You can almost TASTE the EDGE.
One of the best things about this game is how EDGY it is. The official art is badass, and everyone looks ANGRY all the time. Because Soccer is serious business. I swear, these characters don't even get as angry as they do here in Smash Bros. And this extends to the game's cinematics, Mario and his usual suspects go HAM after scoring a goal, or, well, getting scored on. Seriously, both teams have a Kremling as a goalie, and sometimes, if they fail to catch the ball they'll throw it, in frustration, against their own teammates!! Pretty much the only character that remains cute-ish are the Shyguys, everyone else knows that Soccer is serious business.
The game is played in teams of fives, each team has a Leader, a Goalie and 3 teammates. The leader role is taken by major Mario characters, such as Mario, Luigi, Peach, Daisy, Donkey Kong, Bowser, Wario or Yoshi, while teammates can be any combination of Hammer Bros, Drybones, Boos, Toads or others like these. It makes for a rather interesting assortment of characters, each with different stats. As you'd have guessed, leaders have more tools at their disposal, but teammates are no slouches. Take, for instance, Boos, who can disappear with the ball for a short while, perfect of scoring goals, or hammer bros who can throw hammers to flatten the goalie before landing a goal.
The game feels good to play. You can pass and shoot the ball, I mean obviously, but you can also perform defensive moves, when you hold the ball, and offensive tackles to steal the ball. Every character has different ways of doing either. For instance, when it comes to dodging, Toads and Peach perform aerial flips with the ball, the mole digs down for a short while and then pops upwards, knocking down would-be ball-robbers, the Hammer Bro shoots a giant hammer downward, pushing away players, etc. It makes for a lot of fun. Every character has a different charged shot as well, which is, expectedly, by holding down the shoot button. The more you pass around the ball before attempting to shoot a goal, the more the ball will charge up, becoming faster and thus harder for the goalie to catch.
Leaders have another tool under their disposal, the MegaStrike. It's very difficult to pull off because you have to charge for a long while and then time two button presses to a gauge, but if you manage to get it off you'll shoot between 3 to 6 balls towards the enemy net. In this case, the player on the defense must enter a first-person minigame in which you must try to swat the incoming balls using the Wiimote's pointer. Not my favorite mechanic, but considering how it's hard to actually get to shoot a Megastrike, it's not too bad.
Any Mario sports game worth its salt has items, and this is no exception. Whenever you are tackled or shoot a semi-charged shoot you'll randomly get an item. From shells to bananas, as well as leader-exclusive abilities. It's sorta chaotic, but fun. Adding to this, the game has many different stadiums, and most of them have some sort of gimmick or obstacles, which is pretty cool. It's a really fun take on soccer.
As for ways to play the game, there's the Striker's Cup, which is the closest thing the game has to a Story Mode, and this is where you unlock characters and stadiums. It's also a pain in the rear. There are three cups, but there are many matches to play before you get a cup. For instance, the first Cup is made up of about 10 matches. Six 'preliminary matches', a match against a rival, and then a best of three against one of the unlockable character. The next cup is 10 preliminary matches long, then two matches in the finals, then another best of three against another unlockable character. And if you lose AFTER the preliminary matches? Too bad, back to the preliminaries. It's incredibly painful, so I gave up after losing the Crystal Cup twice. The AI gets pretty tough too, and it sucks that a single late-match mistake can cost you the whole thing.
Besides the Striker's Cup, you can play free matches against the CPU or another player, you get 12 Challenge Matches, and a pretty in-depth, but a bit boring, tutorial. It's not much, but honestly, it gets the job done, and the variety in characters and environments adds a lot of replayability to the game. Unless you settle on using the same teams every single time.
Mario Strikers Charged is definitely a fun take on Soccer, one that someone that despises sports games can enjoy. It's also portrays the beloved cast Super Mario in a way you probably haven't seen before, which makes it sort of a curiosity for any Mario aficionado. I didn't like absolutely every mechanic, as things such as the first-person aiming were a bit wonky, and the items could've seen some balancing, but otherwise, I was left fairly satisfied with the game.
7.5
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