I’ve been playing the Japanese version of Super Mario Stadium (or Super Mario Sluggers as it’ll be known in the US) and although it’s early days, I can confidently say that it deserves to be a big hit. For starters, the presentation is superb - everything looks solid, chunky, colourful and polished, as all good Nintendo first-party games should. The intro sees Mario, Luigi et al taken to a kind of baseball island on a cruise ship, and that’s where you’ll find yourself when you start - able to choose from a series of stadia, from a standard Mario baseball pitch to more elaborate surroundings like a Yoshi-themed funfair or a Bowser Jr. primary-coloured castle. You can play exhibition matches, a story mode or choose from several minigames. I plumped immediately for a standard match, assuming I’d figure out the controls as I went. I did - but I’d have been better going for the story mode to ease my way in, judging by the 11-2 thrashing I received. The game’s controls are simple without being too dumbed down - something which I’d feared might be the case. I used the nunchuk and remote, though it seems you can use the remote alone, either vertically or horizontally, with slightly streamlined commands for the latter two options. When pitching, you need to tilt the remote back, and flick it forward when two circles meet over the pitcher, or you can toss a high ball, or simply flick downwards for a slower ball to throw the batter’s timing. Once you’ve built up some star power (from successful strikes, or getting an opponent out) then you can hurl a special pitch - dependent on who’s throwing, this can vary from a fireball (Mario) to a whirlwind (Luigi). Read more from the source here