Mario and Sonic Super Sluggers

Mario and Sonic Super Sluggers is the second Nintendo Switch Baseball installment follow-up to Mario and Sonic Baseball . This game borrows many elements from the previous title, but it also includes new elements as well, including a variety of gameplay controls, such as taking advantage of the motion sensor controls that the Joy-Con provides. The game also has a more in-depth and more narrative driven Challenge Mode, where, rather than only facing off against a Team Captain and a team of opponents, players interact with more characters, including a variety of various sub-characters, and play various small challenges to recruit them for their team. Up to four players can play this title, and a new feature is that players can choose which of the two team sides to be on.

Gameplay
Mario and Sonic Super Sluggers can be played using four different control methods: Before a game starts, a roulette will start in order to show which team will be batting first. This is different from the previous game, in which the player could choose which team would be batting first.
 * Joy Con (Vertical)
 * Joy Con (Horizontal)
 * Joy Con Grip
 * Pro Controller

Assuming that players are using the Joy Con (vertical) or the Joy Con Grip, in order to bat or pitch, players must hold the A button and the Joy Con must be swung at the appropriate time. The more precise the hit/pitch, the further/faster the ball will go. To charge up a pitch or swing, players must pull the Joy Con back. They can also do curve balls as well by twisting the Joy Con, while pitching. Once the ball is in a fielder's hand, the Joy Con must be swung so that the fielder can pitch the ball at one of the basemen.

In the outfield, players can create special moves if there is chemistry between outfielders: Superstar Matchups return; however, it is set for captains only and occurs when the team captain is not batting first and when one runner is on second or third and two or all three runners on base (only when the runs exceed to 4 or more on the scoreboard). This also applies to RBI chance screens.
 * One outfielder tackles the ball and the ball rolls towards the outfielder with chemistry. The outfielder that holds the ball can then throw a very fast ball towards a base from the outfield.
 * When a possible home run is hit, players can initiate a Buddy Jump. Upon jumping around another outfielder's head and pressing  twice, one of the players will jump incredibly high to catch home run balls. This must be done with precise timing.

While pitching, a character may show signs of fatigue, depending on how long they pitch. Letting up a lot of runs or using many Star Pitches factors into this, too.

While pitching, however, players will have to pay attention to the pitcher's stamina. If the character that's pitching is showing signs of fatigue (depicted by a water droplet in a bubble), their pitches will start to behave in an erratic manner. When the current pitcher is exhausted, players will have to decide to adjust the defense so that a new character plays pitcher instead. On a side note, pitchers can get exhausted even quicker if the batting team manages to make a lot of successful Home Runs. Even a Grand Slam can cause a pitcher to become fully fatigued right off the bat.

Star Skills make a reappearance in Mario and Sonic Super Sluggers as well. Any player can pitch or bat using Star Skills, however only Team Captains can use special hits/pitches. Team Players can only use Star Skills that will make the ball go faster or slower. Both teams can store up to five Star Skill attempts; they are earned as a result of well executed plays.

​​​At the end of each game, the character who has had the most potential for their team will win the MVP award, which will be recorded in the Records menu. Characters can earn MVP points by striking out opponents, executing nice plays on defense, successful hits while batting (the batter has to make it to 1st base without getting out), stealing bases, close plays, and even for error item usage. The character with the most MVP points will win the award. Also, it's possible for more than one character to win MVP if at least two characters have the same amount of points.

Stadiums
There are a total of twenty stadiums (excluding Toy Field) in all. Every Team Captain (excluding Waluigi, Shadow, Birdo, Rouge, and Diddy Kong) has a stadium which is based on his or her character's unique persona. Most of the nine stadiums can be played in daytime or nighttime. Mario and Sonic Stadiums are the only ones not to feature any gimmicks in the field, making for the most realistic baseball experience. Wario City and Past Village are the only stadiums that switches from day to night with no gimmicky changes. The Bowser Jr. Playroom is only accessible during the day, while Final Fortress, Eggman's Lair,  Luigi's Mansion and Bowser Castle can only be accessed at night.

Starting stadiums
These stadiums are accessible when starting a new game file.

