Best second console

[curl-6]

The_Liquid_Laser said:

curl-6 said:

SNES are also more like modern games because they learned from the lessons of the 3rd gen and improved upon them; for example there's less cheap and frustrating design choices designed to waste a player's lives/time to extend the game, plus deeper gameplay due to having eight buttons instead of four. 

Few people who don't have childhood nostalgia for the NES would argue it has aged particularly gracefully, whereas SNES's classics are generally considered to have aged extremely well.

This is a very narrow minded view of gaming.  One of the most basic game design principles is "easy to learn, difficult to master".  NES games tend to fit this principle better than SNES games.  A controller with 4 buttons is easier to learn than one with eight.  At the same time "frustrating design choices that waste a player's lives/time" often means the game is actually just difficult to master.  This is assuming we are talking about a tough but fair game like Castlevania.  The best NES games have a better design than the best SNES games.

NES games tend to be better for speed running for this very reason.  If a person has mastered a game, then it's actually pretty short to complete.  Of course it takes hundreds of hours to get that good.  The point of a lot of NES games is to "git gud" instead of just complete the game.  The type of person who likes Dark Souls would probably also like NES games, especially on an original system with a CRT TV.

An 8 button controller is very easy to learn though, so only 4 has no benefits, only limitations.

We've veered way off topic at this point though, so if you want to make an NES vs SNES topic, feel free to do so.