Styles of Super Nintendo Controller
The Super Nintendo Entertainment System really blew me away when if first came out back in the early 1990s. The first Nintendo Entertainment System was amazing and groundbreaking in itself, but when the SNES came out it was really the dawn of the modern era of video games for me. The Sega Genesis and the Turbo Grafix 16 were already out, so the SNES was a fairly late arrival to the third generation of video game consoles, but it was worth the wait. Of the third generation consoles, the SNES was my favorite and I owned all of them. The SNES is the only one of the three I still sometimes play today.
One of the more memorable aspects of the system was the Super Nintendo controller. The Super Nintendo controller was also groundbreaking in a lot of ways. Not only did it have twice as many buttons on the face as the original NES controller, the Super Nintendo controllers had twin shoulder buttons as well. Looking at controllers for the current generations of video game consoles, its clear that the Super Nintendo controller set the stage for the future.
The style of the Super Nintendo controller brought options to the SNES games that would otherwise not be possible. One game I recall this making a particularly strong effect on was Street Fighter II. Arguably one of the most popular SNES games made, and probably one of the most popular console games ever, Street Fighter II wouldn’t have been the same on a controller with a different set up. Every button was not only used but necessary, and the very arrangement of the Super Nintendo controller was vital to the game play. The folks at Sega realized this perhaps a little too late, and came out with their own wannabe version of Super Nintendo controller for their Genesis, but it lacked shoulder buttons, and wasn’t nearly as comfortable to use.
Looking at current game controllers, they really haven’t changed all that much. Today they have newer grips that allow for trigger buttons as well as should buttons, but the actually face of the controllers look very much like the original Super Nintendo controllers. Some of them, like Microsoft’s Xbox controller, even have a similar kind of color scheme to the buttons that was on the old SNES controller. I guess it makes sense, I mean if it isn’t broken, why fix it? The Super Nintendo controller is a tried and true formula, and will probably continue to influence game controllers for generations to come.
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