Mario Strikers Charged is the first Mario sports game for the Wii, and the sequel to the Cube title, Super Mario Strikers. Unfortunately, the original Strikers had several issues that kept it from being as great as it could, such as lack of characters, lame music, and bland fields. Nintendo said it fixed most of these problems by listening to what the consumers wanted, but did Nintendo score a Megastrike with this one, or is it 0 for 2 in the soccer department?
As usual, I'll use an out of 5 scoring scale.
Characters: 4/5
Well, this is
definitely an improvement over the original. You've got all of the standard
captains here, as well as a few new and secret ones. Bowser is now playable,
as is his son Bowser Jr. The different players also have their own special
stats; some are balanced, while others excel in passing, shooting, defending,
etc. There are also more teammates; Charged has Toad, Birdo, Hammer Bro,
and Koopa, but also Boo, Shy Guy, Monty Mole, and Dry Bones, each with
their own unique attributes. And the biggest thing: No more teams made
entirely of one species! That's right, for your three team members, you
can have 2 Koopas and a Shy Guy (my personal team), or any other combo
you like!
Two problems, however: I want to see more sidekicks, like the amount of players in Mario Superstar Baseball. Maybe some Goombas, Bob-ombs, and a Magikoopa? Also, I don't like how you can't have other captains on your team. If so, I could form my dream team: Luigi, Mario, Peach, and Wario. That'd be so awesome...
Graphics: 5/5
Graphics here
look very nice. The characters are crisp, clear, and full of color, and
the stadiums are very detailed. I'd say this game measures with Mario Superstar
Baseball. I don't like the way the Megastrikes look as compared to the
original, but that's no reason to dock a point.
One more general Gonzales-Review thing about graphics: I don't really care that much how graphics look, and I am easy to please in that department. Thus, I never come down very hard on graphics.
Sound/Music: 3/5
Unlike graphics,
sound/music in a game is very important to me, so if I hear some tunes
I don't care for, I bring down the hammer. The problem with Charged is
there doesn't seem to be any tunes playing during a game, which really
brings down the score. I do like how each character has his or her theme
music, and it generally fits the character well. Luigi's is very catchy
(no clue why it's salsa-oid music though), Wario's is...interesting, and
Pet- I mean, a certain secret character has a really nice tropical tune.
The sound effects in the game are nice, especially hearing Peach or Luigi scream after being plowed into the electric fence that surrounds the stadium. Unfortunately, a lack of normal background music kills this category.
Controls: 2/5
Ick. My main
issue with these controls stems from my utter hatred of the Wiimote. It
has very few buttons, making control difficult. In Charged, you use the
control stick of the Nunchuck to move, C to use items, Z to swap items,
Up on the Wiimote's D-Pad to use the deke (dodge), B to shoot, and A to
pass. As compared to the GameCube controller, these buttons are very inaccessible;
on the Cube, Y, which was the deke/slam, was very easy to hit since it
was right near your thumb. However, Up on the D-Pad of the Wiimote is very
out of the way, and it is a huge problem for a guy with short fingers like
me. Shaking the Wiimote is how to perform a slam, but this isn't too responsive.
Now for passing: To do an on-the-ground pass, press A. Unfortunately, this is almost completely useless, because it can easily be intercepted. A midair pass is done by holding B and pushing A, I think. But this doesn't seem to work all that often; I accidentally end up shooting or doing a ground pass, and either way it's bad. As for shooting, Skillshots and Megastrikes (more on these later) take WAY too long to perform, and the needle of the Megastrike meter moves so fast that no one but a cheating A.I. could nail a perfect shot without getting lucky.
Now, in Charged, if your opponent performs a Megastrike, you get the chance to block the shots (which is very nice). You get to see through the eyes of the goalie, and use the Wiimote to move your hands across the screen to stop the balls that come flying at you. When the hands are on top of an incoming ball, press A to stop it. As simple as this sounds, Next Level Games has made it very hard to do. Your hands must be dead-center on the ball, or else it will zoom right by you and into the goal. This is a huge problem, because missing Megastrikes can mean the difference between life and death in this game.
