[pentarou]

[Kitsune]

Wasn't that unreleased game FX Fighter? I remember that game. I even had a poster that came with a Club Nintendo magazine. They only showed like two or three grainy screenshots though. And it was always named FX Fighter as far as I know.

[Fredde]

Hmm, now that I looked trough the article, I also found the following little text (once again translated from Swedish, of course):

"There was a number of prototype games for Super Famicom, many made by Nintendo themselves. The most discussed one is probably the three-dimensional Super Mario-game that was started to be developed after Star Fox. Shigerum Miyamoto has said that the project was abandoned due to the constraints of the hardware, but that it later was developed to Super Mario 64."

[lugnut]

[TheRedEye]

Neat info. Thank god they waited, though. There's no way in hell you could make anything even remotely cartoony with the FX chip.

[ICEknight]

Well, that could be the reason why they later worked on improving the FX chip, but even with all the optimizations they just had to face the facts and cancel it in favor of Yoshi's Island, which did use the improved chip.

In fact, there might be some elements from that Super Mario FX in Yoshi's Island, like some bosses who look kind of 3D-ish when they turn around (namely, the one that loses his pants and the big amoeba thing), and perhaps even the last fight with Bowser where he approaches from the background.

They may have tried to use round shapes for the enemies, so they would be easy to handle in a 3D environment without having to use any polygons for them (they actually did that in Super Mario 64, if I remember correctly).

[ScubaSteve]

Hi guys. Hate to flog a dead horse/thread, but I was just strolling through the neighborhood looking for any info on the 3D SNES FX Mario test/game/prototype that Shigeru Miyamoto was supposedly working on at some point.

I just wanted to say that I too had heard/read in a magazine somewhere years ago (probably EGM (circa late 90s?), maybe Nintendo Power circa 95-96) that Miyamoto had started to work on a 3D game for the SNES using the FX Chip but then abandonded it because of hardware limitations. Then supposedly it was Miyamoto's quest for this 3D Mario game that he wanted to design that ultimately shaped the N64's hardware -- especially its controller, and most likely its graphics hardware as well. It was probably an article on Mario 64 and the N64, maybe even a Miyamoto interview.

The N64 is the console that Mario 64 built. Now only if they had looked ahead and put the analog stick in its proper place, instead of thinking of it only as a sideline, shoved right in the middle where no one will ever use it.

ScubaSteve

P.S. One of the only references I can find to an FX SNES Mario online is on this page: http://www.nintendoland.com/home2.htm?funfacts/funfacts.htm

[Shiratski]

Super Mario FX
Developer: Nintendo EAD
System: Super Famicom
Miyamoto was said to be experimenting with a 3D Super Mario game on the Super Famicom using the Super FX2 chip (used in the unreleased StarFox 2). While no screenshots were seen, it's safe to assume that the SNES couldn't cope with such an ambitious project. It is likely unused elements of the game were incorporated into Super Mario 64.
http://www.planetnintendo.com/nindb/fran/mario.shtml

[Ichiban Crush]

Super Mario World 2 used the SFX2, could there have just been some confusion somewhere along the way?

[jethro jazz]

no its was definately a separate project, ive seen it mentioned plenty of times over the years. miyamoto gave it up because the things he wanted to do were simply not possible with the hardware. i remember vaguely reading something about the proto only containing a small blank environment that mario could move around in 3d, with a box he could pick up, carry around and throw. no idea what recess of my brain im digging this out of though.