You Can Now Play As Mario In Crash Bandicoot 4
Swapping Warp Pipes for Wumpa Fruit, Mario has joined forces with another major franchise and landed in Crash Bandicoot. While that peppy plumber has the advantage of age over the bouncing bandicoot, both have become gaming icons over the years. With the first Crash Bandicoot game coming out in 1996, Crash has rightly earned his place in the history books - with the recent release of Crash 4: It's About Time proving he can still himself to success.
Although Mario is clearly the mascot of Nintendo, Sony has a more complicated history with the PlayStation, meaning everyone from Lara Croft to Sackboy and Crash have duked out to be the face of the console. Unlike Mario, Crash has made the move to PC, which means only one thing...modding. The modding community has kept games like The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind alive and well for nearly two decades. Other huge games like The Witcher and GTA have become known for modding. Now, it's Crash's turn to embrace the trend.
What is the Crash Bandicoot Mario mod?
Posting on YouTube, UnrealPC showed off Mario in all his overall-wearing glory inside Crash 4. Although it definitely looks like the Nintendo mascot, he plays much the same as Crash would on PC. It looks like Mario has been eating some special mushrooms because he's now something of a speedster as he takes on Crash's signature spin. Sadly, there's no backflipping, ground pound, or spinning Cappy at enemies.
Considering this is just an aesthetic mod, there isn't really much else to it. Still, it's fun to see the bizarre scenes of Crash being swapped out for Mario. He fits in almost seamlessly to Crash's world, and considering Crash 4 is dubbed as the franchise's answer to Super Mario Odyssey in many ways, it was only a matter of time before modders had their way with the game. Of course, now that Mario has been thrown into the mix, the question is, who's next? Will other Sony staples like Lara, God of War's Kratos, or Ratchet and Clank also take his place?
How do you get the Crash Bandicoot Mario mod?
Downloading the Mario mod is easy if you head over to Nexus Mods. Although it's only been downloaded 159 times, expect its popularity to soar. After all, who wouldn't want to see Mario take on Dr. Neo Cortex instead of pummelling Bowser for the 1,000,000th time? On the site, there's an ironic description that simply reads: "Mario died on 3/31/21 so he moved over to the crash 4 world". It's a clever reference to Nintendo removing Super Mario Bros. 35 and Super Mario 3D All-Stars from sale on March 31.
If you look on the UnrealPC YouTube, there are a tonne of mods that put Mario and his games front and centre in a variety of weird and wacky situations. As well as a mind-scrambling mod that plays Super Mario 64 64 times at once (on the same screen), our other favourites include a mod that puts Sonic the Hedgehog in the N64 classic, and one that remasters the game for the Nintendo Switch. Seeing a next-gen version of 1996 platformer makes us want to play it all over again. As for Crash, there are continued hopes he could be a DLC fighter in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. For now, we're left bringing these two worlds together in unofficial form.
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