Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 – The Official Videogame

Genre: Compilation / Sports (Various) / Minigame Collection

Players: 1-2 Competitive (Local), 2-4 Competitive / Team Competitive (Local Wireless), 2-8 Competitive / Team Competitive (Online)

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Review:

Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 is the 2020 edition in a long line of family friendly Summer Olympics sports games, and in fact the second of two 2020 Olympics games from Sega, with the other game having Mario and Sonic headlining the event. This game, alternately, aims for a slightly more realistic depiction of the events, with the game itself being something of a Minigame Collection of various games based on different Sports within the Olympics. Amusingly, these two separate Olympics videogames represent a year that never saw an Olympics event, with the event’s competitions delayed into 2021 due to covid.

The presentation in Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 is a bit of a mixed bag. On the one hand, the menus are polished, and the character designs are good… but some players may be turned off by the way the game makes competitors look like young kids, and there’s a distinct lack of detail in the environments, with some ugly textures in some places. Having said that, there are some nice effects here – in particular, the water in swimming events looks excellent, and the lighting in the Tennis event is wonderful… but this is offset by some absolutely nasty aliasing, long load times, and some surprisingly horrendous lag in the game’s menus (though not during the gameplay, as far as I could tell). This is paired with voice clips that are decent but nothing distinct or memorable, and music that seems appropriately fitting for the Olympic setting, but nothing inspiring or memorable, either. Like I said, a mixed bag.

As for the gameplay, let’s start by looking at all of the game’s included 18 minigames. If we were to treat each of these included minigames as its own separate game, here’s how I would rate each:

