If soccer is the beautiful game then Super Mario Strikers has given it a black eye with its fierce five-a-side action.
You’ll be wincing by how brutal the five-a-side action gets, as bone-crunching tackles clatter your opponent and high-pitched screams fill the stadium as you barge Peach into the electrified sides. Every time you foul a player without the ball they get a power-up, which can then be used to assist their attack or scupper yours. They do the same to you and you can get your hands on a bomb, some banana skins and various shells. It means the action remains fast and frantic and at times the pace and aggression on display is so intense that it feels more like an ice-hockey game than a football match. And then, if that wasn’t vicious enough, Bowser invades the pitch and decides to cause havoc, crushing players underfoot and breathing fire. Well, better that than streaking, we suppose.
Perhaps the violence is overdone to the extent of being over the top. Tackling can be too powerful and multiplayer matches become boring, bitty battles with few chances to score goals. It’s not fun. Either you have to be disciplined enough not to use it or instead you’ll team up with your mates to take on the computer in the cup competitions. This is far more entertaining and seems to allow for more flowing, attacking play. It’s really satisfying bombing down the wing, whipping the perfect cross in to see your team mate finish the move with a smart overhead kick. There’s also far more room for tactics to come into play, as you clear enough space for your star player to attempt a Super Strike.
Ah yes, the Super Strike. This is where the team captain, inspired by the likes of Shaolin Soccer, attempts an outrageous and powerful shot on goal that, if successful, counts as two goals. To do it, you need enough space and time to hold down B to shoot when a gauge appears on screen. If you get your timing right and put the meter in the green on the left hand side your shot will definitely stun the keeper, allowing a player to snap up the rebound and punt the ball into an empty net. Do it right on the right and it will beat the keeper. Get them both in the green and, after an explosion of colour and the panning round of the camera, the ball fizzes into the net, taking the goalie with it. Hilarious, though it can soon become routine once you get your timing right on a regular basis. Some have bemoaned how this makes the game unbalanced but the move can easily be stopped with a well-timed tackle.
Super Mario Strikers creates the conundrum – how do you make a Mario game not feel like a Mario game? On the one hand you have the easy to get into controls and the trademark tricks and flicks, which are very much a part of the part-time plumber’s sports titles. But then you have a lot of jarring features as well: some of the aggression is a bit too much and the players seem to act a bit out of character (if you can even dare to suggest Waluigi has ‘character’). The game suffers from ugly and bland menus, dull stadiums, an unlockable team of robots that seem to have been lifted from a different game entirely and a frame rate that has more than the occasional hiccup. It seems to lack the polish a lot of Nintendo games have. It’s also pretty short – there aren’t that many cups or characters to play with.
In one player Super Mario Strikers can be pretty tame. The game only really livens up with several players, though not all will warm to its gameplan or overzealous tackling. However, even when it does it right it still can’t match the three-and-a-half year old Sega Soccer Slam for humour, variety and entertainment. It’s good but you can’t help but feel it could have been so much more.