One last problem: You have absolutely no control over where your items go once you launched them. In the original Strikers, you couldn't control items either, but it was ok there because items would always target either and opponent who has the ball, or the person closest to whoever fired the item, provided you were in possession of the ball. Not so in Charged. Here, items go in whatever direction they please, inevitably creaming one of my teammates. Well, I think I've complained about every bad aspect of the controls that there is to complain about. Unfortunately, I've just complained about almost every control in the game.
How's about we highlight the positives?
Difficulty: Please
Kill Me/5
Sorry, Charlie,
there's a lot more rant left in me. The difficulty is the thing that really
kills- nay, demolishes this game. It's like... it's like veggie icing on
a meatloaf and Limburger cake. Ew. But enough metaphors. Let's get to the
facts.
"Please Kill Me" is not a zero. No, this is a negative score. Yes. Negative. In Cup Battles, you have three cups to battle your way through. The first one, the Fire Cup, is childishly easy. In fact, the worst I ever did in this cup was beating Yoshi by only 4 points. Best was beating Waluigi by 16 points. Ridiculously easy. Next comes the Crystal Cup, which is a little harder (by "harder", I mean the A.I. cheats more), but doable with a little practice.
Then comes the Striker Cup.
The Striker Cup redefines the term "Those cheating A.I.s!". If you thought 150 CC in Mario Kart: Double Dash was bad, if you thought the last cup in Mario Superstar Baseball was bad, then think again. The A.I's here are not next to impossible to beat, they ARE impossible to beat. Once, I actually made it to the first elimination round, the semifinals of sorts. I had lost most of the previous matches, but somehow had enough points to make it to the elimination round, being first matched up with Bowser. In the first 30 seconds of the match, things were already going poorly. I was down by 2 points because of a perfect Megastrike from Bowser. The controls were as poor as ever, Bowser had made the biggest team of cheaters ever, and to top it all off, he was abusing his deke. You know you're in trouble when A.I.s start using the same cheap tactics that losers on WiFi use. The point is, I lost 11-0, and since then, I haven't even been able to make it to the elimination round in this lousy cup since.
Really, in order to beat these A.I.s, you'd have to be a robot. Not like that lame Super Team from the original, though.
Items: 3/5
Well, after a
"Please Kill Me" rating, even a mediocre 3 is a breath of fresh air. Charged
has the same items as its predecessor, plus special captain-only items.
Mario and Luigi grow huge, Wario has, an, um, gas attack, and Bowser spews
fire. What ticks me off about these specials, however, is that Luigi DOESN'T
HAVE A UNIQUE SPECIAL! Waluigi's is different that Wario's, Bowser Jr's
is different than Bowser's, so why not give Luigi his own special? Maybe
he could take out the Poltergust and create this huge vortex of suction
that makes players move super-slow because they're fighting the suction?
The biggest problem with Luigi's special is not its lack of originality, it's that it doesn't really help much. When Mario gets big, anyone who touches him is instantly squashed. When Luigi is big, people run up behind me, slam me, and take the ball away without being squished. Talk about unfair! Overall, though, this category loses 2 points because of the trouble with items I mentioned in the Control section.
Stadiums: 5/5
Finally, some
good news! Charged has all the stadiums form the original, plus 10 brand
new ones. Most of these have gimmicks, like the electric floor of the Doomship
or whatever it's called, the frozen Wasteland, the Thwomps in the Desert,
and the wind blowing in Thunder Island. Thunder Island is the best, because
it has no fence around the sides, meaning you can slam opponents right
off the field, and they won't be available for a little while. Also, gusts
of gale-force winds blow tractors, cars, and even cows across the field,
which can crush players. Finally, Next Level Games did something right!
Gameplay: 3/5
I had a tough
time scoring this. Basically, you and your team of three other players
play an almost-normal game of soccer, slamming people into electric fences,
hurling items at them, and, of course, scoring goals. Team captains can
perform Megastrikes, in which the ball splits apart, sending from 3 to
6 balls at the goalie at varying speed, depending on your timing with the
meter that appears during the Megastrike. The problem here is Megastrikes
take too long to charge up, and the meter (particularly the speed one)
goes so incredibly fast, it's hard to time it right to get the perfect
shot.
