SNES

A long time ago, a great war was fought between a few units composed of three to five individuals. Some of these individuals were dragons, liches, vampires, Dragoons, and level 23 Paladins. If the rebel soldiers fought enemies weaker than them, they became evil, EEEVIL, and people would balk at them efficiently liberating towns. Apparently even level 18 Seraphim will buckle under the horrors of warfare, turning into the pixel art equivilant of Coronel Kurtz. So the leader of the rebellion came up with a genuis political tactic; he'd avoid all combat and just ride a fucking griffin around after the real soldiers constrain the flow of enemies, who apparently all march in a straight line to your base. By the way, this game is a classic.

When you see the timer come on at thirty seconds, instead of the square minute the original gave to escape the doomed space colony, you know you aren't in fucking Kansas anymore. Then you touch down on Zebes, and you're not even in Oz. You're in a crazy, spawling nightmare landscape, a mad alteration of the Super Metroid ROM. This is a Bizarro world my friends, a place where items are strange and newly hidden, where pacing is made, not given, where wall jumps are expected for mere navigation. Then there's all the super-advanced moves, things not even composited from programmed moves of the original, but glitches, glitches, that you must use in order to get an energy tank, or another super missile.