| Console Game Reviews |
| Game Review: 'Super Mario Strikers' Misses the Goal |
| by Sean Rhodes |
Super Mario has been doing just about every sport you can think of. We've seen him on the baseball field, playing basketball, and we've seen him playing tennis. Now here he is playing soccer. While it isn't the best game you could pick out, it's not horrible.
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As someone who doesn't get into sports games much, Super Mario Strikers was as close as I was going to get to enjoying the genre. Although it's unfair to compare it to other juggernauts, it's safe to say even Mario's fanbase will look at this game kind of strangely.
There isn't a whole lot offered in terms of gameplay. Each character from the Mario universe is captain of a team. Mario, Luigi, Peach, Daisy, Yoshi, Waluigi and Wario. There's also a "hidden" team. While Mario stars may be the Captain, their teams are just the supporting characters. Like Koopa Troopers, Goombas, or Toads. Only the team Captain can perform Super Striker moves, and you can check characters into walls with tackles as well. For what it's worth, it's fun to play, but at the same time, overly simplistic and repetative. The special moves are boring and are always done in the same fashion for every character. There aren't enough angles to showcase special moves and with only the captain being able to perform super striker techniques, games are almost redundant. What it turns into is neglecting teamwork.
It's also sad that the teams don't have a variety. There are only four characters to a team (captain included), and only eight teams. You'll be facing off with the same team all too often. The drones also all look about the same. Not a whole lot of variety to them either. And your buddies can't do anything special.
Another unfortunate aspect is it doesn't feel much like a Mario game either, and that's really sad. The environments are soccer stadiums. Some of them are on wooden planks, some in futureistic stadiums and some on the classic field of green. The problem is, none of them remind us of Mario in anyway. We don't play in the Mushroom Kingdom or Bowser's Keep or anything like that. It's disappointing, especially when you consider that games like Mario Kart found ways to incorporate the Mario universe in their tracks. The game comes off as more of a soccer game with Mario characters rather than being a Mario Sports game.
In comparison to other titles, Mario Super Strikers looks fairly weak. It's not nearly as lavish and we're doomed to suffer from slow down from time to time. The sound is, for the most part, decent. It'll keep you awake and on your feet.
The thing which plagues this game most is that so much more could've been done with it. More environments (some from the actual Mario games) and more teams could've helped out. Mostly though, this probably would've been better being a mini-game in a different Mario game (like Blitzball in Final Fantasy X). The game just isn't big enough, and it gets rehashed rather fast. Especially after you've seen the same Matrix antics over and over again, and there is hardly any variety in their angles either.
It's not a game I'd recommend, even to Mario fans. If more had been done with this title, I'd be happy to say pick it up, but there wasn't much in here to begin with, and what we get is a game that's only halfway decent.
The Good
+For the most part, you'll have some fun
+The sound isn't bad
+Easy simple menus
The Bad
-Gameplay gets repetative fast
-Not enough variety for a world as big as Mario
-Just not enough "Mario" to the game
-There's a lot of slowdown
-There just needs to be more focus on the gameplay. Period.
I'll admit, I think Nintendo has something here, but this wasn't quite it. Back to the drawing board.
Final Grade: C- |
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