Mario Hoops 3-on-3 Review

SquareEnix, the company that has brought us some of the most memorable RPGs known to man, has unfortunately never had much success with other genres. They of course succeeded when it came to storytelling, but when it comes to pure gameplay, most of their efforts were actually never quite up to par with their competitor’s offerings. Every company has their weaknesses, so it may seem like a good idea to work on those to reach a larger audience, but sometimes it’s better to keep doing what you are best at.

When a game features Nintendo’s most popular mascot, they usually make sure that the title is of superior quality, and with SquareEnix at the helm, this game seemed like a sure-fire hit.

Development seemed to be going well when we got our first look at the game and saw the screenshots. There were also a bunch of features announced which made this game seem like it had everything a gamer would want in an arcade style basketball game: lots of characters, tons of basketball courts, a handful of modes of play and of course multiplayer support including wifi online play. Not only that but with the DS’ touch screen and the possibility to move the ball anywhere and almost be able to do whatever you want, I thought I’d be in gamer heaven.

Well, it doesn’t feel exactly as I thought it would, but I guess it does the job and if I managed to remember everything on my first try then it means they must have done something right. Unfortunately, when playing the game the controls do not feel that much responsive and when trying to link up moves like the cpu did, I found myself having a hard time. While it is easy to learn how to play, the controls do not feel as intuitive as you might think they are. It often feels as if they were being forced and it would actually feel better playing with standard controls than with the stylus.

So after the training mode, I jump straight to one of the championships. It works like it would in Mario Kart in that you have the Mushroom cup, Flower cup, Star cup and Rainbow cup. Each one consists of 3 matches, and depending on how you perform you will get a bronze, silver or gold rating at the end. One of the cups actually has a different ending, but I won’t spoil it for you! Let’s just say it will bring back memories from Super Mario Bros 3 as well as add a little Final Fantasy twist to it!

The gameplay in this basketball game is really different than others because when you score, you get 20 points, but there are coin blocks on the ground, and when you dribble the ball over them you get additional points that get added to your score. This means that players need to use a little bit of strategy and try to collect as many coins as possible since it can make a huge difference between winning and losing. When you are playing defense, those coin blocks will instead give you power ups that you can use against your opponents, again just like in Mario Kart. This can make for very intense matches and it adds to the overall fun.

So after nearly 20 minutes of play, I’m already done with the first cup. After a few hours of play, I’ve finished all 4 cups, unlocked hard mode, finished hard mode, and unlocked a harder level of difficulty. I had a very hard time going through hard mode, but very hard is just completely insane, and with the unresponsive controls, it made all of this even more frustrating.

There were supposed to be a bunch of mini games to play, but they’ve just included 3 mini games (one which you unlock), and all 3 are exactly the same. You just need to hit coin blocks on the ground and get up to 100 coins and then run to the finish line. It should normally take you a good 20 minutes until you’re done with this since there isn’t really any reason to come back.

And now what about multiplayer? Well, I guess lots of people will be disappointed to hear that the only multiplayer you can play is mini games, unless of course you own 2 copies of the game, but you’d be a fool to suggest a friend to get this game! At first, SquareEnix had announced you could do anything you wanted in multiplayer, and even play with friends over wifi, but when I didn’t see the official Nintendo Wifi logo on the box I knew something was wrong. I just hate it when developers make promises and then do not deliver in the end. This game was made for multiplayer, and I think that’s why Mario Hoops 3-on-3 disappoints this much.

There are a few nice things here and there like the catchy music or the cool graphics and inventive basketball courts. There are even a few characters from Final Fantasy added to the game and a bunch of characters that can be unlocked. I have to admit the presentation of the game is top notch! I just wish this also reflected in the gameplay itself.

So I guess that while I’m sure SquareEnix tried really hard to make a good sports game, they miserably failed once again! I think this game should have been developed by someone else, or maybe they should have worked on it longer since it doesn’t feel complete, especially when compared to other Mario Sports titles.