New and old school fans of Super Mario Bros. Crossover are in for a blast with the official announcement of the third iteration of the hit online 8-bit mash-up game. Game developers Exploding Rabbit led by Jay Pavlina officially unveiled a five and a half minute-long trailer showcasing the upcoming Super Mario Bros. Crossover 3.0. The trailer was aptly released on the 27 of April 2013, marking the three year anniversary of the original Super Mario Bros. Crossover game.
The upcoming Super Mario Bros. Crossover 3.0 is based on a 1986 game developed by Nintendo and Hudson Soft for the NEC-PC8801 and Sharp X1 PCs in Japan, Super Mario Bros. Special. Considered as the first official sequel to the original Super Mario Bros. game on the Famicom and NES, Super Mario Bros. Special utilized similar graphics but had some substantial gameplay differences. Among these were the absence of Luigi along with a two-player mode, and the presence of new enemies as well as new power-ups.
Super Mario Bros. Crossover is a free online game developed by Pavlina and the team at Exploding Rabbit back in 2010. The game is basically the original Super Mario Bros. game, but other than Mario and his brother Luigi, players can choose from a number of characters from other famous NES franchises such as Contra, Megaman, Metroid, and Castlevania. The game was consistently updated to include more characters and adjust game balancing issues. The latest version, Super Mario Bros. Crossover 2.1, included the option to change game skins to emulate the look and feel of other Super Mario Bros. games.
According to Pavlina, a new feature to be implemented in the upcoming version 3.0, aside from the new stages from Super Mario Bros. Special is the choice of difficulty. Players who welcome a good challenge can play a harder version of the standard Easy level. Game skinning has also been improved, with new available skins from US version of Super Mario Bros. 2 and even Atari and Castlevania skins.
While fans have also been clamoring for a Super Mario Crossover game based on the infamous Super Mario Bros. 2: The Lost Levels, Pavlina had this to say about his decision on version 3.0: “We decided to do ‘Special’ first since it’s something different.” As for his take on what the fans want: “We’ll be working on [Super Mario Bros. 2:] The Lost Levels for a future update”, Pavlina smilingly adds.
Have you tried out the new Super Mario Bros. Crossover 2.1? Tell us what you think about the game.
Check out SMC 3.0’s trailer below:
