Ranking the Elden Ring Legacy Dungeons From Worst To Best

Time for the Legacy Dungeons, which had to be their own list since they (and the criteria for judging them) are so much different from the open world areas. Smaller dungeons (catacombs, caves, etc) of the more cut+paste variety aren't going to be on here, nor will the smaller copied-over DLC dungeons like the forges and the prisons. Any dungeon that's large enough to have more than one grace point probably qualifies to be on here.

I'll be ranking them using the criteria of how atmospheric they are, how much fun they are, how unique they are, and how good the level design is. Level design is one area where Fromsoft excels, so nothing on this list is "bad" in that sense.

Ranking the Elden Ring Overworld Areas From Worst To Best

Contrary to the name, this list will include underworld areas if they're not dungeons. "Overworld" in this case basically means non-dungeon areas. The major legacy dungeons will get a separate list (hell if I try to rank all the catacombs and caves and whatnot).

I'll be ranking the overworld zones using the criteria of how atmospheric they are, how much fun they are, how much there is to do (i.e. how much they maximize their space), and how much I liked the overall layout.

Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater (Playstation 2, 2004 / Playstation 5, 2025)

 

Here we are, Metal Gear Solid 3, the best game in the series. Going to do the usual MGS-series thing here and give it a fairly light rundown while trying not to go too overboard with spoilers - though I'll talk about the interesting elements of the story regardless.

Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty (Playstation 2, 2001)

 

With an MGS3 remake coming up and me having done posts for MGS1/4/5 in the past, it seemed like an appopriate time to fill in the other missing one. This game was pretty divisive in its day, but it holds a lot of nostalgia for folks who grew up with it. I always liked this one, and thought it was WAY ahead of its time.

As for why it was divisive... having Raiden take over as the main character was a terrible idea, like selling drugs in the hood without the CIA's permission.

Highlander III: The Final Dimension (1995)

 

Released during the latter half of Season 3 of the TV show, this has us revisiting our friend Connor Macleod for the first time since Season 1 Episode 1. Putting this out instead of the Four Horsemen episodes is sort of like when Dragonball Z's original run got to the hotly-anticipated arrival of the Ginyu Force and then showed The Tree of Might instead.

I don't remember being all that crazy about this as a kid, thought it was mid at best. Will I gain a new appreciation for it as an adult? Let's find out.

The Best and Worst Thing In Each Soulsborne Game

 

Been wanting to do a list like this for a while. What we have here are seven of the best games of all time (plus a remake, a DLC, and a spinoff). Having played all of them now, I might be able to zero in on the best and worst aspects of each game with some degree of accuracy. Let's go.

Star Fox 64 (Nintendo 64, 1997)

This is quite the evolution of the shooter genre. Say what you will about Nintendo, but they're the masters of having first-party franchises that people really care about... even if that isn't as much the case in the modern era. For the N64, all they had to do was bring back beloved SNES franchises, add a 64 to the end of the title, and they had a guaranteed hit. This is one of the more shining examples of this practice; Star Fox 64 is a fine game. And it adds the Charged Homing Shot, which is a game-changer that makes it so much more fun to play.

Originally posted March 2013, now with more of the game added

Star Fox 2 (Super Famicom, 1995)

 

Everyone knows the story by now. This is the missing link between the original and Star Fox 64, and never made it out of Japan. Much like Earthbound Zero, the game was finished, but just didn't get published, so it was easy for Nintendo to dig it up and put it on their modern classic consoles. I'm playing it on Switch Online, and this is the first time I've ever played it in complete form. Even the complete form seems kind of incomplete though, lul.

Star Fox (Super NES, 1993)

 

Major Super NES classic here and the first game I think of when I think of their 1993 lineup. (The system would absolutely explode in 1994, the year I got it, with a litany of incredible games that defined the whole gaming generation).

Star Fox is mostly a showcase for the Super FX Chip, which let the SNES make use of three-dimensional polygon graphics for the first time ever. ...and this particular tech didn't really stick around, so it's a bit of an artifact now. While the 3D effect is quite rudimentary, and the system was in most regards better off sticking to 2D (which it largely did after this), there's still a place for this game in the SNES lexicon. Nothing else was like it at the time.

