Five Mario sports in one.
Mario Sports Superstars is a 2017 sports video game in the Super Mario Bros. series released for the Nintendo 3DS. The game was developed by Camelot Software Planning and Bandai Namco Entertainment and combines elements from five different Mario sports series: Golf (heavily influenced by Mario Golf), Tennis (heavily influenced by Mario Tennis), Baseball (based on Mario Superstar Baseball and Mario Super Sluggers), Soccer (opting for a more realistic take on the sport instead of the Darker and Edgier one from Mario Strikers), and the newly introduced Horse Racing (similar to the Horse Riding events from Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games).This game provides examples of:
- Always Night: Grand Stadium in the Soccer mode, Harbor Park in the Baseball mode, and Night Court in the Tennis mode all take place entirely at night.
- And Your Reward Is Clothes: The player can unlock various clothing options for their horse in the Horse Racing mode.
- Buried Alive: Metal Mario's Double Bogey animation in the Golf mode is similar to Mario's, except his depicts him getting completely smothered in Koopa shells instead of getting hit by one and turning into Small Mario.
- Death Mountain: The Sky Peak courses in the Horse Racing mode take place around a massive winding mountain.
- Fake Longevity: Getting the horse clothing accessories in the Horse Racing mode requires you to find ? crates on the field in stable mode while taking your horse out for a walk, a crate can or cannot have an accessory and getting one is pretty rare. It will take a really long time and many runs to get them all.
- Green Hill Zone: Emerald Woods, the first golf course in the Golf mode, and the Green Farm courses in the Horse Racing mode, both take place in a calm open plain.
- Lazy Artist: The amiibo trading cards for the game reuse a lot of pre-existing artwork for the playable charactersnote , with many of the cards reusing artwork from previous Mario games. For example, Bowser's soccer card reuses his artwork from Dance Dance Revolution Mario Mix, while Donkey Kong's soccer card reuses his artwork from Donkey Kong Country Returns.
- Palmtree Panic: Crystal Beach, the third golf course in the Golf mode, takes place on a relaxing beach.
- Recycled Animation: The golf and tennis sections of the game reuse a lot of assets from Mario Golf: World Tour and Mario Tennis Open, most notably the former's post-hole animations.
- Secret Character: Metal Mario and Pink Gold Peach are, by and large, the only unlockable characters in the game. They can be unlocked by completing the Star Cup on Hard difficulty and completing Ring Challenge on Hard difficulty respectively.
