You know what? I'm biased. You are not gonna get an even remotely objective review of this game from me. This is the only football game I give two shits about and the last Mario sports game actually worth playing that I am going to be talking about.

I adore everything about this game. Its presentation, its characters, super abilities, field desing and gimmicks, the music the personality and uniqueness compared to all the same sanitized stuff that we see in Mario games over and over again.

I love that every character in this game is just either cocky or furious the entire time, it just encapsulates that energy, adrenalin and anger that football players actually feel while on the field. I don't like to play that shit but I've seen people react to this sport, both playing it and simply watching it; I live next to a couple of football fields and I can confirm this, those motherfuckers never shut the fuck up, I hate them so much.

This game made me fear Bowser, fall for Peach, love Luigi, and hate Daisy for beating me in the very last game of a tournament once (She a baddie tho). There just isn't any other Mario spin off that portrays these characters with as much level of personality and charisma as this game does ...I don't think I ever expected to see Mario growl like that.

Outside of that, this is just a football game with a Mario flair on top and it is plain and simply too much fun because of that. I don't like football or soccer or whatever the fuck you wanna call it irl...But when my characters are being crushed, electrocuted, flying in the wind and the opponent is throwing giant fucking shells and shooting 10 balls from the sky...It's just like...I mean...HOW CAN I NOT BE INVESTED?!

The only real downside to this game is playing it with the Wii Remote and Nunchuck, as well as maybe the motion controls, but I don't really care. This game is just too much fun and I miss it every day, because it NEVER GOT A SEQUEL.

If I hate Switch Sports, I absolutely despise Mario Strikers Battle League and everything it did to this franchise. People who never got to play the original Strikers or this one, first experienced this series with the most mediocre, souless and bland Mario Strikers game in the whole series, and now they believe the rest of the games are just as mid.

If Battle League has a million haters, I'm one of them. If Battle League has one hater, it's me. If Battle League has 0 haters, I have died. If the world is against Battle League, I am with the world. If the world is for Battle League I am against the world.

Fuck you Nintendo, I hate you for what you did to this series with your god awful sub-par Mario sports games on the Switch, I hope you DIE.





So yeah, game good heheheehehh ❤️

FIFA for the chronically silly. It's a bright new day for Mario and friends but they're being real smug about it. Charged has just enough to be considered good and, shit, it's missing a stray gamemode with excellent replayability as the condiment, because the ingredients are all there and far from the expiration date to boot. Better take yo sensitive ass back to FIFA if you can't handle big Luigi stepping on you.

Good enough transition (Birdo reference) to touch upon power ups. In Mario Kart fashion, Strikers has leftover stock for the silly goobers to use. If only a few of them, but that's not all! You have this "megastrike" as the kids say. It's the ultimate fuck you, and the key to victory if your opponent's wii remote is broken. I know I be eating some balls when the CPU thinks he confortable with me. I could have eaten a player's balls but the people I asked to play with me weren't available. Maybe my wording was not convincing enough, what do we know.

I'm obsessed with that Bowser stage in space. Those stages look really rough. I'm talking aesthetic here, genuinely well done stadiums. The first Strikers had neat stadiums and all very classy but it's war Goku ain't no time for that 🤓 you're playing football on trashy waste garbagio and would dare tell me it's not a good game? I won't be fooled. Monty Mole and Petey Piranha also make this a not so boring cast. And the goalists. How did DK even convince K. Rool to lend his infantry? Now I wan't K. Rool megastrike 1440p.

The hook is definitely the aesthetics, which were famously so over-the-top they made Nintendo backpedal towards safer portrayals of the Mario cast, but the gameplay is also really solid. It's chaotic but still requires strategy, there's good variety between the different characters, the item system is a great way to encourage careful play, and it's just satisfying to charge up and score a Megastrike. And this is a minor detail, but I love how this game uses motion controls. The fact you have to shake the controller to attack adds an element of brutality I don't think could be recaptured with buttons, like you're actually shoving your opponent in real life.

Now this, this is a fucking video game! Mario Strikers Charged is one of the most off the walls arcaedy fun games I've ever played and even going back I enjoy every second of it.

Let's talk about the gameplay first, It's perfect. It keeps the base fun concept of the first game you can't really change soccer) but improves all the areas where that game lacked to the perfect amounts. You're allowed to choose a whole team of sidekicks rather than just one type and they all actually play different and serve different purposes. The goalie is actually competent in this game, maybe even too much so. Megastrikes are rewarding for all the trouble it takes to actually pull one off. And the stadiums all have unique gimmicks, vibes, and music tracks. Furthermore, the items feel more diversified in this game, and they all have a specific use here, and the introduction of captain specific abilities in the item slot that help turn the tides when you're down is really neat. All of this adds up to some of the most enjoyable gameplay that is both fun for casual players and surprisingly deep for more competitive ones.

The gritty and brutal style that the first game established is carried over and doubled down on in this game to a great degree. Each captain and sidekick have their own set of win/lose animations that range from humorous, charming, or surprisingly badass. The game's UI is much less standard and much more stylized to the game's tone. The main selling point here though lies in the game's soundtrack, it's so smooth, epic, and adds so much to the gameplay and experience.

In terms of content the game steps it up from the first game's pretty barebones showing. The main singleplayer content is once again a tournament mode but with much more splendor and presentation to it than was in the first game. You make your way through three cups worth of matches and at the end of each cup you face off against a new captain which you unlock after beating their cup. These captain matches are much tougher than the rest of the ones you faced in the bracket to get to them and can be pretty easy to mess up on causing you to restart the whole cup (damn you Petey Piranha) but the presence of a solid and fair challenge in one of these games is enough motivation to keep going. After finishing these cups the game provides a new game plus of sorts by allowing you to defend your title on each of the cups in the form of much harder brackets and that are really fun. There's also a mission mode in the form of the Striker Challenges, which ramp up in difficulty and can prove a real challenge in and of themselves for anyone looking for more from this game.

Overall, Mario Strikers Charged is a rare one-of-a-kind game that we will likely never see the likes of again. I'm confident to call it not only the best Mario sports game ever made, but just the best sports game of all time.