Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 (that’s a mouthful) will feature an exciting recently announced mode that lets you experience some retro 2D gameplay.
“Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 is taking the series to another dimension for the first time with classic 2D and exciting 3D events,” says Sega via a press release regarding the new mode. “Enjoy 10 different classic 2D events with friends and family all presented in a generation-spanning game for the ages! If you’ve never seen Bowser in classic 2D perform an armstand dive off a 10-meter platform into the water, you’re in for an incredible time.”
The 10 classic events that you’ll be able to play in 2D include the 100m, 10m Platform Dive, 400m Hurdles, Gymnastics – Vault, Judo, Kayak Single (K-1) 1000m, Long Jump, Marathon, Shooting – Trap, and Volleyball. The game will also feature 21 3D events.
It’s the 2D angle that has us really excited, though. Based on the early footage and details regarding this new mode, it seems like this mode will feature much more than a simple technological downgrade. Each of the 10 modes getting the 2D treatment has been re-worked to not only look like such an event would have looked on classic track and field-style games, but they’ve even been altered to feel like the retro equivalent of those events.
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That’s not to say that much of the charm of this mode doesn’t come through the visuals. We’re big fans of the fact that the decor in these retro events suggest that they take place during the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. There’s also something to be said about the fact that the Sonic characters are rendered significantly more cleanly than their Mario counterparts. You’ve got to love the idea of Sega getting in those blast processing jokes wherever they can.
Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 is set to release exclusively for Nintendo Switch on November 5 in North America and November 8 in Europe.
Matthew Byrd is a staff writer for Den of Geek. He spends most of his days trying to pitch deep-dive analytical pieces about Killer Klowns From Outer Space to an increasingly perturbed series of editors. You can read more of his work here or find him on Twitter at @SilverTuna014.
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