Mario Sports Superstars: details for football/soccer, more details and screens

3 February 2017 Lite_Agent Bandai-Namco, Camelot, Mario Sports Superstars

Last week, Nintendo uploaded a new trailer for Mario Sports Superstars, showcasing one of the 5 full-fledged sports: Baseball. And this week, the second trailer is showcasing another sports, that should speak more to European players: football (or soccer for North American players).

Just like with Baseball, you’re free to chose your formation before the matches:

4-4-2A
4-4-2B
4-5-1
3-4-3
4-3-3

You get to chose a Captain and Vice-Captain among the regular characters, and you get 8 Toads or Goombas as teammates, and Boom Boom as goalkeeper. Of course, you can use special moves to make sure the ball ends up in the goal, and nowhere else.

Here’s the second trailer for Mario Sports Superstars, showcasing football:

Next, here’s additonal details about the game. Naturally, it does offer a Single Player experience, with tournaments for each one of the 5 sports (football/soccer, horse racing, baseball, basketball, and golf), with several difficulty levels. There’s also some tutorials, and various challenges to tackle.

As for multiplayer, Mario Sports Superstars can be played either via local wireless or online. You can play either with friends or family members, but also with random players online (of the same skill level, though).

Regarding Golf and Tennis, Nintendo confirms that it’s basically the exact same gameplay as in Mario Tennis Open and Mario Golf: World Tour, with Camelot developing those two specific sports. As for baseball, Mario Sports Superstars will be the very first time a Mario Baseball game is released in Europe in basically 10 years.

Next, we have Horse Racing, which has you jump over obstacles and gallop to the finish line first. Using the carrots found on the track, you can replenish your horse’s stamina, while the stars enable you to use the special Star Dash technique.

But that sport isn’t all about racing: you can also visit your favourite horse in the Stable, but also pet it, feed it, and even groom it. You can actually increase your bond with the horse, which will be pretty advantageous during the actual horse races.

In total, there’s 16 different characters in the game (plus two secret characters that need to be unlocked by completing specific tournaments and challenges):

Mario
Luigi
Yoshi
Birdo
Peach
Daisy
Waluigi
Baby Mario
Baby Luigi
Diddy Kong
Bowser Jr.
Donkey Kong
Wario
Bowser
Rosalina

About the amiibo cards, Nintendo explains that there’s only one series, and that it includes 90 different cards. They’re sold in packs of 5, available separately or as part of a Software bundle. As for players buying the game at launch, they will receive one amiibo card chosen at random (only at retail, obviously).

Now, you’re probably wondering what the cards are used for: they allow you to unlock more powerful versions of each character, and in each sport to boot. More precisely, you unlock the Star version of a character when you tap their amiibo, but only in the corresponding sport. As you can imagine, a Star character has stronger stats.

But that’s not all amiibo cards are for in Mario Sports Superstars: they let you participate in the Road to Superstar mode. If you manage to complete this mode, then your Start character will get a Superstar status, with an even greater boost to their stats.

Finally, here’s some screenshots for Mario Sports Superstars, and some of the amiibo cards: