Prospectors dug up the original samples and "restored" the Super Mario World soundtrack for SNES

March 16, 2021, 09:41 Evgenia Germanova ред.

Super Nintendo's Super Mario World from 1990 is by all accounts a great game. Imagine, however, what could have happened if those times had not been so draconian restrictions on the size of the data, for example - the sound. What would the well-known iconic music have sounded like?

The first truth is that when we played this game as children, we only ever heard "heavily compressed" music - all samples were stored at extremely low bit rates and sampling rates. Such were the real technical limitations of the console. Well, today - fanfare! - we have the opportunity to hear how compositions from Super Mario World could sound in all the sound of the original musical instruments. Shall we say thank you to the prospectors for "restoring" these tunes? and also to the rumored leaks from Nintendo. Hooray for that?

Not really. Certainly, the reassembled tracks sound much cleaner and it's extremely entertaining to compare them to the original mezzo-forte. Just try it yourself.

Here's the remaster:

And here's the original:

But here's where it gets us. The second truth. About what was lost. As many fans have pointed out, and one professional musician even parsed in a review with the title "Super Nintendo music needs no restoration", the overall impression of the "restored" tracks leaves a lot to be desired.

Why so? Simply because, unlike the results of the original composers' work, no one spent nights mixing the final sound of these "remasters". And the original low-frequency and a little bit-bit compressed instruments were specially selected so that they could listen together harmoniously in this very "low quality". That was the goal - to sound great with all the technical limitations. What do we hear in these remasters? Samples were trivially replaced "naked", not even bothering, say, to get rid of the noisy and unpleasant echo, not to mention the quality mixing.

Some will say - But how much cleaner the notes sound! - And that will be the absolute truth. Except... that's not enough. Because it's not only the separate parts that are important, but also how they make a whole! So the truth, as they say, is somewhere near and in the middle. The undertaking is undoubtedly good, but the main thing is not to rush. In fact really qualitative remakes of cult music demand a creative approach with fine understanding of psycho-emotional details.

By the way, besides the music from Super Mario World our neo-restorers also have improved many other tracks from famous game series like Pokemon, Super Metroid and Donkey Kong Country. Enjoy in good health!