Mario & Sonic at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games is a colorful and energetic collection of Olympic-themed minigames that brings Mario and Sonic together for another round of friendly competition. The game features a variety of events inspired by the Rio Olympics, including 100m sprint, long jump, javelin, swimming, football and more, with touch-screen and button controls used to add variety. The presentation is bright and cheerful, and the large cast of Nintendo and Sega characters gives the game plenty of personality. However, the individual events can feel fairly shallow, and the overall experience is better suited to short sessions than extended play. It is an enjoyable party-style sports game, but it lacks the depth and polish of the strongest entries in the series.
Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games offers a surprisingly substantial selection of Olympic events and is one of the better-balanced entries in the crossover series. Alongside standard events such as athletics, swimming, gymnastics and cycling, it includes Dream Events that add more imaginative Mario and Sonic-style twists to the competition. The controls make good use of the 3DS hardware without becoming unnecessarily complicated, while the colorful graphics and lively presentation fit the characters perfectly. There is plenty to unlock and a good variety of events, although some activities become repetitive after extended play. Overall, it is a fun and accessible sports collection that works particularly well for quick multiplayer sessions.
Mario Golf: World Tour is arguably the most refined sports game on this list, offering a surprisingly deep golfing experience while retaining Mario’s colorful personality. The core golf mechanics are excellent, with satisfying shot timing, varied courses, wind and terrain considerations, and plenty of opportunities to improve your technique. Standard Mario-themed courses are complemented by more traditional golf environments, while RPG-like character customization and unlockable content provide additional motivation to keep playing. The 3D visuals are attractive and the controls are responsive, although some progression and downloadable-content elements can feel unnecessarily fragmented. Nevertheless, World Tour combines arcade accessibility with genuine golfing depth and stands as one of the strongest Mario sports games on the 3DS.
Mario Sports Superstars attempts to deliver five different sports in a single package—soccer, baseball, tennis, golf and horse racing—and succeeds to varying degrees. The sports generally have solid controls and a good amount of content, with golf and tennis being particularly enjoyable, while baseball provides a more strategic experience than some of Mario’s earlier sports titles. The colorful graphics and large roster of familiar characters make everything immediately appealing, and the game provides enough variety to keep things interesting for quite a while. However, combining five sports means that none of them reaches the depth of dedicated games such as Mario Golf: World Tour, and the single-player experience can eventually feel repetitive. It is best viewed as a broad, accessible sports compilation rather than a truly definitive entry in any one discipline.
Mario Tennis Open is a fast, accessible and surprisingly entertaining tennis game that focuses heavily on quick matches and arcade-style action. The basic gameplay is easy to learn but still allows some strategy through different shot types, positioning and timing, while the 3DS’s touch screen provides an alternative way to select shots. The roster includes familiar Mario characters, and the colorful courts and energetic presentation give matches plenty of personality. A major weakness is the relatively small character roster and limited amount of content compared with later Mario sports games, which can make the experience feel somewhat bare after the initial excitement wears off. Still, the tennis itself is responsive and enjoyable, making Mario Tennis Open a good choice for short bursts of handheld sports gaming.
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Mario & Sonic at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games
This entry delivers a vibrant, colorful portable package that leans heavily on quick-play minigame compilation style rather than deep athletic simulation. The single-player “Road to Rio” story mode sees your custom Mii climbing the ranks through various training challenges and unlocking stat-boosting outfits, but the actual roster distribution feels overly restrictive by limiting character choices per specific event. While traditional events like archery and football offer brief entertainment, many touch and motion control schemes feel inconsistent or awkward to play on the go. It serves well enough for casual multiplayer sessions via Download Play, but solo players will likely find the shallow gameplay loop growing repetitive far too quickly.
Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games
Boasting an massive collection of over 50 mini-events, this portable olympic title focuses on micro-game variety over deep mechanical substance. The game takes full advantage of the 3DS hardware features, requiring everything from stylus swipes and gyro aiming to microphone shouts, though the sheer variety leads to an inconsistent quality where genuine gems sit alongside tedious button-mashers. Its single-player campaign featuring a quirky fog-machine plot line feels overly padded and dialogue-heavy for such short gameplay segments. It stands as a charming, visually polished party game that shines brightest in local multiplayer, but lacks the longevity needed for an enduring solo experience.
