Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020

For older members of the game space, Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 came to life when its August 20th trailer debuted a collection of retro-themed Olympic events. The Mario & Sonic team-up (itself unfathomable to a generation of players) was at home on the Wii in its 2008 debut. As time went on, and after a sound rejection of motion controls, its presence and power diminished. Mario & Sonic 2020’s intriguing new additions, precious pixelated throwbacks, and appearance on the red hot Switch hardware signaled the return of genuine inspiration. It seemed like Super Smash Bros. may not have a monopoly on absurd rosters and outrageous minigames.

Almost immediately, Mario & Sonic 2020 feels fresh and creative. Surfing, Skateboarding, and Sport Climbing are smart new additions that feel more involved than traditional track and field challenges. Boxing, Soccer, and Rugby Sevens, which were all introduced in Mario & Sonic 2016 also feel relatively new, given the low install base of the Wii U and burial on the 3DS. Along with the retro throwbacks and some wild extraneous minigames, there’s a lot of “content” available in Mario & Sonic 2020. Accessing and enjoying it, however, is bundled with a series of qualifications.

It should come as no surprise that few of these games offer any measure of depth. Track and field events like the 100m Dash, Hurdles, and Triple Jump are subject to the same button-mashing and timing routines that have dominated sports game collections for a few decades. Others, like the Javelin and Discuss throw, operate with unintuitive button combinations that falls on the wrong side of satisfaction. Even Surfing and Skateboarding, both of which take their cues from trick-based extreme sports games of the early aughts, only have a handful of techniques to string together. Mario & Sonic 2020 is quantity over quality, but it’s such a massive quantity it’s easy to get distracted and wander over into the next available game.

Mario & Sonic 2020’s core roster of 20 characters offer variation specific to each event. In the 100m Dash, for example, Knuckles excels at the super move mechanic, Tails is quick off the line, and Metal Sonic boasts a high running speed. In Sport Climbing, Silver has a faster grip recovery, Metal Sonic specializes in power climbs, and Knuckles has an extended grip gauge. Some of these features are shared with other characters, meaning there are only five or six true character types, but it’s enough to make roster selections feel faithful to character personalities. Given the smattering of events, it’s impressive Mario & Sonic 2020 came up with so many ways to express different traits with explicit advantages.

To facilitate the wide range of content, Sega Sports R&D constructed a twenty chapter story mode around almost every event. After being gifted an old arcade machine, Mario and Sonic get sucked inside of it with Bowser and Eggman. It takes them to Tokyo in 1964, which, conveniently, was the last time the summer games were held in Japan. While there, our heroes and villains conclude that earning gold medals will somehow allow them to return to the world of 2020. To do that, as you may have guessed, they will have to traverse an 8-bit world map and compete in Mario & Sonic 2020’s collection of retro sports games. Each event cane be skipped once it’s been failed three times.

Back in 2020, Luigi and Tails do the best they can to figure out how an old arcade machine absorbed their friends and enemies. This involves traversing across a modern day world map of Tokyo, visiting the sites of every Olympic event, and somehow entering themselves or one of their buddies in each competition. Along the way they’ll encounter and compete against Mario and Sonic’s core roster, and even see a few cameos from some deep-ish cut characters (Sonic Riders’ Jet is there for Soccer, Diddy Kong shows up for Rugby, and Chaotix’s Espio the Chameleon says hello in the Triple Jump).

Classic idiosyncrasies are quickly apparently. Luigi and Mario can emote but they can’t speak. Donkey Kong and Yoshi can emote and speak, but only in interpretive parenthesis. Dr. Eggman’s miserable schemes always blow up in his face, and there’s a running joke about Eggman and Bowser openly discussing their nefarious plans in earshot of Sonic and Mario. Shadow is still indiscriminately angry. Waluigi is a gangly treasure. Metal Sonic can compete in underwater events. Everybody has their One Identifying Trait and Mario & Sonic 2020 nails them to a wall with it.

