Mario 3 (SNES) - graphics hack

Hey all,

thought I'd sign up to show a bit of what I've been working on in the last 6 months.

It's a Super Mario Bros 3 (SNES) graphics hack and, yes, on the face of it, perhaps not the most exciting thing to some of you. Thing is, SMB3 is my favourite game and while I prefer the style of the original, I prefer the more polished elements that the SNES brings to the table such as blue overalls for the bros, drawing the edge of the screen properly etc. So, I'm trying to aim for a sort of best of both worlds. It's still some way off finished (I'm aiming to have it done by the end of the year) but I've done quite a lot of work on it already, so I'd like to share a few screenshots on what I've been doing and hopefully demonstrating what I'm trying to achieve.

Please understand that although this is a graphics hack, it's involved far more than simply overwriting tiles in YYCHR. I've had to add a ton of objects back into the level data that were removed
during the porting process, as well as, in many cases rewriting the code which was deleted, which I've been doing with no prior experience with ASM. I've been working on this alone, although Yoshifanatic has kindly been helping me where I've gotten stuck with things.

Anyway, here goes...

Not done much with the title screen so far but I've made the letters all blue like in the original. I've not quite decided how much I'll be changing it......



Clouds from the original which were graphically updated for SMAS but went unused when they decided to go with detailed backgrounds instead. Also, screw panels cast a shadow on the background once more...




Those cool random powerup holograms/clouds...




Pyramids...



1-5 with its more "cool" original appearance...




Coloured airships once more, along with the moving cloud sprite restored by Yoshifanatic...





Bros enemies...






Fortress...




Ice...



Thanks for viewing!

while im not fan of the colors chosen, i like the concept of adding back several discarded ideas from the original game, also i love that underground tileset. i gotta ask, will you fix the shadows in the grass tileset? and the unused group of bushes?

This looks... really accurate. The only thing.. yeah.. the shadows in some places, but those aren't hard to fix, so eh.. whatever. Other than that, it looks good. Your 6 months of hard work payed off. Great job!

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Thanks all for the feed back. The colours are largely based on the original game although they're not finalized and I've been wrestling with the palettes to try and get everything working properly. So, that aspect needs refining.

I'll be trying to add shadows and other details where they appear in the original game. I might put the double bushes somewhere in the game, or at least get them working so it's an option for anyone using it as a base hack. But that will be in the refining stage towards the end.

Also, the SMAS backgrounds don't work well with the removed objects. I have checked it out, out of curiousity. 1-1's background has its own clouds and the NES clouds look weird and pasted on when used in combination. Same with the shadow cast by the screw panels. That's why they were removed. Besides, I'm goes for the original, almost "South Park" style aesthetic of the NES version.

Yes, exactly that.

The funny thing with SMAS is that it was the most awesome thing ever at the time, especially with SMW thrown in. Five great games on one cart. But as it's aged, some of the artistic decisions now come across as a bit cheesy, especially in SMB1. So, yes, I'm hoping to get back more of the atmosphere of the original but retaining the advantage of the SNES's superior hardware.

Anyways, thanks for commenting.

(And for the bump! ;) )

Did you get this idea from pocket's SMAS Redrawn graphics hack? He's also doing the same thing as you, except he's changing all of the graphics to look like the manual ones.

Anyway, I agree to what Dark Prince said, the colors just seem really off. For example, 1-5 looks if it was directly cut from an ice world. Other than that, good luck with this project!

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Kirbo was here

For someone that had no prior ASM knowledge, you seem to be doing a pretty good job with figuring things out when modifying the SMAS SMB3 disassembly, even with the occasional thing you asked for help on. Either way, your hack is coming along pretty well! I personally prefer the SNES version's look more than the NES version's. But, I can see why people may prefer the NES version's style more, and your hack is currently like a middle ground of sorts between the two. Keep up with the good work!

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My Hacks:
Mario's Strange Quest V1.6
Yoshi's Strange Quest V1.3 / V1.3.1 Beta 4.6
Mario & Yoshi's Strange Quests (2/10/2023 Build)

Other stuff:
My SMW/SMAS/SMAS+W disassembly
Yoshifanatic's Discord Server: A place for fans of my stuff and/or Yoshi to chat with others.

No, I've wanted to do this for a few years now but wasn't sure where to start with it and, thus, get the motivation to do it. It was thanks to yoshifanatic's SMAS standalone disassemblies that I was able to start making it a reality. I've seen pocket's project though and it's interesting. Indeed, I see he wants some of the things I've already added to Smb3, such as the starry background in underground levels and coloured airship levels. I could possibly try and help him out with those things once I'm done, although I see that thread isn't so active these days, so I'm not sure if he's still working on it.

Like I said further up, the colour schemes are largely dictated by the NES version although they're not absolutely final RGB-wise. For instance, the World 2 ship will be green with a deep blue sky, as seen in the opening post, like in the orignal but the hue of the ship may changed a bit, as the SMAS-style wood is different to the NES version. I'm thinking it will probably end up a deeper green.

The 1-5 tileset looks like it was directly cut from an ice world because it is. More accurately, it's the ice palette of the underground tileset, found in levels like 6-5. I'm aiming to get 1-5 to look closer to the NES version...




... but like other things, I'll be refining the palettes.

Btw, here's the standard underground palette as seen in 4-3...





Thanks for the encouragement, mate. It really helps motivate me. \o/



Thanks for the kind words. Your help has been invaluable. Even without any of that help, just the SMAS disasseblies alone are a wonderful gift to the world. I'm hoping we see more SMAS hacking and tool support in the coming years, especially for SMB3, to make it more accessible to the casual hacker.

Looks good so far. I especially like the graphics in the underground levels and the modernised Bros. enemies.

Looks neat, I like the underground tileset a lot.

Personally, all-star's aesthetic changes doesn't bother me, if I wanted to play the original then theres nothing preventing me from just playing it, but this is cool mix of both.

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Thanks for the comments. A mix of both is what I'm going for. I'm not attempting to make it near indistinguishable from the NES version. I will, at least, off people another option when choosing to play through this classic game.