Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 Preview

Mario, Sonic, and their entourages are back once again to compete in the Summer Olympics. Take control of your favorite character from either franchise and compete in the modern games, race across Tokyo in story mode, and go old school in a 2D version of the 1964 Tokyo Olympics.

NOW peach finally decides to fight

Once I entered my review code into our Nintendo Switch, I discovered this game possesses the power of summoning; specifically, it summons my children. So quickly does this happen whenever I approach the Switch I’m thinking of wall mounting the thing in the dining room so the little monsters will come to dinner when we call them. I wasn't anticipating this reaction. Olympic games have been done often, and mostly they involve near-lethal levels of carpal tunnel inducing button pressing. And yes, there is more than a bit of that here, but after I managed to get a hold of a controller I discovered that there is more to this game than the 100m button push. The events are a lot of fun as a group, switching back and forth, and of course, cheering and jeering. There is a story mode where you must quest across the various Tokyo venues, competing in events as you go to unlock new destination in a format that will seem familiar to any Mario fan, and an integral part of this quest involves competing in events at the 1964 Tokyo games which are rendered in 2D with graphics reminiscent of Super Mario Brothers.

Wait! Why don’t we team up and go get Mario??

All in all, it is shaping up to be an early Christmas for Mario and Sonic lovers. I can’t share a lot of details yet, but this game, while not perhaps anything truly new seems to be checking all the right boxes, I just wish I didn’t have to wait for the kids to go to bed before getting a chance to play it. And for the record, NO Sonic dosnt’t automatically win all the races.

Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 by SEGA hits the water on November 5th, 2019