All 329 & 27 Unreleased SNES Games Compared Side By Side With The Genesis

[Kirk_Johnston]

By the way, here's a link in case anyone else is wondering how Nintendo artists were seeing and creating the art for their SNES games back in the '90s (taken from the gigaleak):

 

Notice that despite the monitor being a 4:3 display, they were drawing all the sprites and background tiles there in a grid made of up 8x8-pixel perfect squares, and that all the pixel art looks correctly proportioned in that perfectly square grid. Squares in the pixel art are perfect squares. Circles in the pixel art are perfect circles. Everything looks proportionally correct. Even the GUI for the art tool they were using is created with perfect squares. And, as soon as anyone stretches that original SNES pixel art to fit a full 4:3 display, none of it will be correctly proportioned anymore. The game will take up the full display as obviously intended back in the day, but it's no longer accurate to the original art's correct proportions.

 

Every SNES developer new about this, but the fact is the vast majority of them didn't account for it when creating their art for the system, for whatever reasons. Although some artists did account for the inevitable 4:3 stretch and pre-squished their art for that reason, as seen in Street Fighter II for example, the vast majority of SNES art was created to look proportionally correct at the original 8:7 display ratio (that's 256 x 224 pixels), as seen in almost any other game you might care to randomly pick and check for yourself (again, this list is a good start: https://forums.nesdev.org/viewtopic.php?t=23885), even though the games were ultimately stretched to 4:3 on the displays we all saw them on. This is not a question of maybe that's what it was like either; this is cold, hard fact, which you can verify for yourself by looking at all the SNES games and seeing if more look proportionally correct when viewed in either 4:3 or "pixel perfect" mode (that 8:7 display aspect ratio). You'll find the numbers aren't even remotely close.

 

Back in the day, we had no choice but to play the vast majority of our SNES games with slightly stretched and distorted art--not that we ever really noticed this was the case--but that's no longer the case at all if you play your SNES games on anything other than an original SNES output on an old CRT TV. If you want to play your games with perfectly proportioned art, you can do so legally and officially on a 3DS, a Switch, a SNES Classic Edition and most clone consoles, or you can do so via emulation.

 

But, as I said, if someone actually wants to view their SNES games with the pixel art stretched an distorted on 4:3, or indeed has no choice because they're stuck playing on original hardware and an ancient CRT, that's their prerogative and that too is a totally legit way to enjoy them.

 

However, getting back to the point of my original comment, doing a SNES vs Genesis video and pretending like the ability to view these SNES games with the art in the original correct proportions isn't possible in 2022, as if the 3DS, SNES Classic Mini, Switch, clone consoles and emulators aren't a thing, is, as far as I'm concerned, a clear giveaway that said person is either obsolete and/or elitist in their thinking, ignorant of all the legit ways to play SNES games in modern times (and the other not so legit ways), or afraid to have these systems compete on equal terms.

 

Hint: I'm going to suggest it's more likely either the first one of the last one, and in many cases it's definitely the last one (VCDECIDE being a patent example of this).

 

Point being, that "vs" video above is kinda disingenuous if it's even remotely trying to convince anyone these two systems are being shown under the same fair and equal conditions, because the guy isn't playing these game on original SNES and Genesis consoles via a CRT, so the strict limitations of the '90s don't apply. And he's happy to show all the games with crystal sharp visuals that are only possible in modern times, which means he's not applying those strict limitations either. Yet, he only displays them in a display ratio that doesn't allow the SNES to have non-stretched and non-distorted visuals, and that even causes its pixels to be a little softer and more blurry than Genesis under these conditions too. And you should probably be asking yourself why.

 

Don't trust the unfair bias, even if it's genuinely unintentional.

