The Unexpected First Pick
When Nintendo added Super Mario Strikers to the GameCube NSO lineup, I wasn’t exactly disappointed, but I wasn’t thrilled either. It was exciting to see GameCube support continue, sure, but I had been quietly hoping for something with a bit more weight behind it. Luigi’s Mansion, maybe. One of the Pokémon spin-offs, if I were lucky. Instead, we got Mario playing soccer in a game I’d never touched before. I’d only played the modern Strikers entry on Switch, which didn’t make an impression with me personally. So I figured the GameCube original would be more of the same, fine for a few minutes, but nothing I’d feel compelled to revisit. That night, I wasn’t even planning to try it. My friend and I had scheduled a session of Baldur’s Gate 3, but we were both too tired to commit. So we jumped into a Discord call to catch up while we each chipped away at our own work. Then I half-jokingly said, “Hey, Mario Strikers came to the GameCube app… want to try a round or two?” We fired it up. And within minutes, the night took a turn neither of us expected.
My enthusiasm going in wasn’t exactly sky-high; it was more of a “Sure, why not?” curiosity. That said, things didn’t exactly kick off smoothly. In a reversal of our last online session (which, for the record, was a silky-smooth round of SoulCalibur II), my mate and I spent nearly ten minutes fighting against network hiccups and input lag. Disconnects, freezes, the whole works. Just long enough to sap any momentum we had and leave us with a give up and play solo mood. When we finally got in, my initial impression didn’t help either. From the barebones menus to the minimalist options, it didn’t exactly scream “hidden gem.” I found myself wondering what I was missing, because so far, it wasn’t much.
And then the match started.
Within minutes, Waluigi was doing a victory pelvic thrust. My mate was making waddling noises every time Birdo touched the ball, and we were genuinely laughing. The charm of it all… the exaggerated animations, the brutal tackles, the sheer ridiculous energy flipped the mood in an instant. Despite getting absolutely demolished in the early rounds, I was completely hooked. We started picking up on little details like the way a teammate raises their hand to signal a pass, the speed you could gain by stringing perfect moves together. We kept stopping mid-match to figure out mechanics, like two kids trying to crack a fighting game. “Wait, wait, wait, how did you do that?” And then we discovered the items…
That’s when the chaos really began.
Pick-Up-and-Play
What stood out most to me was just how easy Strikers is to pick up and play, but also how much room it leaves to grow. I know that’s a tired phrase in game reviews, but it’s true. It has that classic Nintendo gameplay ethos: fun first, with just enough depth to reward experimentation. The controls are instantly intuitive. Pass, shoot, tackle, and items were all you had to manage. When you’re holding the ball, your tackle becomes a dodge, though despite having that knowledge, I spent most of my early games getting shoulder-checked straight into the electric fence, painfully often. But after just a few matches, I felt like I’d been playing it for years. Setting up plays became second nature, and we quickly started setting traps for each other, pre-tackling players we knew were about to receive a pass. It sounds cutthroat, but it was all in good fun. Just two mates trying to outwit each other with last-second reads and dirty plays. The pass-kick combo and super shot became our go-to moves. The super shot rarely landed, but watching someone charge it up added instant drama. We’d both drop everything in a mad scramble to tackle and interrupt the animation. It was chaotic, savage, and way more competitive than I expected. We still had connection issues, which resulted in frame drops, hiccups, and slowdowns, especially during super shots, but we powered through. Even janky, this game is just fun.
We ended up playing for two solid hours. Not out of obligation or to “test it properly” but because we were just having a great time. Only after I lost about 6 matches consecutively did we finally stop… and switch over to a few rounds of Mario Golf 64 for good measure (let the record state that I won Mario Golf 64 to make up for my shame.) That’s what makes Strikers such a great fit for NSO. The short match lengths and instant accessibility make it ideal for pick-up-and-play sessions. Whether you’re on the couch with friends or playing portably, it doesn’t demand a big time commitment. One match becomes three. Then five. Then “let’s just do one more because I need revenge.” It also stands out in the current GameCube NSO lineup. It’s exactly the sort of game you can hand off to anyone, whether they’ve played a Mario sports title before or not, and that’s coming from me, someone who doesn’t really play sports games. It felt like a smart, stylish entry point to the genre without getting bogged down in stats, formations, or real-world rules. It’s sport, Nintendo-style… fast, fun, and ridiculous.
If there’s one thing Mario Strikers taught me, it’s not to judge a game by its cover… or its NSO debut. I went in with low expectations and came out laughing, replaying matches just to capture extra footage and relive the chaos. I really enjoyed my time with it, and I’m already looking forward to jumping back in for more. Strikers has given me a new appreciation for the games I may have missed the first time around. I didn’t grow up with it, I didn’t know the mechanics, and I wasn’t drawn in by nostalgia, but it was still a blast to play. That has me more excited than ever to see what else lands on the GameCube app. If this is what I overlooked, what other gems are still waiting to surprise me? The Wind Waker is still the highlight of GameCube NSO for me, no question, but Strikers is the game I’ll put on when mates are around and we want to yell at the TV and shoulder-check each other into electric fences. It’s kind of amazing how well this “old” game holds up against today’s standards. I’m not someone who likes to say the good old days were better, but I will say that some of those games were just built around fun, first and foremost. And with Super Mario Strikers, that focus still shines through.
Super Mario Strikers wasn’t on my radar. I didn’t grow up with it, didn’t ask for it, and almost didn’t give it a fair shot. But I’m glad I did, because it’s one of the most fun surprises I’ve had on the GameCube NSO service so far. If you’ve never played it, don’t let its age or niche status put you off. It’s fast, funny, chaotic, and incredibly easy to enjoy, even if you don’t normally play sports games. Grab a friend, fire it up, and see how long it takes before someone gets shoulder-checked into an electric fence.
Some of these games might surprise you.
What GameCube title do you hope they bring to the NSO service next?