The threadwork holding the story mode’s fabric together is stretched thin—you spend a lot of timing trying to charge up a battery—but it fundamentally works as a method to shuffle characters across town and time in order to experience everything Mario & Sonic 2020 has to offer. Along the way the player can opt into reading some Olympic trivia and get a sense of the atmosphere of the 2020 games finally returning to Tokyo. Mario & Sonic 2020 even comes up with a few wacky, non-Olympic-related minigames under the guise of Tails or Luigi obtaining a ticket for events in which they’re inevitably competitors. Playing off and on from noon to about 10pm, making my way through the story mode consumed an entire Sunday. It worked because it correctly assumed that I only wanted to play every event once.

The retro-themed games come equipped with rose-colored glasses. A shoot ’em up, a basic shooter, an adventure game (with light stealth mechanics), a racing game, and odes to Track & Field are all conduct period-appropriate renditions of 1980’s entertainment. In some cases, like the Marathon, it’s so painfully accurate I never want to play it again. Others, like Volleyball, pull surprising depth out of their simplicity. These games and events are neat, appreciated additions and ultimately provide Mario & Sonic 2020 with an identity other than the fourth (or sixth, if you’re counting the pair of winter games) collection of minimally inspired party games.

Mario & Sonic 2020 is adept at creating space for accessibility. Almost every 2020 event can be played with either motion controls or with a standard button-based controller. I found the latter to be preferable in a party setting where nothing really matters and you’re all there to have a bit of ridiculous fun. This was the Wii Sports model and, while it’s definitely feeling its age, it still works as an appealing videogame. Some of the button-based options are awkward, I still have no idea how the Discuss Throw actually works, but buttons are better for either intense competition or if you want to beat the snot out of the AI. In both cases it’s a net-good that different options are ready and available.

I could have left the review there with a general thesis of “hey this is a pretty good, albeit inherently shallow, collection of games,” but, because I love you, here’s an overview of every game in Mario & Sonic 2020. I used both normal and motion controls, when available. In traditional I Am Reviewing A Collection Format, each game will also receive a letter grade consistent with the rating systems I experienced in grades 1-12 from 1989 to 2001. I understand this banal and minimally detailed information is only useful for a small number of people and I accept the consequences. Here are the events:

100m Dash – With a controller, I hold R to charge my stance and then mash A to increase my speed. A super burst is available at the end. The entire event usually lasts eleven seconds. Holding two Joy Cons, the start-up charge is identical but, predictably, motion controls are employed as I swing both controllers up and down to simulate running. As Pablo Honey is to a Radiohead fan’s discography, the 100m dash is to summer Olympic videogames. Boring, but it’s a foundational-level experience and needs to be here. C-

110m Hurdles – Similar to the 100m dash, but variably timed presses of the B button will allow the player to leap over four hurdles. I destroyed everyone, every time with this method because I have been pushing videogame buttons for three decades. Motion control adopts the same simulated up-and-down motion for running, but demands the player hold down R and thrust the controller forward to jump of hurdles. This feels insane and when I use it I can’t stop crashing through hurdles. The former is a test of button mashing skill and the latter is perfect for the first or second hour of a party, or any time before people start throwing up. C+

4x100m Relay – With a controller, it’s the 100m Dash but with four characters mashing the A button and executing charged dashes whenever available. There’s an added mechanic where, to hand off the baton, a brief timed-button sequence must be resolved. Motion controls employ the now-familiar two-handed running simulation, but add a thrusting maneuver to simulate the baton hand-off. I usually come in second or third playing with motion controls, just as I start to experience severe Wii Minigame Collection flashbacks. D+

Javelin Throw – The Javelin throw is where Mario & Sonic 2020 begins to demand additional brain power from the player. One button is mashed to form a run before another button is used to “charge” your arm for the javelin throw. Before you reach the foul line the angle of the throw must be determined with an analog stick. Doing all of this in sequence is quite a challenge, and I often selected Waluigi because, for some reason, he has an easier time managing the angle mechanic. With motion controls comes trange demand to hold a Joy Con over my head (as if I were running with a javelin) and then pretending to throw it. This makes sense except that I have no idea what the controller’s gyrometer is doing because sometimes I throw it into the ground in front of me and other times I throw it further than god. What a weird game. B

Triple Jump – This event combines normal running with exacting timing. I mash a button and then, to perform the titular three jumps, press X, X, and Y at set intervals. The timing is crucial, with the first jump in particular requiring a bit of an early press without resulting in a miss (which kills the entire sequence). I had to do this like ten times the first time I played before I actually finished it. Motion controls use the running animation, again, but task the player with lifting up a single Joy Con to account for each jump. Nothing especially exciting. C

