Super Mario Strikers Review

Mario is without a doubt the hardest working game character that ever existed. He’s saved the damsel in distress, golfed, hit homeruns, drove karts and partied more times than some of us can count. Well, Mario once again chooses to take on another sport, and rather one of the most grueling in the world. This happens to be soccer, as Mario and Co. bring a whole new feeling of attitude and grit to the GameCube. If you ever thought Mario and his buddies couldn’t be more mature, you were wrong. Prepare yourself, as Super Mario Strikers shows you a side of Mario that we’ve never seen before. Oh and don’t worry, it’s fun stuff.

Strikers features several characters from the Mario universe bringing grit and playing dirty on the soccer field. They include Mario (obviously), Luigi, Waluigi, Daisy and others. Each character is a playable captain, as you choose one of them along with one of four possible sidekicks. They include Koopas, Hammer Bros, Toadstools/Toadettes and Birdo. Each captain has specific strengths, as some focus on offense, others on playmaking and the rest as plain balanced players. The sidekicks don’t matter, they are just there for support, they don’t increase or reduce anything.

The game also takes places among a nice number of different fields. There are three available at the beginning and you must unlock the rest. Some fields include The Palace, The Underground, and The Crater. The problem that lies here is the view of the designs. Each field has a very distinct look when you’re going through them in the menu, but the camera usually focuses on the field. You never really get to see much of the good stuff on the outside until you score a goal or see the beginning and end of the game. Plus the design of each stadium isn’t exactly stellar, and that affects the viewing fans as well. Soccer is a huge atmosphere sport, but the fans look like pieces of paper rather than actual characters so that’s a little disappointing. However, the fields themselves look superb and truly authentic. You can’t exactly see each blade of grass, but the field looks like it and that’s a good thing. The nets are also unique to each stadium, as for instance the posts in the Konga stadium are made entirely from wood.

Thankfully the lack of elaborate design in the stadiums is made up for with great looking characters. Each member included from the Mario universe looks great, and this helps their “attitude” get across to players. There may not be much if any spoken dialogue in the game, so it’s the actions of the characters that do the talking. It’s rather humorous and sometimes even odd to see some gestures and expressions from them. Let’s just say something Waluigi does is virtually identical to what members of D-Generation X from the WWF did as their “sign”. It depends on your tastes for Mario games, some will find this material funny, others may be turned away by it.

The animation in the game is also extremely well-done and really drives home the arcade style of play. The characters dribbling the soccer ball looks perfect as well as when they kick it. When you go for more powerful kicks, you will always see some sort of glow to the ball that adds for a nice effect. When a character nails a glowing ball, you see a neat looking stream of light trailing behind it wherever it may be going. The game also isn’t called Super Mario Strikers for no reason, as the game prides itself upon the captains’ “Super Strikes”. These also look incredible when you see them at first, but once you’ve done them a dozen times, you begin wishing you could skip the animation. Super Strikes are more or less soccer ball kicks that have a chance of being unblockable. Each character has unique coloring and moving in each one, but they do get old after a while.

Thankfully playing the game is where Strikers shines a great deal. It’s also great how simple it is to control. Passing and one-timers are done with A and all shooting is done with B. You run with turbo holding R, and you can actually do it as much as you please. You obviously hold B to do a charge shot and if you’re controlling your captain, you can do a Super Strike. Holding down the button long enough will cause a meter to appear below him or her and you must hit the button two more times, trying to stop the moving line in the green areas. If you’re successful with either a regular Super Strike or Perfect Strike, you net your team two goals. This can be very pivotal too, as they have the chance of really turning the tide in a game.

When you’re not doing Super Strikes, you can do regular kicks and one-timers. One-timers look extremely cool, and many times the result will be pleasing as well. Making a regular pass has the receiver do the one-timer on the ground. But doing a chip pass by holding L will pass the ball to a teammate in the air allowing you to watch a cool animation of them jumping and turning upside-down to kick the ball. Doing that is generally more effective as you can put the ball near the top of the net easier. It’s a good thing too, because the goalies (Kremlings) in the game can at times seem a little too good. Their intelligence isn’t always balanced either, as sometimes they won’t jump at a chip shot (ball kicked high in the air) and will let it drop easily in the net behind them. Other times they will seem like a brick wall, which obviously benefits whoever team it’s on. The best thing to do though to generate quick single goals is stunning them. This can be done with very powerful charge shots or failed Super Strikes. Each will daze the goalies, allowing you almost an open net opportunity for goals every time.