The Painful Decline Of Mario Sports Games

Mario sports games have played a much more significant role in the average person's life than you or I could have ever imagined from golf to basketball baseball to soccer or football they brought a unique twist to every console that they've appeared on whether you played Solo or with friends there was always enough content to keep you busy for hours I grew up a huge fan of sports games in general however Mario sports games always did things on a bigger scale the RPG elements in Mario Golf building your dream team in Superstar baseball or delivering the perfect pass and Strikers it all added this extra layer taking everything good about sports games at the time and amplifying it yet at some point I just stopped being thrilled about new releases and I can't help but feel like this was partly brought on by Nintendo's recent track record with the past few switch releases and now standing at what feels like the inevitable end of a golden era and looking back instead of Simply screaming into the void I thought maybe you'd want to come on a journey with me through the highs and lows of the Mario Sports series taking a look at each game and trying to to see if we can pinpoint exactly where and how these games began to slowly lose their magic starting with the first console that would bring this series to life the NES from the 2022 release of Mario Striker's battle League we can trace a direct line back to Nintendo's 1983 release of baseball you see ideally baseball was going to be the beginning of Nintendo's very own sports franchise where they would simply name games after their respective sport kinda like golf however 1984's golf was somewhat of a controversial one as the character of Mario is said to swing both ways and by that I mean due to some versions of this game directly referring to this big Jolly fellow as Mario and some well simply not it could be argued either way that this was or wasn't Mario's first dance with athleticism and while maybe not considered extremely athletic by any means there is always 1984's pinball but okay never mind look Mario did make a few surprising appearances as an Umpire in the NES classic tennis he refereed a few matches in Mike Tyson's Poncho but his real athletic debut was probably in Donkey Kong hockey for The Game and Watch if that counts but regardless of the facts personally are uncomfortably realistic proportioned plumber really made his cover star debut in the Sports World between the years of 1987 to about 1991 with Mario Open golf in these years is where we can find two famicon games that had been released in Japan with Mario gracing the front cover golf Japan course and Golf US course and well I mean you know these are definitely golf with Mario and if you like golf at home how about golf on the go with the 1989 release of golf on the Game Boy and now while these games definitely exist the first time you really see Mario being a recognizable experience to home gaming was with the release of 1991's Mario Open golf later renamed to NES open tournament golf in the west this is sort of a blend of all three Mario Golf games to date except here Mario was the star dressed up in the most patriotic outfit he could find a painted on American flag bodysuit the game also included a playable Luigi Peach and Daisy as caddies for the two brothers the odd toad appearance when you hit a ball out of bounds and who could forget a very polite Donkey Kong as Mario's financial advisor this game was a collaboration between Nintendo's R D2 and Hal laboratory featuring a very impressive development team it was the first fully developed game by satoru Iwata as well as aegonoma's debut project but while NES open tournament golf was a solid addition to Mario sports games our story takes two very different paths in 1992. this decade was marked by many discoveries and firsts including the debut of the Mario Kart series Super Mario Kart releasing for the SNES in 1992 was supervised by none other than Shigeru Miyamoto which leads me to my point about the dissecting of timelines so okay is racing a sport yes I'm not going to argue with you there is it the most successful sports game in the entire Mario Series without a doubt yeah but I still wouldn't consider this a Mario Sports Series game game and that all comes down to this man the Mario Sports series is a genre that Nintendo does not waste resources on themselves but rather hands off to third-party development Studios some you might be familiar with or how laboratory Next Level games or Camelot software planning so as we dive deeper into the evolution of Mario sports games just uh without Mario Kart because um you know Mario Kart uh Mario Sport but look just because drag racing with your buddies isn't on the menu for tonight's discussion how about taking on the role of a preschool teacher maybe teaching your friends to type sounds weird right well welcome to Mario's world in the 90s Mario tried his hand at painting and he even dabbled in a bit of time travel and from these Adventures alone you can sort of start to understand Nintendo's strategy here they were open to letting Mario try anything once and why wouldn't they as the sun was setting on the NES the Super Nintendo was racing past Sega in the console Wars dropping hit games left and right add in the game boy's handheld Supremacy and the imminent arrival of the end 164 things were skyrocketing for Nintendo plus it was a promising time for the budding Mario Sports fandom but in the grand scheme of things these Milestones seem small compared to the big reveal on the horizon Nintendo's biggest announcement yet the Virtual Boy designed by Nintendo engineer gunpei yokoi this console was promised by Nintendo to transport game players into a virtual Utopia with sights and sounds unlike anything they've ever experienced before but instead of all that we got this the virtual boy would go on to become Nintendo's biggest fart in the tub and in less than a year of release this console had been discontinued and closely