The latest entry into the Mario & Sonic franchise is here and this time Mario and his old pal Sonic are heading to Japan! Packed with a ton of Olympian sports such as karate, surfing, dashing, and plenty more. Sega has provided a little something for everybody who’s a sports fan in this year’s title and we’ve got an early hands-on look at what’s inside the total package.

Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 is a 2019 sports game, it is developed by Sega Sports R&D and published by Sega. It launches exclusively for the Nintendo Switch on November 5, 2019.

Editor’s Note: An advanced review copy of Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 was provided by Sega in support of this preview. Medium spoilers for it’s story mode may be present within this preview. 

I’ve got to be honest, I’ve never played a single Mario and Sonic game (the actual series not the separate title characters) even with the franchise being so unanimous with Nintendo dating back well over a decade now. With this being an “otaku” themed website what better way to get into the series than with a trip to Tokyo with two of video gaming’s biggest icons? Featuring a large mix of 8/16-bit and 3D Olympic events to play this year’s Mario & Sonic is shaping up to be the best yet.

On the surface Mario & Sonic looks like those Nintendo sports titles they pack with their consoles skinned with Mario and Sonic characters, but after spending several hours with the game it goes much deeper than that. There’s some solid competitive edge to the game and the AI has showcased its brilliance on more than a handful of occasions. In addition to solid AI, the game is also jam packed with a variety of Olympic sporting events some of which featured in the series for the very first time such as the earlier mentioned karate and surfing. The grand total for anyone curious is 34, the only sports missing to my knowledge are basketball, wrestling, and baseball/softball. Though the later was removed from the Olympics a few years ago, ironically Baseball and Softball are returning to the Olympics next year; the year the game represents.

Story mode follows Mario and Sonic being trapped into a classic video game console by Bowser and Dr. Eggman, but the later end up getting themselves accidentally trapped too. Now the four must find a way to escape the game console while competing in the 1964 Tokyo Olympic Games during some down time. This is where the 8-bit/16-bit portion of the game comes into play, though there are plenty of traditional 3D scenarios spread throughout the story mode as well. Surprisingly, Mario and Sonic won’t be the only playable characters in story mode and without getting too into specifics one of those other characters are playable fairly early in the game which is a nice change.

I’ve tried out a few of the new events and thus far my favorites are karate and surfing. In karate you have to gain ten points on your opponent by doing different attacks these include strikes, knock backs, throws, and a super which does huge damage. In surfing you ride a round of waves performing tricks for the best high score, while surfing also has a super, it should be noted that only certain events contain this mechanic. The 8/16-bit events are a real charming experience, especially if you grew up with that era like myself. I won’t go into too much detail on what these events are as this I feel should be experienced by the player first hand. I will say though that even with their limitations there’s a certain level of joy you get when you first start playing them and honestly I think people like me will always get that kind of joy playing those types of games again on modern console hardware. 

Mario & Sonic is an interesting crossover in of itself and I wish Nintendo and Sega would explore the concept a bit more, but mixing in competitive sports isn’t a bad idea. As it is though Mario & Sonic 2020 is one of the best looking Switch games on the market both graphically and quality wise.  Look out for our full review when the game launches in the Americas on November 5, 2019.