Mario Hoops 3-on-3, first impressions/review

Video, images, and review by hey_suburbia of WiiNintendo.net

Picked up the import of this game about a week ago, despite the language barrier it was prett simple to naviagate and figure things out.

I still don’t get why things like “SCORE”, “GOAL”, “Time”, and “Coins” are written in English….

Also, one more quick disclaimer. In the video below I’m playing through a camera lens and trying to keep it steady, so it’s very hard to play 100%.

Just thought I’d throw that out there before the “you suck at that game” comments roll in.

Anyway, let’s get into it.

Mario Hoops 3-on-3
Nintendo DS/Lite
Nintendo/Square Enix
US Release: 9/11/06

First things first, time for some quick training; how to pass, dribble, shoot, power moves, dunks, etc. You’re also shown some defensive moves like stripping the ball away or shooting a turtle shell at the person with the ball to create a turnover.

Once you’ve mastered those skills it’s time for the tournament, which is set up very similiar to Mario Kart in that there are different Cups to compete for.

The Mushroom Cup:

Stadium, Beach, Mushroom Kingdom

The Flower Cup:

Raft in Jungle, Luigi’s Mansion, Pirana Court

The Star Cup:

Gear Court, Roof top Vegas, Bowser’s Castle

Rainbow Cup:

Ice Court, Under water court, Mario 3 floating ship court.

How’s the gameplay? Well, the name says it all, you get to choose a team of three by dragging your character into a hoop using the touch screen and hitting “OK”, the other teams are assembled and you’re ready to play ball. The stylus is used in a lot of fun, innovative, and intutive ways. You’ll see more fun uses later on.

I didn’t do any previous reading about Mario Hoops 3-on-3, so I figured it was just a standard basketball game with some mushrooms or turtle shells floating around. I also assumed that your points would be scored just like any other basketball game. I was wrong. Your score is actually made up from the total amount of coins you gain during your offensive move to the hoop. There are lots of ways to get coins. You can dribble over “?” boxes to get coins (but by doing so you leave youself open for a turnover, so this has to be done quickly and when you are open), you get coins for executing a “power shot”(which is a specific tapping on your stylus; for Mario you tap an “M”), you can get a lot of coins by doing a crazy ass slam dunks, alley oops, and many other ways. After making a goal, your coins collected during that drive get added to your score and then the coins are reset for your next offensive drive to the hoop.

As far as control, I was pleasantly surprised about how nice and fluid it was to handle the ball. You control your player with the D-Pad and to pass, hit L to select the teammate and slide the stylus in that direction to pass. To dunk run up to the basket and slide the stylus from the bottom to the top and you’ll jump up, then in the air you can move the stylus up/down quickly to gather more coins and do a wicked dunk. On the flip side you can block opponents dunks by jumping at the same time and moving the stylus up/down quickly. I really like the use of the stylus to throw turtle shells at your opponent, it’s really accurate and intuitive, kind of like rolling a bowling ball. Around the court there are “?” boxes lying flat on the court that will give you items and/or coins, to get coins on offense you can dribble on the “?” boxes to get more coins or you can run through a box to get an item, there are 6 or so items that I counted. Mushroom, lightning bolt, slow down purple thing, star, bomb, banana peel, ice freeze, blue/red/green shells, and other Mario related items. They help on both offense and defense.

10 Minute video of uncut playing:

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At first Mario Hoops 3-on-3 felt like a Mario Party mini game, the games were really easy and not much demension to them. But, has you progress (especially after the Flower Cup) things get tougher and the environments more interactive. On the 2nd court in the Star Cup you’re on a rooftop at a Las Vegas type place and after a nice shot you get a slot machine which can add or subtract coins from your score based on if you’ve lined up the images on the slot machine. On the Piranha Court the baskets are replaced with giant piranha plants that will knock you down if you try to dunk on them. Each Court has great environments and they all have unique obstacles ranging from bomb-ombs walking around to lava on the court.The graphics are simply amazing! 60fps, nice polygon count, great colors, and the animations are perfect. The menu system is great (Even in Japanese I could get around) and the use of both screens is great

The sound is also great. Each court has it’s own music (usually familiar tunes with some added orchestra elements, I loved the original Super Mario Bros. water level music in the water court) gathering coins sounds just like it did in the original Super Mario Bros. Mario shouting “Fantastico” after each basket is slightly annoying, but I’m pretty sure that will be changed in the US version to the slightly less annoying, “Here we go”. Then there is some weird pop song being played during team selection. Sounds like a Japanese girl pop band. When you beat the game there is this electronic remix song with lot’s of different familiar Mario Bros. sounds in the background.
Mario Hoops doesn’t have Wi-Fi, which is quite possibly the biggest downfall of this game. It does however have 4 player WiFi, but each DS needs a cartridge… You get to compete in a bunch of different mini games. The last court in the Rainbow Cup has you playing 3 secret characters from another Square Enix game, I won’t say who… The game also opens up a “hard” option to play on the same courts as before.

Screens I took, check it

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