5/5 ★ – RawMetal's review of Super Mario Strikers.

System: Nintendo GameCube Started: December 2005 Ended: 2006 Flashback Review 2006 was considered to be the year where I managed to finish a lot of awesome games before I went into my early teens. Super Mario Strikers was one of those games at the time that I loved immensely. I love the Mario Sports games since I remember owning Mario Tennis for the N64 back in the day. Knowing that the Mario games can not only be a good 2D and 3D Platformer franchise but also be making excellent sports games that it even surpassed sports franchises like Madden or any EA Sports games that were released every year. I even remember playing the Mario Golf games at a local McDonalds. Street V3 is one of them even though it's not an official Nintendo game, but somehow Nintendo made a collaboration, and you can play Mario, Peach and Luigi. Mario Superstar Baseball was great as well since Baseball is my favorite sport. And then came Super Mario Strikers and holy hell, this has got to be possibly the most aggressive and violent Mario game I ever played. Even the front cover of the game looks Bonafide badassery that I would mind getting a poster to hang up on my room wall if there is one. Turns out that Strikers was the last Mario game for the GameCube and they ended it with a bang. I’m a pretty casual person who is into Football (or Soccer since I’m an American) but at least I played it casually with friends as a backyard play back in the day. Super Mario Strikers doesn’t feel like any Football game as it's actually putting South American and European Football and American Football together to form a Rollerball-style Football game. It's no holds barred as there are electric fences surrounding the field, tackling players and sliding to get the ball and even casting chain chomps and bob-ombs and you will never get a single penalty. By aggressiveness, how would you like to see the Mario crew in a psyched demeanor and seeing Peach and Daisy acting sassy and wearing skimpy gear. This game has that and you can perform special power kicks to get an extra point. I actually beat this game with 3 of my friends and we actually played the highest difficulty in a Mario game and It was a brutal but fun experience. You get to play as the team captains which is the main Mario crew while select your grunt teams which are a team of Koopas, Toads, Hammer Bros and Birdos. Afterwards, you just play violent football while participating in cups or recreational play. Truth is about this game, It leaves me wanting more. There is really not much variety selection other than training mode, tournament and exhibition. There are not many stages to be honest and when I say there is nothing much, I say that it's not fun playing alone, you must play this game with other people as a group. The secret team for the finals does feel a little too outside of a Mario game, in fact, I almost felt I’m playing something else and the Mario crew were the guests. But that is nitpicking at least but it's over-the-top once you get the chance to go against them. Super Mario Strikers is ranked as my favorite Mario Sports game. Go buy this game if you want to find an awesome fictional sports video game. Funny coincidence that a third game is in the making and I’m looking forward to it. I have played the second game for the Wii at a kiosk at a local GameStop but it didn’t have the charm it once had since the first game uses the awesome GameCube Controller and Super Mario Strikers Charged you had to use the Wii Remote and Nunchuck. If you know a friend who is into sports games like the FIFA games, slip in this game and they would want to keep playing this game for months. Just make sure you bring friends to have an awesome time playing this.