Mario & Sonic at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games (Nintendo 3DS)

Mario & Sonic at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games is a sports title for the Nintendo 3DS, which is the fifth installment on the Mario & Sonic series, along with the Wii U version. Like the other games, it takes place in the host city of the Olympics of the corresponding year, being Rio de Janeiro. It also features amiibo compatibility. This is the first game in the series where the handheld version was released before the home console version.

Playable
All 21 playable characters from previous games in the series return. Additionally, 20 new playable characters (10 new Mario characters and 10 new Sonic characters) are added, for a total of 41 playable characters. Among the new playable characters, many of them were Rivals from prior games in the Mario & Sonic series. Similarly to the Nintendo 3DS version of Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games, characters are only playable in certain events, with the exceptions of Mario, Sonic, and Mii characters (who are playable in all events). All the other returning characters are exclusive to both the Olympic and Plus versions of two events each, while the new characters are only available for both the Olympic and Plus versions of one. There are 7 playable characters in each event: 3 from Team Mario, 3 from Team Sonic, and Mii.

This is the first game in the series to feature unlockable playable characters (indicated by an *). Characters are unlocked by beating them in Road to Rio on the Plus version of the main event of that day after winning at the preliminaries. Each of the unlockable characters are playable in one event (both its Olympic and Plus versions) exclusive to that character with no overlaps and no events skipped.

The Road to Rio mode features almost all the playable characters, with the exception of Ludwig and Dry Bones, and some unlockable characters, namely Jet, Diddy, Rosalina, and Roy, have additional roles besides that of being challenged to be unlocked.

Teammates
In the Football event, the characters have set types of team mates that help them in the game.
 * Toads (Mario & Mario's Story Mii)
 * Chao (Sonic & Sonic's Story Mii)
 * Yoshis (Yoshi)
 * Birdos (Daisy)
 * Egg Pawns (Jet and Shadow)

Goalies
Goalies for Football depend on the team order and are not locked for each character.
 * Pom Pom (1st team)
 * Silver Egg Pawn (2nd team)

Non-playable characters

 * Shy Guys
 * Koopa Troopas
 * Goombas
 * Boos
 * Thwomps
 * Piranha Plants
 * Goomba Towers
 * Orbot
 * Cubot
 * Charmy Bee

Multiplayer
This mode is known as Versus Mode as players cannot team up in any event in this game.

Local Play and Download Play are both offered for 2 to 4 players.

Ways to connect
Like Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games, there are two ways to connect to Versus Mode.

Local Play
This requires that each player has a 3DS and a copy of the game, and up to 4 players can play. There is only one restriction in Local Play: The Golf event is always 3 random holes with one Par 3, one Par 4 and one Par 5 hole from a mixture of the front 9 and back 9 holes. As a result, records cannot be stored in the Golf event. A player can select an unlockable character provided that they unlocked him/her in Road to Rio. Records, Medals and Achievements earned by each player during Local Play are saved.

Download Play
If there are not enough copies of the game as there are 3DSes, then Download Play can be selected, provided that at least one player owns the game. Here, there are some limitations to Download Play. In Download Play, the top screen is fully white when selecting an event or character, and the Award Ceremony screen does not show at the end of an event - because of that, advice are not shown. In addition, the announcer and characters don't talk on systems playing via Download Play, and players playing via Download Play cannot save their progress or use unlockable characters. Also, Golf matches are only 1 hole long in Download Play, and a hole is randomly selected from the 18 holes. Most of the time, it will not be a Par 3 hole, hence actual ties on Golf are more likely to occur here on such holes (a tie on score is determined by NTP average, which is only recorded on Par 3s).

Modes of play
There are two methods of play to Versus Mode.

Single Match
Like Rio 2016 Quick Play, but with 2 to 4 players. Players select an Olympic or Plus event and play a Single Match.

In case of Football, Boxing, Table Tennis and Beach Volleyball, the 4 players will split into 2 pairs and compete 1-on-1. Like Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games, the players cannot select who to duel up against as the game determines each player's opponent randomly; and unlike the London 2012 game, it is not actually a tournament-based match, each player earns a Gold Medal if they win and a Silver Medal if they lose. The other pair's players are treated as COM players that take 3rd and 4th, which actually is based off the other pair's character choice and results.

Random Medley
Exclusive to Versus Mode, players can play a 2, 4, 6 or 10 round Medley that lasts 5-100 minutes depending on how many rounds they want to play. Players earn points based off the medals they earn in each event (Gold = 3 pts, Silver = 2 pts, Bronze = 1 pt), and the player with the highest point total wins the Medley. Hence the name, the Olympic and Plus events are chosen at random. However, the players will still choose which character to use before each event. Much like Single Match, in case of events that require players to split into pairs for an event, a player will earn 3 points for a win and 2 points for a loss. Players can also set records and earn medals and achievements during Random Medley.

