Mario Hoops 3-on-3
Image: Nintendo

Mario Golf. Mario Tennis, Mario Strikers. When people talk about Mario sports games, these are the ones that are most commonly brought up. But we're here to change that.

Today, over on our YouTube channel, the lovely Felix is celebrating one of the most underappreciated Mario sports games: Mario Hoops 3-on-3, known as Mario Slam Basketball in Europe.

Developed by Square Enix and released on the DS in 2006 (and 2007 in Europe), 3-on-3 utilises traditional basketball rules with a Nintendo twist. Being a DS game, you control your characters using the d-pad but every other action on the court uses the touch screen. You can play with friends in local wireless or enter a single-player Tourney with a team of three characters in order to unlock more. While the game may have been light on content — and there's a lack of online multiplayer — the core gameplay was hugely addictive and, like other Mario sports games, all of the characters and menus are bursting with personality.

If you were good enough at shooting hoops, you might have even unlocked a few Final Fantasy characters, too. Yep, that's right — Cactuar, Moogle, Ninja, Black Mage, and White Mage are all playable characters in Mario Hoops 3-on-3, so not technically characters, but a mix of interpretations of jobs and series mascots. It's a really unusual, unexpected blend of characters and IPs, but it works really well to make such a unique title on the DS.

Check out Felix's thoughts in the video above, and let us know whether you've played this — on DS or on the Wii U's Virtual Console — in the comments.