Another Super Bowl has come and gone, which means another year where I wonder why we don’t have a Super Mario football game. It’s an unusual gap in the otherwise-illustrious athletic career of Nintendo’s most versatile hero. Case in point: Mario just served hard with Mario Tennis Fever for Nintendo Switch 2.
Mario clearly has some unparalleled athleticism, seeing as he’s pushing 40 and darting around the court like Roger Federer in his prime. All the sports in the air, on and off Nintendo’s console, got me thinking about some other pro sports Mario would, and should, try his fiery little hands at.
Mario’s already slammed dunks. He’s hit home runs. He’s played hockey at the Winter Olympics, graced the tennis courts on more than one occasion, and played the weirdest golf games imaginable. He’s even tackled soccer! There’s just one mainstream organized sport left that he hasn’t taken part in. (Two if you count cricket, but I’m American and don’t know what that is.) Football. The real football. So not soccer. And it’s such a natural fit for the Mushroom Kingdom. They already have Chargin’ Chuck, an actual in-universe football player. Wario and Bowser are natural linebackers. Waluigi’s legs make him a born kicker. Mario surely would be the best quarterback ever if he didn’t accidentally throw fireballs with the football. Yoshi could eat the ball, dash to the endzone, and be completely annoying for everyone who isn’t playing that Yoshi. So much potential!
Bowling
I’m surprised there hasn’t been a Mario bowling game yet, really. Every character is just so distinct that I can see clear as day how they’d work. Bowser being a power-thrower. Luigi the technician. Peach with the princess’ royal spin. Yoshi the… eater of the ball? Hmm, maybe not so easy with that one. Anyway, bowling is like golf, one of those “simple but deep” sports with a lot of room for variation. I’m thinking a Toadstool Tour-style approach to bowling alleys, too, with all kinds of Mario obstacles on the lanes. Weird bumpers. Bizarre effects at the pins. Special powers to augment your throw or hinder someone else’s. C’mon, Nintendo. It’s a free idea right here!
Polocrosse
Why choose between polo and lacrosse when you can do both? (It’s a real hybrid, trust me.) Lacrosse is one of the most challenging sports out there, a rough contact sport with a big emphasis on defense and good use of a big stick (no, not for beating people with). You also need exceptional coordination. Something complex and skill-based is just begging for a bunch of Super Mario powers to throw everything off-balance. The polo element — which is sort of just playing lacrosse on a horse — does take some of the “contact sport” element out of it, but the Mario universe has Yoshis, ready-made mounts. Although it might be a bit weird for green Yoshi to be a playable character riding around on one of the other, lesser Yoshis. Well, Nintendo can sort out the logistics.
Bossaball
Bossaball is a fantastic mashup of volleyball you play on inflatable courts with trampolines. I’m not really sure how Mario-ness would fit into bossaball. It’s kind of something you’d expect to see in a Mario game already. But it’s a cool sport and Mario should play it.
Underwater Hockey
Super Mario world has an odd relationship with water, where it either kills you instantly or you can magically breathe while swimming and never have to surface. A game of water hockey under the former set of rules wouldn’t last very long, so this would have to be a “breathe forever” scenario, of course. And I think it would do well as one of those straight-laced Mario sports games without all the fancy power-ups. You don’t need powers to make things interesting when you can throw:
- Cheep-Cheeps
- Those gigantic eels
- Bloopers
- Creepy Mario-fied lantern fish
- Piranha plants
And all the other underwater Mario things into the mix. The goal of underwater hockey is shoving a weighted puck across the bottom of a pool. And it’d take real skill to do that under those conditions.
Cheese Rolling
The Mushroom Kingdom doesn’t really have a culture, per se, but if you read between the lines, it’s pretty easy to see this is a rural, idyllic pastoral-type place. There’s one city (castle town), after all, and a lot of tiny little burghs, if you take the Mario and Luigi games’ geography as official canon. And not much else. So it’s not much of a stretch to imagine Mario and all the little Toads gathering together for a good ol’ cheese roll, carrying on the pre-Roman tradition of chasing a big cheese wheel down a hill
“Cheese rolling isn’t a pro sport,” I hear you say. To which I respond: Have you seen the way these people chase those cheeses and throw themselves without dying? And you’re gonna tell me that’s not pro-level skill? I don’t think so, buddy.