Super Nintendo (SNES)
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50 free Super Nintendo (SNES) trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
The Super Nintendo arrived at the start of the 1990s and spent the decade in one of gaming's fiercest rivalries. Its 16-bit library still turns up on best-of lists, and the stories behind the hardware are as good as the games: midnight deliveries, a controller that shaped the gamepads after it, and a cancelled add-on that changed the industry. This quiz covers the console itself, from its Japanese launch and regional redesigns to its accessories and special chips, along with the platformers, racers, role-playing epics and fighting games that defined it. There are questions on heroes and villains, on the studios and designers behind the cartridges, and a run on the composers who made its sound chip sing. It is pitched for anyone who grew up with a gray box under the television, as well as newer fans who met these games on a mini console or a subscription service. Most questions are friendly; a few are for people who read the credits.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which rival console grew out of a CD-ROM add-on for the SNES that Nintendo walked away from?
PlayStation
PlayStation began as a CD drive planned for the Super NES. After Nintendo publicly switched partners in 1991, the jilted firm rebuilt the project as a standalone console.
Q 02The SNES version of Mortal Kombat swapped the arcade game's red blood for gray drops of what?
Sweat
Sweat stood in for blood under Nintendo's family-friendly rules, which also toned down the Fatalities. A Game Genie code could turn the gray drops red again.
Q 03Why did Nintendo deliver the first SNES consoles to Japanese shops in the middle of the night?
To avoid robbery
To avoid robbery, Nintendo moved its launch stock after dark, because the shipment had caught the attention of yakuza gangs. All 300,000 consoles sold out within hours.
Q 04Which platform game came packed in with the SNES in North America and became the console's best seller?
Super Mario World
Super Mario World sold more than 20 million copies, a total helped by its place in the box with the console. No other game on the system reached 11 million.
Q 05Which company's Genesis console fought the Super NES in the 16-bit console war of the early 1990s?
Sega
Sega pitched the Genesis as the cool console for older players and attacked its rival in aggressive ads. Neither machine kept a clear lead for several years.
Q 06The gray plastic casing of many early SNES consoles turns which color as it reacts with air?
Yellow
Yellow creeps in because the ABS plastic in some early casings oxidizes on contact with air. Fans reverse it with retrobrighting, a chemical treatment set off by UV light.
Q 07Which manga artist designed the characters for the SNES role-playing game Chrono Trigger?
Akira Toriyama
Akira Toriyama, creator of Dragon Ball, drew the heroes, monsters and vehicles and set the look of each era. He was billed as part of a Dream Team with the makers of Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest.
Q 08Which SNES racing game began a long-running series and introduced the track Rainbow Road?
Super Mario Kart
Super Mario Kart was the first game in its series, with eight playable characters. Rainbow Road, the final track of its Special Cup, became a fixture of the sequels.
Q 09Which pair of controls did the SNES controller add to the simpler layout of the NES gamepad?
Shoulder buttons
Shoulder buttons joined a pad that also doubled the face buttons to four, set in a diamond. Dreamcast and Xbox controllers later borrowed elements of the design.
Q 10Which arcade fighting hit came to the SNES first and became its best-selling third-party game?
Street Fighter II
Street Fighter II sold more than 6.3 million SNES cartridges, the most of any game from an outside publisher. Genesis owners waited more than a year for their own version.
Q 11Which cartridge-based console replaced the SNES as its maker's flagship home system in 1996?
Nintendo 64
Nintendo 64 kept game cartridges at a time when rivals were moving to CDs, a choice that proved controversial. Nintendo did not discontinue the SNES until 1999.
Q 12Under what name did the SNES first go on sale in Japan in November 1990?
Super Famicom
Super Famicom took the shortened nickname of its predecessor, the Family Computer. The Japanese model's four colored face buttons were worked into the system's logo.
Q 13The SNES's Mode 7 graphics made racing games feel 3D by doing what to a flat background layer?
Rotating and scaling it
Q 21Which futuristic racing game, an SNES launch title, introduced the pilot Captain Falcon?
F-Zero
F-Zero is set in the year 2560, when multi-billionaires bankroll races modeled on Formula One. Each of its four pilots drives a different hovercar.