linked with the virtual boy was none other than our next entry Mario's tennis initially announced as Mario's dream tennis this game launched alongside the migraine machine in 1995 as well as being the packing game with the VR in North America and the one silver lining to take away from the virtual boy was well exactly that Mario Tennis it was this game that had started the Mario Tennis series of games to follow as well as being credited as the sole inspiration that led to a plethora of other sports related Mario games however at the time of its arrival to the scene the game itself was met with a polarizing reception as a pack in game it raised a lot of questions that the Virtual Boy couldn't exactly deliver answers for and while some found it to be impressive for what it was it was critiqued pretty heavily for the immense lack of content the game's roster had only seven characters one of which was Donkey Kong squeezed into a skin-tight bodysuit which in my opinion was plenty but coupled with repetitive game modes and settings it struggled to hold anyone's interest for long but Nintendo had a plan for this a two-player function for the game surely this would cure everything but due to the virtual boy's disappointing performance and poor reception they scrapped the Link cable erasing any chance of multiplayer gameplay the only option left was to put the virtual boy out of its misery yet before the dust could even settle the brand new shiny n60 4 took Center Stage but the N64 launch didn't quite hit the mark for Nintendo largely because the Sony PlayStation had a Year's Head Start and already had twice as many users opting for its disk based console over the n64's cartridge system but despite all of the challenges the data didn't lie Super Mario 64 and Mario Kart 64 were huge successes therefore there was only one solution and it was now more clear than ever before Nintendo needed more Mario and they needed a lot of it fast so with the plan in place Nintendo began to reach out to third parties to help them bring Mario in Mass to the console this led to decisions like the Mario Party franchise being handed off to hudsonsoft and other Mario Sports titles being passed to the good folks down at Camelot software planning hashing out a deal with Camelot to develop four new sports titles for the N64 and Game Boy and so in the summer of 99 Camelot delivered their first Nintendo title Mario Golf inspired by their own hit game HotShots Golf and exactly as it sounds this was a game that allowed you to golf with Mario the game was packed with charm and stuck to the Classic Golf formula receiving a warm reception from fans of the Mario Sports series even today looking back at this game there's still aspects that hold up 24 years later a bright and bold color palette complemented by over and above attention to detail like the T flying up when you're smacking balls on the green not to mention we've got quite a collection of all of our favorite Nintendo mascots here as well as characters that Nintendo and Camelot just tried to casually sneak in like they've been here since day one like come on guys you know Plum Charlie Sunny Harry and uh Maple right this is definitely the strangest addition to a Mario sports game as not only do these characters feel out of their element we would actually never again go on to see any of these folks as playable characters again as well weird I kind of think they succeeded in what they were aiming to do here each character brings their own unique stats to the game and it's nice to have a variety of characters to choose from when you're figuring out your own unique style of gameplay it just would have been nice if I didn't have to feel so much shame playing as sunny when I know I'm never gonna call him back but look Nintendo didn't really care if you enjoyed this game or not because at the end of the day it was another title to slap on retail shells with Mario's face on it and that way they could get more eyeballs on a trailing console and speaking of titles with Mario's face slapped on them the next big release from Nintendo and Camelot was Mario Tennis for the N64 a bit of a gamble this time around considering just five years prior the ultimate fate of this series was up in the air but this time around we're not just talking about some simple upgrade this game featured Mario and 15 of his mascot Pals and the guy from you for some reason I was watching old gameplay of this game and came across a comment that said Penn Badgley had actually voiced a character in the game and uh yeah he did and once again this was an added touch from Camelot bringing over only four humans this time but instead of taking up the entire character roster these four secret characters could only be added into the the game through the N64 transfer pack and The Game Boy Color Mario Tennis but back to the game so something Camelot always found a way to do well was blending a real sport with the essence of Mario the gameplay was and is still something that manages to hold up quite well without being packed full of overbearing gimmicks or exhausting trick shots but most importantly this new and revised Mario Tennis introduced Gaming's most beloved character in what is maybe the most shocking and vile form of Waluigi now both games have been seen as welcome additions to the consoles somewhat lacking library at the time that's not to say what the N64 had to offer was bad by any means but it was limited but this console wasn't the only Landing place for the Mario Sports series as Camelot went on to release both Mario Golf and Mario Tennis for the Game Boy Color and while similar in gameplay like I mean yeah it's you know it's tennis and golf but the game boy colored versions of these games are actually some of the best hidden gems to be featured in the entire Mario Sports series packed into both of the hand handheld versions was one of the most beloved modes to have been featured in a Nintendo sports game and that was the RPG mode in Mario Tennis essentially you Star as the new rookie