DF Retro: The Super NES Classic Mini Review! Can It Match Original Hardware?

The "harsher" sound on snes mini is due to it outputting a better sample rate. Snes mini outputs at 48khz while the real snes outputs at 32khz. You're hearing harsher frequencies the snes literally couldn't output before.

This is how a console review should be made! A rare channel with a truly in-depth approach to its content. Quality + Quantity = DF. Keep it coming, guys!

Super Metroid has to be one of the most responsive, immersive, captivating games.

Surely the CRT filter is supposed to look like a consumer CRT using composite. Making an RGB on a PVM comparison a bit misleading.

The SNES got me into gaming 😊 Xmas 1992 Street fighter 2 the world warrior's one of my fondest memories in gaming. I clocked that game (finished) so many times I knew all the variations in the ending, including the one with different music & with poster without poster variation 😁 I used buy all the magazines (SNES Force, Super Play & Official Nintendo Magazine) I knew every detail of gaming information there was to know 😂 this was before the age of the internet. Gaming was so much fun back then, I loved all the TV shows too like Bad Influence, Games Master & the other one on BBC 1, when the PlayStation & Sega Saturn came out in 1995, can't recall the name was on CBBC. Who remembers Digitiser Teletext on Channel 4? 😁 Lol the 90's internet, I used even check out the top sellers chart on it every week back then. The Super Nintendo to this day is my favourite games console & Super Metroid is my favourite game of all time. Super Mario World is the finest Mario game ever but not only that, it's probably the pinnacle of 2D platformer to this day, its mechanics it's game design has yet to be matched or surpassed, I doubt even Miyamoto himself can top it 😂 The SNES gave birth to so many great games, it's list is legendary! From Yoshi to Killer Instinct 😊.

The SMW feather sound cutoff happens on original hardware, and I can remember it specifically happening when hitting the block you showed, multiple times when I played in the past.

by far this is the best series on this channel, such an amazing work! i love all your videos but the dedication and passion of this series make it to be possibly the best gaming content in youtube right now. keep it up and stay retro. :)

DF Retro quickly became the best content in this channel.

The sound "glitch" when getting the feather in SMW...I've had that happen on real hardware. It's not terribly uncommon.

Just so you know, the sound 'glitches' you highlight are also present in the original Super Mario World. Played this game to death since I was little and they're present in other levels at other times.

I just think it's weird to compare the CRT Filter with a PVM. I mean... I've never seen any consumer CRT with thick scanlines, they were always very faint or invisible and in that regard, the CRT Filter does a decent job (at least at emulating Composite).

It's a real shame they couldn't get ChronoTrigger on the system.

I just watched a 30 minute video comparing the two systems and I barely even noticed a difference at all. I’m thinking this channel is for gamers WAY above my skill set. Either way, I love my SNES Mini! Honestly, just being able to reply FF3 while in a hostal room and not on a tablet is great!

A sony PVM is NOT in any way shape or form represetative of what gamers would have actually seen in their home while playing on a CRT TV back in the 90s. As much as the PVMs are touted as the ultimate retro gaming tvs due to their superior picture quality, in reality they are highly specialized studio eqipment that the average consumer would not have had acceess to. The average home CRT tended to have much more color bleed, bridging the scanlines. So much so that on some CRTs the scanlines were barely visible. That's why retro gamings obsession with 'clean' scanlines is a bit of a fallacy imo. Yes, the games were designed with scanlines in mind, relying on them to strech and soften the picure as well as add color depth and act as a sort of narural AA by letting your brain and the light bleed fill in the blanks, those blanks weren't the clean black bars of sony PVMs though, but something much less pronounced. While I agree that the CRT filter on the SNES mini isn't the best, to demand it to look like a Sony PVM and present that as the only valid CRT experience, is just false. These filters are trying to emulate the look that people at home would actually have had, not professional studio equipment that most would never have seen. Having the option to have a filter modeled on a PVM as well as one that is closer to the actual home experience like Sonic Mania is the ideal solution here imo.

Digital Foundry and My Life in Gaming are undoubtedly the best gaming related channels on YouTube. A great review

The CRT filter looks good on my TV from back on the couch. I'd say the softer image is probably closer to what a consumer level TV might have looked like. Anyway, I don't mind it.

Great video. My only complaint is that the real CRT vs CRT filter comparison should have used offscreen capture for both and it should've used a consumer set with RGB or a low end/90s PVM with lower TVL, LESS defined scanlines and softer focus. A high end BVM made in the early-mid 2000s doesn't represent the CRTs any of us had in the early 90s with 16-bit consoles or even well into the N64 era or the following decade with Gamecube. For the consumer set, Euro models have RGB or a US TV can be RGB modded (see RetroRGB channel). Besides old PVMs, there are also JVC pro CRTs with PQ characteristics that more closely match a consumer television.

I love all of the reviews and tech/software analysis of retro consoles and games in your videos @DF keep it up

Digital Foundry Retro, you never cease to amaze me with your video quality.

21 Games in this. Contra III: Alien Wars Donkey Kong Country Final Fantasy VI F-Zero Kirby Super Star A Link to the Past Mega Man X Secret of Mana Star Fox Star Fox 2 Super Ghouls n Ghosts Super Mario Kart Super Mario RPG: Legend if the Seven Stars Super Mario World Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island Super Metroid Now if you're in the West like most of us here, we have gotten: Earthbound Kirby's Dream Course Street Fighter II Turbo: Hyper Fighting Super Castlevania IV Super Punch-Out As for Japan instead they get: Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem The Legend of the Mystical Ninja Panel de Pon Super Soccer Super Street Fighter II: The New Challengers