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Super Mario Land HD (fan) remake looks great

iconmaster

Banned
Done up in the style of the original New Super Mario Bros -- complete with bopping goombas and koopas -- it's Super Mario Land for the Game Boy transformed into an SNES ROM. It was developed from the ground up with custom 3D graphics, and was put on actual cartridges playable on actual Super Nintendo systems.




Just to be perfectly clear, this is not a ROM-hack or modification of an existing game. I also did not reuse any data or code from the original Super Mario Land. The game itself was developed just like the bulk of commercial SNES games were developed back in the nineties: programmed from scratch in Assembly language using a text editor on a PC, with custom-made tools to convert data such as graphics, music and levels into a format the SNES is able to use. The crucial difference is that today, we have powerful SNES emulators that speed up the build and test iteration and have tons of useful debugging features.

It's a bit stuttery at times, but frankly it's an amazing feat. Now I'm kind of hoping Nintendo pulls a Samus Returns and brings out their own.
 
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Shifty

Member
It's an impressive piece of work, but the aesthetic kills it for me. Half the charm of the original was its look, so converting it into the NSMB style just makes it look like a custom level set for that game.

And on top of that, why on earth would you build a SNES game and then use jaggy pre-rendered 3D instead of sprites? I know DKC was a phenomenon, but pre-rendered 3D as a style has had decades to age badly by this point :messenger_frowning_
 

ResurrectedContrarian

Suffers with mild autism
Very impressed with the classic coding from scratch, since I was expecting a mere ROM hack.

That said, I find the animation style too distracting to want to play it myself.
 

iconmaster

Banned
I'm not seeing anything particulary amazing to begin with.

Not even the fact that he coded an SNES game without any modern game design tools?

You will also have to understand the quite large variety of registers of the SNES' custom chips to produce decent effects – or display anything at all, for that matter. I won't lie though, I actually enjoy this kind of bare metal programming; it's something you don't see a lot anymore with modern systems.

Snark is easy.

why on earth would you build a SNES game and then use jaggy pre-rendered 3D instead of sprites?

To be perfectly honest, the low-poly prerendered look makes it very easy to achieve acceptable-looking, fluid animations with little effort using 3D modelling software. It's much less effort than drawing everything by hand for sure, so you could say it was an economical decision. Generally speaking, hand-drawn pixel art is king, of course, but I just don't possess the necessary skill.
 

Saber

Gold Member
Not even the fact that he coded an SNES game without any modern game design tools?



Snark is easy.

And? Thats why I said "no offense"(read if you like). I understand the work behind it, I just didn't find anything spetactular or attractive.

Seriously, if that crappie attitude its just because I didn't like something you like, then maybe you should write in the OP "only positive answers allowed".
 
I hope this leaks. Seeing shit like this but being unable to play it is fucking horrible.

For instance, I am SUPER glad that the genesis mini came out so I could play that dudes homebrew version of darius on genny.

New super mario land has no chance of that though.

So, COME ON, LEAKERS. LET'S DO THIS.
 

Shifty

Member
Awful because you disagree? Lol
Awful because you popped in to shit on the topic without providing any justification for that stance.

That's not a valuable contribution to the discussion, it's just noise that nobody cares about.

I'm not seeing anything particulary amazing to begin with. Looks more like one of those New Super Mario games. Nothing more, nothing less.
There, that's more like it.

Go on, now you can say "awful second post".
'Getting there' second post.

To be perfectly honest, the low-poly prerendered look makes it very easy to achieve acceptable-looking, fluid animations with little effort using 3D modelling software. It's much less effort than drawing everything by hand for sure, so you could say it was an economical decision. Generally speaking, hand-drawn pixel art is king, of course, but I just don't possess the necessary skill.
That makes a degree of sense from a dev standpoint, though if you're going to be aping an existing art style, the Super Mario All Stars / Super Mario World sprites already exist in SNES Form.

Naturally some custom work would be required either way since SML has a bunch of unique enemies, but putting together a new 3D model from scratch seems like more work than doing the same with sprites.
 

nkarafo

Member
Want to play Mario Land in HD?

Grab RetroArch + Shaders + a rom:

Super-Mario-Land-World-Rev-A-191122-213848.png
 

Pejo

Member
I think that just the fact that Mario Maker 2 exists kinda makes this redundant. It sounds like the dude put a lot of work into it though, so good on him. It's certainly more than anything I've done.
 

alf717

Member
It looks terrible tbh :messenger_tears_of_joy: Like one of those pirate demakes for NES, using high quality assets with wonky physics.

Better stick to Super Mario Land DX. From the same author of Super Mario Land 2 DX.



That looks really good just like Mario Land 2 DX but I'm not a fan of that Mario sprite.
 
Very ugly and unappealing graphics. Why would anyone base the graphics on the ugliest Mario game..? 😬

I mean, to me this looks waaaaay worse than the original. That game still has so much charm and has aged beautifully.
 

Dazrael

Member
I had a go of this yesterday. It’s an admirable feat for sure but the aesthetic doesn’t suit it, the inertia of Mario doesn’t feel quite right and it has that horrible ‘snapback’ scrolling when changing direction. It feels like a hack unfortunately.

It’s certainly better than anything I could do though, I’ll give him credit for that.
 

Vawn

Banned
I think that just the fact that Mario Maker 2 exists kinda makes this redundant. It sounds like the dude put a lot of work into it though, so good on him. It's certainly more than anything I've done.

You couldn't make this in Mario Maker though.
 

Hulk_Smash

Banned
Done up in the style of the original New Super Mario Bros -- complete with bopping goombas and koopas -- it's Super Mario Land for the Game Boy transformed into an SNES ROM. It was developed from the ground up with custom 3D graphics, and was put on actual cartridges playable on actual Super Nintendo systems.






It's a bit stuttery at times, but frankly it's an amazing feat. Now I'm kind of hoping Nintendo pulls a Samus Returns and brings out their own.


I wish that guy would shut up for two seconds so I can hear ether awesome soundtrack this game has 😤
 

iconmaster

Banned
I had a go of this yesterday. It’s an admirable feat for sure but the aesthetic doesn’t suit it, the inertia of Mario doesn’t feel quite right and it has that horrible ‘snapback’ scrolling when changing direction. It feels like a hack unfortunately.

It’s good to get an informed assessment. Thanks.

Yeah therez zero point making it a snes rom.

The point of making it an SNES ROM was so it could be written to real SNES carts which the dev gave out to his friends. This isn’t the definitive Super Mario Land or anything. Its just a neat little gaming accomplishment.
 
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Soooo, I just got home from work and decided to check this out and yeah, fucking SUPER impressive.

The person who did this knows their SNES assembly. I am very impressed at how well the mario sprite looks in motion also. Looks identical to the ds game.

So yeah, thanks for this op. This is really really cool and I love super obscure shit like this or super boss gaiden, where I know only a few hundred people will ever have played it. I felt that same way when I beat devils third lol.
 

baphomet

Member
I mean it's cool he made it from scratch, but it looks awful and I can see how badly it controls just from watching the video.
 
I mean it's cool he made it from scratch, but it looks awful and I can see how badly it controls just from watching the video.
Been playing mario games since the 80s. The physics aren't that bad, honestly. The bigger thing is the hit detection with the sides of pipes for some reason.

I encourage you to at least try it if you have an opportunity. It's a cool way to play a classic again I think.
 
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