 

But, if you want to see "vs" examples of these two consoles from someone who I think does do it right, VS Games AaZ on YouTube is probably the best resource I've found:

 

https://www.youtube.com/@VSGamesAaZ

Edited December 6, 2022 by Kirk_Johnston

[OldSchoolRetroGamer]

🤨

 

[MaximRecoil]

 

 

12 hours ago, Kirk_Johnston said:

Notice that despite the monitor being a 4:3 display, they were drawing all the sprites and background tiles there in a grid made of up 8x8-pixel perfect squares, and that all the pixel art looks correctly proportioned in that perfectly square grid.

Correctly proportioned in comparison to what? The real-life Starfox ship? The real-life Yoshi? The real-life island?

 

12 hours ago, Kirk_Johnston said:

Squares in the pixel art are perfect squares. Circles in the pixel art are perfect circles.

By your own tacit admission, they weren't intended to be perfect squares and circles if they didn't display as perfect squares and circles when output from an SNES, i.e., you said:

 

"Every SNES developer new about this, but the fact is the vast majority of them didn't account for it when creating their art for the system, for whatever reasons."

 

If you know for a fact that the circles and squares you're drawing will become ovals and rectangles when played on an SNES, and you do it that way anyway, then that's intentional, unless it's impossible to compensate for it, which it isn't.

 

12 hours ago, Kirk_Johnston said:

If you want to play your games with perfectly proportioned art, you can do so legally and officially on a 3DS, a Switch, a SNES Classic Edition and most clone consoles, or you can do so via emulation.

Again, perfectly proportioned in comparison to what? If you want the game to look how the programmers intended the finished game to look when played on an SNES then play it in 4:3. If you want it to look like it's still in the design stage on some programmer's workstation, play it in 8:7. Also, playing SNES games on a 3DS, Switch, SNES Classic Edition, and some clone consoles, is done via software emulation, the same as the "or you can do so via emulation" option you mentioned.

 

12 hours ago, Kirk_Johnston said:

But, as I said, if someone actually wants to view their SNES games with the pixel art stretched an distorted on 4:3

It's not distorted if it's intended to look that way. Every official SNES cartridge was designed to run on an SNES, and only on an SNES, which means the "pixel art" was designed to be viewed, as part of a game, at 4:3.

 

12 hours ago, Kirk_Johnston said:

or indeed has no choice because they're stuck playing on original hardware and an ancient CRT

"Stuck"? In terms of performance, original hardware + a CRT is superior to an emulator + a digital display. Even if an emulator has no accuracy errors, they all add a certain degree of input lag, and all digital displays have display lag, so by using those two things in combination you get added lag on top of added lag. The display lag of even the best digital "gaming monitors" on the market today is 1.x milliseconds, which is literally a ~million times more lag than the ~1 nanosecond from a standard CRT. That's because a digital video signal has to be processed by the digital display before it can be displayed, while an analog video signal drives the electron guns in a CRT directly; the only lag comes from the speed limit of electricity. In other words, effectively zero lag.

 

This is a picture from a recent Super Mario Bros. speedrunning event:

 

 

Do you think they are using old, heavy, bulky CRTs and old original NESes in 2022 because they are "stuck" with them? Obviously not. Anyone is free to bring e.g., a NES Classic Edition and an LCD monitor to such an event, if he doesn't mind handicapping himself.

12 hours ago, Kirk_Johnston said:

yet he only displays them in a resolution that doesn't allow the SNES to have non-stretched and non-distorted visuals, and that even causes its pixels to be a little softer and more blurry too. And you should probably be asking yourself why.

You should probably be asking yourself why you're singling out the SNES as the "victim" here, when, like I've already pointed out, the Genesis' native resolution isn't 4:3 either, yet he's displaying both of them in 4:3. So if "stretched," "distorted," "softer," and "more blurry," applies to the SNES games, it also applies to the Genesis games. By the way, "softer" and "more blurry" are caused by scaling with a filter (such as bilinear, which is the most common), not by simply scaling. You can scale any old video game to any aspect ratio you want without losing any sharpness whatsoever. For example, here's a screenshot of SMW fractionally scaled to a drastically wrong size / aspect ratio, and the pixels are still razor sharp, no different than at its native resolution:

 

And if you can't tell from that screenshot that no sharpness has been lost, here's a closeup of it:

 

Edited December 6, 2022 by MaximRecoil

[Kirk_Johnston]

Oh, and I forgot to add above that not only can you play your SNES games with perfectly proportioned art these days using perfect pixel mode (in the vast majority of cases), which you can do both legally and officially on the likes of a 3DS, Switch, SNES Classic Edition and most clone consoles or even slightly illegally via PC emulators, but the art will even look a little bit sharper when played in perfect pixel mode and avoid the slight softness/blur that's typically caused when stretching these games to 4:3 on any modern systems and displays.

 

in 2022, you don't have believe the one-sided and false narrative that's being spread by certain people that all SNES games are inevitably stretched and distorted and even slightly blurry, as usually seen in these "vs" videos online. Nor do you have to just accept from a bunch of elitist snobs that the only "legit" way to play SNES games is on an original SNES console and viewed on some ancient CRT TV. In 2022, you actually get to choose how you see, play and enjoy your SNES games, and they can look stunning. Don't let anyone try to convince you otherwise.

 

And, again, if you want to see some quality "vs" videos, I'd recommend VS Games AaZ on YouTube as probably the best resource I've found:

 

https://www.youtube.com/@VSGamesAaZ

Edited 11 hours ago by Kirk_Johnston

Edited December 6, 2022 by Kirk_Johnston

[newtmonkey]

Thanks for bumping this!  I had forgotten about this video, so I gave it a quick rewatch.  I really liked it, and appreciated especially that the games are all shown in the proper 4:3 aspect ratio!

Edited December 6, 2022 by newtmonkey

[Kirk_Johnston]

'Nor do you have to just accept from a bunch of elitist snobs that the only "legit" way to play SNES games is on an original SNES console and viewed on some ancient CRT TV.', or at 4:3

 

And, again, if anyone in here wants to see some quality "vs" videos, I'd recommend VS Games AaZ on YouTube as probably the best resource I've found:

 

https://www.youtube.com/@VSGamesAaZ

Edited December 6, 2022 by Kirk_Johnston

[MaximRecoil]

16 minutes ago, Kirk_Johnston said:

Oh, and I forgot to add above that not only can you play your SNES games with perfectly proportioned art these days using perfect pixel mode (in the vast majority of cases), which you can do both legally and officially on the likes of a 3DS, Switch, SNES Classic Edition and most clone consoles or even slightly illegally via PC emulators

You already said that, and I already addressed it.

 

17 minutes ago, Kirk_Johnston said:

but the art will even look a little bit sharper when played in perfect pixel mode and avoid the slight softness/blur that's typically caused when stretching these games to a 4:3 display on any modern systems and displays.

You already said that too, and I've already shown that it's wrong. As I said, softness/blur is caused by using a filter in combination with scaling, and if you do that it's your own fault. You can scale to any dimensions / aspect ratio you want with no change in sharpness whatsoever (see the SMW screenshots in my previous post).

 

20 minutes ago, Kirk_Johnston said:

in 2022, you don't have believe the one-sided and false narrative that's being spread by certain people that all SNES games are inevitably stretched and distorted and even slightly blurry

This seems to be a product of your imagination. Can you provide an example of someone who is spreading such a narrative? Also, 4:3 isn't "stretched and distorted" in the first place, since it's the SNES's intended DAR. In reality, 8:7 is squeezed/distorted, because it's narrower than the SNES's intended DAR.

 

29 minutes ago, Kirk_Johnston said:

Nor do you have to just accept from a bunch of elitist snobs that the only "legit" way to play SNES games is on an original SNES console and viewed on some ancient CRT TV. In 2022, you actually get to choose how you see, play and enjoy your SNES games, and they can look stunning. Don't let anyone try to convince you otherwise.