Unlockable stadiums
Upon meeting certain criteria during gameplay itself, these eight stadiums will be available for access.

Playable characters
All of the characters from the Mario and Sonic Baseball game make a return appearance in Mario and Sonic Super Sluggers. Additionally for this game, there are new participants as well. It is now possible to put more than one of the same character on the team in Exhibition Mode, as long as they are different colors. However, it is no longer possible to choose which hand that the characters will bat and pitch with; for example, players can no longer make Mario a left-handed batter.

Players are given the choice to play as their Miis as well, whose stats are all 6/10. Players can't choose to have a whole team of nine Miis, but they can put one captain and up to eight other Miis.

When characters become Star Players, their abilities are boosted by one point each. However, characters can only become Star Players by defeating Bowser's/Eggman's team in Challenge Mode.

Team Mario Captains
All team captains listed below in this section are available to be selected in the game's Exhibition Mode. Luigi, Tails, Daisy, Blaze, Birdo, Rouge, Waluigi, Shadow, Diddy Kong, Marine, Bowser, Dr. Eggman, [https://www.mariowiki.com/Bowser_Jr. Bowser Jr.], and Metal Sonic are only selectable as Team Captains outside of Challenge Mode. Also, depending on progress made in the Challenge Mode gameplay itself, players are only able to choose Mario, Sonic, Peach, Amy, Yoshi, Silver, Wario, Knuckles, Donkey Kong, and Vector while navigating the Baseball Kingdom locale.

Team players
Not all Team Players listed below are available from the start. In most cases, the player has to go through the Challenge Mode process and find the Team Players in question. Upon finding them, the player is given said tasks in relation to them (including specified Scouting Missions/Battle Missions). The tasks must be completed successfully prior to unlocking the Team Players for use in other modes for the game (in most cases, during the Exhibition mode setup process).

Certain Team Players can also be unlocked by playing the other available modes in the game. The targeted Team Players in question are added to the overall roster for the entire game, provided that certain conditions are met.

Main team players
NOTE: Characters marked with an asterisk are unlockable.

Chemistry
Like Mario and Sonic Baseball, the characters will have good and bad relations with any other character. However, the characters can make special abilities with another character when they show good Chemistry. The player can receive items with chemistry while batting. If the player is a batter and the next batter shares chemistry with the player, this will result in getting an item that can be used for messing up the outfielder's progress. Players that share good chemistry can also perform buddy jumps and buddy throws. Buddy jumps are used to take away a home run or a deep fly ball. Buddy throws are used to throw the ball faster and more accurate to its destination. Bad chemistry, however, results in slower throws, and sometimes throwing off track.

Items
There are a total of six items that are available during the course of Mario and Sonic Super Sluggers gameplay, which are used by aiming the Joy Con immediately after batting. These are as follows:

Mario Items

 * Green Shell - Shoots at a player and dazes if it hits.
 * Fire Ball - (unlockable, found in a Treasure Chest in Wario City) Some fireballs bounce to burn someone.
 * Mini Boos (unlockable, found inside a Treasure Chest in Mario Stadium, and required to have King Boo join) - Makes the ball and its shadow invisible for about six seconds. The ball can still be caught and revealed. Does not work when a Star Swing is used.
 * Bob-omb - When a Bob-omb gets shot in the outfield, it sits and stay until it explodes. When it explodes, anyone caught in the explosion gets knocked away.
 * POW-Ball (unlockable, found inside a Treasure Chest in Peach Ice Garden) - All fielders are stunned by a small earthquake for about four seconds when it hits the ground. This does not affect levitating characters or if the characters jump at the right moment. If the POW-Ball happens to hit a player itself, then the player hit by it gets knocked away and the small earthquake caused by it does not take effect.
 * Banana Peel - Five bananas are shot out to slip the outfielders.
 * Lightning Bolt - Will strike any characters on the screen. (Certain modes only)

Sonic Items

 * Chaos Emerald - Shocks the player.
 * Super Sonic Sneakers - Lets the players get home runs easier.
 * Piko Hammers - Wack players out of the way.
 * Twisters - Blow the opponents away.