As for my own experience with it, this was one of the many SNES games I rented circa 1995 or so. Had a great time with it as a kid. However, I was only able to beat the first of the three level paths. That first path is the one the vast majority of players did, so only beating the game on easy mode (ostensibly) is nothing to be ashamed of. However, I've been wanting to revisit it and finish the other two paths ever since. Now I finally have an excuse to.

Playing this on Nintendo Switch Online. It's cool how things like this and Capcom Arcade Stadium are making emulation less necessary to revisit retro games, as well as letting me revisit them on a TV.

Stunt Race FX (Super NES, 1994)

 

A game I've never played before, and it's on Nintendo Switch Online. The Super FX Chip (of Star Fox fame) makes a comeback here, this time in racing game form. Will this game stand the test of time, or will it demonstrate why the Super FX Chip didn't really get any use in the last couple years of the SNES? Let's find out.

Vice: Project Doom (NES, 1991)

An NES game that a lot of people have sung the praises of over the years, most notably James "AVGN" Rolfe. It's a cinematic action game that is 80's as F, despite dropping in 1991. It's been on my list for a while, and I was way overdue to hit up something on the NES, so it's time. I'm just trying to figure out if that guy on the cover is based on Reb Brown or a younger version of John Kreese.

Highlander 5x10 - The Valkyrie

 

It's Kanye West's favorite (...or least-favorite?) episode, with Duncan rocking Hugo Boss Drip as he tries to stop Hitler in 1944 and end the war (which, at that point, the winner had already been decided and it was just dragging on). Of course, what ended up being called "Operation Valkyrie" would fail, and millions more people died needlessly while Germany got folded up like an accordion. Eventually the high command ran out of morphine pills and realized they had made a mistake.

Drugs: They'll make you feel like YOU can defeat the Soviet Union and British Empire at the same time!

Not real crazy about doing this episode. In this era of people calling everyone they don't like a "nazi" (and occasionally actually believing it) it just seems like a minefield to even talk about the subject. However, as a person in full-on "doesn't really give a shit anymore" mode at this point in life, I suppose I'll just go ahead and do the episode.

I was just going to do the previous three episodes for the moment, but I'm throwing a bonus episode onto this arc because there'll be a break before the Horsemen Arc drops on here. It'll be a little while before that, and the back half of Season 5, so I can savor all of it before Season 6 falls off a cliff like Debra Campbell.

Final Fantasy Legend 3, Finale - Salida Del Sol

 

The SaGa Trilogy roars to an end. The last stop in Pureland is the Mountaintop of the Giants ice land in the north, which consists of a few small dungeons and one big dungeon. The small ones are generally unnecessary and won't have anything you need at this point, outside of this eastern dungeon, which contains the last upgrades for the Talon. This will let me get to Mt. Goht, home of Xagor.

Final Fantasy Legend 3, Part 6 - Masamune Okazaki

 

Today, I go after the remaining Mystic Swords, the big super-weapons of FFL3. Also I'm going to get into the origins of these weapons, since SaGa of course is going to draw on mythology.

Final Fantasy Legend 3, Part 5 - Meltwater Pulse 1A

 

Under the iron stare of Mr. S, our motley crew heroes arrive in Pureland. So far, it doesn't seem so pure. The people here have been petrified by a compelling unknown force, and vicious mummified cats are roving the lawless landscape.

Final Fantasy Legend 3, Part 4 - The First Bodhisattva

 

Today on FFL3: The Future. There isn't much left here because the Water Entity has engulfed most of the already-tiny overworld.

Silver Surfer (NES, 1990)

Before there was the T-1000, Marvel was making gleaming silver metal dudes cool with Silver Surfer and his rad to the max space-surfboard. This game has been on my radar for a while, as it's said to be one of the worst games on the NES. So of course I had to play it. Let's see how bad it really is. Will it be "bad" in the Power Glove sense, or "bad" in the "BAD DUDES" sense?

Final Fantasy Legend 3, Part 3 - Ashura's Last Stand

Today on FFL3: Ashura returns! Again! This guy really is the recurring bad guy for the whole trilogy. However, here it's more of a cameo appearance, like they dragged him out because they needed a recognizable face, and ended up with a bit of a hollow character. Like Cell Max from the one Dragonball movie I didn't review on here. I should get on that.

Final Fantasy Legend 3, Part 2 - Taking Shape

 

Whoa, is that a playground slide? Pretty cool to see a town in a retro RPG have something out of the ordinary like this. You can even go up and slide down it yourself. While the world design/dungeons/combat/classes in this game aren't measuring up to the previous one, the amount of detail in towns and other maps are way beyond it.

