It had a few obvious flaws, such as putting you in control of the wrong fielder to catch a ball, and minor timing issues with charging speeds between a batter and a pitcher. But many of these flaws could be over-looked since this was only the first attempt at a Mario Baseball game, and surely future sequels would fix these minor squabbles. So when word came of Mario Super Sluggers being created for the Wii, it was safe to say I was excited to see the enjoyable play style of Wii Sports married with the robust gameplay of Mario Superstar Baseball. Mix in some online gameplay, and you’ve got yourself one heck of a package. Unfortunately, Mario Super Sluggers doesn’t even come close to being anything more than a watered down version of what we already had.

Let’s start with the controls. Instead of utilizing the Wii Remote in fun and intuitive ways, Bandai-Namco has crammed the existing Gamecube controls onto the Wii Remote and Nunchuk and then added unnecessary waggle to boot. I can understand the simplicity of pulling back the Wii Remote and flicking it forward to bat or pitch, but having to shake the remote to run while also trying to press buttons on it for throwing or changing direction is a bit unnecessary. When throwing the ball to a base, the idea is that you’re holding the direction of the base you want to throw to on the Nunchuk, and flicking your Wii Remote as though you are throwing the ball. But since you will always try to get your throw off as quickly as possible, trying to mimic a real throw is pointless, so it always results in constant shaking of the Wii Remote until the ball is thrown. In this case, the ‘A’ button would have been a much better choice. Unfortunately, you can not customize your button layout.

You do have the option of playing with just a Wii Remote, but then nearly everything is done automatically. The fielders automatically run to the ball, base runners change direction as needed, and throwing a ball automatically goes to the right base. So what’s left for you to do? Swing to hit the ball and swing to throw the ball. That’s too simplified. Even NES baseball games had more controls with fewer buttons.

One of the most frustrating control issues is the difference between a diving catch and a jumping catch. When fielding, pressing ‘A’ has two different outcomes: you’ll dive if running, but jump if stationary. This leads to bouts of absolutely furious moments with the game, as you walk towards the ball and jump to try to catch it, but instead you belly flop against the ground and miss what should have been an easy out.Bandai-Namco has also made a surprising number of changes to simplify the gameplay without giving you the option to keep it how it was before. For example, you can only adjust your batter to the left or right, which means no more depth through moving forward and backwards to help angle your swing. You have no say as to whether your character is to be left or right handed, and the drop zone indicator for a fly ball can no longer be turned off.

What can be turned off, thankfully, is the addition of items. After a batter hits a pitch, they can aim their Wii Remote at the screen and fire an item at the outfielders. This only happens if their batter is “in tune” with the next one up, but the items are just a little too much for me. I’m sure other people get a kick out of this new feature, though. Earning star power is better balanced than before, but the “cinematics” that you watch as you unleash a star-power is underwhelming and lacks polish. As you can see from the Bowser image below, it doesn’t exactly scream “visually impressive.” I prefer the quick pause and symbol-flash from before. It was just enough to warn you of the impending attack while still showing a flash of simple design. In fact, there are a lot of details about the presentation that are sorely lacking, but describing them in this review feels trivial and unimportant. Trust me though – it all adds up. There’s a big difference between being flashy, and trying to be flashy.