What happens when Nintendo meets Square-Enix? Not Mushroom Hearts!
STORY
Well, as stories go... You could probably write one better. In fact, I'll write a parody of it to give you an idea how simple it is. "One day, A tree grew out of the ground in front of a frog's eyes, bearing 4 shiny, juicy fruit. The fruit we're so juicy, they were baked into 4 pies even though it was a new plant species that could be poisonous. The frogs the had all the wood elves and pixies compete in dance competions to win one of the pies, although one dance was Irish step dancing, and another was American Tap dancing. When one of the pixies won a pie, a dastardly whale came ashore and some mer-men and mer-maid popped of of the mouth or the whale to steal the pie. Instead of fighting, the pixies danced and twirled until the mer-people said 'ok, we give up, take back the pie', However, the persistant fish-legged ones came back 3 seperate times because they were 3 more pies, and they were polite enough to wait until each dance competition instead of ruining in the middle of everything. Well, it turned out the fruits were really ancient spirits keeping the tree from walking around and sucking up all the water in the world, so the pixies and fish-heads joined forces and cut the tree in half and had a pie feast to celebrate". It's generic, it's cliche, it's something you'd expect from an anime, without so much cleavage it could turn a girl into a lesbian out of sheer jealousy.
DESIGN
The characters are standard for any multiplayer mario game. Throwing in Final Fantasy characters is a nice touch (don't ask me who, I know nothing about that series). The courts are creative with they're own twists and gimmicks. All and all, it's pretty much what one has come to expect. What I don't like is the character animations. There's only one or two for each character. Which shows a lack of effort on giving it that extra style.
GAMPLAY
Well, There's four games to cover but I'm only doing two. Why? Becasue basketball and hockey are the same thing, one just has sticks you hold and shoot at holes, and the other you shoot at the sticks with holes sticking out of them.
The volleyball reminds me alot of tennis, which I love, especially considering tht the gamecube mario tennis has super shots. Although in this one you only have one specical, and it's the same for every game. Oh, and speaking of specials, Waluigi is unfair because he throws four balls/pucks, making him either an invaluable ally or hated enemy considering he could use it with 2 seconds left on the clock and he uses it, stopping the clock and scoring three, just barely taking the win. It would be fine if there were other characters who do this, but most just make a single shot hard to block, some make a garunteed single shot. Waluigi is the only one to make multiple shots. He's a mad athele, well, if he didn't go Dr.Octo-uigi-pus and sprout four robo-arms to fling stuff out at you he would be.
The dodgeball is also nice because it's the most intense, throwing balls really hard at people to lower their HP, using items to trip them up, and using specials to dominate everyone (Only sport where Waluigi is balanced out with everyone else)
It also has minigames for those who have no other games to play, or if you're obsessed with it.
MUSIC
Think Mario Galaxy and you got the gist of it...
CONCLUSION
I like more than most, but it definately needed more work done. They should have either made each into a single sport game, or just left its DS prequel to itself, Mario Hoops, which was a much better basketball game than the basketball on Mario Sports Mix, but maybe that's because it was a DS game, it was expected to be somewhat simple. While I do indeed like this game more than most, it's not something I'd really play everyday of the week, more like during that time of the month.
UNBIASED - 3 PERSONAL - 6 FINAL - 4.5