Q 22Which SNES adventure sends Samus Aran to the planet Zebes to recover a stolen alien larva?
Super Metroid
Super Metroid begins with the Space Pirate leader Ridley snatching the infant creature. The game is credited, alongside a later Castlevania, with establishing the Metroidvania genre.
Q 23Which SNES role-playing game was promoted in North America with foul-smelling scratch-and-sniff ads?
EarthBound
Rotating and scaling it line by line gives one flat layer the look of ground stretching to the horizon. Role-playing games used the same effect for their overworld maps.
Q 14Which SNES adapter cartridge lets players run Nintendo's monochrome handheld titles on a television?
Super Game Boy
Super Game Boy maps the handheld's four shades of green to colors on the TV and can frame the picture with a decorative border. It reached shops in 1994.
Q 15Which bazooka-shaped wireless light gun did Nintendo release for the SNES in 1992?
Super Scope
Super Scope runs on six AA batteries and aims through an infrared receiver placed on top of the television. Only twelve games were ever compatible with it.
Q 16North American SNES pads traded the Japanese version's four button colors for two shades of what?
Purple
Purple A and B buttons and lavender X and Y buttons matched the redesigned North American console. Japan and Europe kept four colors, which were also worked into the system's logo.
Q 17Which electronics giant supplied the SNES's sound chip before becoming Nintendo's console rival?
Sony
Sony engineer Ken Kutaragi agreed to design the chip without telling his supervisors, who were enraged when they found out. He was nearly fired before the chief executive backed the project.
Q 18A failed SNES CD-ROM deal let which company put Mario and Zelda games on its CD-i player?
Philips
Philips gained licenses to Nintendo characters when the add-on project was cancelled. The CD-i games that followed, including Hotel Mario, were poorly received.
Q 19Which game on the 2017 Super NES Classic Edition had never been officially released before?
Star Fox 2
Star Fox 2 was completed in 1995 but went unreleased for 22 years. It had been due out just as newer 3D consoles were arriving.
Q 20Which SNES game was sold with its own mouse and hid a fly-swatting minigame called Gnat Attack?
Mario Paint
Mario Paint combined a drawing tool, an animation program and a music composer, all designed around the packaged mouse. Gnat Attack was there to teach players how to use it.
EarthBound, known in Japan as Mother 2, trades the usual fantasy world for a modern setting steeped in Americana. One magazine said the smelly ad drew more reader complaints than any other that year.
Q 24Which SNES platformer, drawn in a scribbled crayon style, has dinosaurs carrying Baby Mario?
Yoshi's Island
Yoshi's Island was first rejected by Nintendo's marketers, who wanted computer-rendered graphics. The artists answered by pushing the hand-drawn look even further.
Q 25Which SNES action game, set a century after its parent series, introduced the Maverick Hunter Zero?
Mega Man X
Mega Man X let players dash along the ground and scale or leap from nearly any wall. Armor attachments grant further special abilities.
Q 26Which SNES fighting game came in a black cartridge with a soundtrack CD tucked in the box?
Killer Instinct
Killer Instinct shipped in a black shell instead of the standard gray one. Early copies also carried Killer Cuts, an arranged CD of the game's music.
Q 27Which SNES action role-playing game let three people play at once using the Super Multitap adapter?
Secret of Mana
Secret of Mana was first planned for the SNES's cancelled CD add-on and had to be cut down to fit a cartridge. Its Ring Command menus pause the action in the middle of a battle.
Q 28Which farm-life game, the first of a long-running series, arrived late in the SNES's life?
Harvest Moon
Harvest Moon is considered one of the first farm life simulation games. It came out in Japan in 1996 and did not reach Europe until 1998.
Q 29Which first-person shooter came to the SNES on a red cartridge with a Super FX 2 chip inside?
Doom
Doom needed a new engine, written for the port by head programmer Randy Linden. Its red United States shell made it one of the few SNES games sold in a colored cartridge.
Q 30Which film trilogy became three SNES run-and-gun games with 'Super' added to each movie's title?
Star Wars
Star Wars reached the SNES in 1992, with The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi following a year apart. Driving a landspeeder and piloting an X-wing break up the shooting.