Here are our favorite custom SNES Classic borders

By Gabe Gurwin Published October 13, 2017

The SNES Classic Edition offers a number of visual options to make your favorite retro games even better, including a CRT television filter and a “pixel perfect” display option. The system also comes pre-loaded with several borders to fill in what the 4:3 games leave bare on the screen, but that wasn’t good enough for some fans.

Hackers have already managed to load their SNES Classic consoles up with a whole slew of extra games like Chrono Trigger and Donkey Kong Country 2, but they’ve also figured out how to add custom borders to games. These are not only a lot more elaborate than what comes on the system already, many are even themed after its best games.

Recommended Videos

We’ve compiled some of our favorites, which you can see in the gallery above. These include a wood-panel television border complete with knobs and branding, a forest-themed Zelda: A Link to the Past border, and a Super Castlevania IV border that adds a dark blood moon to the already-creepy action-platformer.

While the majority of the designs we saw were themed after famous moments or scenes in particular games, a few got even more creative. NeoGAF user DarkGiygas created a Killer Instinct border designed to look like the cardboard boxes Super Nintendo games were packaged in, complete with the Nintendo seal of quality. He also created another wood grain border with a much more realistic look than the one Nintendo included on the system.

Adding custom borders to your SNES Classic is done in a similar way to how users have added extra games, requiring the use of software called Hakchi as well as a file-transferring program like Filezilla. Users just need to navigate to the proper server using their file-transferring program, download the folder containing background information, and they’ll be able to add it to their SNES Classic using Hakchi. Additional borders can then be added by placing them in the same folder.

All of this is, of course, predicated on you being able to find an SNES Classic system in the first place. The console has been almost as hard to find as last year’s SNES Classic, with retailers running out of online pre-orders in under a minute back in August.

Former Contributor

Gabe Gurwin has been playing games since 1997, beginning with the N64 and the Super Nintendo. He began his journalism career…

Topics

Gaming

You may have access to hundreds of free games you’re not taking advantage of

Living room with Microsoft Xbox Series X (L) and Sony PlayStation 5 home video game consoles alongside a television and soundbar.

Ever since Nintendo was the first to breach the $80 threshold for games with Mario Kart World, the concerns over game prices have been top of mind across the industry. Between tariffs, inflation, cost of living, and what appears to be an inevitable recession right around the corner, I have already been preparing for how I can be a more discerning consumer of games.

There are tons of ways to be more thrifty with our favorite hobby. You can wait for sales, trade and borrow games, rely more on subscription services like PlayStation Plus and Game Pass, or just stick to the wealth of free-to-play games. But there's one resource I never see brought up that could give you access to a huge library of major titles for free: your local library.

Gaming

In a sea of giant games, Rematch’s simplicity is a gift

A screenshot of players celebrating in Rematch.

There are a lot of words I’d use to describe Rematch, the new multiplayer soccer game from Sifu developer Sloclap. It’s fun, it’s approachable, it’s elegant. But there’s one word I wouldn't use: ambitious. I don’t mean that in a derogatory way; in fact, that’s exactly what I love about it.

Rematch needs little setup or explanation to get across what it is, which separates it from so many modern, formula-twisting video games. It’s an online multiplayer soccer game where teams of three to five, depending on the playlist, compete in six minute matches. The teams are dropped on a basic pitch, the only notable twist of which is that all the sides are walled off. Players pass, block, and shoot and the team with the most points at the end wins. There are no gimmicks, no tricks, and no flourishes like flying cars that make for a cool sales pitch. It’s just soccer.

Gaming

Death Stranding 2: On the Beach review: gripping sequel weighs the cost of connection

Sam holds Lou in Death Stranding 2: On The Beach.

There may never be a video game as prophetic as Death Stranding. In 2019, Hideo Kojima painted a picture of an already politically divided United States forced into isolation as a plague swept through the country. It pushed the need for human connection in society, urging its players to come together in moments of darkness rather than splintering. That message would become hauntingly urgent just one year later when a real world pandemic shut the world indoors. Death Stranding retroactively became the first great work of Covid-19 art, offering up a hopeful message about strengthening social ties that bond us all together.

Everything has changed since then. The rise of digital communication that was necessitated by a pandemic has backfired. Online communities have become a hotbed for alt right radicalization. Social media platforms like X have been reshaped into misinformation pits built to manipulate the outcomes of elections. The rise of generative AI has made it easier than ever to mislead trusting suckers into believing anything they see. The mass connection that Death Stranding advocated for has shown its dark underbelly and there are some days where I wish we could go back and undo it all.