Your teammates can perform Skillshots, which are, well, skilled shots. Koopa's Skillshot, for example, turns the ball into a giant metal Koopa shell that whacks the goalie and dazes him, leaving a golden opportunity for a goal. Boo holds the ball inside him, vanishes, and attempts to fly through the goalie to dump the ball into the goal (90% of the time, however, this does not work). My only quarrel is with Birdo's Skillshot, which is an instant goal.
In Domination Mode, you pick the rules and the opponent, and play a set of games, best 2 out of 3, or however many games you like. Standard fare here, and it works. Cup mode causes big problems because of the difficulty, but you can unlock new stadiums and new captains here. Striker Challenges are special scenarios that require you to fulfill certain requirements (score 5 goals, win with a shutout, etc). The problem is, the first 5 or 6 are easy, but after that, it becomes just way too hard. For example, in one, you are Yoshi and must come back from a 5-point deficit to beat Wario with only two minutes on the clock. To make matters worse, Wario cheats like those Striker Cup A.I.s. And what's your reward for beating these challenges? Cheats. But not fun cheats, only ones like "No items" and "No Megastrikes". What's the point of even playing Mario Soccer then? Why not just play a regular soccer game? Too much work for not enough reward here. Really, the only good cheat is "Devastating hits", which makes everyone's slams super strong! Watch and be amazed as Toad rams Bowser, sending him flying halfway across the field! It's Super Toad! Da da da da da DAA... Sorry, but with all the negativity here, I had to inject some fun into the Review.
While I do like the setup of this game, bad controls and poor difficulty really bring it down.
Multiplayer:
Domination Mode:
5/5
WiFi: 3/5
Domination mode
is like the Grudge Matches from Super Mario Strikers, and just as much
fun. Tweak the settings, throw in some cheats, and grab a friend for some
real fun! Not much to say here, no real flaws (for once).
WiFi is a pretty good mode, but two flaws keep it from that oh-so-hard to reach 5/5. First of all, you can't choose the skill level of your opponents. Remember in MKDS how you had the option "Rivals", which means you would only play with people who have a similar ratio of wins to losses? Not in Charged. You might get someone at your skill level, but more often than not, you either get someone who is pathetic and that you steamroll, or someone so skilled that you have no chance of winning.
The second problem is that two people cannot choose the same captain, and I get ticked when someone takes my Luigi! In MKDS's WiFi, you could have a race with four Luigis, but two people can't be the same captain in Charged.
Replayability:
2/5
I hate to give
so many low scores, but I really don't feel like coming back to Charged.
Bad controls and terrible difficulty make me turn back to Super Mario Strikers.
This game is only worth replaying if you have some friends over and have
already exhausted yourself with SSBM and Mario Kart and are looking for
something else to play. It's just so sad.
Fun Factor!: 2/5
Betcha didn't
see this coming. For the upteenth time, the controls and the difficulty
make this game no fun. I expected more, Nintendo. A lot more.
Overall: Dun dun
dun... 2/5
A 2, eh? This
is such a disappointment. Super Mario Strikers was tons of fun, but it
had flaws in the characters and the stadiums, which were just too bland.
I had hoped Charged would fix these issues, and while it did, it created
much bigger problems. This Review depresses me. It really does. I didn't
think I could ever give a Mario game anything below a 3. Hotel Mario was
lame, but it had funny cutscenes (especially that memorable quote by Mario,
"You know what they say: All toaster toast toast!"). Super Mario Sunshine
was absolutely infuriating at times, but it had a lot of great aspects
to. I feel sick after writing this. I'll just drag my overly-dramatic self
to the Wii, dust off Super Mario Strikers, hook up the glorious GameCube
controller, and have some fun with a decent Mario sports game.
Sorry, Nintendo. Maybe next time.
| If you would like to send some feedback
to the author of this submission, please complete this form.
What's your name?
What's your Email address?
How do you rate this submission?
Does this submission belong in Little
Lemmy's Land?
Would you like to see more from this author? Comments and suggestions:
|