Discuss Throw – Even when a controller is selected, Mario & Sonic 2020 informs the player that motion controls will be involved. From there the player has to execute analog stick turns comparable to mid-tier Street Fighter moves (to simulate a human body’s wind up, I guess) before pushing X and doing something with shaking the controller. A power gauge is involved, somewhere. I usually throw the disc directly into the net. In the story mode I had to do this a dozen times before beating Vector or whoever I was playing against. Motion controls use one Joy Con exclusively and demand I hold the controller backwards with one hand in a way I have never held a controller in my life. From there you simulate the back-and-forth motion of a disc toss except you don’t actually throw the controller. I can imagine four people doing this and an uninformed onlooker assuming the group is performing some abstract, high-art version of Twister or perhaps a religious ceremony. A real dope scene. I have no idea what’s happening here but, with motion controls, at least the disc usually leaves my hand and gets on the field right as my soul is about to leave my body. C

Sport Climbing – Sport Climbing is the big plastic wall you see people climb at large sporting goods stores or miserable business retreats. With a controller in Mario & Sonic 2020, it’s a deceptively complex game of using each analog stick in place of a hand, aiming that hand at the next left or right grip point, then playing a timing minigame with the L and R buttons to leap and execute that grip. With motion controls I literally have no idea what’s happening. I couldn’t get either Joy Con to do anything, despite paying fairly close attention to a tutorial that lead me to believe they would be used like hands. Seems fun if it works? C

Surfing – Brand new for 2020, Surfing is one of Mario & Sonic 2020’s most inventive and expansive events. It’s judged by the amount of points accumulated through a series of waves over two minutes. Points are earned by riding waves and performing tricks as you jump over crests. If a wave folds over the player, more points can be earned through a balancing minigame with an analog stick. With a controller, Surfing approximates a miniscule version of a Tony Hawk-like trick system. One Joy Con is used for motion control, relying on pointing for navigation and wrist-flicking motions for tricks. It’s not precise, but it’s enjoyable enough. A-

Skateboarding – Another new event, Skateboarding takes place of a small skate park-like bowl of curved surfaces and ramps. The analog stick and a button are used to execute kickflips, ollies, and no foot nose grabs that accumulate into a point total over the course of 90 seconds. Enough points build a meter that allows the player execute a rainbow colored super trick off a nearby surface. Motion controls are similar to surfing, with the player using a single Joy Con for pointing-based direction and wrist flicks to determine the motion for tricks. Like Surfing, I had a better time with a controller. Skateboarding is a great new event, as long as you’re not expecting a full blown trick system or multiple courses. B+

Boxing – Directions and two buttons create combinations of hooks, jabs, and body blows. The L button is available if you want to spend time blocking. Consecutive punches and counters are measured, but boxing still feels like a slightly advanced version of Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots. Boxing even has super punch moves and a button-mashing get-back-up mechanic, but you really shouldn’t be expecting Punch-Out!! levels of arcade action here. Motion Controls take a page from Wii Sports and use jab motions to simulate jab motions. Two human players could theoretically fight in real life while holding Joy Cons and do pretty well. It’s fun, albeit in the same way it’s been since 2006. B-

Karate – Karate kumite resembles Mario & Sonic 2020’s version of Boxing, but in the form of a 2D fighting game where you get to perform a takedown after landing enough unguarded punches. In every instance I mashed buttons and defeated whatever the AI had to offer. Motion control isn’t available here, which seems like a weird exception. In any case Karate feels like another one that’s specifically available to pad out the event list. C-

Football – Football, which means soccer, is another event without a motion control option. A team of four, in whatever configuration you choose, runs a ball up and down a field for four 60 second quarters (along with “extra time” which, as an American with no sense of culture beyond my own, makes no sense to me). Players can either pass the ball to their AI teammates or execute dastardly moves on any opponent in possession of the ball. Goal keepers are automated and didn’t offer much resistance to my technique of “run really close and shoot it right past them.” Super moves are available if you’re unsatisfied with kicking normal goals from the middle of the field. This isn’t Super Mario Strikers but it’s more fleshed out than you may expect from a soccer game in the middle of dozens of other games. Mario & Sonic 2020’s story mode filtered Football down to penalty kicks. Blocking an opponents was complete luck as I never had any indication where the ball was going. B+

