Mario Sports Mix is a grab bag of popular sports (volleyball, hockey, dodgeball, and basketball) that adds the signature whimsy present in any Nintendo title. After releasing several standalone sports titles, Nintendo looked to Square Enix to bring them a game that recaptured the magic through fresh eyes.

Thankfully, Square Enix was able to add their own little touches to the game including some of Final Fantasy’s memorable characters.

The Final Fantasy characters included in the game are probably not the ones gamers were expecting - like Cloud or Sephiroth. Instead, the game features Square Enix characters culled from a number of titles. Dunk or slapshot your way to victory with the Black Mage, the Ninja, a Moogle, and a Cactaur.

Check out the new Mario Sports Mix trailer - which shows off each of the new additions in action along with the Mario all stars:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ffUty-o8VI

For those unfamiliar with the series, the Mario Sports games are known for their extremely elaborate and character specific power-ups that usually provide a huge advantage to the player. Seen throughout the trailer, these abilities help score points by either knocking opponents unconscious or by adding a boost to a shoot, spike, slapshot, etc.

Each of the Mario Sports games were fun for a time, until the gameplay became repetitive and less-experienced friends got bored with constantly falling prey to power-ups. By combining several sports into one game, not only is this title much more enticing, but with new Wii-specific mechanics, the fear of poor replayability seems to have been addressed.

Are you looking forward to Mario Sports Mix? Does the over the top antics of the gameplay add a new change of pace for you or is it a barrier to entry?

Mario Sports Mix releases sometime before the end of this year on the Wii.

Source: Bit Block