Mario Golf World Tour
Developed by Camelot, this installment represents one of the absolute highlights of the 3DS sports library by striking a perfect balance between realistic golf mechanics and arcade Mushroom Kingdom flair. The central Castle Club mode acts as a light RPG hub where players can guide their Mii through single-player tournaments, unlocking gear that alters drive distance and control stats. Across both standard links and obstacle-filled Mario-themed courses, the ball physics, wind mechanics, and touch-screen shot controls feel tight and rewarding. With plenty of unlockables, challenge modes, and slick presentation, it provides a deep, highly addictive golfing experience that easily appeals to hardcore and casual players alike.
Mario Sports Superstars
Rather than focusing on a single discipline, this title bundles five full-fledged sports into one cartridge: Soccer, Baseball, Tennis, Golf, and Horse Racing. While having multiple standalone modes sounds generous on paper, the individual sports often feel like stripped-down, simplified versions of their dedicated Mario spin-off counterparts. The inclusion of horse racing brings a unique and surprisingly charming dynamic to the mix, but the rest of the package suffers from a mechanical blandness and a repetitive single-player tournament structure. It functions best as an accessible all-in-one sports sampler for quick local or online matches, but fails to offer the deep, mechanical polish found in Mario’s dedicated single-sport outings.
Mario Tennis Open
This portable arcade tennis title offers precise, fluid court action with intuitive touch-screen shot selections that make rallies fast-paced and easy to pick up. The gameplay introduces Chance Spots—glowing colored rings on the court that prompt specific shot types to unleash powerful, stylized returns—adding an element of real-time strategy to every point. However, the game leans so heavily on these Chance Spots that it can occasionally reduce matches to a simple exercise in color-matching. Beyond standard exhibition matches, tournaments, and a handful of fun skill-based minigames, the single-player content feels noticeably bare-bones without a traditional story mode, making its tight core mechanics best enjoyed against human opponents.
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Mario & Sonic at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games
The definitive version of the Rio games is actually on 3DS, not Wii U. It ditches the motion-control party gimmick and leans into a surprisingly solid single-player structure with a Road to Rio story mode where you train your Mii and build rivalries. The events themselves are a mixed bag – archery and table tennis are great, some of the track events are button-mashy – but there are a lot of them, they control well, and the 3DS-exclusive Pocket Marathon and Dream Events add variety. For a licensed Olympics game, it’s much more substantial than it has any right to be.
Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games
This is the weaker of the two Olympic games on 3DS and it feels much more like a quick mini-game compilation. There’s no story mode like Rio has, just a series of events and a very thin single-player challenge ladder. The events are hit-and-miss, with touch and gyro controls that often feel imprecise, and it gets repetitive fast if you’re playing alone. It’s still fun in short bursts with friends locally, and the presentation is charming and colorful, but it lacks the depth and staying power that Rio later added.
Mario Golf: World Tour
Easily the best game on this list. World Tour nails the core of Mario Golf – it’s accessible enough to pick up instantly, but the shot shaping, spin, and course reading give it serious depth. Castle Club is a fantastic RPG-lite campaign where you level up your Mii, take on challenges, and unlock gear and courses, which solves the usual Mario Sports problem of having nothing to do solo. The online tournaments were great in their prime, and even offline, the DLC courses included on cart later on make this one of the most complete and replayable sports games on the 3DS.
Mario Sports Superstars
This is the most ambitious and also the most uneven. Five full sports in one cart – soccer, baseball, tennis, golf, and horse racing – sounds like great value, and on paper it is. Baseball and soccer are surprisingly competent, and golf is a stripped-down version of World Tour’s engine that still plays well. The problem is that none of them are the best version of that sport on 3DS, the single-player is just endless tournaments with no real progression, and horse racing feels completely out of place. It’s a decent sampler if you want a bit of everything, but you’d be better off buying the dedicated games it borrows from.
