Mario Super Sluggers

"Super Mario Sluggers doesn't deserve a homerun, but it does deserve a triple."

Sometimes, Mario and sports games don't connect very well. However, Mario and baseball were put together to form what was a pretty good game. Three years later, ANOTHER baseball game staring Mario was made for the next generation console. Did a sequel to a sports game turn out well?

The story is where Bowser Jr. crashes the party when he tries to take over ball parks in the Baseball Kingdom. Wait, there's a story in a sports game? Yes, surprisingly. Although, it is uncommon for a game like this to have a story, this one manages to have one, and there is nothing wrong with that.

There is a lot of gameplay involved, making baseball almost a whole new game. If you don't know the simple rules of baseball, let me briefly explain. There is a batter and a pitcher, and the pitcher throws the ball to the batter, who is holding a bat (not the animal). The batter tries to hit the ball with the bat. If they miss, it's a strike, and three strikes make an out. If the ball is unhittable, and they don't swing, it's a ball, and four balls make an automatic walk to first base. If the batter hits the ball, they will try to run to first base, where they are safe. On the field however, the fielders will try to get the ball and tag you while holding it, or tag the base you are trying to run to, which equals an out. Three outs will switch the two teams, meaning that the batting team becomes the fielding team, and the fielding team bats. I probably didn't need to explain this, but I just wanted to make sure you knew.

This game adds many twists to that, however. There are dozens of players to choose from to be on your team, and some of the have chemistry with eachother, meaning several things. One thing is that if a batter is up, and the next batter has chemistry with them, then the batter gets to use an error item after hitting the ball, which makes a hazard for the fielders. The second thing is that in the out field, a fielder can attack the ball to send it to a nearby fielder that has chemistry with them. If done right, the fielder that receives the ball can give it a very fast throw. The third and final thing is that when a batter hits a ball that might become a homerun, (which is when it flies out of the stadium and let's all players on base automatically run home), and there are two players with chemistry near each other, then one player can jump on the other to do a very high jump that can catch the ball. This feature adds lots of depth, because players can use strategic skills on where to place their players, which isn't bad.

Another new feature is close plays. On third base and home plate, if there is a tie between the runner and the tagging of the base, a close play will happen. In a close play, either the ‘A' button or the ‘B' button will appear, and you have to press whichever one appears on the screen before the other player does. The player who presses it first wins the tie.

Another new feature is star hits and pitches. Whenever something positive happens to the team, the star gauge fills up. When it's full, you get a star, and you can have up to five stars at a time. These stars can be put to good use. When batting, you can use stars to do special hits, and when pitching, you can use them to use special pitches. Captains (such as Mario, Wario, etc.) and sub-captains (such as Luigi, Waluigi, etc.) have unique specials, while minor players simply use stars to do fancy things. This is another thing in the game that adds the need of strategic skills.

There is a special 1-Player Challenge mode, where you go around Baseball Kingdom to save the Stadiums from Bowser Jr. Your main goal is to find characters to join your team and defeat Bowser Jr. While trying to find characters, you control one of the five captains. You only have one captain from the start, but the other captains are four of the dozens of characters hiding around Baseball Kingdom. You can use these captains to help you unlock other characters, find hidden items, and collect coins. Coins can be used to buy special items from shops, which help you in baseball games.

As you unlock characters, you usually have to play a Scout Mission to unlock them. A Scout Mission is a very short game involving only a couple aspects of playing baseball in this game. If complete it, you unlock the character. You also face Bowser Jr. and play Battle Missions, which is a slightly larger portion of a Scout Mission. The bad thing about this though, is that you rarely play actual baseball games. I seriously think that for facing Bowser Jr. in the stadiums, or even unlocking captains, they really should have made you play an actual game. Mostly because of this reason, Challenge mode doesn't take you as long as an actual game should take you to beat. This is a pretty major flaw, but atleast there is some occasional challenge in finding and unlocking the characters. You can start over when you have finished if you like, but there isn't too much of a point unless you really enjoyed it.

There is also Minigame mode, where you obviously play minigames. These minigames use basic aspects of actual baseball games, like batting, pitching, or fielding. You start with the easiest difficulty, but then there are two more difficulties followed by a special difficulty where it pretty much keeps going until you mess up. This special mode adds some replay value to the game.

There is also an extra game called Toy Field. In this game, four players go to a special field. Three players are in the field and can toggle a little bit with what the pitch is going to be like for the fourth player, who is batting. When the batter hits the ball, they get coins from where it bounces on the field. Players in the field only have a few seconds to grab the ball, and can attack each other for it. The fielder who gets the ball gets to bat next. This also adds some replay value.

The gameplay is very good and interesting in most parts, but the Challenge mode just wasn't where it was supposed to be. It needed some extra length by adding actual baseball games, or something else. It's still pretty good though.

The controls are a bit complex, and there are several ways to play. Thankfully though, Nintendo was smart and added a special section on the main menu where you can learn the controls and all of the special things you can do. As long as you play through this section and play attention, you shouldn't have too many problems with the controls.

Music is used in many different places of the game, including the stadiums. There are several stadiums, and each one has its own music, and none of them are that bad. In fact, you will most likely find atleast one catchy tune in the entire game, since there are a lot of them, (not that quanity is over quality, but that quanity equals a better chance of good quality in this case).

Sound is just like other Wii games, it's pretty clear, and matches what you see on the screen. There aren't any really annoying sounds, but one thing is that you can't here Lakitu (the empire) very well. It doesn't really matter though, because the words that he says is on the screen anyway, so no flaws here.

The graphics are standard for the Wii. They are colorful and very well done in depth. You can see many interesting things in the backrounds of stadiums, such as in Yoshi's stadium, you can see a wiggler roller coaster running at very fast speed. This is the Wii though, so the graphics better be good!

Multiplayer is one of the very strong points in the game. Toy Field and Minigame Mode can both be played with friends, along with real baseball games. This can make things interesting, as CPU's are pretty much programed to do something, while human players might stir it up a bit.

The difficulty is pretty good, but in some cases it is a bit lacking. Some Scout Missions you can complete pretty easily as long as you know the controls. Nothing horrible though, as there might be an occasional Scout Mission that gives you a challenge. It's also not as bad, because CPU's seem to know all of the controls for the game, including buddy tosses and buddy jumps, which is a good thing.

Although, the actual game doesn't take too long to beat, it has a lot of replay value. The Minigames, Toy Field, and even just playing baseball will make the game last you awhile, especially if you have a lot of friends that like to play this with you. High scores for Minigames are kept, and sometimes the CPU's can give you a bit of a challenge in an actual baseball game.

All in all, this game does lack length of the actual game, and has a couple minor flaws, but everything else, especially the interesting gameplay, makes the game an automatic buy for casual gamers. For hardcore gamers, it's still worth a buy, but don't expect the greatest game ever.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 11/06/09

Game Release: Mario Super Sluggers (US, 08/25/08)