100m Freestyle Swimming Plus

100m Freestyle Swimming Plus is a Plus Event that appears in the Nintendo 3DS version of Mario & Sonic at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games. The objective of the event is to swim the distance in the fastest time. The playable characters in this event are Mario, Peach, Wendy, Sonic, Tails, Amy, and Mii, with Wendy being unlocked by beating her in the event on the sixth day of Mario's story in the Road to Rio mode. Toads appear as referees in this event.

Gameplay

At the start of this event, the player must charge up power by holding the Action Button on the Touch Screen using the stylus, and release it when "Go!" appears on screen. The longer the player holds the button for, the more charge the character builds and the faster their initial speed and dive in will be. If the player releases the button with perfect timing, they will perform a rocket start, which gives them an even greater starting speed boost; however, they are not penalised if they release the button too early. Once the character has begun swimming, the player must slide in circles in the indicated direction on the Touch Screen to swim, with the character's speed, shown on a meter, increasing with the player's sliding speed. If the player slides in the wrong direction, they will lose speed. At the far end of the pool, a Thwomp will repeatedly land on the water's surface and create waves, which the player can dive under by touching the Action Button at the right time to gain a speed boost. The size of the boost depends on the timing of their dive, which will be rated as either "Perfect", "Great", or "Good"; the size of the boost decreasing for each as well as the player being told whether their dive was early or late for the latter two ratings. If the player does not perform the dive at the right time, it will be a "Miss", and the character will temporarily stop and lose most of their speed. When the player approaches the end of the pool, the Thwomp will stop making waves and the character will turn around, which is done by the player touching the action button at the right time. The player receives a boost for well-timed turns, with the boosts and ratings given in the same way as when diving under the waves. A short while after the player turns, the Thwomp will resume making waves, which the character will now ride on instead of diving under, but still uses the same input and has the same effects as diving under the waves.

Advice

• Release the Action Button in perfect time with the start signal to get a rocket start.
• Wait until the last moment to dive under waves on the way out to get a speed boost underwater.