In the lifespan of the Nintendo DS, very few announcements, if arguably any, have meant more to owners than Square-Enix's verbal commitment to develop for the system. On a system starved of RPGs, the company appears poised to take over with relative ease, with a robust catalog of upcoming titles, including the recently released Rocket Slime, Final Fantasy III and Children of Mana, along with upcoming titles such as Front Mission 1st and Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker. In a surprising development move, Nintendo and Square-Enix partnered up for the second time to create a Mario-based game. The results were not Super Mario RPG 2, but Mario Hoops 3-on-3, a light-hearted Nintendo-themed take on basketball.

A near opposite from the game RPG fanatics were hoping would christen Square-Enix to the Nintendo DS, Mario Hoops 3-on-3 stars Mario and company, along with plenty of Square-Enix cameos, in a 3-on-3 basketball tournament where coins determine the points of a basket and play-changing items such as turtle shells and lightning bolts are rampant - all on Mario-themed courts. All of this zaniness is treading water on top of a presentation that puts all other DS games to shame, with colorful, detailed polygon characters and backdrops that seemingly have no effect on the frame rate and CD-quality, J-Popish tunes, including new renditions of classic Mario and Final Fantasy themes, all redone by Final Fantasy sound editor, Masayoshi Soken. Unfortunately, the game swam a little to far out into the presentation and when it needed the gameplay to keep it afloat, the touch screen control, A.I. imbalances and boring mini-games let out all the air in its water wings, leaving the game to sink below the surface and drown in polygons and J-Pop.

There is no doubt that Square-Enix know how to develop beautiful games with high quality audio that push the DS in ways that no other developer has to this point. All of this in a single game - that is just how amazing it looks. Using a 3D graphics system with polygon characters and static backgrounds, the entire game is vibrantly alive. Each character is rendered in high quality with a full set of animations, outclassing all of Nintendo's own efforts with the same system and characters. Courts take a detail hit from the players themselves, but it is hardly a drop-off. Each court has a specific theme, such as the airship-themed Pirate Ship and dark and dank Luigi's mansion courts, each with their own share of unique details. From different hoops that fit each level, different playing surfaces and backgrounds ranging from the packed crowds at Mario Stadium to the out-stretching ocean at Sunset Beach, each court looks unique.

Even the menus look phenomenal! Using anime-style miniatures, which consist of brand new art, players pick up and drag their team from the touch screen and drop them into a basket. After you make your choice, a team photo appears, showing off full-bodied anime shots of everyone looking ready to game. When playing in a tournament, the bracket is made up of Super Mario Bros style bricks, with winners head-butting the block in front of them to discover an upward vine leading to the next game. Menus have never been so fun to look at!

The boundary-pushing fun doesn't end there, as Square-Enix wasn't happy to simply embarrassing its competition in graphics alone; they had to dominate in music as well. The sound effects are exactly what you would expect, as the sound vault of Mario was plundered in representing each character, level and object with tried-and-true effects. Having little room for innovation in the sound, all the energy was focused into the music. In what sounds like a new way of encoding music, each track has a near CD quality, lacking the tinny, computerized tone that usually encompasses scores on the DS. The song playing through all the menus even has a full, crystal clear vocal track! The in-game music consists mostly of Mario and Final Fantasy remixes, all of which are deeply layered and overtly poppy, and while you cannot dispute the quality, the actual compositions may prove to be too sugary or J-Pop for many players, myself included.

With all this presentation power, there generally is a catch, especially on a system considered underpowered. That trade-off almost always comes in the form of a frame rate stuck in the mud, as the weight of the graphics and music bring everything down. This is not the case in Mario Hoops, as not one time did the game dribble into a patch of slowdown - it slam dunks in the face of every 3D Nintendo DS game on the market, including Nintendo's own offerings, pouring on the shame. My only complaint about the presentation, especially the graphics, is that they cast unnecessary doubt on other companies, leaving players to wonder why Square-Enix have outclassed everyone else on their first try at 3D on the DS!

