Few party games manage to be so frantic while simultaneously rewarding skill so well.
While there aren’t many modes, and they all involve the same basic game, each one is well designed. The simple grudge match lets two teams duke it out for supremacy, keeping a tally of wins. The cup battles (and super cup battles) pit your team (any number of people can play on it) against computer teams in a nicely set up round robin that allows the occasional loss. The big star for parties, however, is the Custom Battles option. Here you can set up any number of teams to face each other either round robin or playoff style. With enough teams, a Custom Battle can go long into the night.
No matter what mode you pick, the game starts by choosing one of eight captains and one of four sidekicks. Every team is comprised of one captain and three sidekicks (all the same). The sidekicks are given the same colour as their captain to avoid confusion. It’s a shame there aren’t more sidekicks to choose from (Goombas and Nokis aren’t here), but it’s a minor detail once you get into the game.
As mentioned, no matter which mode you choose, you’re playing the same basic game. On offense, you can pass with A button and shoot with B. Holding L while you pass shoots. You hold B to charge shots too, if you’ve got enough time. If you manage to charge the captain’s shot for a very long time, a gauge comes up for a “Super Strike” that is worth two goals. It takes two well-timed button presses to pull off a Super Strike; the only way to guarantee one is to hit two green areas that are usually very small and difficult to time. Even when the technique is mastered, it’s pretty hard to get a Super Strike every time, and opportunity won’t come up very often if the other team has solid defense. Most of the time, you’ll probably be doing easier to pull off plays like regular charge shots and Matrix-style one-timers.
The defensive game in Strikers is so well designed, it’s almost as fun to not have the ball. The B button is used for tackling, but there’s no need for that; all you have to know about defense in Strikers is that Y delivers a huge hit to your opponent. There’s a lot of strategy in delivering big hits. If you hit someone to the edge of the playfield, the poor character gets electrified and is unable to play for several seconds. The big hit is so effective that what would normally be a race for a un-possessed ball turns into a more interesting contest to see who can knock-out who on the way to the ball. Big hits are also the key to flooring a would-be receiver of a pass.
To keep things from getting too repetitive, Next Level Games has added a slew of items to Super Mario Strikers. Any player, whether in possession of the ball or not, can use any item that they have to boost their abilities or attack the opposition. Most (not all) attacking items will be automatically aimed at the location of the ball, but they ricochet of the electric walls, which means that anyone who’s not paying attention (including teammates or even the initial thrower of the item) can get it. There’s quite a bit of the variety in the items, including mushrooms (makes you faster), banana peels, bob-ombs, and lots of different shells. Items are often the key to get the ball and knock over the opposition long enough to get out super strikes. They’re given randomly (after good plays), with better items generally going to the losing team, which can feel unfair at times, but the advantage given isn’t as big as, say, Mario Kart. Besides, it takes a considerable amount of skill to use an item properly, and even the weaker ones can be very effective if used at the right time.
Just to add another layer of chaos, Bowser will drop in randomly during the game. He’ll run around breathing fire, occasionally shooting shells and tilting the rink. Sometimes he won’t appear for multiple games on end, only to appear three times in the span of 30 seconds. His appearance can either mar or enhance a game, but it’s always interesting when he drops in. And if your stickler for a more skill-based affair, Bowser can be turned off in the options menu anyway.
Mario and Co, as well as the arenas, look great. They’re wearing proper uniforms this time around. If there’s one complaint, it’s that the animations for Super Strikes and goal celebrations are repeated an awful lot, but the latter can be skipped (but is welcome for a break in the action) and the former causes so much excitement and screaming that the actual animation doesn’t really matter. For better or worse, music doesn’t play during the game, except when Bowser appears or during the sudden death that begins instantly after time is up if the teams are tied. The music is just okay, and runs in the background, which is fair enough since the focus is on the game.
There aren’t any special modes, like Ring Shot modes in Mario Golf and Mario Tennis, or the Toy Field in Mario Baseball, and each of the game’s seven fields (most of which must be unlocked in the cup battles) play similarly with gimmicks, but the main game is just so solid that it can’t be faulted in any meaningful way. A little customization is available from the options menu (including cheats that are unlocked by reaching certain milestones in the Cup Battles) that can be used to tailor the game to your style.
The powerful big hits, variety of shots and multitude of items make Super Mario Strikers a much more strategic game than it appears at first glance, and at the same time, the game is really accessible, fast, varied, and most importantly, fun. If you and your friends with spare time, Super Mario Strikers is well worth the price of admission.