Final Fantasy Legend 3 (Game Boy, 1993)

 

SaGa 3 is upon us. This game was made by an entirely different team from the first two. While the SaGa1+2 team graduated to the SNES to make Romancing SaGa, a new and less-experienced team was brought in to do SaGa 3. That team ended up only making two games: This one and Final Fantasy Mystic Quest.

Looking at the box art here, an 80 page manual is pretty intense for a Game Boy game. I wish I had it. This was the last game I ever bought/played on the original Game Boy before putting it to rest. I think I got the reprint of it because I don't remember it having an 80-page manual.

Most of what I remember about this game is squinting to try and see it on the original Game Boy, and the very weird-ass enemy groupings. I really wasn't a fan of this as a kid, so I'm expecting to like it a lot more by default just playing it on a nice screen. Finally, FFL3 gets a fair shot.

What? There was no DK post here earlier. People are drinking too much Cider.

The Death and Return of Superman (Super NES, 1994)

 

Interesting game here that I've been wanting to look at for ages. It's basically the Superman equivalent to Maximum Carnage, a beat-em-up with a super high difficulty level. Not a particularly great game, not a particularly fun game, but dammit it existed. I played it like 25 years ago, so I barely remember what happens. Let's find out.

Final Fantasy Legend 2, Finale - Apollo's Creed

 

This is it, the final segment of FFL2. With Apollo stealing almost all of the Magi, I have to find the secret 78th Magi and take on the Center of the World.

Final Fantasy Legend 2, Part 5 - Odin Sphere

 

The next world...is just this one cave. It has all of one Magi to get and then it's off to the next world. However, there's a lot more to it than that. This place is a sprawling optional dungeon that has a bunch of things crucial to beating the game.

Final Fantasy Legend 2, Part 4 - Those Damn Hatamotos

 

Next up is Edo World, my favorite world in FFL2. Closing in on the end fast here, and while this game is much longer than the first one, it's still shorter than I remember.

Mario Kart 8 Deluxe - Booster Pack (Switch, 2022)

 

The Switch version of Mario Kart 8 ended up adding an entire game's worth of extra DLC courses, which is kinda nuts. Especially considering how they started adding this stuff 5 years after the game came out (2022 vs 2017) which was an entire 8 years after the Wii U game came out. This adds 48 tracks (yes, 48, as many tracks as the main game). These are a mix of real-world "touring" tracks taken from the Kart phone game, retro tracks from other Karts, and some entirely brand-new tracks (usually one or two for every wave).

Basically, this was a Mario Kart 9 in everything except name, and it got a staggered release like FFIV: The After Years. Now that we have Mario Kart World, I guess this pack is Mario Kart 8.5. Which begs the question of why they didn't just put this out as a new game and rake in coin. They could have easily sold this for $50 (instead of the $25 total that it costs), plus an actual release would have gotten some fanfare and people like me wouldn't have forgotten it existed, so it would have sold a lot better as well.

So how is it? Well, right off the bat, they missed a big opportunity by not having this add Booster from Mario RPG as a playable character. This caused them to lose out on numerous potential sales from Booster-enthusiasts and Booster-maniacs the world over.

Alright, here we go, 48 (Jesus) new tracks over 12 (Jesus) new cups. I better pack a lunch, this is gonna take a while.

Final Fantasy Legend 2, Part 3 - Venus de Milo

 

Hey! Don't talk about Richie that way! Only I can talk about Richie that way!

Today on FFL2: I take on one of the New God pantheon, Venus. I already have a Venus though. Mina is right here on the team. This is going to get confusing. At least unlike Aphrodite of Melos, Mina has all of her arms.

Final Fantasy Legend 2, Part 2 - Ashura's Wrath

 

Ashura? I thought we defeated that guy in the previous game? Well, since the games aren't connected, this is just...a different Ashura. Or maybe not, who knows. Either way, Ashura is like the cock-a-roach.

Final Fantasy Legend 2 (Game Boy, 1991)

 

SaGa 2 as it is known in Japan is probably my favorite Game Boy RPG overall. This gorgeous box cover is essentially a color reverse of Final Fantasy IV's SNES box. It's simple, effective, and leaps off the shelf. I don't think I ever saw this in stores as a kid, and eventually had to emulate it circa 2000. Mostly during a move where I was staying in a motel for a week and played this alongside finishing Lufia.

