The original Super Mario World score for the 16-bit Super Nintendo console is up there with the all-time greats, but it doesn’t exactly boast, what you’d call butter-like audio fidelity.
The need to compress the audio to within an inch of its life, in order to fit on the SNES cartridge, meant there was little the developers could do to spruce up a joyous Overworld theme for the 1990 platformer.
Which is why we were delighted to stumble upon a restored version of the title theme, which uses the original sample from the game to create a much richer-sounding product befitting of a modern digital orchestra and the best Nintendo Switch games.
The restoration from an artist called Moola Mixtape was shared on YouTube by The Brickster and you can see it below. There’s also a free lossless download of the 23mb file available on this Google Drive link. That’s a significantly larger file size than the entire original game!
According to journalist Chris Koelher, who was among those first to spot the restoration, Moola identified the exact samples used in the songs and rebuilt them using the uncompressed versions.
This is just wild. Dataminers identified the exact samples used in the Super Mario World songs (which had to be heavily compressed to fit on the SNES cart) and rebuilt the songs using the full, uncompressed samples, and… wow.https://t.co/sbZNMHQIjb
— Chris Kohler (@kobunheat) February 5, 2021
Arguably, the Forest of Illusion level, which you can see below, is even more impressive-sounding. You can see many of the restored tracks on The Brickster’s YouTube channel. Doesn’t it make you want to make one more trip along the star road?
As a console launch title, Super Mario World was by far the best-selling game for the Super Nintendo and indeed the entire 16-bit era. It introduced us to faithful sidekick Yoshi for the first time and sold more than 20-million units overall. As well as that, the Super Mario All-Stars collection sold a further 10.5 million.
Which is your favourite game of the 16-bit era? Which soundtrack deserves a modern restoration? Share your thoughts with us @trustedreviews.
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Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