Or maybe the answer to where the presentation catch is hidden is not in performance, but in the gameplay department. Not happy allowing classic rules to prevail, basketball has been changed into a coin-collecting fest. By dribbling on coin blocks, floating around on each court, you can collect up to 100 coins that are added to your next score, which have had their value upped to 20 for scores in front of the three-point-line and 30 for those behind it. This gives the sport a unique touch that both adds and detracts from the game, as it adds new gameplay options but slows the action down, as too much time is spent standing atop of a block collecting coins. If only there was a way to collect on the move, then this new rule would prove to be a complete winner instead of being regulated to mishandled potential.

Another area where potential reins supreme is in the controls; choosing to use the touch screen exclusively for everything other than movement, Mario Hoops shows that there is plenty of potential for touch basketball on the Nintendo DS. Being able to pass, shoot, steal, fast dribble and block with a quick movement of the stylus proves to be natural, but only mostly effective. Shooting is accomplished by drawing a straight line up, but unless you make a couple of circles first to activate a special shot, only sheer, dumbfounding luck allows you to make a shot. Special jams, one for each character, look awesome but are a pain to execute; to activate the special jam you need to tap out at specific intervals on the touch to make a symbol, by memory, twice. Why you couldn't simply hold a button and trace the outline of the symbol is beyond me, because having to tap it out forces you to look away from the screen to watch your hand movements, leaving you open to unforeseen trouble. For the passing game, you make a line (it doesn't have to be accurate) to the left or right side of the touch screen and your player passes accordingly, but with action happening on the top screen and without taking a quick look down, you may draw a left or right line that moves even slightly into the shooting area and next thing you know the ball is on the ground at the other end of the court with the player scrambling to personally recover it.

You see how I said "with the player scrambling to personally recover it," instead of with the team scrambling? That wasn't an accident; Mario Hoops has essentially zero A.I. programming for your teammates, other than run up and down the court, following one character each. They won't take their own shots, pass on their own, steal on their own, block on their own, recover a loose ball on their own - they won't do a damn thing! All they do is jog and follow. The last time a basketball was released where your teammate A.I. didn't matter was the 2-on-2 NBA Jam and even that game's teammate A.I. is superior to what is found in Mario Hoops.

At first, you won't sense the invisible A.I., as the first few batches of teams in tournament mode are pushovers, letting you easily rack up coins and dunk in their faces, time and time again. That is until you are taken aboard the airship and forced to go 3-on-3 with the Square-Enix team. This team functions so cohesively, with each player reacting like a real one, that your one man team has little chance of keeping up. Only the A.I. handicapping itself, such as letting you pull off the random super dunk while they watch, allows for a win. From here on out the game becomes nearly unplayable, with each blowout loss fuelled by worthless teammates adding frustration to the fire.

This brings me to lasting appeal - if you finish tournament mode completely, only a glutton for punishment would bother to play through a second time. The additional mini-games are horribly boring and add nothing to the overall package, serving the purpose of empty fillers perfectly. The only way Mario Hoops will find continued play after the next week will be in multiplayer - if you can convince at least one other person to make the dip. Supporting up to four total players (no Wi-Fi support though) you may find some enjoyment in the decent but shallow single-cart mini games, a coin race and a battle mode ala Mario Kart, but without each person having a copy of the game, actual basketball will be locked out. This is where the game shines, as having a real player on your team brings out the playability and enjoyment missing from the single player mode.

Mario Hoops 3-on-3 will go down in the history of the Nintendo DS that's worthy of mention as the first game to push the system to a new presentational level developers that will be working to equal for some time to come. There will be no mention of the gameplay though, despite all of the potential it has unearthed. I may find little excitement when it comes to playing this again, but I am looking forward to the future of touch hoops, be they Mario-themed or not - just don't forget the A.I. next time!

Reviewed by Tony Peters for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).