Challenge mode
Challenge Mode makes a return in Mario and Sonic Super Sluggers, returning as the Story Mode (and is the primary feature of this installment). The gameplay procedure for this mode includes a more in-depth story and an overall map screen involving the Baseball Kingdom locale. Along with recruiting players to go against Bowser's and Eggman's teams, the players must solve from time to time certain puzzles and/or complete certain tasks in order to get to the main goals to proceed.

Captain abilities
While navigating the Baseball Kingdom, depending on progress made in the Challenge Mode itself, the five Team Captains listed below can use unique abilities to help them do numerous events, including recruiting other Team Captains/Team Players, finding coins/rings, and gaining access to certain areas they couldn't reach before. The abilities in question are as follows:
 * Mario: Talking to plant life, such as flowers and hedges, and being able to use Warp Pipes.
 * Sonic: Runs super fast.
 * Peach: Being able to interact with things such as tree stumps, water, and etc. to make characters appear.
 * Amy: Uses her Piko Piko Hammer to smash crates, barrels and stuff.
 * Yoshi: Being able to use Manholes to reach other areas and Ground Pound the ground by trees to make characters come out.
 * Silver: Teleports to anywhere.
 * Donkey Kong: Being able to climb vines and smash wooden barrels and crates using his Hand Slap.
 * Vector: Uses his Giant Speakers to blow leaves away.
 * Wario: Being able to pick up metal things with his magnet and open treasure chests.
 * Knuckles: Punch through crates and barrels.

The Challenge Mode Cutscenes
During the course of gameplay in Mario and Sonic Super Sluggers, players are able to encounter certain cutscenes that correspond with the game's Challenge Mode. There are a total of four videos that can be seen by the player in this game, which also includes the game's opening (seen when the game starts up).

Although the basic criteria still remains for players to encounter them during gameplay itself first, they are able to view the four videos outside of gameplay as well. These said videos can be accessed for viewing when the Challenge Mode category is added to the Records section (provided that the player has completed the Challenge Mode gameplay itself at least once). When viewing the Challenge Mode statistics in Records players can find the four videos in the Movie List sub-category.

The Opening
Although this is seen for the opening of Mario and Sonic Super Sluggers overall (after the game loads), it is still a combination of previewing the upcoming gameplay itself, as well as setting up what's to come in the game's Challenge Mode. This is the very first video the player encounters.

The game's opening begins with Toad, Chao, Daisy, Blaze, Mario, Sonic,  Luigi, Tails,  Yoshi, Silver, Birdo, and Sticks on a huge cruiser riding to the Baseball Kingdom, which is the location where Mario and Sonic Super Sluggers takes place. The cruiser arrives, and they meet up with Peach, Amy, Toadsworth, and Big who greet them at the entrance. Peach and Amy escorts them to the lighthouse at the Daisy Cruiser, showing them an overview of the entire locale. From there, they run into the Mario Stadium holding Joy Cons (Briefly demonstrating the game's targeted controls). Closeups of Blaze, Daisy, Tails, Luigi, Sonic and Mario follow in regards to swinging their Joy Cons. Daisy and Blaze are shown first encountering their Joy Cons changing to their baseball bats. Luigi and Tails encounters the same result as Daisy and Blaze, and Mario and Sonic's Joy Cons changes to their balls. Mario pitches the ball to Daisy right away following this, and she is seen countering it.

After Daisy countered Mario's pitched ball, the scenery immediately changes as the ball is chased after by a Pink Neutral Chao in the Amy Rainbow Garden until she runs into a large Rainbow Cube and turns orange upon collision. She is later freed by a Blue Neutral Chao who accidentally crashes into the Rainbow Cube (with PinkNeutral Chao revealing that she made the catch after being switched back to her regular color). The ball then rolls onto Past Village, where Wario chases after it to find it shoot into the air from a manhole water spout. The ball lands on Vector's head, causing him to fall backwards, and causing the ball to fly into Yoshi Park. Yoshi jumps over a pipe to catch the ball, realizing he is going to fall, he flutters around, but falls in with the ball. The ball flies to Diddy Kong and Marine the Raccon at DK Jungle, where they is about to be run over by a barrel, when Donkey Kong rescues them by smashing it.

