue of Nintendo Power. He describes getting a score over 500,000, and includes a picture of him with his Game Boy, and a picture of his score. The response by Nintendo Power notes his score is in their NES Achievers list.

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SNES Central @snescentral.com · 24/01/2025

Sutte Hakkun is an amazing game that has been added to Nintendo Switch Online. Make sure to check it out.

Super Nintendo box scans for the Nintendo Switch Online update for January 24, 2025. On the left is the US box for Fatal Fury 2, the middle is the US box for Super Ninja Boy, and the right is the Japanese box for Sutte Hakkun.

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SNES Central @snescentral.com · 20/01/2025

Today in "Kirby is everywhere in Japan" - Heinz Ketchup.

A picture of a shelf in a Japanese grocery store. In the center are some squeeze packs of Heinz ketchup, with pictures of Kirby on them.

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SNES Central @snescentral.com · 19/01/2025

Nothing says Valentine's Day like Kirby! Notably, Valentine's Day in Japan is kind of a role reversal compared to elsewhere, where girls give gifts to guys they like. I guess guys like Kirby!

A display shelf at the front of a store called Tokyu Hands with numerous Kirby themed chocolate tins. Signs are on display indicating it is for Valentine's Day.

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SNES Central @snescentral.com · 08/01/2025

In an interview, the developers acknowledged that development on a Famicom sequel began immediately after III. However, they pulled the resources out to work on the SFC game, and acknowledged even then it probably would come out first. Of course, the Famicom FF sequel never came out.

Interview with Square in Japanese about the development of the Famicom and Super Famicom Final Fantasy games, from Famicom Tsushin in November 1990. There is a screenshot from Final Fantasy III, as well as artwork from dark knight Cecil.

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SNES Central @snescentral.com · 08/01/2025

In the November 1990 issues of Famicom Tsushin magazine, Square revealed that they were developing "Final Fantasy V" for the Super Famicom. This ended up being released as "IV". Square was simultaneously developing Famicom (IV) and Super Famicom (V) Final Fantasy games in 1990.

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