Rugby Sevens – Do not ask my how Rugby Sevens is different from regular Rugby because I have no idea. With that in mind, this is another regular-controls-only game that is kind of like Mario & Sonic 2020’s rendition of soccer. A team of four, and three AI teammate-goons, are deposited on a large field where one teammate holds onto a ball while everyone on the opposing team tries to beat the shit out of them, via tackling, in order to gain possession of the same ball. Sometimes competitors will have to mash buttons to “push” against each other but most times it’s Kill The Man With The Ball. On offense you have the option to pass to someone else, which you will do a lot, or evade and perform a somersaulting mega jump. The objective is to get the ball to your end of the field and then fall on it. This scores five points and you can kick it in a field goal afterward to secure another two points. This is fun, albeit as a goofy 3D brawler that also happens to have a sport tucked in the middle. A-

Canoe – A pair of players boards a boat and must synchronize their paddling against three other boats for 1000 meters. For the first 700 meters the left analog stick is pushed down in sync with your partner. The last 300m are an all-out stick-flicking extravaganza. With motion controls, one Joy Con is held in one hand and moved up and down to simulate the paddling motion. Propelling the canoe becomes a timing minigame, albeit not a particularly interesting one. D+

Swimming – With a controller, players perform in a 100m swimming event by moving both analog sticks up and down to simulate arm motions. It’s a mash fest tempered by a rhythm meter that keeps your pace in check. Another button comes into play when flipping over to make the return trip back to the start. With two motion controllers, analog sticks are replaced by hand motions that make it look like you’re holding reigns and trying to use them for whatever reigns do to a horse. Interestingly, Mario characters are in bathing suits because they are people and Sonic characters wear nothing because they’re naked all the time. Vector wears his headphones in the pool which is weird until you consider Metal Sonic is also in the pool and doesn’t immediately sink like an acme safe or use his body to electrocute every human competitor. In any case, like the 100m dash, Swimming feels like it’s here because it has to be here. D+

Gymnastics – The player performs an aerobatic routine on an open floor. This involves pressing face buttons and performing quarter and half circle analog stick turns in succession to the rhythm of an impressive array of gymnastic special movies. Scoring is based on how well you timed and performed the required input. With a controller, think of gymnastics as fighting game moves in extreme slow motion. A single Joy Con is used for motion control and uses similar button combinations, but replaces the analog stick moves with motion swipes from the controller. Balancing sections make more sense here as well. Gymnastics is fine, especially when it’s done by someone as weird looking as Bowser Jr, but it’s not one I would come back to. C+

Badminton­ – Available in singles or doubles, Badminton is like tennis except it’s a weird dream-like object called a shuttlecock in the place of a round ball. Movement is automated, leaving the only challenge as nailing the timing on the return of the shuttlecock. In my experience it came down to both players returning the shuttlecock until they could execute a super-move, which scored a point every time. Motion controls use a single Joy Con and obey Wii Sports’ Tennis swiping rules for serving and returning shots. It is my sincere belief that Badminton will be forever condemned to minigame collections and, to the dismay of all the badmintoniers, will never be experienced as a proper videogame. I can’t believe this is an Olympic sport while something like dodgeball is just sitting on the table. In any case, Badminton is fine in Mario & Sonic 2020. C

Table Tennis – Table Tennis is like tennis but it takes place on a table instead of a large court, meaning you can play it at home if you’re at any house located inside of an upper-middle class neighborhood. Played as singles or doubles in Mario & Sonic 2020, Table Tennis takes cues from Badminton as it automates movement and allows the player to focus on returning shots. This time, however, the player can influence the direction of the ball with an analog stick and, if they can catch their opponent off-balance, score without relying on a super move. Motion controls use one Joy Coy and eschew the analog stick in favor or letting left swipes hit the ball left and right swipes, you guessed it, hit the ball right. Table Tennis’ additional level or directional strategy make it a better bet than Badminton, although it still relies on rules and control methods established in decades on games past. B-

