A group of Super Mario Currently, global fans are remastering the SNES platform soundtrack (h / t Chris Kohler) with high quality versions of the original samples. But if you’re expecting some fantastic orchestral versions of songs you’ve loved for decades, they really aren’t that.
Samples were available from “Gigaleak”, a massive (and unofficial) dumping of Nintendo files that last year took to the Internet. Among these files was the source code for Super Mario Worldthe 2002 version of Game Boy Advance, you wouldn’t know, it also included the original instruments used for SNES music. From there, it was simply a matter of replacing the compressed sounds with their lossless equivalents to create these “remastered” tracks.
But these high-tech songs aren’t up to the classic SNES game. Take for example the topic “Forest of Illusion”. Gone are the soft tones of the original, replaced by a cacophony of reverberant melodies that seem more like someone getting too hard for the effects of Fruity Loops than a comforting walk through some misty woods.
The new “Swimming” track has the same problem. Being able to hear all the instruments clearly and perfectly makes the soundscape arrogant and feels too crowded.
And don’t even get me started on the subject of Athletic. It feels like one piano version of an iconic track.
That said, we can’t blame these specific creators. Literally, they just connect new instruments to old compositions and let them rock and, to some degree, respect the desire to drag these songs (even if they suffer and scream) into the 21st century.
The problem is, I guess, these sounds were largely chosen by legends Super Mario World composer Koji Kondo because they sounded good at a lower quality. Studios currently have Blu-ray discs and state-of-the-art sound cards, but the 1991 development was to address the limitations of limited memory and now archaic audio technology. That’s why sprites from earlier eras don’t look as good on high-definition monitors as they did on CRT TVs – they were made with these disadvantages in mind.
These remastered Super Mario World the tracks don’t work for the same reason: I’d rather hear a busker play an original song with a detuned acoustic guitar than an orchestra coming out in the top 40 hits of their expensive brass and wood. The means of production and portrayal of art is as important as its technical fidelity. Sure, these “high quality” and “lossless” samples may sound good on their own, but when combined with modern equipment, they lose all the heart and soul of the originals.
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However, if they are your type of stuff, you can hear a lot of these remastered tracks here. It seems inevitable that someone will connect them to a ROM of the original game, which should be an experience … interesting.