Mario Tennis Open
A very polished but very bare-bones Mario Tennis. The on-court gameplay is excellent – tight controls, good use of the Chance Shot system, and the touch-screen aiming works better than you’d expect. Special Games like Galaxy Rally and Ink Showdown are fun distractions. Where it collapses is content. There’s no real campaign, no RPG mode like the Game Boy Advance games had, just a Mii that you level up slightly by playing the same tournaments over and over to unlock gear. As a pure tennis engine it’s great for multiplayer, but as a solo game it gets old in an afternoon.
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Mario & Sonic at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games
This 3DS entry in the long-running crossover series feels like a confident, polished culmination of the handheld formula. The event selection is varied and genuinely fun, with a great mix of traditional track-and-field staples and quirky new additions like rugby sevens and BMX, all of which make clever use of the system’s gyroscope and touch screen. The standout, however, is the deep single-player mode where you roam Rio to recruit athletes, which adds a surprising layer of strategy and replayability. While the motion controls can occasionally feel finicky and the overall package doesn’t radically reinvent the wheel, it’s a vibrant, content-rich sports title that perfectly captures the chaotic, joyful spirit of the Games.
Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games
As the first handheld entry in the series, this game is a charming but somewhat cautious debut that succeeds more on novelty than execution. The core roster of 20+ events is impressively large, ranging from the expected sprints and swimming to more eccentric options like equestrian and clay pigeon shooting, all presented with a bright, cartoony London aesthetic. The problem lies in the control schemes; many events rely heavily on stylus swipes and frantic tapping that can feel imprecise and tiring, often leading to frustration rather than fun. The “Party Mode” is a nice attempt to add board-game-style variety, but it fails to mask the somewhat shallow single-player experience. It’s a decent launch-window showcase for the 3DS’s capabilities, but it’s rougher around the edges than its successors.
Mario Golf: World Tour
Camelot delivers a masterclass in arcade-sports design with this brilliant 3DS title that expertly balances pick-up-and-play accessibility with surprising mechanical depth. The core golfing is sublime, with a simple three-tap shot system that feels incredibly satisfying and is augmented by the clever use of the touch screen for precise spin and curve control. The single-player “Castle Club” mode is a fantastic RPG-lite experience, where you level up your Mii, earn coins, and unlock new gear and clubs, providing dozens of hours of addictive progression. The online tournaments and downloadable challenges keep the competition fresh long after the story is over. With tight controls, gorgeous visuals, and a wealth of content, this is easily one of the finest sports games on the system.
Mario Sports Superstars
This ambitious title attempts to bundle five distinct sports—soccer, baseball, tennis, golf, and horse racing—into one cartridge, but the result is a jack-of-all-trades that fails to master any of them. Each sport plays competently, with simple controls that are easy to learn, but they all lack the depth, polish, and nuanced physics of dedicated entries like Mario Golf or Mario Tennis. The soccer and baseball modes are the most fleshed out, offering full team management and quick, chaotic matches, but the golf is a stripped-down version of World Tour and the tennis feels floaty. The unique selling point is the card-collecting mechanic, which adds a strategic layer by letting you boost stats, but it feels more like a gimmick to mask the shallow core gameplay. Ultimately, it’s a fun diversion for a few hours, but its lack of focus makes it feel like a collection of tech demos rather than a essential purchase.
Mario Tennis Open
This early 3DS title shows its age, delivering a solid but ultimately forgettable tennis experience that fails to serve up anything truly memorable. The on-court action is fast and fluid, with a simple control scheme that lets you perform top-spins, slices, and lobs with ease, but the lack of a proper “Mario” feel—with its subdued power-ups and courts that don’t radically alter play—makes it feel generic. The single-player mode is a straightforward grind through a series of increasingly difficult tournaments, which quickly becomes repetitive due to the absence of a compelling RPG structure or character progression found in other Camelot titles. The gyroscopic “first-person” view is a novel but impractical gimmick, and the online multiplayer, while functional, isn’t enough to save the bare-bones package. It’s a perfectly playable tennis game, but it’s a clear letdown compared to the series’ previous outings on the Game Boy Advance and Nintendo 64.