The view switches to Sonic Stadium, where Sonic pitches to Shadow who then makes a hit. Silver goes for the catch, but both Wario and Waluigi bombard him with Bob-ombs. Silver slides to the catch regardless, throws it to Amy, who throws it to Sonic, and then to Tails on base. Vector rushes to the same base where Tails is standing resulting in Vector slamming into Tails, sending him into the field wall. As Daisy, Blaze, Toad, Chao and other spectators stand in alarm, they find out seconds later that Tails has caught the ball. Lakitu and Omochao calls it out, and everyone rushes to center field where Mario, Sonic, Tails and Luigi are standing. After that, a final overhead shot of the Baseball Kingdom is seen to conclude the opening.

Bowser Jr., Metal Sonic and Crew Crash the Party
This is the cutscene that is shown as the player is just beginning the Challenge Mode for Mario and Sonic Super Sluggers. It takes place after Mario, Sonic, Tails, Luigi, Toad and Lakitu notice that there's something strange going on outside of the Baseball Kingdom.

This cutscene starts with an overhead view of the Baseball Kingdom itself, but this time, through Bowser Jr. and Metal Sonic's telescope. Bowser Jr. and Metal Sonic pulls two levers which results in their own stadiums, Bowser Jr. Playroom, and Final Fortress emerging from the sea. Then, with a large amount of force, they go full speed ahead towards the Baseball Kingdom, resulting in his own stadium crashing headfirst onto the place. Mario, Sonic, Tails and Luigi are surprised to encounter unexpected guests on their territory, which also include Bowser and Dr. Eggman.

The Hard-Earned Victory
If the player makes it to Bowser's Castle and Eggman's Lair while it is night time in the Baseball Kingdom and defeats Bowser's and Eggman's teams, then this is the main ending that is seen.

Upon getting the final win, Mario, Sonic and the other characters gather around the middle of Bowser's Castle to celebrate their victory. Bowser, and Eggman in the background, is enraged and starts slamming their bats into the ground.

Mario, Sonic and the other characters later head back to the entrance of the Baseball Kingdom right as nightfall was occurring. After the sun sets, Peach and Amy's brooch lights up which magically lights up the island.

The Final Festivities
This is the fourth and final cutscene for the player to encounter in Mario and Sonic Super Sluggers. It is also triggered during the Challenge Mode gameplay after defeating Bowser's and Eggman's teams a second time.

Mario, Sonic and other characters are celebrating in the Baseball Kingdom, and Daisy and Blaze starts things off by inviting everyone to a feast at the Daisy Cruiser including Bowser, Eggman, Metal Sonic, and Bowser Jr. who get the biggest portions of food.

Moments later, the fireworks show begins and everyone is enjoying the display from the Daisy Cruiser. The characters are later seen at the Mario Stadium where Mario, Sonic, Vector and Donkey Kong assist in the fireworks display that is also a homerun derby show as well; the two counter Bob-ombs that were shot out from the cannon across from them, which explode into fireworks. The spectators are amazed at the fireworks.

