Are you ready for a summer of fun? Mario & Sonic at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games may deliver. Just don’t get too excited before we take a closer look at this title and see how much fun you’ll really have.
Mario & Sonic at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games is the fifth in the series of the Mario & Sonic Olympics games, and the third installment of this series’ summer Olympics. It slightly improves over its predecessors, forgoing motion controls and “gimmicky” control styles, yielding more straight-forward gameplay. As expected from an Olympics title, this game is made up of several events from the Rio 2016 Olympics. You will compete in these events, choosing from a roster consisting of characters from both the Super Mario and Sonic the Hedgehog universes, as well as Miis.
On the surface, this is nothing more than a collection of mini-games for you and some friends to play. You simply go to single or multiplayer and choose a sport and your character(s) and play. There is a tournament mode that will open up after you’ve played for a while. In the tournament, you select a Mii and compete against AI-controlled Miis in a chosen event in bracket tournament fashion. Winning tournaments allows you to unlock clothing of varying stats for your Mii and more Mario and Sonic characters. The characters unlocked from tournaments are known as “Guest Characters”, and will be playabale in only one event each. Every event has one guest character. This is rather underwhelming. If one were going to take the time and effort to unlock a character, they would want to be able to play as them in everything the game has to offer, not just a single sport. This seems like a rushed job and a way to include more characters to advertise without actually fully implementing them into the game.
Entering a tournament is somewhat annoying, as only three events are available at a time. These can be swapped for either rings or coins. The type of currency accepted is changed periodically. Rings and coins are acquired essentially by playing events and can also be spent on stamps, which are fine collectibles for anyone who simply likes collectibles or posting on Miiverse.
Now, the events are the real meat of the game. So, let’s talk about the events, shall we?
The sports are broken up into three “main events”: Football, Rugby Sevens, and Beach Volleyball, each with a special variant that adds items, obstacles, and a different point system. These three are the games that have the most volume and have a real classic-sports-video-game feel. And eleven other events that are smaller and quicker games, definitely fitting the mini-game motif. Characters don’t have types such as Speed, Power, or Skill like in previous titles of this series. Instead, all characters have unique stats for all the events. You can expect characters to be consistent with their abilities. For instance, Sonic is always fast and lacks in his other stats. Mario is generally balanced. Bowser has a lot of power, ect.
Football (or soccer depending on where you’re from) is relatively simple. You have a few basic options for strategy before the match, basically choosing which teammates run faster depending on who has the ball. Like all of the events in this game, it’s easy to pick up and play, but doesn’t have a lot of depth for serious players. You can pass, you can shoot, it follows the rules of football, and the goalies occasionally bug out. You can gauge the power of your shots by holding the button down longer and somewhat aim it with the stick.
The special variants, as mentioned earlier, are known as Duel Mode. Duel Football is the same principle, but adds power shots and orbs that you can attack your opponents with, or shoot the ball at a high speed. This is pretty fun if you find the normal football too slow or too bland, and there’s nothing quite like smacking someone in their face with the ball and running right passed them with it. Though, it does still retain its feeling of simplicity.
Rugby Sevens is where it’s at for this title. It’s surprisingly entertaining. From choosing your ideal team, to the tackles and scrums, to the constant struggle of trying to push the ball to your end as it makes its way back and forth through the field. You can choose the positions of the characters and choose between Egg Pawns or Boom Booms for your additional teammates. Nothing bad to say about this one. Just sit down and play it. Even grab a friend.
Duel Rugby Sevens adds item boxes on the field that contain different projectiles to stop your opponents with. It also adds rainbows that you can run through to get a speed boost and power through the opposing team, which will net you additional points. In this case, less is more. These additions mostly water down the overall gameplay and are just plain annoying at times.
Volleyball feels pretty stiff and slow for a volleyball game. Since it’s so slow, there’s isn’t much opportunity to catch your opponent off guard. You just kinda hit the ball back and forth for a while until one of you happens to mess up badly or use one of the special shots, which are very difficult to defend against. Special shots are squares that appear on the court that you have to stand on to use. They make a shot that is very fast or unpredictable to the defender. Almost your entire offensive strategy is dependent on positioning yourself to use these special shots and is just plain lame. The only thing that keeps this event moving at a reasonable pace is playing against the CPU that was clearly made to be stupid, even on the higher difficulties. They will miss shots that any decently skilled player could have easily made. Instead of having a properly balanced gameplay design, there are computers that will throw the game, and it’s pretty obvious.
