This is the second book in Chris Scullion's encyclopedia series, the first being the excellent NES encyclopedia. As with the NES entry, the SNES encyclopedia is extremely well written in Scullion's clear, relatable style and provides a easy to access guide to the entire Western-released SNES game library. For those that don't know, Chris Scullion is a veteran game journalist who has written for Official Nintendo Magazine, Nintendo Gamer, and CVG. He currently writes for the excellent Video Games Chronicle and does freelance work for Nintendo Life.
If you're familiar with his work, this encyclopedia is written in that same familiar and personable style. And once again Chris has taken great care to give each game it's due spotlight. As with the NES encyclopedia, games that are considered most important or influential are given the full-page treatment, with still important yet lesser influential games featured on a half-page. And then lesser known games have a quarter-page entry each. Every entry, even the shorter quarter-page ones, provides enormous insight into the history of the game and how it plays. And once again every entry has a fun fact about the game that you may or may not know.
Chris' sense of humor and personable writing style shines through with every single entry in this encyclopedia, making it such a delightful read. I read it from cover to cover when I first got it, now I find myself opening it up randomly to read about an interesting, often obscure game I previously knew nothing about. This is especially useful as Nintendo has been adding SNES games to the Switch Online library, often obscure games. This encyclopedia is the perfect reference to learn more about the games that are put up on the service. And every game, no matter how weird or obscure, is given the opportunity to have its history learned about.
The encyclopedia also includes a bonus Virtual Boy section, making it one of the very few resources for every Virtual Boy game ever released. If you, like me (and probably most people), know next to nothing about the Virtual Boy or its games, this section is an absolute pleasure to read.
Reading through this book, you can tell that Chris has done his research extensively. This man lives and breathes games and it's obvious as he takes great care to give each game a presence here. I feel like this encyclopedia should be used as a standard for any gaming history book. It's that good. I continue to be impressed and surprised each time I open this up and I'm really looking forward to his Mega Drive/Genesis encyclopedia which he just released, and his future books.
This is definitely worth the price of admission and I highly recommend it. You will not be disappointed in the least, especially if you're interested in Nintendo history. And probably even if you're not. If you're interested in gaming in any way, you will probably find this to be an interesting and compelling read.
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Reviews with images
Great but with one catch
Chris Scullion is adept at summing up video games in small blurbs, and his SNES encyclopedia bears that out. It's a wonderful nostalgia trip, but it loses a star because the screen shots are often ridiculously dark. I purchased his NES and Genesis encyclopedias at the same time, and this is not a problem with those entries. Hopefully one day this will receive a second edition with screen shots that are a little easier to see.
Top reviews from the United States
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Reviewed in the United States on January 5, 2022
Reviewed in the United States on February 19, 2021
Reviewed in the United States on January 6, 2023
Chris Scullion is adept at summing up video games in small blurbs, and his SNES encyclopedia bears that out. It's a wonderful nostalgia trip, but it loses a star because the screen shots are often ridiculously dark. I purchased his NES and Genesis encyclopedias at the same time, and this is not a problem with those entries. Hopefully one day this will receive a second edition with screen shots that are a little easier to see.
Images in this review
Reviewed in the United States on May 2, 2023
Top reviews from other countries
Conde
Bom livro, mas mal embalado.
Reviewed in Spain on September 27, 2021
Conde
Reviewed in Spain on September 27, 2021
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