With Mario's 35th anniversary celebration is now in fully swing. But through all the exclusive toys and new game announcements for Mario's 35th, there one aspect of his life that's gone mostly ignored this year; his sporty side. Mario is a fantastic athlete. Over the years, he's had successful forays as a baseball player, a tennis player, a soccer player, a basketball player, and even an Olympic athlete. For as much the Mario franchise has done for the platforming genre, it's done just as much for the sports party-game genre as well.
Mario sports games seemed to hit a peak in the mid-2000's. Titles like Super Mario Strikers, Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour, and Mario Superstar Baseball were all released between 2003 and 2005. Each game would receive a sequel or two, but the series have been dormant ever since. The Mario Tennis series is the only Mario sports series to receive a recent sequel, with the Switch launch title Mario Tennis Aces. But that was released over two years ago. All of these sports series are celebrated by fans, but they haven't received the same type of love from Nintendo.
In place of these standalone sports series, the Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games franchise have taken over as the only Mario sports series, which is disappointing. There isn't anything wrong with the Mario & Sonic series, but they're more like a collection of mini games rather than fun, arcade-style sports games. The fact the Olympics occur every two years has caused an over-saturation of these titles as the games don't vary much between installments. Nintendo fans deserve a chance to play the games that made Mario into the world-renowned Olympic athlete he is. Most of the classic Mario sports titles were released on the GameCube, so finding them today would be nearly impossible and very expensive. This means there's an entire generation of gamers who may have never played Mario Superstar Baseball or Mario Strikers. This is a wrong Nintendo needs to right.
Porting Mario Sports Superstars To The Switch - A Sport Fan's Dream
Creating remastered version of each classic Mario sports game would be a huge cash grab for Nintendo, but it would come with some difficulty. For starters, choosing which games to remaster could be tricky. Some fans prefer GameCube titles, like Super Mario Strikers and Mario Superstar Baseball, while others prefer the Wii versions, Mario Super Strikers and Mario Super Sluggers. The difficulty with remastering Switch versions would be perfecting the games' motion controls with the Joy-cons. Rather than create individual remastered versions of each game, Nintendo could simply port a game that already has them all to the Switch.
Mario Sports Superstars is a sports game collection that released on the 3DS in 2017. The game highlighted each sport Mario is famous for playing; baseball, soccer, golf, and tennis, as well as horseback racing. The game was seen as an enjoyable title by critics, but received mixed reviews due to its underwhelming multiplayer. This largely had to due with the game's limited audience, which seriously held back online play. Porting this title for the Switch would give players the chance to play local and online multiplayer with a much larger player base. Mario Sports Superstars lacks the individual Mario sports titles, like the tech wasteland look of Super Mario Strikers, but it would still give fans a new Mario sports game on the Switch.
There's no telling if Nintendo has any plans for a new, non-Mario & Sonic sports game for the future, but here's hoping there's something in the works. Whether it's a remaster of one of the classics or a new entry in any of the Super Mario sports series, bringing back these long-dormant game concepts is seriously overdue.