I see you cradling that pint-size Super NES like it is the last donut at the office party—don’t play coy, we already know you spent a week refreshing restock alerts. Now the existential terror sets in: twenty-one cartridges live inside that gray monolith, each one whispering “pick me” like Pokémon in a glass Poké Ball. Which game gets first dibs on your thumbs, your evening, your precious suspend-point slots? Short answer: slam Super Mario World, feel joy, roll credits. Long answer: we are about to time-travel through side-scrolling jungles, Mode 7 raceways, and JRPG opera houses with a single absurd tour guide—the plastic RESET button perched on the right side of the console. That stubby rectangle is our fickle deity tonight. Whenever my advice feels wrong, you will mash it, toss the session into digital limbo, and the journey begins anew. Buckle up; the Reset Oracle tolerates no half-convictions.
The Warm-Up Sacrifice: Super Mario World
Why start here? Because the Reset Oracle demands a ritual offering that will not devour your weekend. Mario World boots in seconds, teaches its entire move-set before you exit Yoshi’s House, and sprinkles secrets like cookie crumbs across Dinosaur Land. You miss a Cape Feather? Hit reset, re-run Yellow Switch Palace, and pretend the timeline never branched. It is breezy, it is forgiving, it shows you how the pad’s convex buttons feel under stress. Most important: it resets elegantly. No unskippable cutscene, no RPG name field that makes you re-type “Buttz” after every failure. Think of it as calibrating your hands to 60 Hz nostalgia.
(Esoteric aside: the North American ROM still contains a hidden developer room reachable only with a tool-assisted memory poke—Nintendo yanked the warp pipe in final code but left the pointer, a ghost address waiting for Hex Editor necromancers.)
Branch One: Solo Explorers with Limited PTO
Suppose you have a single evening before the real world yanks the power cord. The Reset Oracle points toward The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. Its Hyrule Castle prologue doubles as crash-course in sword arcs, hidden passages, and light-dark world foreshadowing. Fail at the Ball and Chain guard? Hit reset, you are back outside Zelda’s cell in under sixty seconds. Every fresh attempt feels like speed-run practice, not punishment. The game’s secret sauce is its save-anywhere battery—that was borderline witchcraft in 1992—so the Oracle rarely needs smiting. Yet the button remains, a silent dare: can you finish Eastern Palace on the first go or will you chicken out because those Stalfos split like mitosis gone rogue?
Branch Two: Duo Night, Couch Diplomacy Required
If a roommate or sibling is itching for screen time, the Oracle flashes two icons—red shell for competition, spread gun for cooperation. Choose the shell and Super Mario Kart loads its 2-player split like a dueling piano. Battle Mode is a friendship stress test measured in balloon pops and banana peels. The reset button, meanwhile, hovers like Judge Dredd: any time Blue Shell Meltdown Syndrome erupts, smash plastic and the feud erases itself, history rewritten by divine thumb.
Choose the spread gun and Contra III: The Alien Wars detonates onto the CRT. Here the reset deity gains extra humor: every continue wipes back to Stage Select, so a panic press can feel merciful. Still, nothing bonds two humans faster than clinging to the underside of a helicopter while Mode 7 grenades arc overhead. Pro tip (we already know this, but a reminder never hurts): spread goes to Player 2, flamethrower to Player 1, otherwise the Oracle grows spiteful and eats all your lives when the giant turtle rolls in.
Branch Three: Marathon Seekers, Snacks Stocked
Let us be real: if you bought the SNES Classic for 100-hour epics, you want Final Fantasy III. The opera scene, the world collapse, the optional yet somehow mandatory chainsaw for Edgar—these deserve time. Why start there instead of easing in? Because the reset button transforms into a meta-mechanic. Abuse suspend points before every boss, keep the Oracle satisfied, and you eliminate the random-wipe trauma that once annihilated childhood memory cards. Rhetorical question: will you really finish before the next indie drops on Game Pass? Self-answer: probably not, but the Reset Oracle applauds ambition.
For a lighter grind try EarthBound. Early battles feature rolling HP counters—your life literally bleeds down like an odometer, so mashing reset mid-death becomes a grim joke: Schrödinger’s Ness, alive and deleted at once. Stick with it, though, and you will learn the greatest secret password on the system: “Say the word please.” Yes, that is an actual nine-word password to unseal a door, proof that 1995 RPGs practiced UX irony decades before “press F to pay respects” went mainstream.
Branch Four: Bite-Size Curiosities, Hardware Showpieces
You have fifteen minutes before dinner, living-room TV hostage negotiations beginning. The Oracle presents Star Fox. One route, ten stages, frame-rate that judders like a stop-motion corgi yet still thrills. When you crash on Venom, smashing reset simply feels like ejecting an Arwing cockpit seat. Too short? Boot Star Fox 2, the once-cancelled sequel. Its real-time map means you might finish a campaign before your soup boils. Also, you will witness the debut of Miyu and Fay: a lynx and a dog turned pilots after a failed location test in Nagoya allegedly proved that children preferred mammals to Slippy. Who knew.
If your dinner timer mercilessly counts seven minutes, Kirby Super Star offers Gourmet Race. Beat Dedede, flex superiority, reset, walk away. That is efficiency.
Mandatory Difficulty Disclaimer (so the Oracle does not sue)
There are two cartridges the reset button fears more than you do: Super Ghouls n Ghosts and Super Punch-Out!!. The former loops the game once you “win” because Capcom hated free time; the latter demands pattern recognition faster than a 3.5e monk with Boots of Speed. Start with them only if you crave repeated thumb-smiting. When you inevitably rage-press reset, the Oracle will nod, satisfied.
(Trivia side quest: a magazine contest in 1992 promised a T-shirt if you mailed photo proof of a legit Ghouls n Ghosts completion. Fewer than fifty shirts were allegedly printed. Today they trade on eBay for the price of a working Trinitron.)
Epilogue: The Oracle Giveth, the Oracle Reseteth
By now you have noticed the pattern. Any title on this miniature museum can be your first as long as you wield the reset button like a time wizard’s rewind spell. Super Mario World is the universal handshake, Zelda teaches spatial literacy, Contra bonds frenemies, and Final Fantasy III baptizes marathoners. The absurd reality: the only unusable choice for first boot is leaving the console in its box. Games beg to be played, resets beg to be pressed, and you beg for one more suspended lunchtime before adult chores respawn.
So breathe, power on, pick something with conviction. If regret sneaks in—if Yoshi’s tongue misses that Koopa shell and you lose your only hit—remember our plastic overseer. Press, purge, begin again. History rewritten, pride restored, couch ready for its next cartridge séance.