Welcome Time Wasters!
Those who have been keeping up with GiN’s Time Waster piece are probably wondering why I’m looking at Super Mario Bros. Crossover again. The answer is actually really simple; there’s been a lot of updates to this game since I first checked it out back in 2011.
This time around Super Mario Bros. Crossover is on version 3.1.2. I’d love to tell you what version it was on when I first reviewed it, but I haven’t the foggiest idea. What I do know is that the game has seen the addition of new characters, stages and more.
The first thing to note about the updated Super Mario Bros. Crossover is the additional characters. When I played this back in 2011 there were eight characters: Mario, Ninja Gaiden’s Ryu, Link, Simon Belmont, Mega Man, Bill from Contra, Samus and Sophia III. All of these characters are still in the game, but some changes have been made to balance them out. This includes taking away everything that made Sophia III overpowered and also adding double jumps for some characters that were vertically limited.
New characters in the updated Super Mario Bros. Crossover include Luigi, Zelda, Bass, Proto Man, Pit, and more. What’s great is that these character play mostly like they would in their own games. Not all of these new characters are completely unique and it’s fair to say some of them could be called clones due to their minute differences from the main batch of characters.
The gameplay in Super Mario Bros. Crossover is great. As I said above, each of the characters play almost exactly like they would in their own game. There are even some additional options for characters and their weapons. These options allow players to change what powerups a character receiving when picking up a mushroom or flower. Mega Man, Base and Bill benefit the most from this as they have a wide variety of weapons that can be used.
The original version of Super Mario Bros. Crossover that I reviewed only let players take the different characters through the original Super Mario Bros. This has changed in version 3.1.2. and players now have the option of playing through The Lost Levels. There’s also a batch of levels under the name “Special”. I couldn’t identify them from one specific game and I figure these are just custom levels created from scratch by the developer.
The graphics in Super Mario Bros. Crossover are great. All of the characters look like they do in their original games and there are even options to change their skins. This allows players to switch from say Samus in Metroid to Samus in Super Metroid. One of Mega Man’s alternate skins/clones was actually Rokko Chan, who comes from another time waster that I also reviewed three years ago. There are also different skins that can be applied to the game. This has the levels looking like various other Mario games and even some Zelda games.
The music in Super Mario Bros. Crossover is ripped straight from other games. That being said, I can’t really reward it as being original, but its use in the game is great. Each character gets their own music while played and the sound effects are also matched up to them. It’s a nice touch that even applied to some of the clones and skins switches.
Super Mario Bros. Crossover is a great game to waste some time with. It’s going to really draw in fans of retro gaming and those looking for some nostalgia. The idea of throwing different characters into Mario’s worlds was cool three years ago and its still cool today. The expanded roster is great and there are so many more options for players this time around. Definitely check this game out when you have some free time.
Super Mario Bros. Crossover 3.1.2 earns 4 GiN Gems out of 5!
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some Smashing to do!
Kizi – Mario Games – K7x