"Mario certainly is super in his debut soccer game!"

When E3 came around in '05, Super Mario Strikers was announced, and some gameplay footage was released. I was ecstatic when I found out about this game and watched this footage. I loved the past Mario Sports titles, and had wanted a Mario Soccer game ever since Mario Tennis for the N64. When I finally got my hands on it, it was worth the wait, and bypassed my expectations.

Gameplay 9/10

Anybody who has played a Mario sports title knows that the focus isn't on realism, but adding a twist to the game to give it some more fun. In this game, alterations from normal soccer sim games (such as FIFA) would be the decreased amount of players on the field, power strikes, slow motion perfect passes, using items on the field, electrocuting people, Bowser, and of course, playing as your favorite Mario series characters. You choose from Mario, Peach, Yoshi, Daisy, Waluigi, DK, Wario, and Luigi initially, and unlock one more after completing all of the tournaments. You choose a sidekick for your fellow teammates on field (excluding the Kremling goalie), including Koopas, Birdo, Hammer Bros., and Toad.

When rules are considered, the game is comparable to Blitz, the old arcade football game that became popular because of the lack of rules. The only regulations that remain the same as normal soccer are that only the goalie can use his hands and he cannot move outside of the box. There are no fouls, no free kicks, no penalty kicks, no cards, and basically no rules. However, one repercussion to knocking opponents to the ground too often is that they will get an item if the person hit doesn't have the ball. These items are quite a bit of fun to use. A few of them are a bob-omb, red shell, green shell, blue shell, banana (the shells come in big, and all of the items mentioned before this come in triple), star, and the almighty chain chomp, which rampages around the field knocking over all of the opposing players, giving you a perfect opportunity to perform a super strike.

A super strike is another feature not seen in another soccer game. To pull this off, you must be using your team captain, which is Mario, Yoshi, Luigi, etc. If you charge up your shot with the captain, s/he will jump up into the air, and a small bar will appear below them. There will be two green areas surrounded by yellow, and a small white bar that moves from side to side. The goal is to get the bar into both green areas, instantly scoring you two goals. Yes, two goals. A super strike is worth two times the normal goal, making it a great move to equalize a close match.

Another aspect of this game that I have not seen in another soccer sim, is the perfect pass, and the name describes it pretty well. When executed, it gives a nice slow motion effect of your character shooting the ball.

Defensive moves in this game guarantee lots of fun and many laughs, especially when playing multiplayer. You can slam into other players, often knocking them a few feet from where they originally were. An added bonus is if you knock them into the sideline, they will be electrocuted!

However, goalie control is rather disappointing. The only things you can do with him are make him throw or punt the ball to a teammate. You cannot have him put the ball down, and dribble, much less just have him put the ball down and kick! Occasionally, the goalie will walk outside of the box with the ball in his hands, but this doesn't affect overall gameplay, but can be rather annoying when watching.

There are a few levels of difficulty in the game, with the easiest being way too easy, to the hardest being a champion's difficulty. The two difficulties in the middle should be enough to suit just about anybody. An annoying part about the difficulty is that it seems that the other team has very strong AI, while your teammates often act as if they ride the short bus to school. When playing against legend, the hardest difficulty, you will notice that the computer frequently has two or three of their men around your box when they have the goal, making for an easy shot on goal. When you manage to find your way to their box, most often your men will have eaten dirt by the time they reached the midfield line, making playing against this difficulty frustrating.

Graphics 10/10

Graphics in Super Mario Strikers are very nice. There is a nice amount of detail in the characters and stadiums so that they look interesting, not bland. The colors are very nice, the same bright colors that Mario games are known to have. Stadiums look nice, all of them have unique traits. The only thing that could be improved on in the graphics are the characters in the audience. There are tons of them, and they all have different motions, so they don't just sit up and down in unison. Although that might sound nice, there are only a few different models, and they are 2-dimensional. However, you barely ever see them, so it does not affect the overall look of the game very much.

Sound 7/10

There really isn't very much sound or music in the game. There are the menu tunes, which are nice, nothing quite spectacular, and a short music bit when beginning a game. The music fits well, but it is nothing spectacular or very memorable. There are unique sound effects for each character, so that is nice. You can hear the crowd roaring occasionally, this is most noticeable when scoring a goal. Most of the time, there is no music, and the only sounds are those of the soccer field, such as dribbling, passing, shooting, tackling, and other sounds made during any normal soccer match. The reason that it gets a 7 is because there isn't a whole lot of content in this department, and what content there is, is just above average.

Controls 10/10

The controls are very simple. There aren't any complicated jukes to use to make your friends impressed or anything, just pass, shoot, lob, slide tackle, shove, sprint, item, deke (the only fake in the game) and switch character. Learning how to control your men is very simple, and one can usually take advantage of all of the basics after one game with no instruction. The only bad part about the controls is rarely when you take control of a character, they will begin to run the opposite direction that you are pressing. This only happens very rarely, as in once every ten matches or so, but I have experienced it enough to see that it isn't just a once in a lifetime phenomenon.

Multiplayer 9/10

Multiplayer is basically adding another human to your team, or playing against a human opponent. You can play in the cup matches, or grudge matches, which is nice. More features for multiplayer would be nice, such as a four-way soccer match for four players, resulting in ultimate chaos found in most Mario sports games.

Final decision

This is an excellent game. A very nice start to what potentially could be another series in the Mario sports titles. Anybody who is a fan of Mario sports would like this game, and anybody looking for a bit of a different soccer game should buy this.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 02/01/06