in town looking to make a name for yourself in the academy while Rising your way through the ranks in this Academy not only do you gain experience points but you also gain points in which you can allocate to a specific skill increasing your speed spin power or control and the majority of this adventure follows that exact same formula after enough matches take place you get to go one-on-one with the top player of that class and then you move on to the next class and do it all over again and I think one of the funniest parts of this game is that if you actually start playing it you'll very quickly forget that this game has anything to do with Mario at all or even Nintendo for that matter not only do you have to rise the ranks in Academy before getting invited to the traveling team tournament after finally beating that is when you're almost shockingly introduced to the greatest tennis player of them all who just so happens to be Mario now while this game includes a story and gives an overall general purpose to the human characters that appear in both Mario Golf and Mario Tennis why wouldn't these have come out first imagine how confused the SE the average player was to see Plum with absolutely zero context in their first playthrough of Mario Golf now as far as the Game Boy Color version of golf goes it follows a very similar route to tennis like you sort of get the idea here in a race to become the grand champion of golf four club members stand in your way defeating them all of course gets you a shot at duking it out with the most famous golfer in all of the land who maybe just maybe might be Mario and while Nintendo was pleased with the feedback for both Mario Golf and Tennis these games spanning multiple consoles primarily served as a foundation for what Nintendo had planned on the horizon this collaboration between Nintendo and Camelot seemed like a winning formula and with this in mind that meant that Nintendo could lean harder on the developers to continue to bring the magic of the Mario Sports series to life but the upcoming games had a high bar to clear and with the n64s era concluding in the GameCube stepping up to the plate the stage was set for the sport series to impress they needed it now more than ever given Sony's massive lead in the previous generations console war and now with Microsoft entering the battle with their first generation Xbox betting on Camelot to deliver big here Nintendo greenlit the studio to create the next batch of sports games and the end product well let's take a look the first entry on the new platform was Mario Golf Toadstool tour launched in July of 2003. this game maintained the much loved elements from the N64 version but instead of just a mediocre upgrade Toadstool tour aimed to ramp up the experience with detailed environments and inventive multiplayer mode following the successes of both the N64 and Game Boy versions of Golf and Tennis the GameCube is really where fans of the series began to develop a set of expectations for things to come over several years and now multiple Generations the sports series had been consistently releasing engaging and content-rich games so when a new release felt like it hadn't progressed much or in the case of Toadstool tour releasing without the fan favorite RPG mode that was featured in The Game Boy color version of Mario Golf the paper trail dating back that far shows fans were somewhat disheartened which sort of makes sense despite often being praised by some as the defining experience for Mario Golf this was a game that was well loved for its variety of game modes but fell under some criticism for the realism featured in this game even being compared to the Tiger Woods PGA golf series now this is somewhat of a double-edged sword the Mario Sports series is often criticized for being too gimmick heavy and ruined with items power-ups and other unnecessary elements as we'll soon find out but at the same time diving too deeply into the competitive scene can quickly drain a lot of the fun from the game for an audience hoping to just simply smack balls with Mario by their side so how do you really win here Toadstool tour was also developed alongside camelot's next-gen tennis experience first appearing in a copy of Nintendo Power in 2002 before eventually hitting the GameCube in o4 Mario Power Tennis was the video game of all time this game introduced power shots enabling characters to either strike a close ball with a unique swing or make a desperate save like Mario pulls out his big old Hammer Donkey Kong Strokes the ball with his banana powered tennis was described by many to feel like a Leap Forward in both gameplay and content as without the RPG mode the game at least introduced a new layer to the game's overall meta but in the background roughly three years after the launch of the Game Boy Advance Camelot was gearing up to release Mario Golf Advanced tour hitting retail in the spring of 2004. many argue that this game could be one of the finest RPGs to ever grace the handheld system overflowing with an abundance of features characters the packaging itself this time around even promoted the game as role-playing Golf and despite the gba's constraints Advanced tour maximized the available resources offering vibrant environments all neatly packed together with that classic Nintendo charm and this time around there's a little Overworld map that allows you to decide what you want to do and where you want to do it and what kind of game would this even be without your classic added dash of gambling for children from Nintendo club slots is one of the best Mini-Game modes found in this game randomly selecting clubs for you and then challenging you to par a hole with only the clubs acquired in your spin now sticking to a very similar gameplay style as the previous RPG for the Game Boy Color there really isn't much to say about the game here it's certainly golf but a year later Camelot and Nintendo brought Mario Tennis Power Tour to the people once more Camelot was able to prove their knack for squeezing