One thousand years ago, warring gods created powerful magical beings called Espers. These Espers were then sent against each other. The world was left in complete ruin after a vicious battle that ensued. The vast majority of humanity was destroyed and it was believed that the Espers were eradicated. As the generations passed, the story passed into legend. The magic that had nearly completely destroyed the world was almost forgotten. However, there was a small fraction that did remain. The Empire led by the evil Gestahl and his top general Kefka had learned of the old magic. The two of them decided to pursue it to assist in their bid to conquer the world. Then, the Empire finds a frozen Esper in an old mine. As the evil plan begins to come to fruition, a motley group of heroes stands in the way to defend civilization.

Final Fantasy III actually let the player pick which party you wanted to follow and the order in which you chose to do so. Couple that with the fact that there was no true main character. The cast was bigger, the world was larger and more varied, and the story situations were both incredible and bizarre.

The graphics in Final Fantasy III are some of the greatest 2D graphic ever made. Many players consider the Final Fantasy III score to be the greatest videogame soundtrack of all time. The game was a massive success in Japan (obviously). In the US, Final Fantasy II was the most successful RPG up to that point in time. The game appealed to those who considered themselves hardcore RPG players, but it also caught the attention of people who had never played an RPG before. Even though the game could not overcome the fact that RPGs remained trapped as a niche genre played by only a devout few, it still didn’t prevent Final Fantasy III from becoming one of the best SNES games ever.

Depending on who you talk to, Chrono Trigger is either one of the best SNES games ever or one of the most overrated SNES games ever. Chrono Trigger was originally released on March 11th, 1995 for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES). The game was developed by a team that included Hironobu Sakaguchi, Yuuji Horii, and Akira Toriyama. These three designers were responsible for some of the biggest games in history at the time, including the Final Fantasy series and Dragon Quest.

As a video game, Chrono Trigger was both well-received by reviewers and a commercial success. Certain aspects of the game were considered revolutionary at the time. Some of the game features that were considered so amazing were the multiple endings, plot-related side quests that focused on character development, the unique battle system, and the detailed graphics.

The game’s storyline begins in 1000 A.D. at a fair. The story quickly turns into a tale of time travel, swords, and sorcery. An evil being known as Lavos threatens the future of the world. A young hero named Crono and his friends must destroy Lavos as they journey through an adventure that spans from 65,000,000 B.C. to the End of Time.

Chrono Trigger is a console role-playing game (RPG) similar to the earlier Final Fantasy games. Its game play deviates from traditional RPGs in that, rather than appearing in random encounters, many enemies are openly visible on field maps or lie in wait to ambush the party. The battle system uses an Active Time Battle system, again, similar to that of the Final Fantasy series. Each character is allowed to take an action in battle once a personal timer dependent on the character’s speed statistic counts to zero.

One of the most unique aspects of the game play is time travel. Players have access to seven eras of the game world’s history. Past actions of the players affect future events. Throughout history, players will find new allies, complete side quests, and search for important villains along the way. The game contains thirteen unique endings. The ending the player receives depends on when and how he or she reaches and completes the game’s final battle.

One of the biggest ‘knocks’ on Chrono Trigger as being one of the best SNES games ever is that it is too overrated. The game did have a lot going for it with the development team that was assembled. And, they weren’t exactly treading completely new ground. Final Fantasy had been there and done that with a lot of the features that Chrono Trigger brought to the table. So I guess the answer would be that Chrono Trigger isn’t overrated if you liked the game (like millions of others did). If you didn’t like the game, then it probably was overrated (at least for you). Either way, in the history book Chrono Trigger will be remembered as one of the best SNES games ever.

10 – Super Mario Bros – The original NES game. Who hasn’t played this game at least once? Odds are even if you never owned an NES you still probably played the game in the arcade or on a computer later on. It spawned one of the most successful game franchises of all time, the Mario Bros.

9 – Battletoads – Had arguably one of the best soundtracks of any game on the NES. It also had arguably one of the hardest levels of any game to complete, EVER. It is considered to be one of the most difficult games on any platform to beat.

8 – Castlevania III – Dracula’s Curse – The Castlevania series was incredible and the third game, Dracula’s Curse, was probably the best NES Castlevania game ever. The characters you get in the game are a blast to play with and changed up the dynamics of play.

7 – Contra – Introduced one of the most popular game phrases of all time, “Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, start!” The ultimate game code! This was a great one of two player game and possibly was the best co-op player game for the NES.

6 – Bubble Bobble – One of the most fun two-player games of all time on the NES (could also be played one player), Bubble Bobble seemed to have an infinite amount of fun levels to go through. It is a total NES classic to anyone that ever played it.

5 – Mega Man 2 – Considered by some to be the best in the Mega Man series, Mega Man 2 featured a major change in the game’s look from the first version. It also introduced power-up changes and the energy tank. Due to its password system, you didn’t have to beat the game in one sitting like previous games.

4 – Mega Man 3 – Awesome music and graphics for the time that it came out. Mega Man 3 continues to bring it up a notch from the previous two games in the series. It remains one of the ultimate side-scrolling action games of all time.

3 – The Legend of Zelda – The starter game to one of the greatest RPG series of all time. It is a great game that spawned many other successful games in a line of Zelda-based products. It has one of the most recognizable video game characters, Link, in the entire world.

2 – Final Fantasy – The first game (American version at least) in what is probably the most successful RPG series of all time. This game set the standard for all in its genre that followed it. There have been dozens of Final Fantasy games on multiple game platforms.

1 – Super Mario Bros 3 – This could be the ultimate old-school platform game of all time. It is one hell of a game and up the ante on the Mario series in a big way. It’s hard to get tired of playing this game. It is one of those games you can just play over and over and over…

This isn’t a scientific list by any means, but it is a pretty solid list of the ten best NES games of all time. It is just for fun but is, in itself, a pretty solid list.

This list was inspired by another list at SydLexia.com.