My favourite non-karting Mario sports title. And I don't even like football/soccer.
It's just so fast paced, chaotic and feels good to play.
It's full of personality too. Every single character you can choose to put on your team is different. You've got different stats obviously, something like 4 different categories, but each team captain has their own unique item, each sidekick has their own unique special shot, each character has different theme music that plays when they score a goal, and different dodge animations (which itself is different per character class, with some being more offensive, some being able to bypass the goalie with the right timing etc). It just really helps feel like every character you pick makes your team personalised to you, rather than just generic characters with a Mario skin.
My main issue is with the super strike mechanic. While this also plays into the idea of the game making each character unique, by giving them characteristic animations during the move, it is way too powerful and slows the game down every time it's used. I think it would have been fine if it was just limited to once per match, including the set-up screen, so that if you tried to use one at a bad time, you're out of luck. It'd add a lot more strategy and give it a huge risk-reward factor, while right now it's just no reward-reward.
Luckily you can turn Super Strikes off, along with many other things like stage gimmicks, via "cheats" you can unlock by doing challenges, or winning awards for things like most goals in a cup. These only work in standard vs mode however, so the regular single player "story" will have to be beaten without any help. Speaking of which...
The last cup in single player mode is pure BS. The AI so blatantly cheats to disgusting degrees. All 4 of the enemies team will act like fully controlled characters, esentially turning the game into a 1v4, this results in things like the opponent ALWAYS covering your characters, so that you'll never find the chance to use a super strike or power shot, or when a stage has a gimmick that can knock characters off, the AI team will be able to control all their players to dodge it while the characters on your team you're not in control of with just run into the hazard like a blind chicken. This cup also has extreme amounts of input reading.
Basically this game is a fantastic multiplayer game, and the single player is great for the first 2 cups, but the last cup is pure and utter shit. The challenge mode adds an extra bit of single player content for those looking to master the game and unlock more cheats/gameplay variables.
It's just so fast paced, chaotic and feels good to play.
It's full of personality too. Every single character you can choose to put on your team is different. You've got different stats obviously, something like 4 different categories, but each team captain has their own unique item, each sidekick has their own unique special shot, each character has different theme music that plays when they score a goal, and different dodge animations (which itself is different per character class, with some being more offensive, some being able to bypass the goalie with the right timing etc). It just really helps feel like every character you pick makes your team personalised to you, rather than just generic characters with a Mario skin.
My main issue is with the super strike mechanic. While this also plays into the idea of the game making each character unique, by giving them characteristic animations during the move, it is way too powerful and slows the game down every time it's used. I think it would have been fine if it was just limited to once per match, including the set-up screen, so that if you tried to use one at a bad time, you're out of luck. It'd add a lot more strategy and give it a huge risk-reward factor, while right now it's just no reward-reward.
Luckily you can turn Super Strikes off, along with many other things like stage gimmicks, via "cheats" you can unlock by doing challenges, or winning awards for things like most goals in a cup. These only work in standard vs mode however, so the regular single player "story" will have to be beaten without any help. Speaking of which...
The last cup in single player mode is pure BS. The AI so blatantly cheats to disgusting degrees. All 4 of the enemies team will act like fully controlled characters, esentially turning the game into a 1v4, this results in things like the opponent ALWAYS covering your characters, so that you'll never find the chance to use a super strike or power shot, or when a stage has a gimmick that can knock characters off, the AI team will be able to control all their players to dodge it while the characters on your team you're not in control of with just run into the hazard like a blind chicken. This cup also has extreme amounts of input reading.
Basically this game is a fantastic multiplayer game, and the single player is great for the first 2 cups, but the last cup is pure and utter shit. The challenge mode adds an extra bit of single player content for those looking to master the game and unlock more cheats/gameplay variables.