This game was made before the dawn of Steph Curry and it shows.

The design of how you translate a real life sport into a casual arcade style sports game is perhaps something only I care about. Still I lay here thinking about my experience with Mario Hoops 3 on 3 and feel like it just doesn't get it. If you're going to translate the sport of Basketball into an arcadey variant, making it slow and grindy with few defensive options isn't it. I get it's hard to communicate the athleticism that lies at the core enjoyment of basketball, but making dribbling one of the core verbs of design doesn't really do it. I wish sitting around while grinding up coins wasn't such a viable tactic, each one may just represent a fraction of a score but since there's no shot clock then it's better to grind than give the ball up to the opponent sooner. I hate how it makes it so you and your opponents start at half court immediately after a score. I hate special shots have no currency tied to them so they can be fired off whenever regardless of how slow they are. I really wish characters would have clear stats instead of being just grouped into abstract groups where there's no explanation what they do better (what does tricky mean??).

I know I'm spilling a lot vitriol, the game gets a solid bit of the fun of basketball. Dunks and 3-Pointers are very satisfying to pull off. Rebounds and blocking shots are wonderful if you can pull them off and I'm sure there's a level of entertainment to multiplayer, but I doubt I'll ever try to get a game set up for it anyhow.