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Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games Toyko  2020 Review

by Amr (@siegarettes)

• Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020
• Developer: SEGA
• Publisher: SEGA
• Switch

Born of the Wii party game boom, the Mario & Sonic games have often been relegated to side attractions. Outside of the novelty of putting Mario and Sonic head to head for a foot race, they never inspired a larger response. Mario & Sonic 2020 aims to change that, introducing a new story mode that sees the cast competing in the ‘64 Olympics to escape a world that’s trapped them in their retro forms. Alongside some engaging events, this goes a long way to making Mario & Sonic 2020 more of a complete package, one that lasts beyond the initial novelty, even if its uneven in where it puts its attention.  

Let’s take on the main event first: the story mode. Mario & Sonic’s story is almost perfunctory to the experience. While polished and consistently crafted, the plot and writing are little more than functional. A few fun moments make it in, but it lacks the character beats and interactions that make modern Sonic games enjoyable. Its limited scope ends up betraying expectations and results in some weird moments, such as Amy asking you to join the gymnastics event because not enough people signed up. Not enough signups? In one of the biggest sporting events in the world? 

Instead most of the appeal comes from seeing how they string these plot beats together, and exploring the game’s renderings of famous Tokyo tourist spots. An early highlight sees the game briefly become an auto-runner, as Sonic races a bullet train. Around the same time I got the chance to drop by Shibuya Crossing, and see the landmark filled with Shy Guys and Toads chattering about. Each of these spots is accompanied by a little blurb, giving some local history. Little details like this go a long way to making the story mode feel substantial, despite the clear limitations elsewhere. 

The minigames themselves speak to those limits. Most of the Olympic events come off as almost obligatory, especially the track events, which without motion controls become boiled down to mashing a button, sometimes in anticipation to a different button press. These are over in seconds and don’t really give a good sense of the sport nor provide interesting competition. 

Thankfully, a few standout events easily outshine the rest, and make a compelling case to return. I’ve already talked at length about the Karate mini-game, and a month later, having even taken it to my local fighting game scene, I can say that it’s by far the best part of the package. Its microcosm of fighting game fundamentals–complete with feints, perfect guards, mixups, and meter management–is both intense enough to inspire real competition, but chill enough to keep you safe from sodium overdose. Mario & Sonic will stick around on my Switch on the strength of the Karate alone. 

Other mini-games can’t match the same standards, but are enjoyable enough on their own. Boxing and Fencing explore similar concepts to Karate, though the focus on spacing is less pronounced. Skateboarding gives you a skate park to do tricks in, and Climbing has some tricky controls to master. Floor Gymnastics turned out to be one of my favorites, which sees you performing a quick sequence of button prompts and attempting to stick the landing. It’s essentially a bunch of quick time events, but the added wrinkle of having to perfect the timing and nail the landing make it worth returning to. 

Alongside these are Dream Events, fantastical minigames removed from the need to emulate a real sport. Removing those limitations results in more interesting dynamics, and allows more involved play. Dream Shooting and Dream Racing were my favorites of this bunch. 

Dreaming Shooting reminded me a bit of the Saints Row 3’s Super Ethical Reality Climax events, focusing on finding routes through the stage, shooting accurately, and keeping a multiplier up. Events occasionally occur during the stage, which set up big targets worth huge bonus points and have the side effect of bringing players together in a space that makes it easy to shoot each other down to temporarily stop them from scoring. 

Dream Racing is a hybrid hoverboard race that’s somewhere between a Sonic Riders stage and Mario Kart’s Mount Wario. It’s a downhill race full of boost pads, ramps, rails and powerups. Tricks can be performed off ramps and onto rails to get a boost, and powerups let you throw out the familiar red shells and company to disable opponents. The Sonic Riders influence is felt most here, and it’s at its best when you find a rail to grind skyward on, and chain it into the next series of boosts. The Mario Kart additions are more of an afterthought, and aren’t fully integrated.

Each of these was engaging enough that I wished they were more than a small part of the package. With more refinement and courses to play, they could easily stand alone. 

Alongside these are the new Retro events, which go along with the story mode’s conceit of being transported back in time. The novelty of these events is based purely on the retro presentation, with sprites from older titles being used in place of 3D models. The best part is the scratchy voice samples used for the announcer, which gives a cute flavor to each event. Otherwise, most of these events don’t feel as interesting as any of the others on offer, in part because they’re dominated by the button mashing track events, and lack the appeal of sport specific costumes for the cast. 

Mario & Sonic 2020 is an uneven package, but a charming one, with a few genuine standouts among its mini-games. Plenty of its events feel throwaway, only interesting as games to easily bring in a crowd. But the ones that hit the mark are outstanding, and often had me wishing I could see a fully featured versions of each of them. These events easily carry this game to the finish line of success, but with a little more technique it could have set an impressive record. Still, when it’s good, it’s good, and this is an Olympic season full of highlights I’ll be returning to.