Mario & Sonic at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games

Genre: Sports (Various) / Minigame Collection / RPG

Players: 1-4 Competitive / Team Competitive (Local Wireless), Download Play Supported

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Review:

Mario & Sonic at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games is a Summer Olympics-themed Minigame Collection with some RPG elements released on the Nintendo 3DS in 2016, with a different game bearing the same title releasing on the Wii U the same year. Where previous games in this franchise included either short minigames for the included sports or smaller “microgame”-style games, this release sorta’ has a combination of the two, with events like Football (Soccer) and Golf playing like simple but full versions of those sports, while other minigames in this collection can be completed within 10-20 seconds.

With this being the case, I won’t be individually grading the minigames in this collection, and instead focus on only the best and worst of the lot. This game focuses mainly on 14 different Olympic-style sporting events, with 14 “Plus” variants of those events that play like more silly, cartoony versions of the events. However, that’s not to say that those are the only sports represented in this game – the game’s campaign mode, “Road to Rio”, actually contains numerous other minigames based on a variety of events, but for some reason those events are not mirrored in the game’s other modes.

The meatiest of these events are Golf and Football, and those events take up a fittingly larger portion of the minigame menus because of this. Golf is a touchscreen-focused version of the sport that plays very differently from the Mario Golf games on the Nintendo 3DS, and I think the way it uses the touchscreen to measure shot accuracy and power is really smart, and the mechanics overall are superb. The only problem? There are only 18 holes, and I really wish this was expanded into a full game. What’s more, the “Plus” variant of Golf uses different scoring rules, and includes a variety of “wacky” courses, in a way that seems perfectly suited to a Mario Golf-style game… but alas, there are only nine of these holes. Seriously, why isn’t this expanded into a full game?

Football, meanwhile, is a solid but somewhat tame take on that sport, with good mechanics, but nothing extraordinary. The “Plus” variant adds in a mechanic that gives players random power-ups when they’ve had possession of the ball for a while, which is a nice addition, but I wish players had a bit more agency over this mechanic.

Some of the other minigames here, simple though they are, are really fun in a limited fashion. Beach Volleyball is an adequate but simple version of the sport, but the “Plus” version makes things more interesting by adding a “tic-tac-toe” element that really adds to the strategy. Archery makes good use of the Nintendo 3DS’s gyroscopic motion control, and the “Plus” version has the good idea to add moving targets… but the lack of variety is disappointing. Boxing is a decent but simple strategic competition, but the “Plus” version’s added power-ups often only serve to split players up as they go back to their corners to collect them. BMX is a really fun racing game… with only one track (and one “Plus” track). Gymnastics is a great Music-Rhythm game… with only three songs.

Perhaps you see a running theme here? The best parts of this game really feel like they needed to be expanded on with more content. What’s here is good, but there’s not enough of it. Meanwhile, the short minigames here aren’t quite short enough to be strung together in a WarioWare-style “microgame” rapid-fire mode, meaning the shortest minigames here just seem like they’re taking up space that could be devoted to another game in the collection. Seriously, has a 100m sprint minigame ever been fun in one of these?

Then of course you have the less-successful minigames. 100m does very little to make that event interesting. Table Tennis seems to make aiming pointless, boiling the sport down to largely timing. And Equestrian is just a terrible racing game with poor controls and no sense of speed.

Having said that, I do credit this game for doing something smart with its campaign – instead of following the London 2012 game and trying to make a disposable story about the heroes trying to foil the villains’ plot by playing sports well, this game’s campaign, Road to Rio, actually puts players into a Sports RPG much in the same vein as games like Golf Story and the original Mario Golf on Game Boy Color. This is a wonderful idea, and it helps to tie together the various games that otherwise would just see players favoring only the minigames they like the most.

Another clever thing Rio 2016 does is its Pocket Marathon mode, which lets players put the game into sleep mode to earn points for the Road to Rio mode by walking with their Nintendo 3DS, using the handheld’s functionality as a pedometer in a way that makes perfect sense within the context of the game.

Finally, I have to applaud this game for including download play for its multiplayer local wireless mode – this way all you need to do to play with friends is make sure everyone has their own Nintendo 3DS. The lack of online play is a bit disappointing, but I suppose soon enough that will be a moot point, anyway.

One more element I should discuss here is the presentation, and it’s really uneven. Some elements of the game, like the various Mario and Sonic characters, look great, featuring tons of detail and excellent animation. And the courses in the Golf portion of the game look quite nice too. However, backgrounds in other parts of the game can leave a lot to be desired, especially anywhere you can see the crowds, which are blurry, poorly-animated cardboard cutouts. All of this is backed by nice-sounding “inspirational” music that gets extremely repetitive before long. Oh, also, the sound effects in this game seem a lot more muted than they usually are in Mario spin-offs like this, with the characters far less talkative than usual.

I’ll make note of one other odd choice this game makes that detracts from the enjoyment somewhat. As with London 2012 on the Nintendo 3DS, players are limited in which characters they can select based on the event they choose. At least this time, the game has the good sense to make Mario and Sonic themselves available for all events, but players wanting to play through the entire run of events as Luigi, Peach, Tails, or any other specific character are in for disappointment.

All things considered, Mario & Sonic at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games has some really strong elements, some not-so-great elements, an overall lack of content, and a great campaign mode to tie them together. If ever the term “mixed bag” seemed appropriate, it was here. There are many parts of this game that would be absolutely phenomenal if expanded into a full game, but I can’t review the game(s) that I wish this was, I have to review the game as it is. At the very least the excellent campaign mode and local wireless download play help to prop up this game’s better elements and cover for some of its worse ones. Overall, if you’re a Nintendo 3DS owner who enjoys Mario Sports games, I’d say this is worth a look.

tl;dr – Mario & Sonic at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games is a Summer Olympics-themed Minigame Collection, and this is really a mixed bag. It’s got a great Golf game that’s sadly content-poor, a solid Soccer game that’s a bit too simple, and a slew of other minigames ranging in quality. Sadly, what’s good is invariably shallow or short on content. At the very least, this game’s solid campaign mode and decent local multiplayer make it worth playing if you’re a Nintendo 3DS owner who enjoys Mario sports titles.

Grade: C+

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