the greatness of the console version into the compact form of the cartridges even surpassing the disc version like Advanced tour Power Tour was praised for its RPG elements you as the player would navigate through the Tennis Academy storyline leveling up your character winning tournaments and overcoming opponent challenges and regardless of how you felt about the games that featured these RPG modes it was just a nice touch to see that although Camelot probably didn't have to they were consistently putting in effort to add these single player aspects and cram as much content into a game where the expectations were nothing more than simply tennis with Mario and while these games were great entries within their respective libraries what lied ahead as the sun set on the six console generation was a couple of the strangest things that I think Nintendo has ever done to date starting in 2005 EA proposed to Nintendo to sprinkle a few of their characters into a couple of their games pre-launch as a console exclusive bonus now Nintendo weirdly enough gave the green light and let EA incorporate the characters of Mario Luigi and Peach and personally I don't think I'll ever find something more unsettling than seeing a character select screen with LeBron James or like Shaq on one side and maybe the three worst angles of Nintendo characters I've ever seen but in the case that that's not enough for you SSX on tour for the GameCube also features that same Trio and while being absolutely hilarious the character models just do not blend in well with the environment at all it reminds me of when Nickelodeon did that MLB the show game and every character looks like they're just begging to be euthanized now overall I do not want to sit here and just criticize this in any way because it's so amusing and honestly I'd love to see more crossovers in the present era just uh probably not with EA ever again now 2005 was not only the year of comical character models but it was also the year we were graced with an iconic game on the GameCube that's right baby I'm talking about konami's Dance Dance Revolution Mario mix now is this really a sports game I don't know kinda but Mario is most likely extremely out of breath and sweaty so I'm gonna classify this as a sports game for the time being the game put a new spin on the classic DDR formula where you step into the shoes of either Mario or Luigi and embark on a fairly simple story all while playing rhythm-based mini-games along the way this isn't really a game that's gonna have you like dripping sweat clinging to the handles of your arcade machine but if you're a fan of Nintendo's discography I mean it's all right if nothing else you've got yourself hours of watching Mario hitting absolutely insane dance moves like I didn't even know his body could move some of these ways especially when you take a closer look at the models ones that if you had a GameCube you were most likely already familiar with due to the Mario Party games but like seemingly at random when you're hitting a two-step they'll just throw in these out of pocket body mocaps that will suddenly see Bowser hit like a full body 360 on the spot mid dance battle just feels so strange moving on the next two in our lineup are the games that I believe receive very little love in their Prime but managed to claw their way back into the hearts of many if you were lucky enough to be one of the proud owners at that time you know exactly what I'm talking about here Mario Superstar baseball a game developed by Namco and published by Nintendo was as simple or complex as you chose to make it upon its release this game was received as pretty good it was exactly what it promised to be to an extent it was baseball with Mario but continuously here with not only Mario baseball but melee Toadstool tour Etc we continuously run into this strange issue with Mario sports games surrounding this silly little console right here now typically GameCube games created by Nintendo were at no point ever intended to be played competitively and as we've seen with Toadstool tour whether it was intentional or not this specific series of games has an incredible amount of depth that allows you as the player to make the game as simple or complex as you'd like given a roster of 32 characters developing the perfect team is not something that's easy to do each individual character excels in different positions has a unique swing bat speed power pitching potential and a ton of other stats not to mention choosing a captain can alter the entirety of your team's overall stats as you gain certain boosts and areas depending on who you choose so I mean now it's not really a surprise when peeling back just the smallest part of this iceberg that this game is now becoming a rising Contender for Mario Esports but if baseball isn't your thing maybe soccer will do the trick like many of the games we've taken a look at up to this point Mario Strikers is a game that does its best to stay true to the sport it's emulating while still adding that Nintendo charm which simply elevates your experience to a New Height playing this game even the characters showing developer names was a nice touch Super Mario Strikers developed by Next Level games surprised many with its overly aggressive gameplay tone that included head-butting your opponent into an electric fence Strikers was a breath of fresh air in a catalog of games it was something that we didn't even realize was missing until we had it full contact soccer a plethora of items super strikes everything about this game just seems a little more serious than the rest from the grungy environments to the competitive glares on the character select screen this was Uncharted Territory for the series and I loved every minute of it I've always felt like these two games underperforming just goes to show how truly slept on the GameCube actually was despite being one of the worst selling consoles for Nintendo at the time this generation is now the most beloved and most heavily sought after but on the horizon