TimeWasters  highlights many of the excellent Web-based/lightweight downloadable titles that you can dive into within the space of a lunch break. This week, Chris Gampat explores Super Mario Bros. Crossover.

Super Mario Bros. Crossover is a flash game that is the quintessential wet dream of all old-school Nintendo fans. Besides being a free game that allows you to take Mario on a romp through Super Mario Bros.’ Mushroom Kingdom, several of your 8-bit NES heroes (Link, Mega Man, Bill Rizer, Simon Belmont, Samus Aran) have been meticulously integrated to breathe new life into a classic game. Though the game isn’t as diverse as a Mugen title, it provides a great, enjoyable playtime experience.

In Super Mario Bros. Crossover, you’re playing through the levels of Super Mario Bros., but this time there’s no Luigi to accompany you on your mission. Assisting Mario in his unplumberly mission is Mega Man (Mega Man), Samus Aran (Metroid), Bill Rizer (Contra), Simon Belmont (Castlevania), and Link (The Legend of Zelda). Each character has this own unique powers and skills that can be unleashed with different button presses.

The arrow keys control movement, while X, Z and S do different things depending on the character being used (all buttons can be customized as well in the menu system). Responsiveness depends on the character selected; Samus, for example, has the same floaty jumps found in Metroid, while Bill Rizer does his Contra somersaults.

By far, using Mega Man has proven to be my favorite. Mega Man can shoot straight out at a target, slide on the ground, and quickly jump. When he powers up more (done by acquiring mushrooms and fire flowers), users can hold down the fire key for a more powerful blast. Get even more power-ups and you’ll be able to shoot fireballs.

Link will probably be the fan favorite with the large amount of Legend of Zelda players and cosplayers out there. Link is special because he has a sword and his boomerang. Throw the boomerang and players will be able to stun enemies, or collect coins that are in its path. Keep getting power-ups and eventually Link will be able to throw his swords at the enemy. Upon impact, they will explode and damage others nearby. At full power, he is a very rides neck and neck with Mega Man as Super Mario Bros. Crossover’s best character.

Players using Samus will get a very unique experience. Samus is one of the taller characters—the others being Bill Rizer and Simon Belemont. Because of this, Samus can’t hit the enemies on the ground as they are too short. To counter this, Samus can roll up into a ball and drop time delayed bombs that enemies can walk into. Expect players that love to set traps for their opponents to warm up to Samus very quickly.

When players use Bill Rizer, they’ll get a similar but more versatile experience than they will with Samus. Bill is taller, but can lie flat on the ground and shoot his enemies. Further, he can shoot in  a variety of different directions, including diagonals. This makes Bill a very dangerous character because he can easily clear out sections of blocks above him or lots of enemies coming in from the skies. They won’t know what’s coming for them when Bill gets the flower: that’s when he whips out his spread gun from Contra.

Simon Bemont is a character that personifies the maximum level of machoness. Simon throws axes in an arc towards the enemy; this can make Simon a difficult character to control as enemies need to be in just the right spot for them to connect. Lucky, when Simon crouches he pulls out his whip. Therefore, when enemies get in close, hit the deck. As Simon grows more powerful he can throw more axes at once.

Finally, the original Mario plays just the way he does in the other games.

Don’t expect anything really mind-blowing in terms of graphics. As always, since this is a Mario game, the graphics are simple: no dynamic shaders or boasting about how your game is programmed to maintain a straight 60fps. It works for the style of the game, you really do feel like you’re back in the old days playing on a 8-bit console system in front of your box of a television—even if it is your laptop.

The awesome part is the sound: all the original music from each character’s game is in there. I can tell you that there is nothing more satisfying than hearing music from The Legend of Zelda while throwing swords at little mushroom men.

Super Mario Bros. Crossover is, really, nothing short of genius. The game’s remixer, Jay Pavlina has done an excellent job of combing our childhood faves into a game that feels less like a mashup and more like one that was organically made. We’re very much looking forward to Rya Hayabusa joining the fray in Super Mario Bros. Crossover 1.1.