It depends on how you define "legit." But regardless of that, the objectively best performance comes from playing SNES games on the original hardware connected directly to a 15 kHz CRT display. And yes, they can look stunning, especially if you have a 15 kHz RGB CRT monitor and a "1-chip" SNES. Displaying them on a high-resolution monitor is the opposite of "stunning;" that's the old highly pixelated, textureless emulator-on-a-PC-monitor look that sucks just as hard today as it did a couple of decades ago. It being 2022, as you're so fond of pointing out, is irrelevant because you could do the same thing in 2002 as well, and even earlier. You seem to think this "pixel perfect" thing is fairly new, but it's far from it. I've been using a wide variety of emulators since 2001 and I've never liked the way that old standard-resolution video games look on a high-resolution monitor.

[Kirk_Johnston]

Oh, and this channel generally has great footage of SNES games too, with the vast majority of them shown in perfect pixel mode and the pixel art in the original non-stretched/distorted proportions as drawn by the original artist, and looking all pin-sharp also: https://www.youtube.com/@xRavenXP

 

Here's his latest SNES video for you to enjoy:

 

 

Edited December 6, 2022 by Kirk_Johnston

[Kirk_Johnston]

"Yeah, but it's not the days of the consoles wars from thirty plus years ago, and no one has to play SNES games all stretched to weird proportions if they don't want to now [not that we ever noticed it back then], so, as comparisons go, this is slightly biased towards a ratio that plays more to the Genesis favour than the SNES. When SNES games are viewed at the display aspect ratio that actually makes the art look proportionally correct and accurate to how the original artist drew it, they almost universally look quite a bit nicer (correct proportions, cleaner colours, sharper pixels). In the vast majority of cases that would be the 8:7 display aspect ratio rather than the 4:3 display aspect ratio--and I've tested this on a bunch of games directly, including around forty of the Top 100 SNES games, so I know this to be true--so it's unfortunate that all we get to see here is SNES games all distorted and stretched to 4:3. But each to their own, I guess." - Me, some time in the distant past.

 

I got it spot on in my very first post.

Edited December 6, 2022 by Kirk_Johnston

[Tanooki]

Yes you did, and you have far more patience than myself and others to go into that much posts, that much detail in posts, citing at times examples and giving out hard data.   Good on you @Kirk_Johnston not backing down and refusing to be out shouted by classic politician style antics of sound like an authority, act like an authority, yet know damn well you're blowing smoke (or done it long enough you've confused yourself too.)

 

Good post, had no idea that suite of SNES tools were usable let alone MAME did that kind of level of workstation emulation either.  I think that set of SNES/SFC kit tools would be fun to play with, hell of a nice thing if someone, some huge ass coder genius fanboy could just recreate that for a modern OS like Windows it would be an utter pleasure being shoed into what was in the era and that's it.

 

You did leave out one of another option to get that clean, hard, crisp clear detail in the right square-y style too -- Analogue boutique excellence -- Super Nt.  That one give you the choice of set anything you want to the pixel if you want to go ham wild, but defaults hit your 4:3, 8:7, stretch, zoom just at the tap of the Y button on the menu involved.  It's quite clear using that on a non-CRT in how it portrays itself dead accurately which thing looks 100% honest to the square, the 8x8 square.

 

Correct for sure there are a lot of snobs and right or die types, clearly...not just stuck on youtube and I'm not sure what you can do to change that because if you're manipulative and full of it enough you can sway a lot of people to wear blinders and pop in some ear plugs to reality, but those posts make a good show of it.

[Kirk_Johnston]

1 hour ago, Tanooki said:

Yes you did, and you have far more patience than myself and others to go into that much posts, that much detail in posts, citing at times examples and giving out hard data.   Good on you @Kirk_Johnston not backing down and refusing to be out shouted by classic politician style antics of sound like an authority, act like an authority, yet know damn well you're blowing smoke (or done it long enough you've confused yourself too.)