I don't know if it's actually the best RPG on the Game Boy or if I've been overrating it all this time, but it's definitely one of the best SaGa games. It takes everything that made the previous game good and improves on it. Let's see if I like it less after playing it again... hopefully it doesn't show its age as much as the first one did. This is a prime candidate for "leaving the memories alone" but here we go, my second playthrough ever.

Final Fantasy Legend, Act III

 

This is it, the shocking conclusion of Final Fantasy Legend, AKA SaGa 1, as I finish remastering this and putting it in proper order.

Originally Posted April 2023

Final Fantasy Legend, Act II

After a few more generic tower floors, here's World 3 (of 4), the Sky World. It's all clouds and it's ruled by Roy Koopa Byak-ko. This was already covered, and again, remastering the posts a little bit before I continue the Legend trio.

Originally Posted April 2023

Final Fantasy Legend (Game Boy, 1989)

 

The original SaGa 1 that started it all. One of my favorite Game Boy games. Top ten for sure. It'd almost be tops for RPGs, except that the second one improves on it quite a bit. This version may not have rad Wonderswan colors, but it does make things a lot easier during the insane endgame. So it might actually be a better choice for somebody new to the series.

Revising the posts for this before I go on to FFL2.

Originally Posted December 2022

Makai Toushi SaGa - Act III

 

The climb continues with the highest reaches of the Tower of Babel. This is still a good game, but I'm feeling the age of it here in 2025. Look at how vibrant the Wonderswan Color is, though. I wish there were more things to play on this system.

Makai Toushi SaGa - Act II

 

Next up is World 3, the Sky. Most interesting world, with the best artwork. Weird thing is that there are more world levels above the sky, including a large modern city. SaGa is weird.

Makai Toushi SaGa (Wonderswan Color, 2002)

 

Someone out there may be wondering: What is Makai Toushi SaGa? It's a colorized remake of the very first SaGa game, which we in the U.S. know as Final Fantasy Legend. Like most Wonderswan Color remakes of 8-bit classic RPGs, it's different enough from the original to check out.

WSC doesn't get enough credit, and I like it more than Game Boy Advance in terms of visuals and sound. Everything is sharper and smoother and the contrast is better. Also the system was developed by Gunpei Yokoi's company Koto Laboratory which is a huge pedigree. The problem is that the West didn't get this system at all, so it was nothing more than a blip on most people's radar here.

UNTIL NOW.

...no, it'll still be a blip. I'm just some guy.

Mario Kart World (Switch 2, 2025)

 

Mario Kart 9 is finally here. It's basically the one major game on the Switch 2. Is it good enough to carry the system launch? Is it worth $80? Is it good enough to replace current best Kart game, Mario Kart 8, which has been holding down the Kart universe for the past decade? I'm going to find out. And have lots of fun in the process, because you literally can't go wrong with a Mario Kart.

Featuring Cow.

Mario Kart 8 (Wii U, 2014 / Switch, 2017)

For a long, long time this was the latest and greatest Mario Kart game. Quite frankly, we didn't need anything else, because this was the pinnacle. The most fun thing on the Wii U, and later the Switch. Just a total blast. Shigeru Miyamoto has really outdone himself this time. This might well be the absolute height of the series in every regard.

Originally Posted July 2016

Mario Kart 7 (Nintendo 3DS, 2011)

 

I mentioned playing this back to back with Mario Kart DS in 2015 or so. Well, let's see if I form any new opinions playing them back to back for a second time. Originally I liked this one a lot more, but ever since I've heard about how great the DS one is, so now I get to compare them with that in mind.

Fun Fact: This was the first 3DS game I ever bought/played/finished, which shows how much I like this series.

Originally Posted June 2024

Mario Kart Wii (Wii, 2008)

Super game here. Hard to believe this launched almost two decades ago, because it still feels recent. Like, the Wii launch (19 years ago) feels closer to the present than 1999 did to 2006, despite that being a 7 year difference. Yeah, when the Wii launched, the 90's felt like a distant fever dream. In any case, while Father Time has eroded most of my youth and vitality, this game hasn't changed a bit. I don't get to do very many Wii game posts, so this'll be interesting. Remastering this for 2025.

