With the release of the Super Nintendo Mini and hakchi updated to add your own ROMs, there are a number of great Translations, Rom Hacks, and other games for the Super Nintendo that I've been playing lately. Since the Super Nintendo Mini displays everything in a visual way, every game needs a box art. So, I've made custom graphics for these games.

You can view them below along with a description, but you can download them all in a ZIP file here:
https://drive.google.com/.../1dhrGHONO8y72HUyo5R0uX7QTTyRjRPOS

In summer, Nintendo announced the follow up to their massively successful NES Mini console, the Super Nintendo Mini. For people of my generation, the Super Nintendo is the absolute best console of all time, so it was poised to be an instant blockbuster. The game lineup seemed excellent, too.

They went on sale on October 5th at 10am as stores opened. I had an English one preordered, but I wanted to pick up a Japanese one, too. Between classes, I took off to the lesser known game store in town, and grabbed the last one they had at 10:20am.

I owned an NES Mini, but I never really played it. There were some funs games, but the Super Nintendo was always king. The NES Mini had been hacked after its release so you could add your own games to it. It only took a week for people to get this working on the SNES Mini. It used the exact same security protocols and data structure, so it's was easy for them to figure out.

The funnest thing about the Nintendo Minis was the interface. Most retro devices just gave you a simple text list of games to choose from. Very sterile. The Minis have a rotating list of box arts which is a very visual ways of seeing all the games you have available.

It was no longer just a device to be able to play games. It was a way of visualizing your game collection. Putting your own favorite games on the system was an excellent way of building your own personal collection of the best games on the best console every made.

As mentioned above, you can do more than just add more games. Over the years, people have made many rom hacks of games adding in exploits or change characters. More modern rom hacks have gone further making almost an entire new game from existing assets.

Many rom hacks don't have their own box arts, and using the original game's box art didn't make much sense in a lot of cases. Thus, I had to create my own.

Note: It should be stated that while I arranged each of the graphics, I did not create any of the artwork used in the images. Most of this artwork I found on the Internet, and was used in some way to promote the game. I wanted to create a homogeneous set of images that would fit in with original box art, but was still modern reflections of what the rom hacks did with the games.

If you are reading this and happened to create any of the artwork used, let me know, and I'll credit you. These were all meant for personal use, and are absolutely not meant as commercial products.

The two best Super Nintendo games have tons of rom hacks, but these two are completely new experiences. The Legend of Zelda Parallel Words Remodel and Super Metroid Redesign Axiel Edition are balanced versions of two hacks that completely change the map of both worlds, game physics, some items, enemies, and lots more.

Mario Kart R is a rom hack that has challenging modifications to all tracks in the game. Some of the modifications are simple things like more pits or walls, but I think it's done in a pretty intelligent way, rather than randomly just trying to make it more difficult. It's pretty fun. They also ditched Toad for Boo.

Zombies Ate My Neighbors was always a fun game back in the day. It got a bit too hard for me by the end. But, in Oh no! More Zombies Ate My Neighbors there are more levels to run through. I never got around to playing this, but it comes highly recommended.

Perhaps the first ever rom hacks on the Super Nintendo were of Super Mario World, widely considered the best Mario game of all time. Once people figured out how to make their own levels, people immediately started releasing roms with unique levels that seemed impossible. These became known as Kaizo Mario, and if you truly mastered the mechanics and physics of Super Mario World, you could beat them.

This is a series of 8 games released for the Super Nintendo through the Nintendo Power service available in Japan. At convenience stores, you could buy a Nintendo Power cartridge for the Super Nintendo, plug it into the Nintendo Power machine, buy games and have them installed on your NP cart. Then you could bring them home and play them. :)

From April 1999, the first Picross game was available, and there was a new one every 2 months. While they were available in retail, they were never sold in boxes, only as downloads. So, I had to make box arts for each of them.

There were several other games released through the Nintendo Power service, including a remake of Metal Slader Glory, originally released on the Famicon. MSG is a graphical adventure game set in the future where humans have colonized Mars and there are several space colonies. It follows some kids who fly around in mechs and probably discover something that happened in the past. Recently, a full English translation of the game has been released.

The Super Nintendo also had an Internet modem peripheral released, and you could download games from the Internet to play. Tamori no Picross was one of the first games available in 1995. This was actually the first Picross game available on the Super Nintendo. Also, Nintendo released a remake of the original Legend of Zelda on the Super Nintendo.

The Super Nintendo Mini can also be modified to play NES games, and there are several rom hacks that completely change these games, too. Castlevania Chorus of Memories, Metroid Rogue Dawn, and Rockman 4 Minus Infinity are all hacks that completely rewrite each game. New worlds, new levels, new characters, new sprites, new enemies. Pretty much everything in the game is new.

Update 2023: Recently I've been playing more rom hacks thanks to the Analogue Pocket. Two recent rom hacks are Secret of Mana Turbo and Final Fantasy IV Ultima. Both rom hacks add a massive amount of quality of life features that aim to keep the original feel of the game as intact as possible, while still making them fun for modern audiences.

Additionally, Super Diagonal Mario is a ridiculous, dumb, challenging rom hack that always makes me laugh.

If the Analogue Pocket ever allows its Library to be used for roms, I will probably make a bunch more box arts to cover new rom hacks I've downloaded.