 

Good post, had no idea that suite of SNES tools were usable let alone MAME did that kind of level of workstation emulation either.  I think that set of SNES/SFC kit tools would be fun to play with, hell of a nice thing if someone, some huge ass coder genius fanboy could just recreate that for a modern OS like Windows it would be an utter pleasure being shoed into what was in the era and that's it.

 

You did leave out one of another option to get that clean, hard, crisp clear detail in the right square-y style too -- Analogue boutique excellence -- Super Nt.  That one give you the choice of set anything you want to the pixel if you want to go ham wild, but defaults hit your 4:3, 8:7, stretch, zoom just at the tap of the Y button on the menu involved.  It's quite clear using that on a non-CRT in how it portrays itself dead accurately which thing looks 100% honest to the square, the 8x8 square.

 

Correct for sure there are a lot of snobs and right or die types, clearly...not just stuck on youtube and I'm not sure what you can do to change that because if you're manipulative and full of it enough you can sway a lot of people to wear blinders and pop in some ear plugs to reality, but those posts make a good show of it.

Yeah, I feel it's important in our modern times to at least try to make sure things are on the up-and-up, because it's clear that in our current climate there's a whole load of bad actors trying to re-write history to serve their own nefarious purposes, while others are just trying to keep people stuck in the past in the most silly and restrictive ways.

 

I mean, we all want to continue to enjoy these classic SNES games, and we shouldn't have to just accept certain people acting in bad faith pushing false narratives designed to taint the console and paint it and its games in a bad light, or allow elitist snobs to dictate to everyone that there's only one "legit" way to play and view SNES games. And, when it comes to these "vs" videos specifically, all I want to see is them actually being fair to both systems equally. And then people can properly judge which system did what games better and so on.

 

But, some people just seem to be real threatened by SNES unless it's viewed through a distorted lens of manipulation, misinformation and lies. I see it all the time in these "vs" videos, in totally biased and skewed system spec comparisons online, and just in the general chat in various gaming forums, including some that you'd think would be full of a hardcore SNES fans. It's like there's a bunch of Genesis fans online who just cannot accept that SNES won the 16-bit console war, and now they're doing their dang best to brainwash everyone else into thinking like them too.

 

Bonkers times indeed.

 

PS. I still think the Genesis was/is also a great console too.

 

PPS. Yeah, would totally love to see a set of development tools like that available for SNES now. Even some kind of SNESmaker would be awesome.

Edited December 6, 2022 by Kirk_Johnston

[MaximRecoil]

1 hour ago, Tanooki said:

Good on you @Kirk_Johnston not backing down

He tacitly conceded near the end of page one, which is the very definition of "backing down."

 

The SNES's display aspect ratio is 4:3, and that was intentional. What he, and you, are doing is tantamount to telling the director of a classic 2.35:1 movie that 2.35:1 is the wrong aspect ratio to watch his movie in, because the original frames of film are 1.375:1.

[Steven Pendleton]

It's 0400, I have insomnia again, and I come here because I can't sleep and I see this awful thread. This thread is completely disgusting and all of you should be ashamed of yourselves. I would say that you are acting like small children, but that would be an insult to children, so I won't.

 

I am not a mod, so I don't have the right to tell you to stop, but I will anyway.

 

Stop.

 

Don't quote me or summon me in here or whatever because I'm going to ignore it.

[Kirk_Johnston]

2 hours ago, Steven Pendleton said:

It's 0400, I have insomnia again, and I come here because I can't sleep and I see this awful thread. This thread is completely disgusting and all of you should be ashamed of yourselves. I would say that you are acting like small children, but that would be an insult to children, so I won't.

 

I am not a mod, so I don't have the right to tell you to stop, but I will anyway.

 

Stop.

 

Don't quote me or summon me in here or whatever because I'm going to ignore it.

