Retro Replay Review

Gameplay

Super Noah’s Ark 3-D takes the classic first-person shooter formula and gives it a playful biblical makeover. Instead of blasting guards or monsters, you play as Noah armed with a variety of hand-held catapults, firing pelleted feed to calm and coax animals back to sleep. The core loop is simple: explore each deck of the Ark, find hungry creatures, and keep them pacified long enough to progress. The sense of urgency comes not from enemy gunfire but from stampeding beasts, making for a surprisingly tense, humorous twist on the Wolfenstein 3D blueprint.

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On the SNES, the gameplay closely mirrors its Warner brothers—Wolfenstein 3D’s console port—right down to weapon handling and enemy behaviors. Your catapults fire at machine-gun speed, and even though you’re pelleting sheep and lions instead of shooting guards, the pace feels just as relentless. Some of the bad guys—angry animals in this case—have slightly tweaked patterns, but the overall design remains faithful. Levels are laid out with branching corridors, hidden rooms, and key hunts, repurposed here as feed hunts.

The PC version retains the tight, maze-like level design but spices up the formula with an interactive trivia element. By picking up question-mark icons, the game pauses and prompts you with multiple-choice Bible trivia. Correct answers reward you with extra feed ammo and points, giving you a practical boost and a nod to the source material. This feature adds an engaging, educational side quest that helps break up the relentless pacing of a pure shooter.

Both versions reward exploration—secret caches of feed, hidden passages, and clever use of limited ammunition force you to plan your route. Replay value stems from mastering maps, conserving feed, and perfecting trivia responses in the PC edition. While not as varied as modern shooters, Super Noah’s Ark 3-D offers a compact, focused experience that shines through its novelty and tight level design.

Graphics

The visual foundation of Super Noah’s Ark 3-D is unmistakably Wolfenstein 3D. Walls are flat-shaded, corridors are right-angled, and enemies are 2D sprites. On the SNES, however, the game’s color palette leans toward muted pastels—beige planks, pale walls, and softly tinted animal sprites. It’s serviceable for the hardware, but the visual identity feels relegated to “cute reskin” rather than a standout aesthetic.

Despite these constraints, the SNES version packs personality into its sprite work. Crouching sheep, pacing elephants, and belligerent lions all have distinct animations that convey urgency without needing high polygon counts. Textures remain minimal, but clever use of repeating panels helps differentiate levels—darker wood for lower decks, gray stone for the engine room, and so on.

Switch to the PC edition, and you’ll notice a crisper, higher-resolution presentation. Floor textures akin to those in Blake Stone bring more variety underfoot, and walls exhibit greater detail with subtle shading. The sprites are slightly more refined, and the added eight-direction rotations give animal movements a more natural flow. MIDI music support also means richer ambient tracks play in the background, enhancing immersion beyond the SNES’s simplistic beeps.

While neither version competes with mid-’90s emerging 3D titles, Super Noah’s Ark 3-D leverages its engine smartly. The PC’s graphical upgrades are modest but meaningful, turning what feels like a tech demo on the SNES into a more polished shooter-puzzler hybrid on DOS machines.

Story

At its core, Super Noah’s Ark 3-D retells the familiar tale of Noah’s Ark in the form of a shooter puzzle-adventure. There’s no grand narrative cutscene—just a simple premise: the flood is imminent, animals are restless, and it’s up to Noah to keep them fed and calm until safe passage. This minimal framing suits the fast-paced gameplay, avoiding lengthy exposition in favor of immediate, hands-on action.

The title leans on its biblical theme for charm rather than deep storytelling. Decorative murals and occasional on-screen prompts hint at chapters of the Genesis account, but mostly you’re left to infer the stakes from the ark’s design and the increasing number of critters underfoot. It’s an unusual fit for a shooter, yet the novelty is part of the game’s enduring appeal.

In the PC version, Bible trivia pickups extend the narrative layer. By correctly answering questions about scripture, you not only gain feed and points but also momentarily immerse yourself in the ark’s lore. These interludes, while brief, underline the game’s educational intent and provide a welcome break from corridor navigation.

Overall, the story functions as a light scaffold for the action. If you’re looking for deep character arcs or moral choices, you won’t find them here. Instead, the game delivers a playful, surface-level reimagining of the Noah legend—emphasizing fun and novelty over dramatic weight.

Overall Experience

Super Noah’s Ark 3-D stands out as one of the more memorable “reskins” of the Wolfenstein 3D engine. Its concept—feeding animals instead of fighting Nazis—brings an unexpected twist that still manages to deliver the tight corridors and secret passages fans love. For players seeking a lighthearted spin on classic FPS mechanics, this title hits the mark.

The SNES edition will appeal to console collectors and nostalgia seekers, offering a faithful but modest reinterpretation of mid-’90s 3D action. Controls are responsive, albeit limited by the SNES controller’s button layout, and the graphical simplicity is forgivable given the platform. If you own a SNES and a fondness for retro quirks, it’s worth a play.

On PC, Super Noah’s Ark 3-D benefits from enhanced visuals, MIDI audio, and that clever trivia mechanic. While it lacks the depth of later shooters, it carves out its niche by blending light puzzle elements and educational content with solid level design. It’s short, often breezed through in a few sittings, yet enjoyable from start to finish.

In short, Super Noah’s Ark 3-D is a delightful curiosity—a playful mashup of biblical storytelling and Wolfenstein-style action. Whether you’re drawn by its novelty or its straightforward gameplay, it offers a brief but entertaining excursion down memory lane, complete with roaring lions, bucking bulls, and the ever-patient Noah holding the line (and the feed).

Retro Replay Score

5.3/10