Snowball Scrimmage
Snowball Scrimmage is a Dream Event in Mario & Sonic at the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games. It takes place at the Snow Colosseum.
Overview
Players engage on a 2-vs-2 battle where their objective is to score as much goals as possible than their opponent in a set amount of time (3:30 by default, can be changed to 3:00 or 4:00). Players can play with a human teammate when selecting "Team Versus" or "Co-op Play" in multiplayer; up to 4 players can play free-for-all (with a CPU teammate) or in teams. In this event, players play in a tournament format, unless there are 1-2 players playing or players agree to split into teams. If played in Medley Mania, whether the players split into teams or not depend on whether the medley is played in 2-vs-2 mode or free-for-all. If the medley is played in a free-for-all, a random CPU character will co-operate with that player to form a team, otherwise, the team setup for the medley will be the same team setup for this event.
Character introductions are done before the game starts. In multiplayer mode, P1 uses the GamePad while the other player(s) use Wii Remotes. For matches of 3 or 4 players when players don't want to split in teams, in rounds where P1 does not participate, whichever player number is the lower one of the two players that are participating will use the GamePad for that round. The round begins when the announcer says "Go!", 3 seconds after "Ready?" is said.
Gameplay
The game is played by four players that split up into two teams. The object of the game is to jump on the giant glass snowball in the middle of the arena and roll it into the home base that matches the player's team color. Successfully doing this in any way earns the team one point, with the contribution going to the player that scored the goal (though this is cosmetic). The giant ball can go inside the goal hole even after the character riding it gets knocked down; if this is the case, it will count as a goal for the team, but no player will be credited with the contribution to the goal (though this has no effect on the outcome of the match). After each goal, a replay is shown, players are reset to their starting positions, then the announcer says "Ready... Go!" to continue the game.
Players can also shoot the other team with snowballs to hinder their progress. Shooting big snowballs or the player that is riding on the giant glass snowball can knock them down, stunning them for several seconds. Running over a player while riding the giant glass snowball also has the same effect. There are gray holes that a player can go into while on the ball. These gray holes shoot the ball up in the air, but it can sometimes knock the character down depending on where the ball lands, except that there is no health loss. If at any time a team is 2 goals behind, the shortcut gate opens for that team, making scoring goals easier. This occurs for the rest of the match. After the time limit, the team with the highest score wins. If there is a tie, an overtime period engages where both teams' shortcut gates are open; the first team to score the goal wins the game.
Health
Each player has a health meter that is slowly depleted when being hit by snowballs from the other team, or if run over by the player riding the giant glass snowball (if the player is in a different team than the other). If the health meter for a player is fully depleted, the player is eliminated from play for 5 seconds, then restarts from their original position. There are four squares around the middle platform (where the ball starts) that will replenish health when stood on.
The health meters of players do not reset to full when a goal is scored, unless a specific player was eliminated during the last 5 seconds a goal was being scored. In the case that a goal is scored while a player is eliminated, the health meter for that player will reset to full when the announcer says "Go!".
If a player's health meter is full, it will be in green, otherwise, it will be in yellow, where the red area depicts the amount of health that the player had just lost.
Music
The default music for this event is a remix of Sherbet Land from Mario Kart 64; however, the in-game music selection screen lists the source of the music as being from Mario Kart Wii.
Ending
When the word "Finish!" is displayed on the screen, the winners will perform their 1st place pose in front of the giant snowball while the words "Win!" are shown in the top-left of the screen. If 3 or more players play free-for-all, the winners do their poses for 2nd/3rd place unless it is for the 1st Place Medal. However, if playing 1 player or in 2 player co-op and the computer team wins, the players will perform their losing animations while the word "Lose" is displayed in the same corner of the screen.
After this, the Award Ceremony scene is shown, unless Legends Showdown is being played.
Single Match
The 3 teams are on a podium located in the south end of the stage, standing on the platform that matches their placing. CPU teams do not do their placing animation; human player teams do their respective animations based on their position. The medal that the team wins is shown on the center-left of the screen. After all animations are done, the Retry menu appears.
Medley Mania
This only occurs if this event was the final event of a medley. The 4 characters stand on a platform, positioned accordingly based on their final ranking. The procedure for whether or not animations for a character occurs is the same as in Single Match, except that the character does no rank animation if they finish 4th. The position that the player ended up in the medley is shown in the top-left of the screen, in a similar way to the end of events that show positions. After all animations are done, the final results for the medley is displayed immediately with the ceremony action being frozen.
