Damn, I better start watching what I say here. A0; Keep forgetting how many people here were actually involved in the development of the Lemmings series.
It's just that the SNES version's puzzles are considerably dumbed down. A0;Besides changing skill distributions here and there, they often changed the terrain, sometimes so much so it really "ruined" some of the levels. A0;Like, in one case they change the terrain so that whereas originally you have to do work to hold back a crowd, now it's like there's a pit there already in place to contain the crowd.
Basically, I felt let down that after comparing my solution based on the SNES version with walkthroughs based on other versions, I have no choice but to scrap my progress on the SNES version and start anew with the real version of the puzzles.
Also, what happened to so many of the traps? A0;Like for example the Boogieman (red eye) traps in the Cavelem tribe? A0;It is completely absent in the SNES version!!! A0;(or at least on the ROM I downloaded anyway)
I do agree the graphics are good, and the SNES version likely has the best sound and music thanks to the SNES choice of audio hardware. A0;Overall I enjoyed it a lot but I did wish they didn't dumb down the puzzle, but as I said, SNES marketing probably has to target to a younger audience. A0;That, or they think SNES gamers are less intelligent or something...... O_o
Well, if you ask Gary Timmons who re-did a huge chunk of the levels, he would tell you that these were in fact much more finely tuned. The Amiga+PC ones were rushed at the end, but on the SNES we had much more time, so Gary (and a guy called Gareth) spent much longer crafting them.
Many skills were dropped due both space, and because they were pointless. For example, the cannon.... waste of time. Roller! Whats the point. Many skills seemed like a good idea at the time, but just didnt add anything new, and so were dropped. Traps were usually down to memory, and since they were just ways to kill, they didn't usually spoil the level.
Believe it or not, Gary actually prefered playing on the joypad(!), and although I think we had finally got a good Lemmings control system for the jotpad, I think he was nuts - particually since we had the SNES mouse! He however, liked the ability to pause and "step" lemmings a frame at a time.....
The number of lemmings being dropped from 100 to 80 was a technical descision. I just couldn't draw 100 and keep the speed up - it was only 3.5Mhz! They were ALL drawn with the processor! This affected most levels, and since they all now had top be tweeked anyway, we took to oppertunity to fine tune them.
And since Gary was Mr. Lemming in those days... I think he was right