Our hands-on preview straight from the floor of Comic-Con in San Diego.

I recently got the chance to try out Mario Hoops 3-on-3, the latest entry into the increasing ranks of Mario sports titles. Sports games with Mario and his gang are known for having fast and furious arcade-like gameplay, which seems like it would be a perfect fit for a handheld. As someone who generally refuses to play sports games that don’t contain the word “Mario” in the title, I was very excited for the opportunity to spend some time with Mario Hoops at the San Diego Comic-Con.

One thing that sets Mario Hoops apart from previous Mario-themed sports games is that it is being developed by Square-Enix, as opposed to Nintendo or one of its second-party developers. One of the quirky results of this is that the game’s roster of characters will feature a number of Final Fantasy character types in addition to the standard Mario gang. While a complete list of characters has not yet been announced, confirmed characters include Mario, Luigi, Peach, Daisy, Yoshi, Wario, Waluigi, Donkey Kong, Diddy Kong, Bowser Jr., and Bowser, as well as ninja, white mage, black mage, Moogle, and Cactuar characters.



Mario Hoops makes excellent use of the DS’s touch screen. With the exception of basic movement, which is handled by the d-pad, the game is controlled exclusively with the touch screen. To dribble the ball, you tap the screen. Besides feeling very natural, this allows you to control where you dribble; if an opponent is coming at you from the left, you can keep the ball on your right-hand side to avoid a steal. Swiping the stylus left or right across the screen passes the ball to a teammate, and an upwards stroke shoots the ball.

Similarly, when the other team has possession of the ball you can try to pull off a steal by moving your stylus downwards, or you can jump to block shots by drawing an upwards stroke. Square-Enix also has a few other tricks up their sleeves for the game that weren’t highlighted by the tutorial, such as performing a butt-stomp to temporarily shock the player with the ball by stroking down in mid-air; I’m sure that when the game comes out, it will be revealed that there are even more of these crazy moves.