Anniversary: Japan Celebrates 15 Years Of Super Mario Strikers

Next Level Games is seemingly on a hiring spree, and it got us thinking about some of its past releases.

One standout hit, in particular, is the GameCube title Super Mario Strikers (also known as Mario Smash Football). Although the game made its original debut in Europe and the US in 2005 (marking its 15th anniversary in 2020), it wasn’t released in Japan until 19th January 2006.

That means today is its 15th anniversary in this region! To celebrate this special milestone, the official Super Mario Twitter account has shared some tweets of the Japanese GameCube box art, manual and disc, along with some additional screenshots:

Next Level Games eventually followed this up with the release of Mario Strikers Charged on the Wii in 2007. Since then, we’ve not seen the series return.

Now that Next Level has been acquired by Nintendo, perhaps it’s time for a comeback on the Switch. What do you think? Would you like to see Mario Strikers return? Leave a comment down below.