Doom (SNES)

This game/console's online features are no longer supported. While this game/console's online features were once accessible, they are (as of April 30, 1997) no longer officially supported and online-exclusive features may be documented as now-unseen content.

To do: Limited Run Games has re-released this port in 2026 with extra content, such as Thy Flesh Consumed and circle strafing. Make sure to update article to account more changes that version will receive when it is out. See if there is anything interesting in the source code both from the Github release by the game's programmer and from a complete archive uncovered in 2024. The latter release contains code for the XBAND mode.

The SNES Doom is interesting for a number of reasons - it had a spiffy red cartridge, for one thing, and came with XBAND support for online multiplayer - but most notable is that it doesn't run under the actual Doom engine, instead using a custom "Reality engine" built for the port that relies on the SNES' Super FX 2 chip, making it one of only three games released in the console's lifetime to use the hardware.

As such, it fares quite a bit better than what one might expect, managing to bring over most of the game with more accurate level geometry than most of the 90s console ports and only cutting a few levels along the way. It's also fully uncensored and has a pretty rockin' version of the soundtrack.

That said, the ugly graphics, lousy draw distance, poor framerate, and removal of several important features (including circle-strafing and monster infighting) render it a pretty miserable experience when playing it today, but it's still an impressive technical achievement that pushes the SNES to its absolute limits, plus the programmer released the source code to the public in 2020.

And hey, it's still better than the 3DO version...

Unused Graphics#

Doomguy#

Given the first-person perspective and the discontinuation of the XBAND service, Doomguy is never seen. Even when it was active, only the front-facing firing sprite was ever used for Doomguy in multiplayer, leaving the rest of these unused.

A set of unused mugshots for Doomguy is also present in the ROM. According to the lead programmer, Randy Linden, they were supposed to be used in the XBAND Deathmatch mode, but looking at footage of it (Or the restored fan XBAND servers) shows they were seemingly never implemented.

Baron of Hell#

The Baron of Hell's last death frame is mistakenly left unused, making it look quite strange in-game as it appears to be halfway melted.

Unused Sounds#

Two unused sounds made their way into the ROM, originally coming from the PC version albeit heavily compressed and muffled like the game's other sound effects. The Imp's roaming sound was added but never implemented as enemies in this version simply play their wakeup sound effect when roaming as opposed to specific sounds, and it likely wasn't worth it to code in a specific exception for the Imps. Or perhaps enemies were going to have their original roaming sounds before being cut out to save space, and this specific sound was mistakenly leftover? Who knows.

The other inclusion is the Demon's (also colloquially known as the Pinky) death sound, who instead strangely uses the Imp's equivalent sound effect.

Programmer Messages#

Present at ROM address 0x80810E is this message from Randy Linden, the port's lead programmer who started the project:

Rage/Reality Engine written by Randy Linden.
Special thanks to my loving wife, Jodi Harvey.

Also, the Episode 1 sky texture (stored as an uncompressed 8bpp graphic at 0x8000) contains an additional message that is not actually visible in-game without somehow clipping outside the boundaries of the map:

Uncompiled Code#

A small amount of uncompiled source code can be found in the data for several music tracks. This is only visible in SPC RAM after the data has been decompressed from ROM.

mov tempword,A            ; save ID code
mov PlayChan+X,A
mov PlayCurVelocity+

Hidden Credits#

After booting the game and letting the game reach the title screen (so that resetting skips the copyright spiel and publisher splash screen), reset the game three times to bring up a hidden credits screen overlaid on the title screen. Another four resets will bring up a second page.

These credits only list the Sculptured Software team (i.e. no id Software or publisher staff) and, curiously, use construction metaphors instead of normal job titles.

John Coffey made a series of edits to the game's levels with the idea of offering a unique experience for the SNES port. These modifications were rejected by id Software, who wanted to keep the game as faithful as possible to the PC original.¹

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Regional Differences#

To do: Add text sequences from US release.

• The hidden credits sequence mentioned above was disabled in the European release. The Japanese version goes a little further and removes the unique soft-reset handling.
• The Japanese version shows the credits when you beat the game.
• In the US and European releases, the difficulty settings restrict what episodes you can play, with the full game only playable on Hurt me Plenty, Ultra-Violence, and Nightmare. In the Japanese version, all episodes are available on all difficulties.

US/Europe	Japan

• Enemies appear on the automap in the Japanese version to an extent, sort of like the IDDT cheat in the PC version albeit only showing living monsters as opposed to every actor.

US/Europe	Japan

• Different regions have a different publisher logo splash screen before the title screen:

US	Europe	Japan

• The end screen text in the Japanese version has been completely rewritten in favor of some much simpler English:

Knee-Deep in the Dead	The Shores of Hell	Inferno

References#