Says the guy with a famous Sega meme as his avatar and the following in his profile description:

 

"Interests: Sega, Toaplan, Genesis/Mega Drive, Intellivision, PC Engine, PC, Switch, Neo Geo, Saturn, Dreamcast"

 

Now, I see Genesis/Mega Drive in there, and I see PC Engine, and I even see Neo Geo--that's all of the main rival consoles to the SNES from the 16-bit generation--and I see Sega itself and a few more Sega consoles, and even a couple of other non-Sega consoles too, but, funnily, no SNES.

 

My spider sense is tingling.

 

You have an interest in all those other systems, apparently no interest in SNES, a specific interest in Sega, and you're giving us a row in a SNES forum/thread for speaking up against the kind of people who sneak in and insidiously try to knock it down every chance they get or just defend people who insidiously try to knock it down every chance they get.

 

But, hey, it's just a pretend kind of sense made up in comic books, right. So, you never know, maybe the tingling means something else.

 

Maybe you're totally on the up and up. And maybe that guy who made this thread and posted the link to the "vs" videos was totally on the up and up too. And maybe MaximRecoil is as well, and VCDECIDE also. It's possible.

 

And, yes, please, do ignore it.

Edited December 6, 2022 by Kirk_Johnston

[Wayler]

23 hours ago, OldSchoolRetroGamer said:

🤨

 

I don't care what anyone else says, 42:Spagetti ratio is the sweetspot for SNES games. 

[Kirk_Johnston]

47 minutes ago, Wayler said:

I don't care what anyone else says, 42:Spagetti ratio is the sweetspot for SNES games. 

I'd play it.

[Punisher5.0]

@Kirk_Johnston 

 @MaximRecoil

 

Im sure everyone is tired of hearing the banter. Time to agree to disagree and move on. Thank you

[Tanooki]

Yeah this is one of those sit back and have a smooth drink and watch moment.  Kirk's right, if you're going to step in here and say shut up, probably best not to be exactly what the entire argument was against plastered all over your site personal profile as it comes off worse smelling than some burnt game gear fish caps.  Definitely there are some bad actors for sure these days, gaming, news media, turds in suits, and so on.

 

A version of those old tools or yeah something like SNESmaker if it were made in the style of that would be fantastic.  I'd love going to town on a tool set like that, have some unrealized ideas going back 20 years plus.

[Bloodreign]

14 hours ago, Kirk_Johnston said:

'Nor do you have to just accept from a bunch of elitist snobs that the only "legit" way to play SNES games is on an original SNES console and viewed on some ancient CRT TV.', or at 4:3

 

And, again, if anyone in here wants to see some quality "vs" videos, I'd recommend VS Games AaZ on YouTube as probably the best resource I've found:

 

https://www.youtube.com/@VSGamesAaZ

Just don't read the comments section in the videos either, or you get the same Sega trolls from VCDeicide trying to infect the comments section there as well.

[Kirk_Johnston]

7 hours ago, Punisher5.0 said:

@Kirk_Johnston 

 @MaximRecoil

 

Im sure everyone is tired of hearing the banter. Time to agree to disagree and move on. Thank you

Perfect.

[Mittens0407]

On 9/1/2022 at 4:09 PM, Kirk_Johnston said:

"...but you're more than happy to show both system's games in a picture/pixel quality that was basically impossible back in the day (certainly not possible with simple composite leads), even more so for the majority of Genesis owners (as SNES actually had standard S-Video and SCART output capability, and even came with those cables in the box in some countries, but not the model 1 Genesis)..."

The Megadrive supports RGB output as well. SNES RGB also gets a bit complicated when comparing 2CHIP and 1CHIP boards.

