Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games: Tokyo 2020 Review

As we prepare for the Olympics to praise our Athletic community next year in Tokyo, Japan, we also prep for another round of party games with both Nintendo and Sega’s beloved mascots as Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games enters its sixth entry in the series.

This is the series first run on the Nintendo Switch and for the first time, I find that this isn’t just a cash-in on the lucrative Olympics as Sega has taken some steps to change some things up. While the game is still a collection of quick mini-games based on Olympic sporting events, we now have a full story-mode, a collection of mini-games focused on Tokyo as a city, and a retro mode which throws the characters into their classic NES/Genesis look.

The story mode is probably the most interesting addition to the fray. As Mario and Sonic prepare to join in the Olympic games, they’re given an old arcade game called Tokyo 1964 – being, of course, the game to the 1964 Olympics which were also set in Tokyo. This ends up being a trap built with the collaboration of Bowser and Dr.Eggman who get trapped along with Mario and Sonic in the game. While Mario, Bowser, Sonic, Dr.Eggman, and Toad are trapped in the arcade game, Luigi and Tails attempt to find a way to break them out.

The story mode jumps between modern and retro between chapters and while silly, it’s a fun idea to showcase some of the various games. The part I enjoyed being a trivia buff was the pseudo open world that the game presents by highlighting some of Tokyo’s famous locations and provides some trivia about the Olympics, the sports events and the history of the location.

At the end of the day, Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games is a party game and that is the best way to play it, with a group of friends out to outperform the others. There are over 30 different mini-games available, 10 of which are retro-inspired and 3 Dream events, and while some are objectively better than others – most of these games come down to timing.

For example – racing games are usually designed to have players tap A the fastest, and while some variations exist like Hurdles or the triple jump, you can expect to do this motion a lot throughout these games. Others are about pressing A at the right time including Equestrian Jumping, and what I believe is the biggest sin of the game, Skateboarding – because hitting A at the end of a ramp is not the skill or fun way of performing cool tricks that only Sonic and Mario can do on a skateboard.

Others such as combat sports like the newly introduced Karate – Kumite (which will be joining the Olympics for the first time in 2020), is still very simple but gives the impression that there are more skill-based games to be found here. The same can be said about Gymnastics, which despite being a series of button inputs, still feels like some sort of skill is needed to time perfectly.

The Dream games were a personal favorite of mine, which included Dream Karate, Dream Shooting, and Dream Racing – which was a throw to the forgotten Sonic Air Riders racing game where Sonic and company would race on hoverboards. These games felt almost like they would have been at home in a Mario Party game than a game based on the Olympics but they were a welcome addition to the game.

Playing the game in Single-Player is more of a chore than anything, but if you play it like it’s intended with 3 other players or by using the games online function, quickly a lot of the things I nitpicked about goes away as it becomes a test of endurance, button mashing, and laughs. To nitpick once again, I would have preferred if multiplayer wasn’t split screen on events that could have been done one at a time as that would have given players more time to see how the party would do in the game, but this is a minor, possibly insignificant issue I had with the game.

Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games: Tokyo 2020 isn’t a bad game by far, in fact, it may be the best of the series. There are a lot of good ideas here that if the gameplay was changed up to be more on skill than timing would be a lot of fun; and its silly story-mode is a very entertaining way to try out all of the games and learn something about the Olympics and Tokyo in general. I recommend it for anyone who is a die-hard fan of the Olympics or if you’re looking for something casual to play with the family no matter what their gaming experience is.