Some of these minigames get you to move the stylus and press a button! That really is the height of New International Track & Field’s complexity, but that’s the way it always has been for a series which is all about pummeling buttons faster than your friends. Sumo’s DS recreation is therefore incredibly loyal, albeit updated with a cast of cutesy 3D caricatures and online capabilities.

The majority of events involve scribbling rapidly on the screen with the stylus. Some then occasionally require you to tap a button – either to jump a hurdle, take a gulp of breath or toss a projectile.

On rare occasions, you do more: shooting has you move a slider along the base of the screen; the discus requires you to set the angle at which you release it. It’s not especially challenging, but it does threaten to give you RSI. You hope the DS screen is made of sterner stuff than your wrists, because it takes a thrashing.

There is a career mode, single event mode and a series of challenges which allow you to unlock Konami characters like Simon Belmont and Pyramid Head as playable characters. But really this is all a sideshow to the single-cart, multi-cart and wifi online modes. The latter allows you to set up friends lists and a rivals list for people you’ve met during play but haven’t been given a friend code for. A ticker displays events happening online elsewhere – world records being broken; your records being broken.

There may not be much to the game, but Sumo has done an astounding job of bolstering it with online facilities that are entirely uncommon on the platform. For what it is, it’s as worthy a remake as you could possibly want.

Verdict: 7/10

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