The latest version of the old school crossover flash game that took the internet by storm three years ago, Super Mario Crossover, is now live, and through the generosity of Exploding Rabbit, ready to play right here.
Third time's the charm, and that's exactly what Super Mario Crossover 3.0 is. The first Crossover game featured a barrage of characters from NES classics like Metroid, Contra, and Castlevania, all wreaking havoc in the Mushroom Kingdom in place of Mario. The plumber remains selectable, but where's the fun in that? Everyone's trumped Bowser with the mustachioed man enough at this point.
The second Crossover game added in the tank from Blaster Master, and Ryu Hayabusa of Ninja Gaiden. It was followed up by Super Mario Crossover 2.1, which threw in different skins for each character, world, and even made gameplay subtly different by letting players choose which system they could play the game on.
In this latest version of Crossover, apart from bug and glitch fixes, each character gets a virtual smorgasbord of new skins, allowing players the option of playing them in the style of several of their particular franchise's various titles, and even some of their enemies. For example, picking Mega Man's Bass offers up players the chance to play as the infamous Dr. Wiley. Certain skins are purely cosmetic, whereas others will offer up a nice gameplay change.
Apart from the brand new skins for all the game's characters, as well as the stages, 3.0 also features new enemies, new levels of difficulty, new cheats, and a full screen mode (only playable on Exploding Rabbit's site). If you've never tried Crossover before, you might as well do it now. Throwing Simon Belmont's daggers at koopa troopers or exploding goombas with Samus's bombs is a far different experience from 'ol Mario tossing fireballs.
Just make sure you enjoy all the new additions, because not many more are planned. As the team's Jay Pavlina wrote when he announced 3.0, "More levels and skins will certainly be added to the game in the future, but I would probably consider this the last major release. As Super Retro Squad gets further along in development, it will be more difficult for any team members to devote time to this free game when it is filled with intellectual property that we do not own."
"I would like to take a moment to thank everyone for making Super Mario Bros. Crossover a huge success," Pavlina wrote. "The huge positive response that this game received has changed my life, and it made it possible for me to form a development team and turn Exploding Rabbit into a production studio. I can never thank you enough for that."
The game can be played below. If you enjoy it, and want to see more from the team, they are currently taking donations for their own platformer game, Super Retro Squad.
