When comparing ZSNES vs Castle Crashers, the Slant community recommends Castle Crashers for most people. In the question“What are the best low-spec PC games?” Castle Crashers is ranked 7th while ZSNES is ranked 61st. The most important reason people chose Castle Crashers is:
Each level in the game has its own look and design which can keep the gameplay varied thanks to creating a need to explore in order to see what comes next. Ranging from deserts to ice filler terrain, there is no level that looks the same.
Specs
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Pros
Pro "Compatible" with most games
ZSNES has been in development since the 90's, and in that time has been fixed to run the vast majority of SNES games smoothly.
Due to it's "accuracy", it can run roms that most other emulators would break. Not because the emulation is broken, but because the roms are broken.
Pro Fast playback of ROMs
ZSNES is hand-optimized for x86, so it will run incredibly smoothly even on older computers.
Pro Built-in video capture
Gameplay can be recorded and saved as both raw or lossy files. Quality settings can be tweaked in zmovie.cfg file.
Pro Games can be saved at any point
Pro Multiplayer support
Games can be played with other people over TCP/IP network.
Pro Built-in support for cheat codes
ZSNES supports Game Genie, Pro Action Replay, and GoldFinger cheat codes.
Pro Built-in audio capture
Game audio can be saved to a .spc file.
Pro Can speed-up and rewind games
Pro Successfully avoids becoming repetitive and boring
Each level in the game has its own look and design which can keep the gameplay varied thanks to creating a need to explore in order to see what comes next. Ranging from deserts to ice filler terrain, there is no level that looks the same.
Pro The gameplay is very lighthearted and amusing
There are several jokes and silly moments throughout the game. All done without speaking any word. This keeps the game lighthearted and amusing thanks to the humor of the creators and how they infused it into the game itself.
Pro Supports co-op up to 4 players
The most fun to be had with the game is during four player co-op play. The unlockables and upgrades also keep the player wanting to come back and play just a bit more with their friends.
The co-op is available as local and online.
Cons
Con Laughably out of date
Not only was it abandoned over 10 years ago, the strides that other emulators have made in the same time is astounding.
Con Inaccurate compared to competition
ZSNES sacrifices emulation accuracy for speed (relative to e.g. Higan emulator). Sound emulation is a particularly large weakness.
Con Abandoned
While no official statement on discontinuing the software was made, last progress update was posted in 2007 and now seems highly unlikely that any further updates should be expected.
Con Bugs that appeared in the original XBox title were not fixed for the PC port
There are still bugs and glitches in the game that were in the original XBox version. Even though there were simple fixes for some of these the dev nor publisher bothered to address them.
Con Fair amount of grinding
There is a good amount of grinding that will need to take place for players to be able to advance past certain bosses.