Let’s face it: while it’s practically an organized religion in other parts of the world, soccer (or, as most call it, football) hasn’t exactly caught on in the United States. While it’s easy to ask an American child who their favorite athlete of a particular sport is and get a variety of answers, chances are the three main answers they’ll give for their favorite soccer star are “David Beckham”, “Pelé”, or “I don’t know”. It’s easy to see why, however: soccer is a sport well renowned for moving at a snail-like pace, with a heavy emphasis on strategy and boring the crap out of any American watching. However, to make even the worst sports exciting, Nintendo’s created a pretty good formula: make it fast-paced with a vague resemblance to the actual sport, throw Mario and pals in it, and away you go. Super Mario Strikers follows that formula to a T, and while it doesn’t pack in all the gameplay or have the trademark presentation of the other games, it’s still a worthy addition to the pantheon of Mario Sports titles.

Super Mario Strikers is the second Mario Sports games to test the waters of a team sport, following Mario Superstar Baseball. While the latter allowed players to make up their own team of Mario All-Stars, Strikers is pretty rigid when it comes to characters: players select from 8 Mario regulars (Mario, Luigi, Yoshi, Peach, Daisy, DK, Wario, and Waluigi) as their team captain, then fill out their team with one of 4 teams of sidekicks (Birdos, Hammer Brothers, Toads, and Koopas). A Kremling (from the Donkey Kong Country games) always patrols the goal no matter who you choose (which is an odd choice to say the least - doesn’t Rare own those guys?). While these limitations are disappointing, what’s even moreso unfortunate is the game’s lack of modes. While Mario Sports titles are usually chock-full of mini-games and other fun distractions from the game itself, Strikers features absolutely none of them. There’s a Grudge Match mode (for single matches for 1-4 players), The Cup Battle/Super Cup Battle modes (tournaments with multiple matches, also for 1-4 players), and a Custom Tournament mode – that’s it. It’s also unfortunate that the usually fun menus and presentation of the Mario Sports series are not included, as developer Next Level Games chose to go with a simplistic, basic interface for the game. It still looks good, mind you – it just doesn’t scream “Mario”.

Hey guys! Can I play?!?

While the game’s presentation and assortment of modes of play may be lacking, what’s kept intact is the gameplay Mario Sports games have always relied on – fast, easy, and most certainly arcade in origin. Passing and shooting are a snap, as is playing defense – you can choose from a quick slide tackle to take the ball away from an opposing player, or pull off the ever-popular body check to knock them down entirely. The latter, if done into the electrified fence that surrounds the field (yes, I said THE ELECTRIFIED FENCE) provides violent, shocking results (ha! I kill me) to an opponent. Of course, it wouldn’t be a Mario Sports game without some sort of super-charged scoring gimmick seamlessly worked into the game’s title, and this comes in the form of the Super Strike, a special shot only the team’s captain can do. The move is executed by holding B until a meter pops up, and pressing B twice when the meter is in the green areas. This unleashes a super-powerful shot that is not only hard to block, but counts as two goals if it scores. What’s more, if the player pushes B when the bar hits the small white sections of the meter on both sides, this sets up a Perfect Super Strike, which not only scores two goals, but is completely unblockable. While the Super Strike is certainly a potent way to get ahead of or get back into any match, Next Level made sure that players don’t rely on it too much, as going for one leaves the player completely defenseless to be checked or have the ball stolen. The proper way to win is to mix up a good combination of strong kicks, well-placed passes, and Super Strikes to keep the opposing players guessing. The game also features items such as shells and mushrooms in order to gain an upper hand on an opponent, and oh yeah, even Bowser drops in (literally) from time to time to ruin the fun. Naturally, the game features multiplayer for up to four players, which is the game’s strongest point, as games where players take on each other or even team up against an computer opponent are an absolute blast.

The game’s graphics are bright and colorful, and pretty much the standard for any Mario Sports game. The game runs at a constant framerate, only slowing down when too much is going on at one time (which rarely happens, fortunately). The game is also very well-animated, as running and kicking motions are very fluid, and the game features a lot of funny celebrations, such as when Waluigi scores a goal and then proceeds to do a crotch chop (how that got by the ESRB I’ll never know). The game’s stadiums also look really good, except some of them simply don’t fit – I can understand Royal Stadium, DK Stadium, and Bowser Stadium (which all look really cool), but the Battle Dome (which also looks cool) makes no sense, and there’s nothing resembling pipes in Pipe Plaza. Another problem is the game’s Super Strike animations, which are similar to the Power Shots in Mario Power Tennis – in that they can’t be turned off and get annoying after a while. That’s not the major problem though; what is a problem is that, while they are pretty cool, the animations only vaguely look Mario-ish. Combined with the odd arena’s and simplistic presentation, it makes me think Next Level Games really didn’t do their homework when creating this game based on the Mario Sports standards. Still, good enough for government work.

Invincible alligators are in heavy demand in this league.

The game’s sound is actually quite good, with fitting music for most situations. No Mario tunes were used, unfortunately, but Next Level makes up for it with some quality tunes you’d expect to hear in any soccer game (including a heavy metal jam when Bowser shows up). The game also features the usual sound effects and crowd chants, plus some really funny voice work from most of Nintendo’s usual Mario cast members, including Charles Martinet. Hearing Wario say “hey stupid!” when he’s open for a pass had us rolling on the floor the first time. Standard stuff to be sure, but that’s certainly not a negative in this case.

Super Mario Strikers is a very strong soccer title and certainly one of the most fun games for the GameCube. It doesn’t exactly meet the presentation standard that the Mario Sports games have always adhered to, and the lack of modes is pretty depressing, but that doesn’t mean the game won’t keep you (and hopefully your friends) busy for quite some time with its strong core gameplay. While it’s certainly flawed, Super Mario Strikers is still a welcome addition to the Mario Sports franchise.

Eric Jones