Super Mario Bros. Crossover 1.1, With Ryu and More
By Benjamin Opal
If you still haven’t played Super Mario Bros. Crossover, now’s the time, with the release of version 1.1. Ryu Hayabusa from the Ninja Gaiden series now joins the party on this mashed-up jaunt through the Mushroom Kingdom, slashing Goombas with his sword, smashing Koopas with a giant shuriken and plucking Lakitus out of the sky with small throwing stars. He can also climb up walls, of course. All the other characters, from Samus to Mega Man to Mario (natch), are still around, and you can now choose to play through the entire game as one character if you want to avoid the selection screen. Also new in version 1.1 are five difficulty settings — the foe pictured above is indestructible on ”Extreme” — and the ability to save your game.
The Flash game is available for free on the official Web site. Why not as a ROM or Wii homebrew title, you ask? Here’s how Jay Pavlina, creator of Super Mario Bros. Crossover, explains it:
I have been advised by people in the game development industry that it’s best to leave it as only a Flash game for now because it doesn’t compete with Nintendo or any of the other companies whose intellectual property is used in the game. As a flash game, Super Mario Bros. Crossover is very nonthreatening. It’s just a fan game. But if it starts getting ported to run on other hardware, especially Nintendo hardware, then it’s a different story.
As we’ve said before, the beauty of SMB Crossover is in its pitch-perfect physics for each classic character and the little flourishes, such as appropriate sound and music depending on who you play as. Try it, already. [Exploding Rabbit via Reddit]