Originally Posted July 2016

Mario Kart DS (Nintendo DS, 2005)

 

Doing something a bit different and giving a rundown of every course here. I was never crazy about this game back when I first played it, probably because the DS in general was a system I wasn't crazy about. Also, Mario Kart 7 on 3DS was already out, so I was just playing this for completion's sake before the new one. It was just an appetizer! Yet ever since then I've heard that it's better than its 3DS counterpart. Heck, I've heard that this is one of the best games in the series, so we'll see if I have a higher opinion of it this time.

Originally Posted May 2024

Highlander 5x09 - The Messenger

 

Not really an episode I like, but an interesting one nonetheless. This is one of the many that would have benefitted from transpiring over two parts, because you've got at least two episodes worth of interesting story here mashed together into a short runtime. At the very least, the Fake Methos could have been an intriguing recurring character for a little while.

Mario Kart: Double Dash (Gamecube, 2003)

Time to step into the realm of the Gamecube, as Mario and friends get into the business of tag-teaming karts. Since this game coincides with Super Mario Sunshine, I expect it to share a lot of the same assets. Does this also mean the game will consist only of redundant Delfino Island levels?

Originally Posted July 2016

Mario Kart: Super Circuit (Game Boy Advance, 2001)

Next up is the series' jump to portables. This is basically Super Mario Kart 2 in every respect, from the visuals to the track-list. The usual suspects return, and everyone's ready for another round of kart mayhem. Except for Koopa Troopa, who is still out of a job. Thanks, Wario. Thanks a lot.

Originally Posted July 2016

Mario Kart 64 (Nintendo 64, 1997)

Time for one of the best games of all time and one that I took waaaay too long to play. The Super NES Super Mario Kart was the last game in this series that I really spent any substantial time with (until Mario Kart 8), so this one is pretty new to me. And it's awesome. How have I never spent any real time on this game?

Aside from playing it for a few minutes at a time at people's houses, which doesn't count. I basically missed out on the whole N64 era, outside of Ocarina of Time and Goldeneye when I got the system with them in 1999. Know how much it was? $70, plus $10 each for the two games. However, adjusted for inflation, that $90 wasn't the steal it seems like. It was still a pretty solid find regardless, and I've got good memories of that day in mid-1999 when I finally had an N64 and brought it home in a backpack.

Fun Addendum: I got stopped by the police while walking home. They were looking for someone else who looked like me and was "carrying weapons", and asked me if I minded opening the backpack and showing them what was in it. I complied, showing them the N64. Was afraid they would think it was a bomb or something. Instead one of them was like "my son has one of those!" and they apologized for stopping me and I went on my way.

Come to think of it, I'm lucky I got home with an N64 in tow if there was some maniac in my neighborhood with weapons. Imagine finally getting a new system and then immediately getting mugged.

Originally Posted July 2016

Super Mario Kart (Super NES, 1992)

Before I cover the new Mario Kart 9, I'm taking a trip back in time to look at some of the earlier games in the series by reposting my earlier playthroughs.

In 1992, Nintendo decided to put a bunch of beloved Mario characters (and Toad) into a kart-racing game. The result was one of the highest recorded awesome levels of the past thirty years. Until Toad started killing, anyway.

Originally Posted July 2016

Highlander 5x08 - Little Tin God

 

This episode is an interesting one. What would happen if an immortal exploited their inability to die and used that to convince people to follow them as a Christ-like figure? Well, finally one has decided to give it a try.

I don't think the series ever actually tackles the question of whether Christ Himself was an immortal, because it would have probably angered some group or other and gotten the show bashed online by moral busybodies. Kinda like what happens all the time in the 2020's. However it seems logical to conclude that yes, in the Highlander canon, Christ was indeed most likely an unspoken immortal. Wonder what happened to him. Maybe he ended up becoming the holy man that Darius slew when he sacked that unknown city in the early 100's, the one who was so pure/good that it made Darius completely change as a person?

...Well, there's a reason the show doesn't talk about this. Onward to the episode.

Highlander 5x07 - Haunted

 

It's time for the next disc of Highlander. This trio of episodes is particularly interesting for me because I don't think I've seen any of them before. I vaguely recall a disc being missing from my initial purchase of the series (once the DVD sets were a thing, I got S4 and S5 first, many years before I got the rest, as they were the main ones I saw growing up and had a desire to revisit).

