Mario Superstar Baseball

The bulk of the single-player experience will be played out in challenge mode, a Mario-esque substitute for the traditional season or franchise modes found in other games. The method centers around a basic, disappointingly uncreative premise--baseball is becoming popular among Mario's circle of friends, and Bowser forms a team willing to take on all challengers. Mario, Yoshi, Peach, Donkey Kong, and Wario start teams of their own to rise to the challenge, and these individuals are selectable as team captains for the player. Guiding the captain around an old-school overhead map and carting an upstart team of misfits around for matches with the other captains, your overall goal is to defeat your peers and recruit new members from their teams to form a skilled squad worthy of facing Bowser. You'll earn cash playing mini-games that can contribute to purchasing items such as "better hitting for one game" and star-powered abilities in an area shop. Once Bowser is defeated, the next level of difficulty is unlocked, and the cycle begins anew.

Player recruitment is objective based. You'll be given goals such as "get a hit" and "steal a base", all of which contribute to earning a new player for your team. These objectives can count toward one or more players, and each competitor can take one or several goals to earn. Plus, one must win the game to receive new teammates. Building team chemistry and experimenting with different line-ups makes challenge mode quite enjoyable and worthy of playing on each difficulty.

Character selection and positioning is very important for team success. Certain players, such as Mario and Luigi and Yoshi and Birdo, have chemistry together. When fielding, throwing the ball between such players is faster than normal; and a batter's fortunes increase when a friend is on base. Ultimately, this function allows the game to be more about character arrangement and strategy than putting the highest-rated team on the field.

Alternatively, Namco offers toy field mode, which pits four rivals against each other in a match for coins lasting a set number of turns (at-bats). Patches of the field will be marked for the rewards they offer if the batter hits them, and some of the prizes are determined by a slot machine-type effect. The idea is to catch fly balls, get opponents out, and get opportunities to bat and win coins. (Ghost runners are used, so batting in runs earns coins as well.) It's basically how you and your childhood friends might have played the game when only three of you were available--without the coins incentive and decorated outfield.

Other modes of play will be discussed briefly for sake of length, as many are self explanatory. In addition to a traditional exhibition mode, a practice mode that serves as a wonderful tutorial for the game's inner workings, as well as a host of mini-games, is available. The mini-games themselves can be very entertaining; and the variety there is satisfactory. The selection really covers all the bases, so to speak, centering around pitching, batting, and fielding mechanics. All in all, a gratifying level of depth and value is in place. The game has a lot of options for the player, and certainly provides the money's worth in game-play.

Graphically, the game manages to be a success, utilizing the same (in an exact sense) lush, vivid visuals found in the other Mario Sports titles. The character animations appear to spawn from the same library of graphics as those from 2003's Mario Kart: Double Dash!!, but the overall quality of the aesthetics is redeemed in the venues, which offer many new textures and details not seen in other Mario titles. The stadiums are spacious and detailed, and really manage to promote the game as one near the end of its generation. Coupled with the nice cinemas and short cut-scenes, the graphics and animations give the game a humorous, whimsical aura that the gamer should appreciate.

The sound in the game suffers from the same problems as many of its fellow Mario offshoots. The tracks, while quite decent--and sometimes good--in quality, fit the theme and get the job done, but are lacking in sheer number, which means that several of them are played repeatedly. Some of the sound effects (namely, voice files) from other games seem to have been re-used here as well. Still, the production quality is good, and the audio doesn't necessarily hold the game down in any fashion.

In Other Words:
Mario Superstar Baseball is not perfection, but it should be what most gamers were expecting from the developers at Namco. The game has the right kind of simplicity--one we can appreciate, and manages to host a high-quality production as well. It looks and sounds quite good, and plays great. The game is entertaining, fraught with unlockables and Mario personality, and undeniably worth owning; if the price is right for you, don't hesitate to pick it up.