Fencing – Fencing is sword fighting for sport instead of murder. Similar to Nidhogg (I realize this is backward; Nidhogg is similar to fencing. Please, let me have this). Players can thrust high and low over the course of three minutes (or ten points) in an effort to score hits on an opponent. Parrying high and low can be performed with the B button, adding a layer of strategy that the karate portion of Mario & Sonic 2020 is sorely missing. The rate at which super moves can be deployed is alarming. Motion controls demand a single Joy Con. Thrusting it forward executes a jab and swiping it left or right deflects in the appropriate direction. Everyone wears custom fencing gear here with two exceptions. The obvious one is Metal Sonic because Metal Sonic is made of metal. The other competitor who refuses to wear a suit is Donkey Kong, which is hilarious. In any case, fencing is alright. B+

Equestrian Jumping – Horses are athletes but must have a human on top of them in order to properly compete. For Mario & Sonic 2020, this translates to a stamina/jumping game. The player must drive their horse, which handles like a boat, across a tight track. A stamina meter can be burned to gain speed. Speed is necessary for landing jumps. Those jumps are also reliant on the player properly timing a single button press. The goal is to get the shortest time amongst the active competition. Motion controls work similarly; shake to accelerate, raise to jump, and tilt to turn. In my experience tilting to turn was a nightmare and rarely worked. Everybody wears a nice horse jumping button-up vest except for Bowser, Yoshi, Donkey Kong, Bowser Jr, Metal Sonic, and (if you unlock him) Larry Koopa. I will go to my grave wondering why their clothing choice was omitted. B-

Archery – Archery is the sport of Robin Hood and Geena Davis. With a controller, it’s a matter of holding the L button to draw, the R button to aim, then releasing the R button while the targeting reticule shifts with natural arm wobbling and wind resistance. With two shots each the target starts at 20m, goes to 40m, and concludes at 60m. A cumulative score is produced. With motion controls, the left hand is responsible for aiming while the right hand pulls back and allows the player to pretend they are firing an invisible bow. Tried and tested before, but I can’t imagine a better way to fire a bow and arrow with motion controls. B

Dream Racing – This is basically a snowboarding downhill race, only played on skateboards and it incorporates elements of the Skateboarding event’s trick system. You compete against seven other players on one fairly detailed and smooth two-minute downhill course. Dream Racing even has a few Mario Kart pick-ups like red shells and lightning. Motion controls oblige tilting for steering, upward motion for jumps, and rotation for tricks. It’s cool that motion controls were there but I can’t imagine a world in which I would ever use them. B+

Dream Shooting­ – Available as a controller-only event in solo or in teams, Dream Shooting tasks players with running around an outdoor course and blasting targets. You’re in direct competition with three other players, so clock management and efficiency are fairly important. Sometimes kites appear as more mobile targets in the sky. Despite the absence of pure motion controls, Dream Shooting turned my Pro Controller’s gyrometer on by default, even though it also used the left analog stick for its third-person aiming. This meant I had to play the game holding my hands completely still. Kind of ruined it! Why do they do this! C

Dream Karate – Also available solo or as a team and it similarly eschews motion controls. Dream Karate is kind of a 3D beat ’em up against three opponents where you punch, kick, and throw your opponent to knock them down on the floor. Once they hit the floor any affected tiles light up in your favor and get added to your total score. This clock for Dream Karate says it lasts for three minutes but it also counts down extremely fast. Sometimes people bounce like ping pong balls and smash into a whole bunch of tiles. Sometimes you can perform a super move. I have no idea who thought of Dream Karate or what it’s doing in an Olympic videogame (it feels like it fell out of Mario Party or those weird sideshows HAL buries in the options menu of Kirby games) but I am super pleased it’s included. A

Tokyo 1964 Events (All are controller/button only. The roster limited to 16-bit sprites of Tails, Sonic, Knuckles, and Eggman, and 8-bit sprites of Mario, Bowser, Luigi, and Peach )

100m Dash – Like its 3D 2020 counterpart, this involves charging/holding a button before the start and then mashing the A button as fast as possible. Period appropriate in style, mechanics, simplicity, and relief that it’s only twelve seconds long.  C-

400m Hurdles – Same as the 100 meter dash, except with ten hurdles and an extra 300 meters. The player can either jump “good” or “perfect” based on how closely the press the jump button before the hurdle. It’s a joke, usually, versus AI but I can imagine it being fun with three other people crushing controller buttons. B-

