SNES super fan is releasing patches to speed up games plagued by slowdown

The Super Nintendo played host to hundreds of great games, but some titles released earlier in the system's lifespan were hit hard by slowdown. This was due to the system's slower clock speed when compared to the Genesis. This was later remedied by cartridges that included unique chips like the SA-1, which did away with the bottlenecks on the SNES and made for smooth gameplay.

What about those old games that released before the chips came around? SNES super fan and coder Vitor Vilela has been going out of his way to patch those games to have them run at full speed. So far, he's released SA-1 chip patches for Contra III, Super Mario World, and Super R-Type. He's also released a "FastROM" hack for Super Castlevania IV, which is a work-in-progress to get that game running at top speed.

The best part of all this is that you can actually enjoy these hacks on original SNES hardware. As long as you have an actual copy of the game and a compatible flash cart, you're good to go! You can see how things are vastly improved in an infamous area of slowdown in Super Castlevania IV below.