A new Super Mario World emulation will finally let you play the classic Nintendo platformer in widescreen.
The 1990 SNES platformer Super Mario World is getting an upgrade thanks to emulation developer Vitor Vilela.
Super Mario World Widescreen has been set for launch ‘before E3 2021’ and will allow you to play the retro side-scroller in 16:9 aspect ratio – a big difference from its original 4:3 view.
What if Super Mario World was optimized to run at widescreen 16:9? Here is the result
Honestly, it looks awesome, it even feels a PC game! pic.twitter.com/Mn1HsbFcbg
— Vitor Vilela (@HackerVilela) March 7, 2021
“Once Super Mario World and Super Metroid widescreen patches are done, we will likely have a solid standard which future ROM modders will be able to apply to any SNES game,” Vilela told RetroRGB.
“That’s our objective. Any SNES game will be able to be adapted though ROM patches to use widescreen in the future once the project is stabilised.”
Emulators such a bsnes HD can already create Mode 7 backgrounds to emulate certain SNES games in widescreen.
Many people asked me and here is how Super Mario World would look with 21:9 ultrawide: https://t.co/PvcPXGrGFv pic.twitter.com/wqjMZ9NAom
— Vitor Vilela (@HackerVilela) March 9, 2021
This works well for the likes of Super Mario Kart and F-Zero, but the nature of side-scrolling platformers means that there’s a lot of extra work to get the same result.
Extending the screen means having to manually add new spawns for enemies that are further away than usual.
“This level has two foreground layers, where the second one moves back and forth,” explains Vilela.
“Both need to recognize the widescreen region, shift 3/6 columns to the left or to the right depending on the direction aimed. Ouch!!”
This additional work makes converting Super Mario World into widescreen a much more involved process than it first seems.
In other Nintendo news, the company has recently sued a rom site owner for £1.4million ($2.1 million) and won in a recent court case.
Matthew Storman owned and operated the site which allowed users to download ROMs until last year when he closed it at the request of Nintendo. TorrentFreak initially reported on the case over the weekend.
You can find a breakdown of the case here, which includes how Judge Marshall decided on the settlement figure.
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