I didn't worry about the missing disc too much, and acquired a new Season 5 later on along with the rest of the series that I didn't have. Fairly certain this was the missing disc given my total lack of memory of these three episodes, so there's a reasonably good chance that I've never seen this episode (or the next two) before. It's a unique opportunity to see something in this series for the first time and give impressions.

The next couple episodes are gonna be along very soon, as I continue this Lost Disc expedition. Might aim for Monday Night Highlander the next two weeks.

True Lies (Super NES, 1995)

Somehow, I did a post for this game twice. Once in February 2012, then again in April 2024, not realizing it had been covered already and wanting to do something for it. To my knowledge, that's the only time this has ever happened. My OCD is going a bit nuts having two posts for the same game, and the 2012 post is too good to just outright replace, so I'm going to merge the two. The 2012 post was written by crazy, off his rocker me, while the 2024 one was written by more straitlaced, professional me. So to keep it simple, the 2012 sections will be in italics and the 2024 sections will be in bold.

Also, the 2012 parts may be wildly offensive. I don't know. I'm not going to be one of those "it was a different time" people. It's there, like it if you like it, don't if you don't. Might end up being an interesting post for the "contrasting styles" reason. A good cop bad cop situation, or more accurately an insane man and his therapist.

True Lies: Now with 360 degrees of Firing Power!

Joe & Mac 2: Lost in the Tropics (Super NES, 1994)

There are many Joe & Mac ports for a variety of systems, but here we've got the only one worth playing (besides the first on SNES, of course). This is the main one I wanted as a kid, and is a bit more advanced/complicated than the first one (while being just as short). It's also really difficult, which is weird considering how easy the first one was.

Join me for the final installment of the hotly-demanded Joe & Mac "trilogy", starring Joe Dawson and Duncan Macleod (Highlander: Returning Soon!)

Considering this is the one I wanted, now that I've played both, I vastly prefer the first over this. It's still better than Congo's Caper. Why did you subject the world to Congo's Caper, TODD?? (Elder Scrolls: Returning Soon!)

Congo's Caper (Super NES, 1993)

 

More terrible box art heralds the game that was called "Joe & Mac 2" in Japan. It's available in the SNES section of Nintendo Switch Online, as are the two real games, so for once I wasn't forced to emulate these buy them on Ebay for hundreds of dollars and try to frame-capture from a real system with a GoPro. In any case, this bizarre game is brought to us by Data East, best known for......... Data East Pinball, I think?

...You know, I could have been playing Elder Scrolls Morrowind instead of this. I really like Elder Scrolls. That series made open world a thing to begin with, well before it was all the rage. Characters you can customize to an incredible extent. You can even create your own spells in those games. They're just nutso, and I can't imagine how happy I'd have been if I'd gotten into that series as a kid in the 90's. Alas that Daggerfall wasn't on console. The only thing I don't like about the series is the fanbase. I noticed that a lot of Youtubers who cover Bethesda games seem to have these bizarre one-sided angry conversations with Todd Howard in their videos. It's so off-putting.

Anyway, I had the Rocket Town theme stuck in my head the entire time I was playing this, and it fit the game perfectly. It's just seedy enough for this seedy game. Which brings me to... where's my Rocket Town DLC, Square? Pretty much everything else on my Top Fifteen Games I'd Like To See list has come true / been announced in the two months since then. But not that one! What gives, Square? And where's Elder Scrols VI, TODD? Todd Howard lied! He lied! I demand Morrowind Remastered, TODD. You made promises and you broke them, TODD! You're not my mother, TODD.

Joe & Mac (Super NES, 1991)

 

"Joe and Mac"? Is this a Highlander game? ....no, but Highlander is returning next week. Meanwhile, this terrible box art hides one of the more classic SNES action games. It's a bit of a knockoff of the Adventure Island series, with the difficulty turned way way way down, and it's a lot of fun to play. As a kid, this was one of those "Nintendo Power games" that I was intriged by thanks to that magazine and wanted to check out on a rental or something. Never got around to it because there were just too many other things to try; our cup really did runneth over in the 90's.

In any case, this is actually my first time playing this series (for more than a 5 minute tryout). This game had an NES predecessor that was basically the same game but half as long, and it had an arcade version, Genesis version, spinoffs, etc. However, the games everyone knows and remembers from this series are the two* SNES ones.