Review #719: Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020

 About as fun as the actual olympics. Make of that what you will.

 There's this surprisingly long running series of games, the Mario and Sonic Oympic games, a series that sells even more surprisingly well but almost nobody talks about. Is it shame? I don't know, but after dodging entry after entry in the series, I finally took the plunge with Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020, probably because I'm quite a Switch nut.

 There are two ways to play the game, either take part of the 5-hour long, 20-chapter long story mode, which alternates between Luigi and Tails in present day and Mario and Sonic, stuck in the Olympics of '64. The game is an excuse to take you through every playable event in the game, Mario and Sonic take part of the new 'Retro' styled events, which use Mario's 8-bit sprites and Sonic 16-bits sprites, while Luigi's adventure takes him through all the 3-D events. There are about 30 different events, 22 'modern' games, and 8 retro games. There are also 3 'Dream Events', which are party variations of some of the games, like Dream Karate, which has you and 3 opponents fighting to color the grid-arena you are standing on by hitting the other players on top of it, a third-person shooter that has four opponents trying to amass points by hitting targets and, maybe, each other, in order to stall their progress, as well as a a mini-race on Skates. There's also a handful of single-player minigames, such as a Metal Gear 8-Bit Mario challenge, or one in which you, as Tails, must defeat 50 Shyguys, beat'em up style! If you're not up for the long-haul, you can play any event by itself, either in local or online multiplayer, it can be just you against the CPUs if you like.

 Most of the games offer three control options: classic controller/Joycon couple, single joycon or two joycon with motion controls. A few games are button-only, and a few games are button+motion. I played almost exclusively with buttons, and the controls are fine, except that I think it's a bit overwhelming for a newcomer, such as myself. I love fighting games, I love Devil May Cry, so I'm no stranger to button gymnastics, but when you first play a game you are greeted by about 8-picture slides describing how the game plays, and it can be a bit too much information without any chance to try it out before the game begins. Needless to say, I had to fail a few attempts before I understood how it actually played. It doesn't help that these 'introductions' fail to mention a few key elements, which are hidden under another set of slides called 'Advanced'. Basically, I think they should find a better way of conveying to the player HOW to play the game. Super Mario Party would be a perfect example of this, letting you try the game with the controller layout by the side before finally committing to playing it for real.

 As for the events themselves, well, some are fun, some aren't, there's plenty of variety. For instance, as a fighting game aficionado, I enjoyed the Judo(Retro), Karate, Fencing and Boxing games a whole. Other games were simple mashing affairs which I didn't find as fun. Some games have more depth than others, such as Rugby or Soccer, so your mileage may vary on each. As a whole, I think you are bound to find a few that you'll like a lot, and a few more that you'll dislike. The minigames were a bit more fun, Tail's beat'em up stage was so much fun that I would've loved to be able to play as other characters, 'Find the Toad' was also pretty fun, for as simple as it was, and there's a pretty neat shoot'em up stage! Honestly, I think the minigames were some of the best parts about the game. The dream events are also a tiny step above the other events, so it's a bit sad that there are only three of them.

 The game has a roster of 20 characters, and I'm glad that my favorites from each universe are in, Wario and Knuckles(although I might be starting to like Silver the Hedgehog), but Sega went with this very weird design choice with 'guests'. Most 'Modern' games have "Guests", characters that can only be played in a single event. Fan favorites like Rouge are stuck under the 'Guest' status, so she can only be played on the Wall Climbing event. Why? Why do it like this? From what I can understand, the game has had the same 20-character roster for a while now, is it really that hard to make new animations? Bowser Jr. could've shared animations with the Koopalings, guests in a few events, and Sonic's characters have pretty similar builds, so it shouldn't have been too hard to recycle animations and, in turn, giving us more playable characters. Retro Events have a smaller 8 character roster, with Sonic, Eggman, Knuckles and Tails on the Sonic side, and Mario, Bowser, Peach and Luigi from the Mushroom Kingdom, while I would've loved for Sega to make new sprites for the rest of the characters, and I would've preferred Mario's 16-bit sprites, I can understand why they'd stick with a smaller roster.

 Well, I can't say I was much of a fan of Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games. It's a mini-game collection, through-and-through, but without having a mode that connects the games, like a Tournament, or a Board like Mario Party, it feels a bit bland. I think the story mode, as boring and lifeless as the plot and dialogue is, is a neat way of introducing someone to the events, but they need to make explanations simpler, and try to have some sort of Tournament or something to get players playing through the games without having to go event by event. Something that picks events at random, to spice things up. A few things I enjoyed a lot were the mini-games(The actual mini-games, not the events), the Olympics trivia you can find around the story mode. Regardless, I think this game is as forgettable as it gets, but maybe Sega could come up with something better for the next Olympic games.
 5.0 out of 10