Ah, the SNES (or Super Famicom depending upon where you live), a classic gaming machine that not only cemented the Big N's place in gaming history after the 8-bit NES (or Famicom), but which also saw some of the most celebrated titles ever to grace a home console. It saw a huge number of titles in general which makes this Gold Edition of the SNES Anthology a very chonky read. And when I say chonky, I mean chonky!
Coming in at over five hundred pages(!), it's larger than almost every other one of Geeks Lines' publications aside from the NES Anthology. There is the now expected level of quality with the book, in full colour with excellent stock used to give the many screenshots, artwork and photographs the treatment they deserve.
The Nintendo and SNES stories take up the first fifty or so pages, before we get to the hardware section and, much like the PC Engine volume, the technical detail of the SNES' hardware capabilities is impressively portrayed here. From comparisons with its competition to full on explanations as to how the graphics and sound ships work, there is much here that, whilst it may not impress the average gamer, does more than enough for fans of console hardware. Throughout, the explanations are clear and very straight forward, and the quality of the translation is very high.
Accessories get thirty five-ish pages, including the intriguing Satellaview system that never made it outside of Japan. Reading about such amazing things in magazines like Computer and Videogames made me green with envy back in the day, so reading about it now after thirty years was both enlightening and informative.
It's the games, though, that are the centre of attention for this Gold Edition, and this was where the alphabetically listed range takes up three hundred and fifty pages. As with other volumes, each titles gets a list of release details, box art and at least one screenshot. After some brief comments, each is scored out of five stars and whilst many get just 1/8 of a page, some of the bigger and well-known titles get the luxury of a full page! Flicking through the directory, it is a handy reminder (also noted in Chris Scullion's excellent SNES Encyclopedia), of just how many Super Nintendo games started with the word Super. There are a lot.
This is another superb anthology from Geeks-Line and is not only a cracking reference for collectors but also a perfect one stop read for anyone with an interest in the SNES, either regarding the games or the hardware. It also makes an excellent companion to Chris Scullion's SNES Encyclopedia (reviewed here). You can order the SNES Anthology directly from Geeks Line here, and Mr Scullion's book here.
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