Events
There are a total of fourteen events in the game, each with two variants; an "Olympic" version in which the events behave similarly to their real-life counterparts, and a "Plus" version where Mario and Sonic elements are incorporated into the event. The best finish of each event in each difficulty level is recorded, and finishing an event in 1st place on the Hard level will unlock a star next to the event.

Every event has seven playable characters, three of which are always Mario, Sonic, and Miis, and one of which has to be unlocked, marked by an asterisk (*).

Training events
In the Road to Rio mode, the player can train by playing thirty events from the 3DS version of Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games. These events are:


 * Pole Vault
 * Keirin
 * 100m Backstroke
 * Hockey
 * Badminton (Singles)
 * Triple Jump
 * Shot Put
 * Synchronised Swimming (Team)
 * Trampoline
 * Synchronised Swimming (Duet)
 * 1000m Kayak (Singles)
 * 4x100m Relay
 * 1500m
 * Water Polo
 * 100m Breaststroke
 * Canoe Slalom (Pair)
 * Handball
 * Badminton (Doubles)
 * Double Trap
 * Rowing - Quadruple Sculls
 * Rings
 * Fencing - Epée
 * Platform Diving (Synchronised)
 * Sailing - 470 (Pair)
 * 25m Rapid Fire Pistol
 * Taekwondo
 * 10km Marathon Swim
 * Hammer Throw
 * Basketball
 * 3000m Steeplechase

amiibo
The game features amiibo functionality, but only with the Mario and Sonic amiibo. Using them will turn the Mario costume into the Gold Mario costume and the Sonic costume into the Super Sonic costume respectively for 24 hours.

Road to Rio
The game features a Road to Rio mode that is similar to the Adventure Tours in the DS version of Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games and the Castle Club in Mario Golf: World Tour and is divided in two stories, Mario's Story and Sonic's Story, with the Mii joining either Mario's Gym or Sonic's Gym and participating each of the 7 days to the preliminaries and the finals of a main event, the latter of which are against a trainer of the opposing gym. The player can freely explore the areas, where the venue of the main event or the bus stop to reach the area where the main event is held, Training Gyms, shops, non playable characters, unlockable characters, treasure chests and ? crates can be found. Training Gyms are used to train for the main events, by playing an event from the 3DS version of Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games. After training, the players gains Apples and Training Points. The former are used to buy outfits at the Light-Blue Yoshi Outfit Shop that increase the Mii's stats, the latter are used to level up and gain stars that are needed to wear outfits. Treasure chests contain costumes or musical instruments, while ? crates contain melons that can be used to buy gear at the Yellow Yoshi Gear Shop that slightly alter the gameplay of the main events. Both of them can be hidden and appear only when the player is nearby. The unlockable characters can be unlocked by beating them at a Plus version of the main event after the preliminaries of said event have been passed. Finally, there is an optional subplot involving the contrast between Mario's gym and Sonic's gym and the disappearance of Mario, Sonic, and the medals from the Hall of Medals, that the player can follow to reach the true ending of each story, where it's revealed that Bowser and Dr. Eggman hypnotized two boys in Mario and Sonic costumes to steal the medals and spread rumors that one of the two gyms did it. Mario and Sonic go into hiding to foil the villains' plans, and together with the player, they defeat the two and reclaim the medals.

Challenge Mode
The game includes a challenge mode similar to the Super Smash Bros. games and Kid Icarus: Uprising. Each challenge has three steps to complete the challenge fully with progressing difficulty.

Clearing the Level 3 challenges for 10, 20, 30, 40 and all 48 of them unlocks content for the player.

Pocket Marathon
The game has a special mode where based on the number of steps the player's Mii moves, going certain distances unlocks certain milestones. There are three maps each one twice as long as the last. Each 2000m walked a gift is rewarded. In the first course, there are also gifts rewarded at 200m and 700m.

If the player connects to Online Rankings, the top 3 ranked Miis become their Rivals in the Pocket Marathon.

By tagging people via StreetPass, player's Miis can become supporters, in which the player can travel a maximum of 50m farther with each supporting Mii. While up to 32 Miis can be in the queue at once, there is a maximum of 3 Miis that can support the player in each stretch. In case of this, the newer Miis take priority.

References to other games

 * Super Mario Bros.: A remix of the Ground Theme appears as a selectable song in Rhythmic Gymnastics and Rhythmic Gymnastics Plus. A structure in the shape of a Castle from this game made of Brick Blocks and character wall obstacles of Mario, Bowser, Lakitu, Spinies and Goombas using their sprites from this game appear as obstacles in Golf Plus.
 * Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games (Nintendo 3DS): Many of the training events reuse events from this game.

Trivia

 * This is the first game in which Eggman Nega, Zazz, Zavok, and (though not as a selectable character) Pom Pom are playable, and the first Mario & Sonic game to feature the playable debut of characters.
 * This is the first handheld Mario & Sonic game where Sonic has text-based dialogue, and the first overall game where Nabbit has dialogue.