[April Fool] Super Mario Online: Don't Be Stamped by Mario!

The widely-popular Super Mario was sold from Sept. 13th, 1985. This date is also regarded as the birthday of Mario. But actually, Mario made its very first appearance in Donkey Kong in Mar., 1981. So, Mario, who wears overalls and a hat with a big nose and seems a little fat, is actually coming to his 30th birthday. To celebrate this memorable day, the time-honored game company Nintendo has decided to design an MMORPG for Mario - Super Mario Online, and have this MMORPG lead them to the online game market. The beta test is aimed to launch this summer.

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To maintain the original's classic style, the MMORPG will be developed as a brand-new side-scrolling game. Super Mario Online players will act as little goombas or koopas to challenge Uncle Mario. With the original storyline reversed, players will set out from the castle and take Mario's challenges all the way.

Races

So far, 2 races have been unveiled, namely, Goomba and Koopa.

Goomba: According to different levels and classes, the goomba can evolve to a jumping goomba with little wings, a flying goomba that uses little insects to perform attacks, a big goomba or a Spiny.

Koopa: The green koopa at the very first stage can evolve to a faster Paratroopa, a green flying koopa excellent at jumping with little wings, a Bowser or a fiery koopa able to breathe fireballs.

In terms of the more powerful characters featured in the original game like Bob-Omb, Chain-Chomp and Hammer Brother, players think such characters may be introduced successively after further improvements are made in the game content, so as to give those at higher levels more choices.

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Equipment System

The in-game equipment system's design is also quite faithful to the original. For example, players can grind monsters to loot the weapons (e.g. hammer and boomerang) and gears (e.g. iron armor) the monsters may drop. Some typical and distinctive monsters in the game will also show themselves with weapons, such as cannons and fire wheels.

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