Fans love the soundtrack anew Super Mario World, creating uncompressed versions of the original tracks that were never possible on Super Nintendo hardware. The Super Mario World The recovery project is underway, but you can listen to all nine tracks from the original game on The Brickster’s YouTube channel.
As The Brickster explains on Twitter, it’s not just a case of picking up and tidying up the tracks from the original game. Instead, creators like Moola, michael02022, and unknown keep the original samples used to produce the tracks and rebuild the songs, without compressing them into the SNES console’s powerful 64kb audio RAM to pass.
For anyone who is curious about how these findings were made, it is actually simple. Do you know how the Gigaleak had source code for Super Mario Advanced? This game uses monsters from Super Mario World. These monsters had names we did not have, and that was how we could find them. pic.twitter.com/qWFTG1YdYW
– The Brickster (@lebrickster) 3 February 2021
The detection of these monsters was aided by Nintendo’s gigaleak from last year, which contains the original source code Super Mario Advance, Explains The Brickster. Since that Game Boy game again monsters of Super Mario World, the team was able to use it to locate the uncompressed samples used in the original SNES title.
Listen to the new tracks side by side with the original, and the difference in quality is strong. The new tracks sound brighter and more lively, and although the music is naturally synthesized, it almost feels like real instruments are playing every sound, rather than a computer. But there is also something about them that feels clear strange. This music was originally composed with a very specific hardware in mind, and there is something strange about hearing it in this high quality. It’s like playing an SNES game on a modern TV without scanning lines.
Whether you prefer these tracks or the original, it’s still an excellent project. The Brickster says the team is still putting out more tracks, which means it’s probably not the last we have of the Super Mario World Restored project. Meanwhile, Nerdwriter1’s 2018 video provides a nice overview of how Super Nintendo music worked.