Mario Strikers

Super Mario Strikers is an arcade-like soccer game featuring beloved characters and locations from the Super Mario franchise. Much like the other Mario-themed sports titles like Mario Tennis and Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour, Super Mario Strikers takes a complex sport and boils it down into a more simple formula. Across a handful of game modes, you'll pick your favorite Super Mario character and lead a team of athletes in 5-on-5 bouts of soccer. Featuring power-ups pulled from the Mario Kart franchise, four different difficulty modes, and entertaining cheat codes, this is a soccer game that should appeal to players of all skill.

Main Game Features

• 9 playable characters from the Mario universe
• Exhibition, Tournament, and Custom game modes
• Simple mechanics and rules

Story

Unfortunately, Super Mario Strikers is painfully light on story. In fact, there's barely a story to speak of, which is disappointing when compared to some of the other Mario-themed sports games. Instead, Super Mario Strikers brings together most of your favorite Super Mario characters to settle their grudges in fierce games of soccer. Mario must face off against some of his all-time villains, including Wario, Waluigi, and of course, Bowser. Leading a team of their own as captain, the characters compete in a handful of championship tournaments, all battling for the trophy at the end. Whereas other Mario sports games like Mario Golf have rich, RPG-like stories, Super Mario Strikers is admittedly underwhelming. Luckily though, the gameplay makes up for it.

Gameplay

As long as you have a fundamental knowledge of the rules of soccer (or football, depending on where you live), Super Mario Strikers is easy enough to understand. Even if you're a bit rusty, the game has both a practice mode and tutorials to help you learn the ropes. In each match, two teams of five players compete to score the most goals by passing, shooting the ball, and using power-ups. Matches can run from 2 to 15 minutes, but are set to 5 minutes normally. There is a decent selection of game modes, including “Grudge Match” (basically exhibition play), “Cup Battle and Super Cup Battle”, as well as “Custom Battle”.

Whether you're playing solo or with up to three other friends, you'll spend most of your time in the Cup and Super Cup Battles, where you battle for glory in eight different tournaments. If you manage to reach first place in some of the tournaments, you'll even unlock new cheat codes! Cheat codes can also be used across every mode in the game and unlock things like Infinite Power Ups, extra-strong Perfect Strikes, and more. Speaking of power-ups, you'll often earn Mario Kart-style items during play, including Green Shells, Bananas, and Mushroom boosts. This helps add another layer of arcade fun to the gameplay, further distinguishing it from realistic simulators.

Pros

• Easy-to-learn controls
• Family-friendly fun
• Fast-paced gameplay

Cons

• Lackluster visuals
• No story mode

Mario and his friends have delved into every sport and activity known to man so far – so it makes sense that a little bit of soccer would be next on the menu for our favorite Italian plumber. Mario Strikers takes one of the world’s most beloved sports and gives it a Mario flair, turning it into a frantic competition where everything goes!

Featuring one of the most distinctive visual styles we’ve seen in a Mario game in quite a while, Super Mario Strikers is a great title to play with friends: even if you’re not even a fan of soccer.

Smash the Competition

In Super Mario Strikers, players build their dream teams consisting of five characters from the Super Mario franchise. Series regulars when it comes to sports games, like Waluigi from Mario Tennis, appear in this game as team captains. Each captain gives their teams a unique boost that players can use to overcome their rivals.

Of course, this is a Mario game we’re talking about. Even though the core gameplay remains relatively similar to your everyday soccer match, there are power-ups and all sorts of traps to make the game feel much more like you’re playing a soccer version of Mario Kart.

Much like Mario Power Tennis, progress through the game will give the player access to new arenas to play in. However, it’s disappointing to see that these stadiums are just cosmetics, meaning that they don’t have any effect on the gameplay like they do in Mario Tennis.

One of the biggest reasons why players get excited about Nintendo sports titles is because of the multiplayer mode. This is especially true for sports games since it gives players the opportunity to compete against their pals. Needless to say, that aspect is flawless in Super Mario Strikers. Multiplayer is fast-paced and intense, and the action gets going immediately whenever two people go up against each other. The only downside is that the options for multiplayer are quite limited.

Visuals and Presentation

Even though the game goes for a unique, more aggressive presentation compared to other Mario titles, this is both this game’s blessing and its curse. Character designs look great for the most part, but the same can’t be said of other elements of the UI and the overall presentation.

Simply put, Super Mario Strikers lacks the level of polish in the menus and UI that we’ve come to expect from a first-party Nintendo game. And that’s not touching one of the biggest flaws of the game: its performance.

While the animations look fantastic – especially once you score a goal – the framerate can bring the whole experience to a painful crawl. Stutters, slowdowns, and general lag plague the proceedings, making the game very difficult to enjoy at times. That might not sound too bad for a game released in 2005, but they definitely sour the experience for the most part.

The idea of Super Mario Strikers is a brilliant one, but it still needs some polish if it wants to reach the levels of games such as Mario Power Tennis. Still, this is a great first entry into a series that no doubt appeals to a lot of Nintendo and soccer fans.

Pros

• Fast-Paced Action
• Solid Graphics
• Exciting multiplayer

Cons

• Frame Rate Issues
• Forgettable Soundtrack

Mario already plays golf, tennis, and doctor, so clearly soccer couldn't have been too far behind. Strikers is exactly what you'd expect--perfectly easy to pick up and play, with the usual Mario-flavored power-ups and quick-and-easy controls.

It's just what soccer always needed: wild power-ups and random obstacles on the field. Seriously, this game will have broad appeal--controls are simple enough for the kiddies but powerful enough for skilled players to be able to really get tactical. Gorgeous looks and plenty of humor made for fun and competitive multiplayer in the demo I tried. If the single-player game also dishes up some rewarding action, I'm totally there.