Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games (Nintendo 3DS) Review

Operating under the same premise as the previous two games, Sonic and his friends have gotten together in London to compete in the Olympics, together with Mario and company. Whereas before when players would simply select events, characters and rules to start playing with, this game features a stronger single-player offering with a full story mode. In this mode, Dr Eggman and Bowser have teamed up, and, in revenge for being left out of the invites for the Games, have created a fog machine to blanket London and prevent the Games from happening. The story follows a branching path with multiple events and scenarios for each block, as the other characters battle against the imposter ghosts that arise from the fog. Whilst the story is a decent distraction, and an ideal way for beginners to get accustomed to the varying games before diving into the rest of the cartridge’s contents, its presentation isn’t the best. Light-hearted as the tale may be, it is very simplistic and does little to present the uniqueness of each of the characters, with only text and repeated sayings from the otherwise mute characters.

Playing through this mode, however, highlights one of Mario & Sonic’s greatest strengths, in that it uses the internal power and output to great effect. Although the story event surroundings leave a lot to the imagination, the events themselves are crisp, bright and colourful. Each character is animated incredibly well, and most are given signature poses and techniques in certain events, with Blaze’s fire and Shadow’s Chaos Control being notable examples. Adding to this is the 3D effect, in a case where the added dimension greatly benefits the game in being able to judge distance better; the Trampoline event in particular showcasing this advantage the strongest, though added icons offset this for those without the ability to see 3D. In many games the 3D switch hinders framerate, but not here where it stays stable all the while.

The soundtrack is also a notable highlight; whilst not quite reaching the dizzying peaks of a Super Smash Bros. game, there are a fair few decent remixes and replays of popular Mario and Sonic tunes in the game, coupled with some classical pieces for certain events. Speech is used sparingly with just sound bites and text, and although it isn’t exactly unusual to see Mario say very little, the Sonic side of things definitely feels at odds with his regular chatty self.

Another great strength of the game is its willingness to use every input feature the 3DS has to offer, including some of the most robust Touch Screen usage out of a 3DS game yet. This usually involves little more that drawing circles of good symmetry to swim faster or swipe at an angle to throw a javelin, but it is good to see a title that doesn’t focus everything on the top screen all the time. Also supported is tilt control and, naturally, button and directional input, to help diversify each event further. Tilting the unit does conflict with the sweet spot the user needs to focus on the 3D screen, but in this case it is rarely an issue; the events usually either require the movement when it isn’t necessary to look at the screen like when spinning the hammer in the Hammer Throw, or just needing to lower the unit in a vertical movement that doesn’t break the effect like in the Long Jump. Even the Microphone gets some usage, with a few complimentary stares on the bus if you shout into it as the Weightlifting event requests you to do, though in this and all others just a simple hard blow will suffice.

The events themselves, while diverse in both quality and quantity, initially feel like cut-down versions of full events, as for higher number races and marathon distances you usually only interact with the last segment. What starts off as an odd limitation for the game actually ends up benefitting the portable quick-fire nature of the 3DS, as, where in a console game you could sit and focus on a long event, handhelds are better suited for shorter sessions of play. This is made most evident in the main single-player mode’s Medley matches, where you can pick either Standard or Quick versions, the latter skipping character choice and opening event tutorials.

Selecting a Medley match opens a category list, which lets you choose either the types of games you’d like to play under themed headings with London Games or Variety categories, or the Party Mix selection. Party Mix in particular acts like a quicker round of Mario Party with special games to mix up point totals, and even a snapshot feature that takes a picture of your expression to use in the final total-up.

The multiplayer feature is well-represented here, alas, with unfortunate limits. Multi-card play and single-card transfer are both supported, allowing anyone without their own copy of the game to join in the fun, but only local play has proper support. Sadly, aside from online leaderboard rankings that have to be painstakingly updated manually on an event-by-event basis, there is no direct internet competition to be had, for a game that would have benefitted so much from it. In a similar daft decision, Streetpass features are also omitted, with no way to trade records and information with other sleep-mode 3DS owners, and there is no usage for Play Coins either, which feels like a surprising oversight given the potential image of the walking required for them and the sporting game they could be used in. Although these missing features give the impression of a limited game, there is still a fair bit of longevity to it, due to the large number of events and the difficulty in getting all the medals for each, plus a fairly lengthy story endeavour. However, potential buyers had best consider this title a stronger single-player effort than a connected one.