Long Jump – Mash the run button for 25 meters before reaching the foul line, at which point a different button brings a meter that, when held down, determines the angle of your jump. Ideally you want a combination of speed and angle, which I wasn’t great at but had zero trouble wasting every AI opponent. B-

Marathon – 1964’s most robust event, Marathon is two-to-three minutes of carefully timed sprinting, hazard avoidance, water replenishment, drafting, and luck. I did this four times and my best-ever finish was 9th, which was the only time Bowser didn’t perform some kind of impossible sprint at the very end that deflated any ambition I may have had. It’s cool that the Marathon actually is the game’s longest event (and its oldest), and, next to Volleyball, it has the most going on of any 1964 event, but I never want to do this again. A+ for effort, C for practicality.

10m Platform – Platform means diving. Players can select between three increasingly complex button combinations to perform on their descent from the diving board. Bonus buttons appear to boost your score in any remaining time. Four very simple attempts are granted. Sometimes I missed a button and wondered if I had ever held a controller before. This is the only time I have pretended to jump off of a diving board in a videogame. B-

Vault – Through three attempts, the player mashes a button to run, completes a timing minigame to determine the angle of the jump, does another minigame for the part where they do gymnastics as they leap over the bar, then one final timed button press to nail the landing. You get a number at the end. I laugh every time I mess it up and the announcer says oh no. B

Kayak – This is kind of inventive! The 1000 meter race demands the player rotate the right analog stick at speeds consistent with a meter in the middle of the screen. And the meter increases as the race goes on! The final 300 meters or so grant an all-out rotation-fest that may require Sega mail out some Mario Party gloves. Like most of Mario & Sonic 2020’s retro games, it’s over in about five seconds. C+

Judo – This took me around ten tries to figure out when I played it in story mode. You have to grapple with an opponent and balance an imaginary stack of weights that appear in the center of the screen. This represents their balance. Shift the stack back-and-forth enough times and it will allow you to topple them over. Sometimes I get thrown and I don’t know why. Judo seems to have more depth than the rest of the retro games, but I think its power is being used for evil instead of good. B-

Shooting – I was wondering how Sega was going to get Mario and Sonic characters to hold a gun in 2019 (the 2014 Wii U Winter Olympics game gave them rifles, so I assumed anything was possible). It turns out Sega didn’t! Character portraits are off to the side while the barrel of a gun is in the center of the screen. It’s skeet shooting, so the player must aim the gun toward a grid interface and fire right when the clay pigeon is perfectly in range. As time goes on, the grids and the pigeons become more complex. I guess it’s like Duck Hunt if Duck Hunt didn’t have magical lightgun technology. B

Volleyball – Teams of six must score six points to gain victory. At first I kind of wrote this off, it seemed too simplistic and the lack of fidelity—there’s no sprite animation so I couldn’t tell if I was hitting the ball or not—made it feel unresponsive. I stuck with Volleyball (because I kept losing in the story mode) and wound up discovering it has a robust three hit bump-set-spike mechanic. I even got the hang of jumping up and blocking incoming spikes. I never got a grip on whether or not it was worth it to control characters individually, most of the time they auto-walk where they’re needed, but it didn’t seem to matter too much. Volleyball might have more depth than any other 1964 game, and it was definitely my favorite of the bunch. A

“Game Room” Games (these were all encountered in Mario & Sonic 2020’s story mode and can be found afterword under the My Data menu. Five are modern and five are retro and all avoid motion controls)

Tower Climb (2020) – Adapted from Sports Climbing, Tower Climb removes the fake plastic wall and replaces it Tokyo Tower. It adds bumper and springs from Sonic, adding a bit of strategy to the accent process. Like a lot of the Game Room diversions, it’s neat that someone thought of a way to integrate Tokyo landmarks inside of existing mechanics. B+

Metropolitan Goal Kick (2020) – This is wild. Ostensibly taking place at the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building, Luigi (only Luigi!) faces off against a collection of Egg Pawns, one of which is holding a football. Tackling the robot makes it explode, causing all the other robots and Luigi to scramble for the now-free bouncing football. Once Luigi gets it he power slams it in the middle of the court, which brings up a separate screen for him to perform a timed kick into Metal Sonic. It is extremely neat that someone came up with this bizarre game. A

