I don’t often watch either the Olympic Games or Commonwealth Games when they come around every four years, and I was one of those folks who fled Queensland in 2018 when the Gold Coast hosted the latter that year. I may occasionally take a gander at the opening ceremony and sometimes watch a few of the more point-based sports such as Diving and Gymnastics when there is nothing else on the telly. But like sports any other time of the year, I am not enthusiastic about them. Surprisingly, however, I have always had a soft spot for the official Olympics video games. Starting with Athens 2004 for the PlayStation 2, which I threw countless hours into, I would pick up a new game in the franchise every four years. The only exception being the Rio 2016 games, which never received an officially licensed adaptation. For the Tokyo Olympics, following their work on London 2012, SEGA returns with Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 – The Official Video Game – albeit without their Australian development studio.
Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 – The Official Video Game was first launched in Japan in mid-2019 when COVID-19 wasn’t even a blip on our radar. This gives the game a sort of parallel universe feel where, especially given the lack of a name change, the game takes place in an alternate reality, presenting a more lively atmosphere and vibe. Therefore, the game is more accurate to what the organisers originally envisioned would have initially planned in some aspects, with crowds full of cheering fans and many close to one another without the need for social distancing.
The most crucial element to this game is its choice of sports, given someone can’t go into it expecting every sporting event is reflected in some way. Many of the expected sports are present, including a small collection of track (100m, 110m Hurdles, 4 x 100m Relay), field (Long Jump, Hammer Throw) and swimming (100m freestyle, 200m individual medley) options, along with some unique disciplines such as Rugby Sevens, Sport Climbing and Judo. However, while there are 18 events to choose from, I feel like they could have offered much more variety. We got no diving, weightlifting or gymnastics, for example, but the three-track events all pretty much use the same control scheme with few variations. They should have provided both quality and quantity, implementing more sports while adding extra lengths as options within each discipline – especially since some sports can be completed in seconds, if not a couple of minutes.
Fortunately, each of the events in Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 – The Official Video Game captures the Olympic Games’ atmosphere well. Each mini-game is presented in a way that makes it graphically look like the player is watching their character participate in the actual event – with a decent degree of realism into their appearances and animation. Controls are generally relatively easy to learn, with each game offering approachable basic commands and occasionally some advanced (less-realistic) controls. The difficulty curve increases as players move through the rounds from ranking trials to the final round for a shot at a medal. Therefore, while if you are very competent at button mashing and gaming in general, you may get a gold first shot; but otherwise, it can become a game of trial and error to see what works. What I am trying to say is that getting a Gold Medal can feel like you need to work at it, not too different from the actual Olympic Games.
One of the more fun components of Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 – The Official Video Game is that it features a fully-fledged character creation system, allowing anyone from kids to adults to create an avatar that reasonably looks like them. Body types, facial editing, and a good collection of traditionally male, traditionally female and unisex hairstyles are all on offer – with performance features such as skill types also being on the table. With 80 countries included in the game, many players will find themselves able to rep their nation; and custom-craft the other members of their country’s teams. Want to replace your country’s muscly athletes with pint-sized pale-skinned children and watch them devour the competition three times their size? I can confirm, you can do that! Also… costumes… customised for each nation as well as a range of cosplay outfits and accessories to unlock. You can end up with some very zany matches when boom! Sonic the Hedgehog is suddenly taking up a 200m Individual Swimming Medley!
Character Creation is why the lack of event diversity disappoints me, as especially with so few multi-person events, you will never see most of your custom characters if you put the time in. I think where they could have taken this is that rather than control an avatar in single-player mode, you can craft a whole team with strengths and weaknesses. These characters are specialists in certain events or event types, and you can, through a campaign mode, work your way through the sports to bring the most medals to your country. At least, that is the direction I would have been interested to see them go, as it would have been more engaging than welcoming players by throwing a list of events at them. You can do this to a lesser degree through playlists, but once you have played the sports, I just focused on individual events trying to get gold in them.
Outside of earning a gold medal in each sport and optionally playing through the co-op / online multiplayer modes, the endgame of Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 – The Official Video Game revolves around going against an additional difficulty-tier of competitor known as ‘Top Athlete’. Defeat any of these, and you can say you have truly mastered the sport. I… only defeated a couple after a few hours, so I expect them to keep you on your toes for a lot longer than the main game.
Production-wise, Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 – The Official Video Game is a quality game, offering great visuals which hold up in 2021, an overall lively atmosphere and complimentary music backing. This is not a run-of-the-mill licensed game, and SEGA clearly put effort into reflecting the mood one would expect from the games. The character creation system is also welcome and is something I would love to see SEGA, should they work on the 2024 Paris Olympics video-game adaptation, expand upon further. My only concern is that while each sporting event is approachable, fun to play and challenging to master, several do feel repetitive or otherwise shorter, less in-depth versions of sports that have big-name video game franchises behind them. Olympic Games video game adaptations, however, still do remain my guilty pleasure every four years…
Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 – The Official Video Game can now be purchased on the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, Google Stadia and Windows PC. A PS4 review copy was provided by Australian distributor Five Star Games for the purpose of this review.
