Blockbuster games these days are often judged on how long they take to complete. When bought around the release date, they often demand big money investments from gamers, who in turn wish to stay busy for a little while with their new purchase. Some new games are still on the shorter side, but they often are sold at much lower price, and are typically only available via downloads.
When the SNES was around, buying a new game was often more expensive than it is right now. A single cartridge could be over 75 dollars - and that was 25 years ago! Long-form RPGs were the exception, not the norm, so games were typically short, and had to be replayed multiple times for them to be worth the money. We picked some of the shortest games available on the Super NES, both good and bad, to show just how much of a gamble spending for a new game used to be.
10 Final Fight (1 hour)
As the first game in the series, Final Fight was an unknown commodity. It offered solid gameplay in the form of a very satisfying crunch when disposing of enemies. Going through the entire game was an hour long affair, which is okay if you can replay through the story with a friend, but the SNES version removed this option from the original.
Thankfully, the two sequels would reinstate the cooperative mode, which provides much of the replay value that makes the series a staple of the beat ‘em up genre.
9 TMNT IV: Turtles In Time (1 hour)
Unlike Final Fight, TMNT IV provided the cooperative mode from the get-go. It also added a nice little twist to the formula by sending the Turtles back in history to fight prehistoric enemies and pirates alike. It is one of the undisputed classics in the SNES library, and yet, it barely takes an hour to complete.
So why does it have such a good reputation while other short games suffer? Because it offers plenty of continues, and its enemies are just challenging enough to be fun without being frustrating. It’s a great stress-reliever if you don’t have much time on your hands.
8 Kid Klown in Crazy Chase (Less Than 1 Hour)
Kid Klown was fairly innovative for its time. It used an isometric perspective to simulate a 3D world, when in actuality the main character was simply scrolling diagonally. This interesting design allowed for creative environment and beautifully drawn graphics.
The problem is that so much time and power was put towards the graphics that there was nothing left to put towards the actual game. There are only 5 stages, and for anyone with a minimal experience in platforming, the whole thing is over in less than an hour.
7 Battle Clash (Less Than 1 Hour)
The concept of Battle Clash is pretty cool: you fight gigantic robots and shoot at them with a bazooka. It’s a lot of fun while it lasts, and the fact that it lasts less than an hour is secretly a blessing. Shooting the mechs feels great, but the game uses the Super Scope, the SNES’ version of a light gun.
That thing is unwieldy to say the least, and one hour is about as much time as you can comfortably spend using one. It also uses batteries at an astonishing rate, so its shortness is a relief for your wallet.
6 Mighty Morphin Power Rangers (45 minutes to 1 hour)
The Power Rangers understood what it means to strike while the iron is hot. During the series’ heydays in the mid-90s, three games were released on SNES in the span of a year. All of these were particularly easy, but the first one in the series stood above the rest.
With gameplay that was aimed squarely at the show’s young fans, it could be beat within an hour by anyone who had hit puberty. Coupled with its complete lack of challenge, there isn’t much of a reason to come back to it.
5 Run Saber (45 minutes to 1 hour)
The concept of Run Saber is solid: In the future, a mad scientist turns the population of Earth into mutants under the pretense of saving the planet from pollution with a new chemical, so two cyborgs have to fight and save the world.
It sounds great, it plays great, but it’s all over after five stages and 45 minutes of intense fighting. Thankfully, it’s so cool to play that you might replay it every once in a while, just like rewatching a good movie when you feel down.
4 Captain Commando (45 minutes)
Capcom has released a lot of side-scrolling beat ‘em up games over the year. So much so that they have multiple collections highlighting their presence in this type of games. Captain Commando is one of their lesser entries in that field.
The game was originally conceived as a vehicle for the titular character, who was at one point envisioned to become the company’s mascot. This didn’t happen, maybe because it doesn’t offer anything different from Capcom’s other contenders in the genre, but also because it is so short.
3 Wild Guns (30 to 45 minutes)
As perhaps the best example that short SNES games could still be fun, Wild Guns can take as little as thirty minutes to complete for a normal player who doesn’t lose too many lives. However, the game shines because of how intense the gameplay is.
Enemies are shooting at you from everywhere on the screen, and quick reflexes are needed to get the most out of the experience. It’s a true mix of sci-fi and western aesthetics, which still feels original to this day, and it’s a thrilling ride that you want to try again and again.
2 Shaq Fu (30 minutes)
Shaq Fu could be construed as a simple fighting game, in which case it would not be on this list. The goal of a fighting game is usually to get better and learn the intricacies of its characters and moveset so you can best other players. A good one is infinitely replayable.
But Shaq Fu decided to include a true story mode, with dialogues and everything, to stand out from the pack. A nice try, but the game is so actively terrible that even the 30 minutes or so you spend with the game feel like an eternity.
1 The Great Waldo Search (15 minutes)
It used to be a given that any kind of pop culture phenomenon would get a tie-in video games. The popular Where’s Waldo series of book got that treatment but forgot to turn its product into an actual video game. Instead, it’s more like an electronic book.
You use the SNES controller to look at five images taken straight out of a pre-existing Waldo book, and try to find the titular character and his dog. And that’s it! You do it once, in about fifteen minutes or so, and then never play it again because the images never change. All of that for about 4 times the price of the book.