A group of Super Mario World fans are currently remastering the soundtrack of the SNES platform (h / t Chris Kohler) with high quality versions of the original samples. But if you’re hoping for some great orchestral versions of the songs you’ve loved for decades, they’re not.
The samples were provided by “Gigaleak”, massive (and unofficial) dumping of Nintendo files that took the internet by storm last year. Among these files is the source code for Super Mario Worldthe 2002 release of Game Boy Advance, which you wouldn’t know, it also included the original tools used for SNES music. From there, it was simply a matter of replacing the compressed sounds with their lossless equivalents to create these “remastered” songs.
But these technically high-quality songs don’t match those of the classic SNES game.. Take, for example, the theme “The Forest of Illusion.” The soft tones of the original are gone, replaced by a cacophony of reverberant songs that sound more like someone walked too hard on the effects of Fruity Loops than a comforting walk through some foggy forests.
The new “Swimming” track has the same problem. The ability to hear each instrument clearly and perfectly creates an acoustic landscape that feels too crowded.
And don’t even start with “Athletic”. It feels like a version for piano player of an iconic piece.
That being said, we cannot blame these specific creators. I’m literally just connecting new instruments to old compositions and letting them spin, and at some level, I respect the desire to pull these songs (even if they were hit and screaming) in the 21st century.
The problem is that these sounds were, I suppose, largely chosen by the legendary Super Mario World the composer Koji Kondo because it sounds good at a lower quality. Nowadays, studios have state-of-the-art Blu-ray discs and sound cards, but the development in 1991 was to address the limitations of both limited memory and now archaic audio technology. That’s why the spirits of previous eras don’t look as good on high-definition monitors as they do on CRT TVs: they were made with these disadvantages in mind.
These have been remastered Super Mario World the songs don’t work for the same reason, I’d rather listen to a busker playing an original song on an unconfigured acoustic guitar than an orchestra hitting a top 40 hit on their expensive brass and winds. The environment through which art is produced and presented is as important as its technical fidelity. Sure, these “high quality” and “lossless” samples might look good on their own, but when combined with modern equipment, they lose all the heart and soul of the originals.
G / O Media may receive a commission
However, if it’s your kind of thing, you can listen to a bunch of remastered songs Here. It seems inevitable that someone will connect them to an original game ROM, which should make for an … interesting experience.