Game	Genre	# of Players	Grade
4x 100m Relay	Sports (Running)	1-2 Team Competitive (Local Alternating / Local Split-Screen), 2-4 Team Competitive (Local Wireless, Alternating), 2-8 Team Competitive (Online, Alternating)	C-
tl;dr This game calls for some nuance in the timing of its button presses that’s hard to get down. If it wasn’t for this tricky timing, this would be a pretty simple minigame. It’s not especially fun, but I don’t see how you’d make a more interesting version of this sport.
100m	Sports (Running)	1-2 Competitive (Local), 2-4 Competitive (Local Wireless), 2-8 Competitive (Online)	C-
tl;dr A simple version of this event, but not as simple as it could be, combining timing, fast button presses, and a Simon Says-like response. It’s still far too shallow to be very engaging on its own, but it makes for a decent enough distraction to add variety to the overall package.
100m Freestyle	Sports (Swimming)	1-2 Competitive (Local Split-Screen), 2-4 Competitive (Local Wireless), 2-8 Competitive (Online)	C
tl;dr An interesting combination of timing, rhythm elements, and “Simon Says” elements. This event is brief, but varied enough to be more interesting than it initially appears.
110m Hurdles	Sports (Running)	1-2 Competitive (Local Split-Screen), 2-4 Competitive (Local Wireless), 2-8 Competitive (Online)	C-
tl;dr Very simple – tap B as fast as possible and press up on the analog stick when you’re at a hurdle. Not horrible, but dull.
200m Individual Medley	Sports (Swimming)	1-2 Competitive (Local Split-Screen), 2-4 Competitive (Local Wireless), 2-8 Competitive (Online)	C
tl;dr This event has you switching it up between different analog stick motions while trying to be mindful of stamina across the entire event. A surprisingly interesting and nuanced take on the event, but still somewhat lacking in depth.
Baseball	Sports (Baseball)	1-2 Team Competitive (Local Alternating), 2-4 Team Competitive (Local Wireless, Alternating), 2-8 Team Competitive (Online, Alternating)	C
tl;dr A highly simplified version of the sport, reduced to just pitching and batting, with that reduced to the pitcher trying to outwit the batter where and when the ball will go. It’s not a terrible version of the sport, but it’s lacking in depth.
Basketball	Sports (Basketball)	1-2 Team Competitive (Local), 2-4 Team Competitive (Local Wireless), 2-8 Team Competitive (Online)	D
tl;dr At least in theory this is a decent, simplified version of the sport, but in practice the controls to aim your pass simply don’t work, the stealing mechanic either doesn’t work or is poorly explained, the AI players are incredibly dumb and just stand there while you score points off of them, the players move in ways that don’t match where you tell them to go, and the automatic player-swapping is too slow when you want it to happen and extremely disorienting when it finally does. In short, this minigame is absolutely loaded with problems.
Beach Volleyball	Sports (Volleyball)	1-2 Team Competitive (Local), 2-4 Team Competitive (Local Wireless), 2-4 Team Competitive (Online)	B
tl;dr This is an excellent simplified version of the sport. In fact, while it’s not as deep as most volleyball games I’ve played, I can’t remember the last volleyball game I’ve played that was this fun.
BMX	Offroad Bike Racing	1-2 Competitive (Local Split-Screen), 2-4 Competitive (Local Wireless), 2-8 Competitive (Online)	C+
tl;dr This is a fun, simple racing game. Like many of the games here, it lacks depth, but its biggest flaw is the lack of variety in courses. Still, for what it is, it’s pretty enjoyable.
Boxing	Sports (Boxing)	1-2 Competitive (Local), 2 Competitive (Local Wireless), 2 Competitive (Online)	D
tl;dr This version of boxing has you using the two sticks for left and right punches. There are controls for dodging and blocking too, but you’ll never use them, as it’s far more effective to keep waggling the sticks to “button mash” your way to victory.
Football	Sports (Soccer)	1-2 Team Competitive (Local), 2-4 Team Competitive (Local Wireless), 2-8 Team Competitive (Online)	D+
tl;dr This would actually be a pretty good version of soccer if players weren’t so sluggish to change direction, and if the game didn’t have the same issue with automatic player swapping that this game’s version of Basketball has. As a result, what could have been a great game becomes an unnecessarily frustrating one.
Hammer Throw	Sports (Misc.)	1-2 Competitive (Local Alternating), 2-4 Competitive (Local Wireless Alternating), 2-8 Competitive (Online Alternating)	C-
tl;dr Hold down L and R, rotate the left analog stick, and release the L and R buttons at the right time for a good throw. This is pretty simple, but it’s hard to do much with the hammer throw, I suppose.
Judo	Sports (Misc.)	1-2 Team Competitive (Local, Alternating), 2-4 Team Competitive (Local Wireless, Alternating), 2-4 Team Competitive (Online, Alternating)	C+
tl;dr Judo is a lot more simple than it initially appears, but its simplicity makes for a fun contest where you need to take into account your stamina when trying to outfox the opponent in a sort of tug-of-war. Not deep enough to keep you entertained for long, but not bad.
Long Jump	Sports (Misc.)	1-2 Competitive (Local Alternating), 2-4 Competitive (Local Wireless Alternating), 2-8 Competitive (Online Alternating)	D+
tl;dr Repeatedly tap the B button, then time a 45-degree angle push of the left analog stick, with all of this contributing to your jump. This is extremely simple (and physically exhausting), but it’s hard to do much with this event, I suppose.
Rugby Sevens	Sports (Rugby)	1-2 Team Competitive (Local), 2-4 Team Competitive (Local Wireless), 2-8 Team Competitive (Online)	C
tl;dr This version of the sport (for the uninitiated, Rugby is sorta’ like American Football) is mostly pretty decent, but suffers the same jarring issue of automatic character swapping as the other team sports games in this compilation.
Sport Climbing	Sports (Misc.)	1-2 Competitive (Local Split-Screen), 2 Competitive (Local Wireless), 2 Competitive (Online)	C
tl;dr This minigame basically has you trying to input the correct angle on the analog stick as quickly as you can. Not bad, but nothing particularly great either.
Table Tennis	Sports (Table Tennis)	1-2 Competitive / Team Competitive (Local Split-Screen), 2-4 Competitive / Team Competitive (Local Wireless), 2-4 Competitive / Team Competitive (Online)	D
tl;dr This version of Table Tennis is so simple you barely need to think to play it – hold left stick to move, hold right stick to hit all incoming shots in the designated direction. No need for timing, and as long as you stay close to the table and near the middle, you’ll return pretty much every shot. In other words, this minigame is broken.
Tennis	Sports (Tennis)	1-2 Competitive / Team Competitive (Local), 2-4 Competitive / Team Competitive (Local Wireless), 2-4 Competitive / Team Competitive (Online)	B-
tl;dr This is a very good simple game of Tennis. Unfortunately, the lack of a lob button robs this game of depth to be truly great. Also, the AI players are absolutely hopeless. However, if you’re playing against a human opponent, this is a pretty fun minigame.

