Mario And Sonic

Long-time Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games producer Nobuya Ohashi sat down with IGN earlier this week at E3 2019 to discuss the finer aspects of the latest entry in the series, Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020.

As this is the sixth instalment and the last one since the 2016 Wii U entry, there was a question about what the motion controls in the Switch release would be like now that Nintendo has finally moved on from Wii Remotes. Ohashi explained how the Joy-Con motion control was a great way to experience sports, but you could also play the game using buttons:

“Motion control is definitely featured in this game. We are really excited to feature and utilise great parts about the Switch for this game. For instance, you don’t just have to use the Joy-Con. Obviously the Joy-Con is going to be a big part of the game. For instance, for surfing and skateboarding you’ll use the tilting mechanism to move the characters during the game, but also you can enjoy the games using the button mode…so there’s many, many ways of playing a lot of these mini games for this new game.

“For example, if you’re using the Joy-Con mode, you can enjoy disc throwing as one of the games and you could actually experience throwing the disc, by using your body, which is a big part of motion control. There’s also boxing that you can experience – really experience the punching motion.”

You'll be able to play "more than 20" games and different sporting events, which Mr. Ohashi finds to be a "very unique" experience.

When discussing the character clothing in the game, Ohashi said characters like Mario would no longer be wearing overalls all the time and certain sports required competitors to wear different clothing:

“Each of the characters are wearing different costumes, depending on the sporting event they are competing in. For instance, in the previous games Mario would always be wearing his overalls, even if he’s in water, but this time, we changed that, we actually gave him trunks, so he can actually swim in the water correctly.”

However, this doesn’t seem to explain why Sonic still has his shoes on while surfing – does he actually have feet? For more information about this game, check out our previous post.

Are you looking forward to playing the new Mario & Sonic game later on in 2019? Leave a comment below.

[source youtu.be]