was a fate that would ultimately change the trajectory of the Mario Sports series forever a true turning point in our story thus far Nintendo's next long-awaited console was of course none other than everyone's favorite the Wii and of course packed tightly in every console that was shipped in the majority of regions came Wii Sports a collection of five sports games that was designed to get you into action fresh out of the box and if you remember Wii Sports anything like the way that I remember it you're probably wondering well how is this a bad thing for the Nintendo Sports series both Wii Sports and Resort are some of the best pickup and play games available to this day and that's exactly where the problem arises the we didn't need mascot support anymore that's not to say that there isn't some great Mario games on the Wii some of my all-time favorites landed on this console but this time around the Wii wasn't solely reliant on Mario to drive sales the Wii's main focus was making you the main character as the motion controls were now the driving factor for sales and with Wii Sports leading the charge Nintendo had opted to shelf Old Reliable leaving a 7 seven year gap before the next entry in the golf or tennis series however this also opened the opportunity for Nintendo to reintroduce some of the Lesser selling sports but this time to an entirely new audience that the Wii had managed to attract now in 2007 we saw the first entry into the Mario Sports series on the Wii but a year earlier one of the most peculiar releases in the sports series had debuted with Mario Hoops three on three this is a game that for some reason seems to fall under everyone's radar and I don't really blame them for not knowing about it what made this release as strange as it was is that it was developed by Square Enix a company renowned for games like Dragon Quest Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts not exactly known for dabbling in the sports genre this title which at first seemed like a strange mix ended up being a game that I spent so many hours on as a kid basketball on the DS in theory should be weird but somehow the controls here were effortlessly fluid that even the simplest of actions actually became enjoyable when playing the game with your stylus you could dribble the ball steal the ball shoot the ball Juke block gritty in that order Square found a way to put their own unique Twist on things and alongside a selection of the best Mario characters you've now also got Final Fantasy characters in the mix I was almost surprised to see a lot of negative feedback for this game in my search online which is strange because I really have nothing but fond memories surrounding it if you've ever played this game please leave a comment and let me know if I'm like Nostalgia blind here or if this game actually held up but let's get back to the Wii the year is 2007 and what came to the Wii was something I don't think anyone was expecting only two years later as a follow-up to the GameCube release of Mario Strikers Mario Strikers Charged had landed on the Wii this whole series was far from your typical Mario sports game now in Striker's charge the character's personalities are up to an entirely new level captains on the team will occasionally shout for the ball with like a little voice line that if you're paying attention you'll often pick up and get the ball across however this game goes a step further with the character development because oh my God does Wario ever play like a dick trying to get through a game with this guy as the captain of your team is so difficult because you'll constantly hear these voice lines in situations that are blatantly bad for your team and the stage design it's incredible it's hard to even go back to other Mario sports games once you've played this series like who gives a about tennis I want more of this and that's exactly what we were gonna get until Nintendo came in and ruined everything you see the best Mario sports game was potentially one that none of us ever got to play Next Level games the creator of both Strikers and Strikers Charged had an idea to bring forward Super Mario spikers this was a game that was a mix of both wrestling and volleyball brought forward through a game show-like presentation spikers initially started development as simply a volleyball based game being titled Mario volleyball however as development progressed the team decided to implement mechanics based upon wrestling Next Level games tried to combine its Knowledge from developing Strikers with the company's newly gained abilities from working on a canceled WWE game and although we have some animations and stages to go off of the gameplay for this game is ultimately a mystery however we do know that upon seeing it Nintendo deemed that the violence was too realistic compared to other games therefore production seized in 2007. this was something that at the the time never really made much noise and perhaps that's because in the shadows Nintendo Was preparing to drop their biggest bomb yet once sworn enemies now working together Sega and Nintendo had grown quite close beginning in the early 2000s when Sega made their transition to a third-party developer and this found friendship meant that we were now about to have the longtime rivalry of Mario and Sonic settled at the Olympic Games which on paper seemed like a great idea and in terms of dollars generated this was one of the biggest smash hits of the sport series we've ever seen with the combined sales between the Wii and 3DS this game went on to surpass more than 10 million copies sold this was a game that was a collection of 24 events all based on the Olympic Games which that year happened to be hosted in Beijing taking the role of either Nintendo or Sega characters and using the Wiimote to complete actions when playing circuits this game played like a round of Mario Party just you know without the board some aspects of this game were absolutely terrific and others well weren't at all and and unfortunately whether this