Now here is something truly amazing. The FamicomCD Team has released a demo of Super Mario Bros. CD which is playable on both real SNES hardware and emulators.
Super Mario Bros. CD is a ROM hack of Super Mario World, imagining what an SMB game might be like on a CD-based console. Basically, think of it as Sonic CD but for Super Mario. Here is a twist, though. This fan game is for an imaginary NES CD console, and not for the canceled SNES CD. So, don’t let the parent ROM fool you. This isn’t Super Mario World in CD. This is the classic NES Super Mario Bros. in CD.
The demo allows you to play five levels from the game. These are Grasslands, Underground, Athletic, Golden Jungle and Beach. All of them come with proper gameplay elements. As such, players can control Mario, collect powerups and coins, and fight classic enemies.
Since this is a fan-made project, you should temper your expectations. This ROM hack tries to re-imagine the classic Super Mario Bros game of NES as a CD game. It’s not meant to showcase what a CD version of Super Mario World could look like.
This is even obvious from the sprite used for Mario himself. As you will see, his 2D sprite is similar to the one used in the NES games, and not the one we got in Super Mario World.
Going into some tech details, Super Mario Bros. CD utilizes the MSU-1 chip to deliver original and rich CD-quality music, fully animated cutscenes, and more complex environments, even on original hardware via the SD2SNES/FXPak Pro. SMBCD also heavily utilizes Mode 0 (a SNES background mode, akin to Mode 7) for its levels, providing more layers for foreground environments and background parallax. Mode 0 allows for 4 layers at once rather than the usual 2-3 layers found in SMW by using Mode 1.
Compared to the NES games, Super Mario Bros. CD looks way better – and more advanced – than them. So, this is something that a lot of NES fans will appreciate. And yes, as I said, you can run it on PC via an SNES emulator.
You can go ahead and download the demo from this link. As for the full version, there is no ETA for when it will come out.
I also suggest grabbing the demo while you still can. We all know how protective Nintendo is with its franchises. The big N has been constantly shutting down free games, even ROM hacks. So, make sure to download it while you still can.
Enjoy and stay tuned for more!
John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
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