1. Final Fantasy VI - My favorite game of all time. It had such a great diverse cast and diabolical villain, was full of great sidequests that expanded a lot on the main story (which was also great). The characters had cool unique abilities and the Esper magic system, though not the best SE has ever come up with, was still pretty good and integrated itself with the story well. This is truly an epic among epics.

2. Chrono Trigger - Probably as close to a perfect game as you'll get. There's nothing I would change about this game or replace with another game. The story, characters, battle, and ability systems all gelled together to create one of the greatest masterpieces of gaming. Anyone who is an RPG fan and hasn't played Chrono Trigger is missing out. Like FFVI, this game had plenty of sidequests that allowed you to focus on particular characters or story elements and that really helped piece together the overall puzzle. The time travel and multiple ending aspects were excellent and have not yet been matched.

3. Zelda: A Link to the Past - This is the second best Zelda game (after the original Zelda) and it improved upon the original in many ways. It was a nice long quest with many puzzling dungeons and cool new items like the hookshot. I also really liked the mini-quests like upgrading your sword and the dual-world aspects.

4. Super Metroid - The best Metroid game, and possibly the best game of this genre ever. This took the Metroid concept and, well, supersized it, setting the standard for this genre which has never been topped with the exception of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. I loved getting new abilities and going back to old areas to open new possibilities and potentially finding hidden upgrades. There's so much secret stuff in this game it's amazing this is a 16-bit game.

5. Yoshi's Island - Arguably the best 2D platformer ever, though I had a bit of a hard choice whether to put this, DKC2 or FFIV in this spot. I went with this because the combination of Yoshi's moves in this game with the level design is almost perfect. The game isn't that hard, but the real struggle is to get a perfect on each area, trying not to lose Baby Mario for precious seconds at the end of the level. The graphics were also pretty gorgeous, some of the best for a 16 bit game.