Kabukiza Clash (2020)  – Taking place at Ginza’s Kabukiza Theater, Tails (only Tails!) uses a bow-and-arrow to pick off Egg Pawns, but only when they raise a giant bomb above their heads to hurl at Tails. If you’re late you can also shoot bombs out of the air. Tails’ reticule is slow but there’s an option to speed it up at the cost of precision. You have three minutes to kill 36 of them. This was fun once, but ultimately it felt like playing a lightgun game without a lightgun. C-

Shibuya Scramble Search (2020) – As the name implies, this one takes place at Shibuya’s famous pedestrian crossing. The player is shown a picture of a unique looking Toad. Sometimes this different colored Toad will have an umbrella or a present or some other object in their hand. The game zooms out to the entirety of the scramble and the player then has to pick that Toad out from a crowd of hundreds of differently colored Toads. This progress through a few levels of difficulty, each one bumping up the crowd. It’s Where’s Waldo if you’re old enough to know what Where’s Waldo was. Shibuya Scramble Search is a simple concept and it has no reason to be in a videogame about the Olympics, but, shit it’s pretty fun! B+

Treeside Rumble (2020) – At the Tokyo Skytree, Tails will have to smack the crap out of mobs of Shy Guys. He must kill sixty of these things in two minutes and thirty seconds. To make your life harder they will kick around spiked balls but to make life easier sometimes they’ll have firecrackers, which you can knock out of their hands to murder a whole bunch of them simultaneously. C+

Tokyo Sky Flight (1964) – Sonic boards his famous biplane, only Mario is behind the controls instead of Tails. This operates as a horizontal shoot ’em up against Eggman’s robots with typical machine gun fire, a charge shot, and a neat shield/blast attack mechanic. It has three stages, each with their own bosses, which would be considered short if it weren’t joined by a billion other games in this collection. I am glad there’s a contextually appropriate shoot ’em up representation somewhere in Mario & Sonic 2020. B

Bullet Train Blast (1964) – Speed is kind of Sonic’s thing, so he’s chosen to race a shinkansen in 2D through rural Tokyo. He does this by mashing the crap out of the A button and jumping to avoid incoming obstacles. Invincibility will allow him to run though those obstacles. Bullet Train Blast, in the parlance on 2019, is closer to a Runner than a Platformer, but, like so much of Mario & Sonic 2020, it’s OK for what it is. That means it’s fun once, possibly twice, and never again. This is perfectly fine. B-

Sumida River Boat Ride (1964) – Mario boards a speed boat to chase Bowser (also in a speed boat) in what functions as a horizontal shooter variant. Mario can shift up and down across two planes, actively avoiding hazards that are always approaching in one of those two lanes. He has a turbo meter for a quick boost and can surf over waves for a de facto jump mechanic. If he rides one of those waves into a string of Cheep Cheeps, he’ll bounce on top of them with remarkable satisfaction. B-

Highway Chase (1964) – A mixture of Out Run, Chase H.Q., and a 16-bit interpretation of Sonic R, this pits Sonic on an open highway and tasks the player to hold down A and hit some turbo pads to catch up with Dr. Eggman’s car. He must avoid traffic that is perfectly engineered to get in his way. Eggman must be jump-attacked as soon as he’s caught, but his car’s pretty strong so you have to do it a few times. Twenty-second check points give Highway Chase some structure but I never had a problem finishing it. Probably the best looking 1964 game, as it replicates Sega’s super scaler games in a fairly convincing manner. A-

Museum Sneak – Stealth game. Mario must infiltrate a top-down museum and stay out of the patrolling flashlights of Koopa Troopas, paths wandering Goombas, and the occasional feisty hammer brother (?). There are three floors of this, each also containing coins to collect for some obscure bonus points and keys to collect to progress. The last floor calls for a bit of pattern recognition and ingenuity on the part of the player. I earned 394875 points, which seems like a lot. B

It is done.

Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 feels like the hardest Sega has tried at coming up with a broadly appealing track and field collection since DecAthelete. The wide range of events and alternative control options create open accessibility while a handful of retro throwbacks and madcap minigames function as impressive novelties. Mario & Sonic’s limitations are still recognizable, but Tokyo 2020 feels like the farthest anyone can drag an Olympic videogame into the present.