In short, we have a few games that probably would have never been good fodder for a videogame but are included here seemingly out of obligation (the running and swimming events), team sports games that are made worse by frustrating automatic character-swapping, some games that are outright broken or pointless (Boxing, Long Jump, Table Tennis), and a few games that are genuinely fun, but lacking the depth or variety that would have made them truly compelling (Tennis, Beach Volleyball, BMX, Baseball).

Tennis and Beach Volleyball in particular are a reminder that Sega used to be on top of the world when it came to developing Sports games, and I absolutely believe that if they really put a solid effort into making a new game in the Virtua Tennis series, they could still put to shame every other game in the genre… but those dreams will have to remain in the realm of pure speculation, because in this Compilation, anything resembling true depth or variety was seemingly forbidden. Even something as common-sense as a variety of tracks in the BMX Minigame or a variety of climbing walls in Sport Climbing was apparently too much of an ask for this game.

Another inexplicable omission here? Local 4-player support. All of the games in this collection support 2 players locally, but this game won’t support any more than that, even in games where it would have made perfect sense and it wouldn’t have required additional split-screens, like Tennis, Volleyball, and all of the team sports. To play with more than 4 players in those or any other games, you either need to resort to local wireless play, or online play. For the latter, don’t get your hopes too high for a match with a random stranger at this point – there are still a few people hanging around on this game’s servers, but their numbers are dwindling.

Also, if you thought that this game would be a good opportunity for some creative use of the touchscreen or gyroscopic motion control, think again – neither feature is used here. Most of the included games are designed to be played using one analog stick and one button (with a few games using one extra button and/or an extra analog stick). However, don’t expect to play this game using a single Joy-Con – you need two per person or a Pro Controller, despite the mostly simple control scheme.

In the end, there are hints of brilliance in Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 – the Tennis, Volleyball, and BMX games could have been truly killer games if expanded upon, and the Baseball game is a fun take on the sport if you whittled the game down to only pitching and batting. Unfortunately, it’s hard to see this game as anything but a mess of compromises to fit the requirements of being an Olympics game – rather than developing the great minigames here into something truly special, we had to get serviceable versions of other Olympics games that probably wouldn’t have ever been anything more than a mildly-amusing distraction. On top of that, the presentation is a mix of great and terrible elements as well. And all the good multiplayer Party Game potential here is undone by the lack of local 4-player support. In short, the good and bad here more or less balance each other out, making this package a wash.

tl;dr – Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 is a family-friendly Compilation of 18 different Minigames based on various Summer Olympics sports. Both the presentation and the games themselves are very uneven here – the character designs look great (but childish), but the environments are mostly unimpressive. The multiplayer potential here is strong, but the game inexplicably only supports 2 players locally. And games like Tennis and Volleyball had a lot of potential, but suffer from a lack of depth and variety, likely due to time having to be devoted to obligatory sports like all the running and swimming events. Overall, this entire game is a mix of good and bad elements, and while it certainly has its bright spots, its flaws make it difficult to recommend.

Grade: C

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