Review: Super Power, Spoony Bards, and Silverware: The Super Nintendo Entertainment System

Super Power, Spoony Bards, and Silverware: The Super Nintendo Entertainment System by Dominic Arsenault

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book is written at the level of a college paper with lots of footnotes, citations, etc. There are even some sections of chapters that get into some heavy terminology that didn’t really mean anything to me. But overall, I found the book to be written in a very approachable way.

What was incredibly fascinating to me was that, given my age, I lived through the NES -> SNES transition. I remember all the commercials and the rivalry with Sega. I remember wondering why some arcade games were way better on the Sega Genesis. I remember being incredibly impressed with late-era SNES games like Super Mario RPG and Donkey Kong Country. And I remember strange translations, but not knowing why they were so strange.

This book explains the behind-the-scenes look as to why I had those experiences. And, unlike most books about the era, it doesn’t hold Nintendo up as perfect. While the author doesn’t hate Nintendo or treat them unfairly, the author does treat them critically. Calling them out when they are being stubborn or shooting themselves in the foot.

If you can get past the technical prose and are a gamer somewhere between 35 and 50, you will probably also find this book incredibly fascinating, too.

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