Mario Sports Superstars 3DS Review

Five Mario sporting outings in one package? It sounds like the kind of situation where we are going to get stiffed on the final quality of each of the sports, doesn’t it? A classic case of breadth and not depth. It seems like it will have all of the Mario polish, but none of sports sims will really beworth a damn. Thankfully, what Nintendo has actually done is deliver a pretty full-blooded version of its take on Tennis, Football, Baseball Golf andHorse Racing. Unfortunately, though, in some instances even its best take on those sports is still pretty poor.

Let’s concentrate on the positives of Mario Sports Superstars for a moment and say that the Baseball and Golf stood out as particularly solid outings. Both have been well tested in the past, of course. Golf, as it turns out, is a pretty hard genre to mess up. Classic power-up meters, a little spin and wind reading and you’ve pretty much got it covered. Baseball, with the aid of the 3DS’ signature screen feature, is one of the best arcade versionsof the sportwe’veplayed in recentmemory. It makes reading the flight of the ball much easier.

However, that leaves Football, Tennis and Horse Racing. Football is just lightweight and pedestrian. It’s no different from the game available in theRioOlympics titles and thatwasn’t muchbetter. Tennis isbetter than theWiiUgame weplayedawhileback, but it’s still tooobsessed with power-ups. It asks for a little more skill to use themnow, but it’s a hecticmess. AndHorse Racing, we imagine someone thought this was a good idea, but we found it slow and frankly going around in circuits with Mario characters just made us want to play Mario Kart. Whichwe did. It’s a very good game, you should check it out. So, there’s a mixed bag in terms of the final quality of each sport, but if the options in
terms of single-player and multiplayer offered something that would offset the balance. Alas, it’s a pretty shallowofferingwith a few cups per sport. It’s enjoyable enough, but nothing to get too excited by.

Rating: 60/100

Details:
FORMAT: 3DS
ORIGIN: Japan
PUBLISHER: Nintendo
DEVELOPER: Camelot
Software Planning,
Bandai Namco
Entertainment
PRICE: £27.99
RELEASE: Out now
PLAYERS: 1-2

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