game had the best gameplay or not it was never really a concern of either Nintendo nor Sega as the incredible sales numbers were enough to strike a long-term deal between the two companies agreeing to bring the franchise to every summer and winter Olympics over the next nine years oh lucky us this locked in deal was something that I don't know it's kind of unfortunate because as a singular Standalone title I feel like this game would have been very fondly remembered however only four years into the nine-year deal not only did sales begin to massively Trend downwards but so did the quality leading to a barrage of games more forgettable than the next and well I'll be mostly passing over the majority of these games due to them sort of falling into their own strange category I do want to say that there are a few hidden gems throughout the series it's it's not all bad it's it's just mostly bad but like come on this series did give us a render of Waluigi with a gun so uh do with that what you wish and during this period Nintendo also introduced a new baseball game titled Mario Super Sluggers and when Nintendo announced this sequel it gave fans of Superstar baseball a reason to be excited I mean what could possibly go better than the Wii's motion controls and baseball not to mention this game like Strikers Charged would now be offering an online multiplayer experience to dive into however upon release the game was met by a little disappointment with some pretty fair criticisms the game had no multiplayer connectivity at all but I mean it did feature a much richer character roster which was a nice upgrade to say the least but the same traditional gameplay left it feeling like not much had really changed now was this a bad thing well for those who missed out on the GameCube version or just simply loved it like I did not at all if we put these games side by side we've essentially got a visually upgraded copy with the same traditional baseball gameplay that doesn't mean it was any less fun and I grew up with the Wii version so it's hard to say anything negative about this game but I do understand where people are coming from the motion controls themselves rather than the same fluidity you get from a game like you know Wii Sports baseball instead here you're sort of forced to use these like almost snap flick controls leaving the game to feel almost like more of a port than a fresh Wii revamp and if you had opted to get Sluggers or charged versus the original GameCube release you would probably think the lesser of the GameCube version I mean obviously they were just sharper remasters but after the Olympic game franchise began to fall Brick by Brick with each new release that followed it still did sort of feel like we were on a downward Trend in terms of quality almost like these games were not being given a rightful chance to one-up the games that came before them and if you can't beat him you might as well join him right in 2009 rather than taking the Mario Power Tennis that we had and giving it a quick little spit shine to release as a standalone title Nintendo decided to invite Camelot back once again to assist with a Wii Port of the GameCube game from 2004. this time adding a shiny new new play control sticker on the box resulting in something that I don't know it's fine I guess rather than a seamless experience like Wii Sports tennis this game sort of feels like eating sandpaper taking the original GameCube buttons and just mapping them to different motion controls on the Wii Remote and like I'm not mad about it I get why they did it with Wii Sports being the shiny new face of the Golf and Tennis series Nintendo didn't exactly need Camelot to bring another one of these games to the console and that didn't mean that Camelot wouldn't they just did it without Mario as we love golf developed and partnered with Capcom released anyways now Mario Tennis was far from the only victim here as this new play control series would go on to Port Donkey Kong Jungle Beat Metroid and a couple of Pikmin games however there was some in here that felt like they would actually benefit from the motion control experience but just as you'd expect due to a lack of fresh content this new series wasn't met with the greatest reception but I mean you know it's fine but if you're gonna put Mario Tennis on the Wii why don't you just put Mario Tennis on the Wii 20 11 would deliver what could potentially be seen as the most polarizing game in the entire Sports series teaming up with Square Enix Mario Sports Mix offered a mix of 4 Sports basketball hockey volleyball and dodgeball this is one of those games that um definitely released in 2011 after Super Sluggers I mean you could almost see the world of Mario Sports beginning to slope downwards with the lag in releases felt like we had hit this awkward stage in exactly what was going on here Mario Sports Mix sort of clocks in as a third wheel to the sports series like on a console that has Wii Sports Sports Resort Mario party as well as a plethora of other sports minigames in the Olympic series aside from playing this with a group of friends for something I don't know fresh to get into this game just didn't serve a huge purpose on the console it's almost always the recipe with these multi-sports games that rather than getting one good Rich experience spending time between four different sports leaves you with four experiences that are all right I guess for like an hour and that's not to say that the game is bad but I just don't look back on it with fond memories Sports Mix sort of served as like the final straw that would break the camel's back here as this released right before we would see this series take a nosedive directly into the toilet but while fans like myself were still rolling around in the filth of what this series had become Camelot wasted no time announcing that a new iteration of Mario Tennis was now under development this time a handheld experience for the 3DS would be making its way to us and just when you got your hopes up Camelot ran in