Mario Sports Mix (Wii Review) by Carl B.
Mario Sports Mix
Publisher: Nintendo
Developer: Square-Enix
System: Nintendo Wii
Release Date: February 7, 2011
February 17, 2011, by Carl B. - When Mario isn't saving Princess Peach from the clutches of Bowser he's most often playing various sports with different inhabitants of the Mushroom Kingdom (including Bowser, oddly enough). In the past Mario has conquered the world of tennis, golf, baseball, and soccer, but the iconic plumber hasn't finished yet with the release of Mario Sports Mix, a compilation title of four different sports. Developed by Square-Enix -- which also worked on Mario Hoops 3 on 3 for DS -- does Mario Sports Mix offer enough overall quality in each of the four sports available to warrant a purchase, or is the game just a shameless cash-in using Mario's popularity?
The following sports are available in Mario Sports Mix: basketball, hockey, volleyball, and dodgeball. Each sport has its own set of specific rules, but they all have similar Mario themes that include item power ups similar to Mario Kart, coins that increase the amount of points scored, and arenas with environmental effects. The sports are also played in either three on three or two on two.
In basketball, the object of the game is to move the ball to the opposite side of the court and shoot it into a basket. Players can pass the ball with the A button and use a slight flick of the wrist to shoot the ball, though the farther away the player is the less chance of success there will be. Like the real life sport, players can dunk, steal the ball, and bat it down when an opposing player shoots. There are some striking similarities to NBA Jam in the gameplay, as players can perform alley-oops and other combo moves to score points.
Hockey is by far the most fun sport to play on Mario Sports Mix. Each character wears rollerblades that make them slightly harder to control in comparison to basketball, making the experience more realistic. Players are able to pass the puck -- which looks like a coin -- back and forth with their other teammates much faster than in basketball, and can even charge up a slap shot by holding down the Z button. Depending on the stage selected there may be a goal tender in the net that consistently blocks shots, but can easily be fooled if the player skates around the net or in a zigzag pattern before the shot is taken.
Volleyball wasn't particularly fun, especially compared to the fast paced hockey matches that Mario Sports Mix boasts. Players hit a volleyball back and forth over a net and are able to set and spike just like in the real life sport. When the opponent hits the volleyball over the net a pink circle appears somewhere on the court as an indicator of where the ball will land, forcing players to quickly run over and hit the ball back over the net. The matches are best of three, and if two players are of moderate to high skill levels, a single set can take a long time as the ball is hit back and forth.
Dodgeball is a drag; it's a wonder why the sport was even included in the game. Each team has one side of the court that they can move around freely in, but aren't able to cross to the other side. Players throw a ball back and forth and try to hit opposing players. When a player's damage threshold is met, they are thrown out of the match. Dodgeball in Mario Sports Mix is incredibly slow paced and required much more waggle than the rest of the sports.
Mario Sports Mix features a relatively robust cast of characters to play as. Characters from the Mushroom Kingdom are playable, including Mario, Peach, Luigi, and Bowser, and characters from the Final Fantasy series can be unlocked, including White Mage, Black Mage, and Cactuar, along with the Slime from the Dragon Quest series. Each character in the game belongs to different categories that detail their prowess in each of the game's three skills: power, speed, and technical. To shake things up even further, each character has their own special ability that players can activate when a power meter is filled.
Alongside the standard versus mode, Mario Sports Mix features an engaging tournament mode. In this mode players are challenged with the task of mastering each of the game's four sports while they beat other AI controlled teams and win the different Star Cups. Players are also able to unlock alternate routes in tournament mode that allow them to compete in special missions, which in turn unlock new characters, skins, and a "final ending" for the tournament.
Mario Sports Mix boasts a pretty robust online multiplayer component that has presentation values comparable to Mario Kart Wii. All four sports can be played against either random opponents or friends, and win/loss/tie records are kept for each sport as well as the player's overall record for each sport combined. Online matches are completely lag-free, and finding an opponent is fast and seamless. Online multiplayer does have on feature that's interesting, and it ultimately raises the question as to why other online Wii (or even DS and potentially 3DS) games don't use it; players are able to track their "Nintendo WFC Skill" for each sport in a line graph that's eerily similar to the skill tracking used in Wii Sports and Wii Sports Resort. As with single player, the most fun and intense matches usually tend to be hockey.
The Verdict
Sound
8/15 - Nothing special in the music department. The same sound effects have been used in Mario sports games for years now.
Graphics
17/20 - Sports Mix looks very polished and never suffers from frame rate issues.
Appeal
19/25 - A robust online mode will keep players coming back. It's a shame the only good sport in the game is hockey.
Gameplay
30/40 - Different party-esque mechanics are thrown into the four playable sports to keep the package fresh. A variety of characters with different skill sets add to the game's depth.
Overall
74/100 - Mario Sports Mix could have been a far better game if volleyball and dodgeball were replaced with baseball or even football, but sadly this isn't the case. For what it's worth, Mario's latest foray into the world of sports can be entertaining at times – hockey is a blast – and the robust online mode will definitely keep players coming back, but the title still leaves something more to be desired.
