While the Super Nintendo covered most preferences, R-rated games were not really one of them. Part of that has to do with the limitations of 16-bit hardware, as there's only so much you can do with pixel art, but Nintendo of America's strict censorship policy during the SNES' first few years didn't help matters. Before loosening things up towards the end of the console's run, Nintendo regularly stripped graphic imagery out of its ports, leaving behind a watered-down shell of the arcade version in its place.

That said, if we scour through its massive library, we can unearth a handful of proper R-rated SNES games that blend mature content with genuine quality. They might not be as "mature" as projects released for newer systems, but these titles are about as risqué as you're likely to find on the Super Nintendo.

Gaming history tends to recognize the PS1-era as the birth of proper horror video games; aka, titles that can be legitimately frightening. While that's generally true, the Super Famicom managed to get 80% there with Clock Tower, a gloriously macabre love letter to slasher movies and Italian giallo cinema. Quite a few SNES releases have a horror/gothic aesthetic, but Clock Tower is the only bona fide horror game on the console.

Considering it came out in 1995, Clock Tower incorporates so many ideas that would become staples of the genre : defenseless protagonist, panic system, stamina, hide-first approach, multiple endings, and a stalker enemy. Except for a couple of effective cutscenes, most of the game uses a side-scrolling perspective, which isn't amazing for horror; however, Human Entertainment filled Barrows Mansion with graphic (for the SNES) crime scenes that are just straight-up ripped from R-rated movies.

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