Back in the olden days of the internet, there was a rumour going around that Nintendo had tried to make a 3D Mario game using the SNES’ Super FX chip. This mystery game was supposedly titled Super Mario FX, and was apparently based on a Shigeru Miyamoto interview that indicated he was experimenting a 3D Mario game on the Super Nintendo.
However, there was no real proof this project was ever in consideration. SNES Central points out that there’s no evidence that Shigeru Miyamoto, Dylan Cuthbert (the main programmer of the original Star Fox) or any other Nintendo employee of the time mentioned working on the game, while Cuthbert’s response on Twitter indicates that the name ‘Super Mario FX’ may have been a codename for the chip itself rather than an actual game:
@snescentral no, that was the internal code name for the FX chip
— Dylan Makes Games (@dylancuthbert) February 4, 2012
But while Nintendo never worked on such a title, nothing says the internet couldn’t make it happen. So, Game of Tobi (previously known for his Minecraft GBA and Super Mario 64 GBA ports) has now done just that. He’s created an early prototype for a Super Mario 64 clone using the SNES’ Super FX chip.
Take a look:
Yeah, it’s surprisingly impressive really. Oh, sure the frame rate is expectedly abysmal, and the graphics are blocky enough that playing this on a real SNES might be disorientating as all hell..
But come on. It’s a 3D platformer on the SNES. That was never even seen as a possibility in the 90s or 00s!
And it’s genuinely insane how much of the original game is present here. There’s a full 3D world for Mario to run around in, with his physics closely matching those of the original title. Enemies are present in some capacity, including Piranha Plants and Chain Chomps. Plus, while the levels are indeed blocky and hard to make out, they’re definitely identifiable as their N64 counterparts. You can tell you’re inside Peach’s Castle, exploring Bob-omb Battlefield or swimming through Jolly Roger Bay.
So, a lot of the typical issues we’d expect from a project like this don’t seem to be present. By some programming miracle, this does seem to be a functional port of Super Mario 64 for the SNES, even with a variety of assets and game mechanics.
What is a bottleneck however are space limitations. Since well, the SNES doesn’t really give you a lot of room for assets.
Seriously. Do you know how big an SNES game can be without any extra expansion chips?
4MB. That’s it. That’s how big you can make an SNES ROM without things like the SA-1 or MSU-1 chips.
And while the latter two definitely let you push the bar a bit (SA-1 can support 8MB ROMs, while MSU-1 enabled games can store dozens or even hundreds of megabytes worth of assets), the Super FX chip is even stingier with space allowances than the default SNES ROMs are.
Hence Game of Tobi has the unpleasant, difficult job of trying to squeeze the entirety of Super Mario 64 into just 2MB of ROM space.
Yeah, that’s not going to be an easy feat in the slightest. Especially given that even many less ambitious, less technically complex titles struggle to fit on a cartridge 2 or 3 times larger.
Still, Super Mario 64 can somehow work on the SNES now. And more surprisingly, it’s not the only project of this nature either.
Oh no, another YouTuber and indie dev has also ported Super Mario 64 to the Super FX chip. Namely, retroports.
Yeah, this channel also made a Super FX version of Super Mario 64, complete with toned down versions of every level and area in the original game:
It’s definitely a lot rougher than Tobi’s version for sure. The visuals are a lot glitchier, Mario’s main sprite is an overlay, and most of the enemies and mechanics haven’t been implemented here.
But it’s impressive nonetheless, especially given that the same developer decided to port games like GoldenEye 007 to the console as well:
However, there’s a catch with these versions. They’re entirely vibe-coded. AI was used to build the entire thing from existing decomp repos.
And we’re not entirely sure how to feel about that. On the one hand, it’s a bit disappointing seeing so many impressive ports turn out to be entirely vibe-coded. It’s another example of how prevalent the technology is in the retrogaming scene now, and how much of the hype around a project deflates when you realise AI did everything.
At the same time though, the fact AI can do this is absolutely batshit insane in of itself. Like, these don’t look that amateurish all things considered. The AI hasn’t put out a barely functional mess that only vague resembles the source material, nor has it struggled with things a human developer would find trivial.
No, it’s flat out done something that most human developers would consider impossible. Something most homebrew devs would consider you insane for even attempting.
That’s the scary thing right there. We’re rapidly entering a world where previously impressive ROM hacks and homebrew projects can be created at the click of a button, and where even unskilled amateurs can quickly put together projects that would take a talented programmer weeks or months of effort. It’s certainly going to change ROM hacking and homebrew communities, that’s for sure.
Regardless, that’s Game of Tobi’s Super Mario FX project, and how both he and another YouTuber have somehow ported Super Mario 64 back to the SNES in a simplified form. It’s a brilliant example of how much the SNES homebrew scene has overtaken commercial games for the system, and how even the most ridiculously, implausible ideas under the sun are rapidly becoming a reality there.
Source:
Fine, I made Super Mario FX (Game of Tobi on YouTube)