Switch 2’s Super Mario Strikers reveals Toad at his most evil

No matter the koopa-related danger, Toad has always stood by the side of Mario, Luigi, and Peach with a cheery smile. Tested by everything from face-offs with Bowser to tracking treasures to 18 holes of obstacle-heavy golf and Mario’s cursed parties, the loyal servant of the Mushroom Kingdom has been an unshakeable source of positivity since 1985. Or so I thought.

Consider me shocked and nearly appalled when I picked up Super Mario Strikers, the 2005 GameCube game recently added to Switch 2’s Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack service, and discovered the one time Toad was a PO’d MFer out for blood. Toad has long been a playable character in the sports-centric Mario spinoffs, and is always a fierce competitor despite his stature. But I can’t recall, even during vicious Mario Tennis Aces volleys or double plays in Mario Superstar Baseball, when Toad devolved into a snickering dipshit who reveled in the win. The Toad I thought I knew does not possess rage or insatiable pride.

And yet look at this killer absolutely take out Donkey Kong without pause.

We spend a lot of time debating if Toad’s toadstool is a hat or part of his head but maybe we could devote a bit more discussion over whether or not it should be considered an assault weapon.

Super Mario Strikers remains slick on Switch 2. Though the series has seen two sequels since the GameCube days, the 2007 Wii game Mario Strikers Charged and 2022’s Switch release Mario Strikers: Battle League, neither reinvented the wheel — the Strikers formula is truly just “Mario characters play soccer.” (Or football, if you’re playing the U.K. edition.)

Structured similarly to Mario Kart, Strikers pits players against competitive AI in a tournament play styled as “cups.” Passing, shooting, and running defense is all part of the calculus for smacking down opponents, with items and energized power-up kicks adding to the chaos. Occasionally, Bowser drops from the clouds like a meteor to ruin a steal-and-run counterattack. In the year 2025, it’s a fabulous mobile game, as opposed to Nintendo’s actual attempts at mobile games.

In either a testament to the GameCube’s cutting-edge-at-the-time 3D models or the slow evolution of Nintendo hardware over the last 25 years, the animation in the Strikers really pops. Whether it’s the fluid kicking mechanics or hilarious victory cutscenes after a scored goal, developer Next Level Games clearly pushed the models to new heights — and, in turn, new levels of fury. Toad is not the only sinister devil in the mix; even Waluigi, known scamp, stoops to dissing his opponents with a signature D-Generation X crotch chop! The “Attitude Era” may have ended in the early 2000s, but it was still alive at Nintendo in 2005.

I expect this behavior from Waluigi, on some level. Not from Toad or the other gentle minions of the Mushroom Kingdom. Thankfully, not every character in Strikers was transformed into their sneering Moopets doppelganger. Just look at Koopa Troopa after scoring a goal — that’s modesty!

Or how about Birdo, who’s thrilled to soak up the love of her adoring fans in the stands?

But Toad, after scoring a goal, strides back to the halfway line like a conqueror marching through the burning remnants of a village, waving to his newly captured townsfolk. A-hole.

To my knowledge, there has never been a truly evil version of Toad. There aren’t even many disgruntled Toads in Nintendo history; maybe Zess T. was a little perturbed mixing up recipes in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, but nothing on the level of Strikers Toad. (An evil, Toad-shaped alien species called the Shroob exists in Mario canon, though they are obviously genetically distinct from Toads as we know them.)

Maybe this side of Toad would have come out earlier if Square Enix and Nintendo had let the short king participate in Mario Hoops 3-on-3 Nintendo DS. (Even Cactuar from Final Fantasy got to play with the Mario crew, despite the ball-popping needles on his head!) But if soccer specifically brings out the worst in Toad, then clearly he has learned to calm his inner demons in the years that followed the GameCube. Just look at Toad celebrating a point in Mario Strikers: Battle League.

As my colleague Mike McWhertor has pointed out with great scholarship, there is room for a “Wa”Toad in the Mario universe. After all, if poison mushrooms exist in the Mushroom Kingdom alongside super mushrooms, then in theory, a Poison Toad should also exist. Nintendo just needs to maintain the sanctity of the OG Toad. Super Mario Strikers was rightfully reissued for the Switch 2 era — it’s a whole lotta fun — but I can’t help but wonder what this means for Toad’s reputation as a king of cool. It’s the Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack equivalent of resurfacing old tweets.

I’ll just say this: A sequel to Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker would be a great way to make up for it, Nintendo.