When comparing ZSNES vs Hotline Miami, the Slant community recommends Hotline Miami for most people. In the question“What are the best low-spec PC games?” Hotline Miami is ranked 8th while ZSNES is ranked 61st. The most important reason people chose Hotline Miami is:
The overhead view allows the player to see much of the level in order to plan how to attack each situation, in violent and gory aplomb.
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 Excellent, ultraviolent close combat
The overhead view allows the player to see much of the level in order to plan how to attack each situation, in violent and gory aplomb.
Pro Great, tense soundtrack
The soundtrack has a very 80s electro flare to it that helps flesh out the feel of the game and its violent story.
Pro Unique, neon-soaked art style and surrealist, gritty story
Playing off of themes seen in movies like Scarface, Hotline Miami features a crazy violent story that exudes a very 80s feel.
Pro Makes the player question why they love killing
The game is super violent, but the player loves it, and questions themself because of it
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Con Laughably out of date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 Buggy
Even after all the updates, AI in the game is still very buggy.
Con Light on story and can be difficult
There is really no reason given as to why the player is doing what they are doing and the game itself has a fluctuating difficulty level that can be frustrating.