Developers look back on 25 years of the SNES, share praise

“In my opinion, the SNES was the golden age of pixel art. It had enough complexity to look interesting, but was limited enough that you had to be creative with it. There's a certain sweet spot for pixel art... too low-res and it's ugly, too high-res and it's not even pixel art. The SNES, to me, struck the perfect balance between those two extremes.” - Eric Barone, ConcernedApe (Stardew Valley)

“Donkey Kong Country had this radical new look. Pre-rendered graphics were a big deal at the time, and seeing the amount of color and view depth achieved in that game was mind-blowing for me. I was just starting to understand what it meant to make this look possible, how expensive it all was (the rigs were costly plus the time it took to render each frame was intense), and how different it looked from anything else that had come before. While it's a bit ugly now, I still recall intensely re-watching that pre-release VHS tape they sent Nintendo Power subscribers for the game. It was my first behind the scenes look at games development in video form.” - Alex Preston (Hyper Light Drifter)