[Mittens0407]

1 hour ago, Kirk_Johnston said:

Yeah, I wasn't talking about ways for nerds to get RGB to work via convoluted methods that required opening up the console and soldiering crap in there or whatever, or having to wait years for some third party solution, but just simple and official ways for anyone who owned a SNES [any model] to get the like of S-Video and SCART out of it, which I was able to do with my PAL SNES back in the day by just going out and buying the official first party cable.

I have my Megadrive hooked up with native RGB output to my TV today. No modifications. Please do some research before you knee-jerk react at a simple correction.

[DavidD]

I find two things to be rather interesting in here...

1. On an SNES with a decent TV/monitor, you would have had non-square ("stretched") pixels, but they would not have been blurry.  Modern screens are inherently inferior when it comes to this due to the very nature of how their displays work -- you can't have non-square pixels without SOME level of blur... or very, very, very high resolutions.
2. Reading through the linked nesdev.org thread is interesting as it appears to consist of one guy saying "See, all these games were BETTER in square pixel mode" and most of the rest of the posters dismissing him.  In other words, the thread doesn't appear to be an amazing defense of the square pixel mode theory.

 

 

Edited December 8, 2022 by DavidD

[Mittens0407]

10 hours ago, DavidD said:

I find two things to be rather interesting in here...

1. On an SNES with a decent TV/monitor, you would have had non-square ("stretched") pixels, but they would not have been blurry.  Modern screens are inherently inferior when it comes to this due to the very nature of how their displays work -- you can't have non-square pixels without SOME level of blur... or very, very, very high resolutions.
2. Reading through the linked nesdev.org thread is interesting as it appears to consist of one guy saying "See, all these games were BETTER in square pixel mode" and most of the rest of the posters dismissing him.  In other words, the thread doesn't appear to be an amazing defense of the square pixel mode theory.

 

 

Kirk goes by Inceptional in lots of places, I don't know why he'd link to a forum post where everyone seems to disagree with him.

[TopperEx]

Well, I was looking around the whole Interwebs for arguments for 4:3 or 8:7 aspect ratio and this is it, this is the place where all has been said exeppt one thing:

Yes, the pixel art was always to be stretched to 4:3 and everyone knew it while making games and some even consider it, but all games had to work with tiles when programming for the snes. And it’s really complicated to design sprites, objects and everything else with the stretch in mind, so most objects appear ‚right sized‘ at 1:1 par. Take the question marks in Super Mario for example, Square in 8:7, a bit stretched in 4:3. Super Mario Maker for WiuU and Switch uses the art from the old games in 1:1 par. 
Metroid is an interesting example. On the NES they tried to design the sprites with stretching in mind, so the ball appears round, in Super Metroid they didn’t. The morph ball is stretched and all the art as well, you have doors that are narrower on the side and wider on the ground (in 4:3) but appear same in 1:1. But, the intro in Super Metroid looks proportional correct in 4:3 and squished in 8:7. So what do we learn? They knew everything is going to stretch to 4:3 but for the programming and designing of sprites it was too complicated or just not possible to account for that stretch in all the art, so they just went with it. I‘m from Europe, so think about that nobody cared that all the art got stretched even wider for the PAL signal since it would be impossible to design everything new for a different aspect ratio. 
So in conclusion: both arguments are valid. I also checked a lot of SNES games and most appear proportionally correct in 8:7 (1:1 PAR). But sometimes there is an element, the Intro, some shape, that takes the stretch in count. (the Tire in Donkey Kong Country, a Snowboll in Super Empire Strikes Back). So to my own misliking, there is no right answer. Most of it looks right in 8:7, but 4:3 is the ‚right‘ way to be viewed since we can be sure, this is how it appeared back than and maybe, for example in Super Meteoid the art of the ball is stretched since its difficult to draw circles for the stretch but the level architecture is made with the stretch in mind? We can’t know for sure, so both ways are right and wrong at the same time, which I find infuriating. But even knowing everything, and seeing the wrong proportions I tend to play in 4:3, since all of the decisions or limitations make also a distinkt SNES look.