Next year marks a historic event, as it’s time for another Olympic Games, this time being held in Tokyo, Japan. For Japanese video game companies Sega and Nintendo, it’s doubly important, as it’s also time for another iteration of their highly popular sports series Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games.
Mario and Sonic at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games was one of the titles showcased at Nintendo’s E3 2019 stage a few weeks back. From its trailer there, we saw some of the new events to be added to the sport title, including skateboarding, wall climbing, karate, and surfing. It left a lot to be desired, though, as the trailer was quite short and only teased a bit of what’s to come.
Fortunately for us, we can now take at an in-depth look at some of the events that will be available in Mario and Sonic at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games. These five minutes of gameplay showcases the new events, while also giving us a first look at how motion controls for the game will be implemented. Check out the footage below.
First off, we have the Spring Hurdles event, and like all the other events to follow, it’s captured in a split-screen mode. Mario and Sonic at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games features support for both split-screen local multiplayer and an online mode. The motion controls will have the Joy-cons mimic a running motion with your arms, followed by raising your right hand once you get to a hurdle. It’s kind of intuitive, and should be a lot of fun when you play with friends on a couch.
The next one looks a bit more challenging, as Archery takes the stage. The motion controls here will have you pulling back on a virtual bow, and aiming with your other Joy-con. It also marks a different split-screen perspective from the Sprint Hurdles, as the divide for this one is horizontal rather than vertical. It will be interesting if there are options for that as well, seeing as horizontal can be kind of jarring for the Archery event, as shown in the footage.
The footage also showed off the Karate event, where after a certain point you can go for leg sweeps to knock down your opponent. The last event shown is Skateboarding, and it’s pretty straightforward in terms of controls. I just think of it as something like the Tony Hawk games, as there’s no instance shown where the motion controls were involved for this particular event.
Mario and Sonic at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games will be released exclusively on the Nintendo Switch this November.