Duel Volleyball fairs a little better. Item boxes appear on the backs of both sides of the court. When you walk into them, you receive one of many offensive or defensive items. The game still feels relatively slow, but the items help to add a layer of strategy that compensates some of the downfalls Volleyball has in this game. You will need to find the best way and timing to effectively use your items and knock your opponents out at critical moments to score. A barrier will move back and forth under the net that will block item shots, so you can’t simply spam items all willy-nilly. Duel Volleyball isn’t exactly amazing, but it certainly has the potential to provide entertainment for the casual crowd.
Most of the other events, including 100m, Triple Jump, Swimming, 4x100m Relay, and Javelin Throw are comprised of button mashing, timed button presses, or a combination of the two. There’s really nothing exciting about these. It’s hard to imagine anyone going back to play any, or at least most of these.
BMX is a heavily watered-down Mario Kart. Do flips on ramps to get a speed boost. Spin sideways on ramps or grind on rails to fill up your gauge and tap A to go faster and drain your gauge. There is only one track to play on. Not very interesting at all.
Boxing does a good job at making you predict the other boxer’s movements and plan accordingly. A gauge will fill as you fight, and when it’s full, you can unleash a Super Blow which will knock the other boxer down. It can be blocked, so time it properly. Again, it has that feeling of simplicity, which makes it easy to pick up and play, but won’t be engaging for serious players.
Equestrian has you following a track on a horse that runs automatically. Guide the horse left and right and line up with targets on the track, then press and hold A at the right time to run faster with limited ability to turn, and press A on targets in front of hurdles to jump over them. You earn more points the better you line up with these targets and by running for longer durations. You win by earning the most points. Like BMX, there is only one track to play on, but it’s at least fun to play. A variety of tracks really could have helped this event.
Rhythmic Gymnastics is a pretty decent rhythm game. Characters have no stats in this event, leaving it purely up to the player’s skill and the character choice only aesthetic. Press the indicated buttons as rhythm stars flow downward and overlap the line. It comes complete with notes you need to hold and bonus stars that, for a short time, let you hit stars with any button. It can be a good challenge trying to get an A rank on the higher difficulties. There’s four songs to choose from, which is fair for being part of a compilation.
Archery gives you an over-the-shoulder look at some targets. The objective is simple. Shoot the targets, aim for the middle, and get points. Characters stats vary between Arrow Speed, Sight Speed, and Sight Wobble. Arrows will drop more with lower arrow speed, so the amount you need to adjust your aim depends on your character, as well as the wind speed. The first targets are stationary, followed by targets that move horizontally across the range. Even later are targets that get lifted away, leaving the range vertically. There’s many an opportunity to screw up your shots here, making it a real challenge to get a good score. There is one big downside to Archery. There’s no option for aim inversion—really a big oversight there. Anyone who plays inverted will understand the struggle.
Table Tennis… I gotta be honest. I could not figure out how to play this one. I’m usually good at sports games, especially of the Mario variety, but try as a might, I cannot properly hit the ball. I consistently fumble and flub my shots. The CPU seems to have no problem playing, so it must just be me. I can say that it doesn’t seem like it’s as good as something like Mario Tennis, so take that with what you will. There’s no online multiplayer, so I couldn’t get the chance to play against a friend and get their opinion—that brings me to the next point…
There’s no online multiplayer. Nintendo, I love you, sincerely, but you’ve gotta to stop excluding online multiplayer in your first party games, especially a game like this where playing with friends brings out the heart of it. (Okay, I know SEGA technically developed this particular title, but surely Nintendo was supervising). It’s been said a million times by others; there are many people nowadays who don’t have the option to play with friends locally, and would love to play online. This a huge exclusion and because of that, I can’t recommend Mario & Sonic at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games to anyone unless you have local friends willing to play, or you’re just a huge Mario and/or Sonic fan.
Another thing to note is that there is no option to select the characters for computer opponents in any events, which is… okay, but when is the last time you played any head-to-head versus game and you weren’t able to select your computer opponent character? It’s understandable for events that are more or less free-for-alls, but it would have been nice to have this option for 1-on-1 and team sports. It’s not really a game breaker, just a bit lame. Previous Mario & Sonic Olympics games didn’t have this feature, either, but you would think it would be about time to include it.
After all things considered, Mario & Sonic at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games is okay if you’re looking for some cheap entertainment or something to keep your kids busy for a while. All the events are very simple, but effective for those looking for a casual time with friends or just quick game by yourself. Anyone remotely into Mario or Sonic characters can find some fun in this. It’s easy to see kids and even some adults coming back to this, but you may want to question its longevity.