Out of nowhere Wario and Waluigi walk up to the cannon and two Bullet Bills into the cannon. The cannon fires with the Bullet Bills aimed right at Mario and Sonic. Bowser and Eggman immediately drops in front of Mario and Sonic where they counters the Bullet Bills using their bats, resulting in the Bullet Bilsl going the other direction now headed towards Wario and Waluigi who are running away. The Bullet Bills destroys the cannon in the process and manages to snag both Wario and Waluigi, taking them straight up into the night sky. After flying for a bit a large fireworks explosion from the Bullet Bills goes off. They begin to fall down in agony and despair from the explosion. Bowser and Eggman limps away from the baseball field as the camera pans out.
 * Upon unlocking the "Movie List" menu (under the "Challenge Mode" category in "Records"), only the first three videos are able to be accessed (Game Opening, Bowser Jr., Metal Sonic, and Crew Crash the Party, The Hard-Earned Victory). The fourth video (The Final Festivities) is added upon reaching criteria to access it, as mentioned earlier.
 * On that same menu which holds the four videos, there is also a link to view the Mario and Sonic Super Sluggers game credits (which is mainly shown when the Challenge Mode gameplay has concluded after defeating Bowser's team). The credits layout includes a few snapshots from the four cutscene videos, as well as snapshots from the gameplay itself.
 * In the second cutscene (Bowser Jr., Metal Sonic and Crew Crash the Party), a Shy Guy, a Boo, and a Dry Bones accompany Bowser Jr. and Metal Sonic as they walk out of the Bowser Jr. Playroom. However, in the gameplay itself, Shy Guy is with the Yoshi Eggs team, while Boo is with the Wario Muscles team.
 * In the third cutscene (The Hard-Earned Victory), Birdos of several colors run out and celebrate the victory against Bowser and Eggman with the rest of the players. However, only the pink Birdo character is playable in the game itself. They also appear in the first and fourth cutscenes, however, here, they are not seen as players.
 * In the fourth cutscene (The Final Festivities), when Wario and Waluigi are falling after being taken by the Bullet Bills to the sky, the "Γ" in Waluigi's cap is horizontally reversed due to a texture mistake.

Toy Field mode

 * Main article: Toy Field

Toy field has returned from Mario and Sonic Baseball. Toy field has one Batter, and three other Outfielders and a cannon that pitches the ball to the batter. Before it pitches it, there is a roulette wheel with three different slots that affects the turn. Each slot is controlled by one of the outfielders; the outfielders tap 'A' to stop the slot they are in control of. If the slots aren't stopped, they are stopped automatically.

Records
While playing the game, various records are kept to see what achievements players have pulled off.

Minigames
Players can check the top 5 scores for each minigame, along with the top 5 for Toy Field and Minigame Madness (the latter being unlocked by completing all the minigames at all skill levels).

Challenge
Players can check their status in Challenge mode by seeing which characters they've recruited, the badges that they've earned, along with the four cutscenes and staff credits.

Team Captain/Team Player List
Players can check the former MVPs, the star players, badges, and the Minigame Madness records for each character here.

Badges
Players are able to earn badges by completing certain tasks in the game, which are listed on the following chart:

Cards


The first eighteen "Level 1" cards featuring all twelve Team Captains and six Team Players.

Nintendo of America created an online Adobe Flash program hosted at MarioSuperSluggersCards.com in which players can collect and trade virtual Mario and Sonic Super Sluggers baseball cards featuring many of the characters, special moves, teams, and stadiums from the title. In addition to the cards, the game also allows players to earn downloads. By placing two compatible cards in the double play drop zone, players can make “double plays” and unlock special videos, wallpapers, and screensavers. When a player completes his or her collection, a post featuring Mario and all of the cards is unlocked. In addition, his or her username will be added to the leaderboard below players who previously completed their collections. Over 700 users completed their collections.

After creating a username and choosing which Mario and Sonic Super Sluggers character to use as an avatar, players are instructed to click on special banners found on child-friendly websites around the internet in order to collect cards. Lakitu, who gives instructions and hints to the player, tells the player that the one banner can be found on Nick.com. Clicking on one such banner redirects the player to one of eighty-two Uniform Resource Locators (URLs), each of which corresponds to one of the eighty-two cards. The system is based on luck, but players are also able to trade cards with one another using the swap function or discuss where to find banners and which cards yield double plays.

By checking their history, players have found ways to manipulate the system into giving them whichever card they wish. By checking their history, players can find which URL leads to which card and then share the URL with other players.

The eighty-two cards are divided by rarity into four levels. Forty-one character cards make up the first level, twenty-four special swing/pitch cards make up the second level, twelve team cards make up the third level, and five stadium cards made up the fourth level. Each card has a front and a back. For the "Level 1" cards, the front shows the character's artwork, name, and for captains, the team they are captain of. The back shows the character's name, abilities, "rookie year" (the year their first video game appearance was released), description, statistics, and for captains, team logo. An in-game screenshot of the player is also featured.