there with their bare hand blazing and slapped those nuts of yours immediately players were met with a wave of disillusionment now whether or not this was due to expectations being set by players who had been longing for a classic RPG experience is sort of Up For Debate but like at the same time Camelot you set the Expectations by making the greatest single player experience of all time you can't just get rid of them and then play the victim the ones feature-rich RPG game that everybody had grown to love was now stripped down to the bare minimum which I mean wasn't terrible right it was still tennis just with a lot more disappointment the way that this game handled items and collectibles was also something that I found a lot of complaints about not allowing the majority of playable characters to even be customized was a huge letdown in itself and to make matters worse the most advanced customization you could achieve was solely with me characters meaning if you wanted to upgrade a Mario character that you had grown familiar with you were now on the outside looking in Mario Tennis Open wasn't quite the triumphant return to the series that fans had been yearning for but a silver lining in the burning dumpster fire of Mario sports games was Camelot and Nintendo's next joint venture only a decade since the last Mario Golf release the boys at Camelot were back in town with a surprise announcement that to be honest I don't think anyone was too excited for at this point this time a new portable release of Mario Golf was coming to a 3DS near you and despite continuing Mario Tennis opens emphasis on me characters world tour succeeded in delivering a fulfilling single-player experience that was distinctly lacking in previous titles diving into the castle club with that monstrosity of a thing you call a me this was a game that actually started to give fans a glimpse of hope that perhaps the future wouldn't be so bad after all but those dreams came to just a crushing end really fast as the landscape was nowhere near as bright on the Home console front apart from the Mario and Sonic Olympic series that I'm not talking about any further because it raises my blood pressure actually you know what let's talk about them they're bad the Wii U which launched in 2012 was largely overlooked in the Mario Sports realm this scenario shifted three years later with the appearance of Mario Tennis Ultra smash however if Mario Tennis Open had left fans wanting more in terms of its roster and modes Ultra smash was an outright disaster but was it this way intentionally or did Camelot really miss the mark this hard you see throughout the history of every console that we've looked at Mario Golf and Mario Tennis seem to release hand in hand as a pair together but for Ultra smash we only had tennis now there's a working Theory with the late stage Wii U releases such as animal crossing amiibo Fest and Mario Tennis Ultra smash at the time of these releases I think it was clear to everyone that the Wii U was no longer going to be a viable platform for Nintendo therefore with these games already in development well where do you go from here you take what you have slap it on the market and wash your hands of it and while the game isn't good the lack of content in itself is a bizarre issue like there's one singular Court virtually one game mode and an extremely limited character roster this was more of a tech demo than a game now I can't knock it for its visuals I mean this game looked damn good but it just so happened to be the absolute rock bottom of the Mario Sports Series so let's move on if it's even possible in 2017 Camelot and Namco collaborated to produce Mario Sports Superstars for the 3DS again diving into the multi-sport formula this game presented four globally acclaimed sports baseball soccer tennis golf and oh you gotta be kidding me with this Mario Sports Superstars not only utilize Nintendo's amiibo figures like Ultra smash did but it also introduced its own unique line of amiibo cards which expedited the process of unlocking Superstar versions of each characters but I just want to know was anyone actually asking for this just to make matters worse the assets used in the cards were existing models taken from other games this should really just serve as a reminder to the level of laziness that we were experiencing here the game's tennis and golf sections were pleasantly familiar closely resembling Mario Tennis Open and Mario Golf World Tour the three other sports presented by Superstars were good enough adaptations of their real-life versions delivering some alright gameplay I mean I don't know it's Mario and a horse what else do you want here this game feels like eating a cardboard box the characters look more on edge than the cast of Nicktoons MLB the literal drowning animations in Mario 64 have more charm than this entire game the entire experience just leads me to ask like what did we do as fans to deserve something like this if there was anything that could restore this series it was the Nintendo switch the switch just felt like the perfect slump Buster not only for Nintendo coming off the ice cold Wii U but for a library of games that missed out on a console revamp that the Wii U failed to provide and if there was any two games that we could rely on to finally dig our way out of this it was gonna be the classic Mario Tennis and Mario Golf Now look breaking into the switch era and even long before there was always this preconceived notion around the Mario Sports series that nobody in their right mind was picking these games up looking for a single player Adventure even dating back to 2004 this was being openly discussed Nintendo and the third party teams have always approached development this way with a heavy focus on multiplayer and up until now I've never really had a problem with this although I am someone who loves a good little challenge mode whether that's via a Mario Baseball journey to beat all the Rival teams and grow your squad or even something as simple as competing in tournaments