Mario Sports Superstars

Genre: Compilation / Sports (Various)

Players: 1-6 Competitive / Team Competitive (Local Wireless / Online)

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Review:

Mario Sports Superstars, released on the Nintendo 3DS in 2017, is a family-friendly compilation of five different sports: Soccer, Baseball, Tennis, Golf, and… er, Horse Racing. The contained sports are largely kept separate within the game, though in each one players can earn coins to spend on in-game cards that can be used within the games for aesthetic changes.

Here is what I thought of each of the games in this collection:

Game	Genre	# of Players	Grade
Soccer	Sports (Soccer)	1-4 Team Competitive (Local Wireless) / 2 Competitive (Online)	B-
tl;dr This is a solid game of soccer, though it’s not without a few flaws. Automatic character-swapping is jarring, and the enemy AI has a few issues. However, overall this is a solid version of the sport.
Baseball	Sports (Baseball)	1-2 Competitive (Local Wireless) / 2 Competitive (Online)	C+
tl;dr This is a pretty decent game of Baseball, but pitching and batting are fairly simple, and there’s no control over outfielding. Far from a truly great version of the sport, but a decent one despite its flaws.
Tennis	Sports (Tennis)	1-4 Team Competitive (Local Wireless) / 2 Competitive (Online)	B+
tl;dr The gameplay in this version of Tennis is pretty much copy-pasted from Mario Tennis Open, which is to say it controls great. There’s not as much variety as in that game, but it doesn’t fall very short of it either. Definitely a highlight of this Compilation.
Golf	Sports (Golf)	1-4 Competitive (Local Wireless / Online)	B
tl;dr The gameplay in this version of Golf is pretty much copy-pasted from Mario Golf: World Tour, which is to say that it’s impeccable, with a lot of nuance and solid controls. It’s just a shame that there are so few courses to play on.
Horse Racing	Racing	1-6 Competitive (Local Wireless / Online)	B-
tl;dr This is a fairly unique racing game, where players must not only race well, but do a good job of managing their horse’s stamina throughout the race. It’s fairly simple, but satisfying… though there are sadly a lack of courses.

The short version is – there aren’t really any weak games in this Compilation. Baseball is probably the worst of the bunch, but even that sport is still enjoyable here despite its shortcomings. Meanwhile, each of the other included sports here would be perfectly sufficient to form the basis for its own game – they’re all pretty solid in terms of gameplay. In fact, Golf and Tennis are pretty much just scaled-down versions of the 3DS entries in the Mario Golf and Mario Tennis franchises, and while Golf suffers from a lack of course variety, Mario Tennis doesn’t lose much in this version – you’re not getting much less here than you get in Mario Tennis Open.

However, otherwise there is very little here truly excels when it comes to the amount of content in this game. Each of the included sports only has three locations plus a fourth unlockable. And while some extra variety is added by having events take place at different times of day or different areas within the given location (in sports like Golf and Horse Racing), it’s still hard to feel like each of these Sports is limited by not being expanded into its own full game. There’s not anything in the way of extra features or minigames for these sports either, save for tutorials for each sport.

In addition, players expecting wacky items like you might see in Mario spin-offs will largely be disappointed. The physics in the included sports may be a bit cartoony, but beyond that these are fairly straightforward versions of the sports in question.

While the individual sports here may be somewhat feature-poor, they are all absolutely gorgeous on the Nintendo 3DS, lovingly-rendered with wonderfully-detailed 3D visuals, excellent animation, great use of color, good lighting… Mario Sports Superstars is a truly beautiful game. What’s more, the sound design here is excellent too, with good sound effects for all of the sports, and great environmental sounds. The one area of the presentation I would say this game doesn’t truly excel is the music, which is decent enough and fits the tone of the game, but isn’t particularly memorable.

One other issue to note here. As I write this review in 2022, I should point out that at this point you shouldn’t expect to find anyone to play against online. While I encountered a few stragglers, for the most part the online lobbies for this game are empty.

Overall, I think Mario Sports Superstars succeeds at what it’s trying to do – create solid versions of each of the five included sports that each play well, and look fantastic. They’re all sadly lacking in features and content, but I suppose that’s the tradeoff you get for variety. As such, I don’t think you can be too disappointed in this game’s failings. What it does well, it does very well. I’d say that if you’re a sports fan with a Nintendo 3DS, this game is well worth adding to your collection.

tl;dr – Mario Sports Superstars is a Compilation of five different Sports: Soccer, Baseball, Tennis, Golf, and Horse Racing. All of the included sports play well and look and sound fantastic. However, they’re also all feature-poor and lacking content. Overall, this is still a great package, but each of the sports included here feels like it might have benefitted from simply expanding it into a full game.

Grade: B

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