It's going to be hard to top this Direct. I've been asking for a new Strikers game every year though never quite expecting it, sometimes worrying that I did a theme change too prematurely in case a Strikers game drops, I've been highlighting it through my themes for years now. I thought the series was just gonna sit on backburner for decades, after a decade and a half, and even if Nintendo tried to bring it back, they'd heavily water it down and make it play too similar to Mario Sports Superstars soccer. Well, it's back, and my first impressions are really good, though of course I'm going to have to wait and see what they'll do with this game.
So far my real complaint are the recycled voice effects, I mean they do have fitting voice clips, but I'd like new lines, especially if the lines mirror the intensity we heard from the original Super Mario Strikers. New games DO tend to have placeholder clips that eventually get replaced for new ones, but I'm not sure if they'll stick with those or not, it can go either way. Oh, also I still prefer Kritter as a goalie compared to Boom Boom and wish for Kritter to be back, just crossing my fingers that you can change the goalies too, would be neat if goalies had their own stats and whatnot.
Anyhow, the game retains its flashiness and overall edge (the guitar bgm lol, and also the electric fences being usually the real star of these games) but I feel it kinda mixes between the first two games. We'll see more expressions down the line. Wonder if we'll hear theme songs too. I love the animations, the over-the-top particle effects, and whatnot. I vastly prefer the new teambuilding aspect so far, where you can now plop Mario, Luigi, Peach, Toad, Rosalina, all in the same team, which is a boon. I do like to see the mooks return though, like Koopa and Dry Bones and Hammer Bro. and Birdo, but as standalone players rather than team filler. Besides from Rosalina I wonder if they're going to introduce more new characters. A game that revolves around building a team should have a pretty sizeable roster imo.
Oh and there's the apparent increased amount of customization. I think you can choose your logos and your team colors, which is super neat. I'm not sure if logos are tied to color, but I'm soooo going for the fab pink color when I get the means to play the game. I also like to see more stadiums; so far, we got just a basic one. I also dig the costume feature, it just seems like wardrobe changes are a recurring norm for Mario and friends and Wario. It'll be so fun to try out different builds for each character, like should I go for a tanky Mario + passy Luigi and agile Toad? The visor also looks neat. I hope there's going to be a good deal of gear to play with.
I hope there won't be as jarring as a difficulty spike the second game suffered from. They made Fire Cup laughably easy but Crystal Cup can kick you pretty hard if you're not prepared. First time my sister and brother and I tried it, we did not expect goalie jumps and whatnot. Now, I can probably clear Crystal Cup again once I get out of the "rusty" phase (Boo netted most of my goals as well as Toad) but Striker Cup was too stressful for me or maybe I just severely overestimated the difficulty since I DID clear Striker Cup with no losses, even beating Petey like 0-5 and blocking Petey's orange super-fast balls and laughing at that stupid stupid eyeless limbo-playing freak as Kritter.