to Duke it out with those robots in the original Strikers like I'm not picky I just want something but as these games began taking steps away from that style it wasn't something that you know upset me too much but the looming problem that seems to be standing over the Nintendo switch era of games is that the online multiplayer has become the only priority that we see in these games which in turn has constantly left other areas to pay the price that prioritizing that online multiplayer costs and a game that paid that price was none other than 2018's Mario Tennis Aces visually stunning with what is an obvious Step Up in gameplay from Ultra smash this game is far from what I would consider to be a bad game especially if we're talking Mario Sports here not by a long shot the only disappointing part here is that it almost feels as if Mario Tennis Ace has found a different and new way to fail once you've completed the fun but rather quick Adventure Mode that offers not only tennis matches but arcade-like mini-games there isn't much waiting for you beyond online tournaments or general multiplayer the offline tournaments compared to games like Mario Power Tennis are quite a letdown there's no big prize like unlocking characters or unique stages instead the reward is just like a half-hearted pat on the back now I don't want to sit here and just list all of the negatives there's a lot of positives to be brought to light here if nothing else I mean this game's fun when was the last time that we could even say that about a Mario sports game so if you're a person who has friends and actually has been outside in the last few years this is probably a game that you'll enjoy once you've completed what there is to complete there isn't really much to keep you here then came the 2021 Camelot collaboration presenting us with a new entry in the Mario Golf series but this game suffered even more from a lack of content compared to Mario Tennis launching with a total of six golf courses four of which were locked from the get-go being greeted by two courses was not the best look and of course this game fell under some heavy criticism immediately although unlike Aces this at least gave you something to strive towards I guess and while the game did add more courses via updates the only unlockable items were additional golf clubs since characters were just given out for free as DLC the adventure mode upon first glance seems like a promising way to start off here greeted by a somewhat open World experience your character levels up and you get to dabble in some new gear however as quickly as that excitement takes you over it leaves almost faster once you realize that this mode is just nothing more than a glorified tutorial that aims to show off everything that's featured here for you therefore losing its charm pretty quickly and almost feeling like more of a burden to get through rather than a joy like the old RPG styled games both speed and battle golf are kind of cool I mean I'll give them that Nintendo's approach seemed to be pushing out games quickly only to build upon them with these later updates and even though these updates were free this trend in game development is concerning to say the least it's as if games are being released incomplete only to justify their Hefty price tags once the post-launch updates have arrived and the player base has already disappeared therefore when I heard that one of my all-time favorites would be hitting the switch I genuinely didn't care and upon purchasing it second hand the game suffers the exact same issues common in all the others but the way that I see these games they're the same caliber or potentially less than the majority of free-to-play games which feels so disappointing to say out loud but like can you blame me at this point we're long past the point where things like these are happening as accidents or games can be classified as One Bad Apple in a great series given the pattern that we've seen on the switch and even for years prior everything taking place is based on very deliberate decisions from Nintendo's part the bizarre live service model is simply A system that the core fans are not responding well to the Casual fans like myself are almost always at least slightly disappointed and even the more hardcore competitive fans who are solely in these games for the multiplayer experience are now opting for netplay Via dolphin and taking alternative routes just to get their Sports fix and I think what adds so much frustration here for me is that we know Nintendo has the means to bring a terrific Mario soccer game to life here but these games in general are just simply missing the mark from the standard that they once held themselves to if you would have handed me Strikers and told me it sported a zero dollar price tag and a monthly battle pass I wouldn't have been surprised at all the recent series of games at least feels inspired by the free-to-play design and if Nintendo continues pushing Slimmer and Slimmer sports games this is really the only way that would make this Fair on each end but in contrast to that fans of the sport series are coming into these games expecting a complete experience out the gate therefore there is risk for Nintendo on both sides of this coin however in reality the final piece of salt in this wound is that these games are continuously hitting ridiculously high sales numbers despite the immense lack of content so a switch to a free to play strategy would never happen but at the very least some form of changes in order for the sports series to regain the magic it once had

Channel: Maedon

Views: 164,612

Keywords: MarioSports, Mario Tennis, Mario Strikers, Mario baseball, What went wrong Mario, Mario downfall, Nintendo downfall, Mario Sports Iceberg, Mario sports downfall, Mario Battle league, the fall of mario sports games, worst mario sports games, mario64, scott the woz, izzyzzz, caddicarus, beta64, vintendo

Id: nzuC4z1np88

Length: 43min 30sec (2610 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 17 2023