Mario Hoops 3-on-3

Mario Hoops 3-on-3 (also known as Mario Basket 3-on-3 in Japan and as Mario Slam Basketball in Europe) is a basketball game starring Mario characters. It was developed by Square Enix and published by Nintendo. It is the second Mario game developed by Square Enix, the first being Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars (prior to the merger with Enix, when they were known as simply Square). The game was originally released in 2006 (2007 in Europe) for the Nintendo DS, and a decade later, in 2016, was ported to the Wii U Virtual Console.

Gameplay
Touch control is used for all actions except for movement (which is handled by the ). Dribbling is performed automatically but at a lower rate if the Touch Screen is not used actively to dribble. Touching the screen in a certain direction causes the character that the player is controlling to change which way the character is dribbling and face in another direction, allowing the player to turn his/her character without having to move with the d-pad and gives the player better defense. In addition, dribbling is faster on coin pads. Dribbling on coin pads also earns the player coins to be used as points while shooting.

Navigating menus and playing the game can be done with either the Touch Screen or the d-pad. You can play left or right handed, depending on what you choose in the options menu. There is also an option of using the, , , and buttons instead of the Touch Screen. There are certain moves that only use the Touch Screen. In Practice mode, only the Touch Screen can be used.

The player shoots by drawing a line forward on the Touch Screen. Depending on where the character is and how they are moving, the shot is either a normal shot or a slam dunk. Normal Shots and Slam Dunks are 20 points plus the number of coins the player currently has. Super Shots (Specials) are 40 points each plus the number of coins. Ranged shots (three-point shots in usual basketball) are worth 30 points each plus the number of coins.

The game is structured in tournaments, which the player must win to progress. The tournament ladder is made with graphics based on the original Super Mario Bros. Each tournament consists of three games with two halves of 2.5 minutes, except that the player needs to play an extra game with the Final Fantasy team at the end of the rainbow tournament.

The player can win a tournament by winning the three games on its ladder. The player would obtain either a gold cup, a silver cup or a bronze cup. A gold cup is available only if the player has 200 points more than the opponents in all games of the tournament. Silver if all games are won by more than 100 points and bronze for winning all 3 games.

There are two modes: the normal mode and the hard mode. The hard mode is available after beating the Final Fantasy team on "normal mode".

Scoring
Getting the ball in the hoop awards 20 points, but the amount of points for landing a basket can be greatly increased by collecting coins. Scattered on the floor are question mark blocks that can be activated by dribbling over them (i.e. tapping on the right part of the screen). Oftentimes question mark blocks will bestow players with gold or red coins (which are worth ten gold). The maximum amount of points per shot is 140 in most basketball courts, which equates to 100 coins plus the 40 points for making a successful special shot. In one court shot worth can be doubled or tripled, making coin gathering more important.

There are several different combinations to do a special shot. To do a special shot, you need to make the player bounce the ball in a specific way. The most common is to tap out the letter "M" on the Touch Screen. This is for characters such as Mario. Other letters for other characters include "L", "B", "N", "W", "S" (looks like a backwards "Z"), an upside down triangle, and a star.

Normal question mark blocks are in yellow. Red question mark blocks are available as an item. When a red question mark block is thrown onto the ground, it slowly turns yellow, but the question mark is reversed. If walked upon, it trips up the player. Purple question mark blocks are available in Jr. Street, and contain purple coins. They can be used in the slot machine connected to the hoop to increase the points you earn by 10, 20, 30, or multiply the player's shot score by two, three, or zero. The more purple coins you collect, you can line up results on multiple lines or diagonal.

Alternate Costumes
To use these, hold a direction of the control pad (↑ ↓ ← →) while you drag the player into the basketball ring. The costume may change depending on which direction you hold.

Dribble Race
Playfields:
 * Peach's Castle
 * Sunshine Road
 * Rainbow Road Castle

Coin Hunters
Battlefields:
 * Mario Classic 1-1
 * Mario Classic 8-4
 * Mario Classic 2-2
 * Forest Stage

Voice actors

 * Mario, Luigi, Wario, and Waluigi: Charles Martinet
 * Princess Peach, Dixie Kong: Jen Taylor
 * Princess Daisy, White Mage: Deanna Mustard
 * Donkey Kong: Takashi Nagasako
 * Yoshi: Kazumi Totaka
 * Bowser: Scott Burns
 * Bowser Jr.: Dolores Rogers

Reception
Mario Hoops 3-on-3 is one of the lower received Mario sports titles. IGN criticized the AI as being rather simple and that there was "Too much focus on coin collection, not enough on basketball." They said that the Multiplayer mode was a better experience.

Trivia

 * Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection play was supposedly going to be included, and many fans believed so, due to an IGN article stating that the game has Wi-Fi, albeit subtly. The final released game is incompatible with Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection, instead it is "Wireless Play" compatible and "Download Play" compatible. Some fans may think that IGN had mistaken "Wireless Play" for Wi-Fi.