Damn, I miss the times when we just unlocked more content by playing the game, now I have to wait for Nintendo feeling ready to release more content via updates. And I need to hope it’s good and worth the money too.
Gameplay is amazing, but it lacks content, because Nintendo decided to release an unfinished half-baked version of this game, instead of giving it a bit more time. I might change my rating when all the content is released… if I come back to this.
I’m just not a fan of this kind of direction. Just let me play the full game, let me unlock characters, stages, costumes and more. Reward me for playing this game. This is just not it.
Gameplay is amazing, but it lacks content, because Nintendo decided to release an unfinished half-baked version of this game, instead of giving it a bit more time. I might change my rating when all the content is released… if I come back to this.
I’m just not a fan of this kind of direction. Just let me play the full game, let me unlock characters, stages, costumes and more. Reward me for playing this game. This is just not it.
I do like the art style its going for and the animations are fun. Its a reallly good looking game for the switch but that is genuinely the only good thing about it. It's not fun to play, it's overpriced, it's barebones... its quite simply unfinished and frankly even if it was free to play it still would be lacking and dead in the water. One of the worst nintendo games I've played yet. Why this game was greenlit for release I do not know.
Nancymeter - 34/100
Nancymeter - 34/100
The best way I can think to describe this game is by first going all the way back and quoting my review for the Wii game:
"It's full of personality too. Every single character you can choose to put on your team is different. You've got different stats obviously, something like 4 different categories, but each team captain has their own unique item, each sidekick has their own unique special shot, each character has different theme music that plays when they score a goal, and different dodge animations (which itself is different per character class, with some being more offensive, some being able to bypass the goalie with the right timing etc). It just really helps feel like every character you pick makes your team personalised to you, rather than just generic characters with a Mario skin."
All of this is gone, except for the stats (and even those can be adjusted to basically make every character whatever you want them to be). Everything else just...gone. No more sidekicks in general, no unique special shots, no character-specific items, no theme music for goals, no unique dodge techniques. Personality has at least survived with some things like animations, but it's all aesthetic and there's essentially zero gameplay differences between the tiny roster of 10 characters.
Quoting from my old review again though:
"My main issue is with the super strike mechanic. While this also plays into the idea of the game making each character unique, by giving them characteristic animations during the move, it is way too powerful and slows the game down every time it's used. I think it would have been fine if it was just limited to once per match, including the set-up screen, so that if you tried to use one at a bad time, you're out of luck. It'd add a lot more strategy and give it a huge risk-reward factor, while right now it's just no reward-reward."
This has at least been changed. No more spamming super strikes for 5 easy goals. Now you can only do them when a special item appears, and they only give you 2 goals. They still kind of break the pace when using them (unskippable 30 second or so cutscenes), but generally they're a big improvement here.
Anyway moving on to things unique to this game - Holy shit the way they handled customisation. So they have some pretty cool ways to alter the look of your side of the field, things like the look of the goal posts, the electric barrier pattern, the scenery items outside the barrier etc. But you can ONLY do these as part of a striker club. And only the leader of a striker club can alter them. Like you can still use your clubs field outside of club mode, even in story mode, but for some reason there's no way to just...make field designs you want. It makes zero sense. Have it so you can only use your clubs field specifically when doing club matches, but why the hell would you not let us make our own fields for single player and quickplay matches?
You might think "Well I'll just make my own private club so I can make a field how I want". Except nah, because on top of the obvious disadvantage you'd be in for ranking with a club with only 1 member, you can't actually do proper club matches like this (which you need for currency to buy customisation parts). The characters you can select in club matches are exclusively the ones the players of a club have registered as their character in said club (including their gear). So you can use YOUR character, but if you're the only one in a club it'll fill the last 3 with random characters, none of which have gear. So your only choices are to join a club and let the leader pick all the customisation options for you, or be lucky enough to be the head of a club with 19 other people (and hope they bring in good characters to use).
Also club mode launched without even having a current season lmao. Why?!
Anyway here's just a random list of other complaints:
-Zero content. 10 characters. 5 stadium themes that have zero gimmicks (may or may not be a positive to some people), and all the actual pitches are just plain grass. The only single player mode is now a simple bracket tournament with 3 matches across various cups.
-The inclusion of more timing based elements for things like perfect passes and perfect shots sounds good on paper, but in reality it just results in WAY too many goals. Especially combined with being able to min-max any stat you want. Having a max shooting stat with a perfect shot (honestly not hard at all to time) results in a goal from anywhere almost automatically. 4 minute matches will take at least twice as long thanks to the amount of goals.
-Items have been reduced to just the basic 5.
-Stadiums are tiny now.
What's GOOD about the game? Well... it still plays fairly well I suppose. There's still a lot of personality in animations (though I think the amount of possible goal animations per character have been drastically reduced?).
Umm... I dunno what else. This game is such a shell of its former self. They seemed to bank literally everything on the idea people would love being part of a club online, and maybe if you have 19 friends to join that'd be the case, but for anyone who has to resort to joining random open clubs, it's just a bad game with basically nothing to do.
"It's full of personality too. Every single character you can choose to put on your team is different. You've got different stats obviously, something like 4 different categories, but each team captain has their own unique item, each sidekick has their own unique special shot, each character has different theme music that plays when they score a goal, and different dodge animations (which itself is different per character class, with some being more offensive, some being able to bypass the goalie with the right timing etc). It just really helps feel like every character you pick makes your team personalised to you, rather than just generic characters with a Mario skin."
All of this is gone, except for the stats (and even those can be adjusted to basically make every character whatever you want them to be). Everything else just...gone. No more sidekicks in general, no unique special shots, no character-specific items, no theme music for goals, no unique dodge techniques. Personality has at least survived with some things like animations, but it's all aesthetic and there's essentially zero gameplay differences between the tiny roster of 10 characters.
Quoting from my old review again though:
"My main issue is with the super strike mechanic. While this also plays into the idea of the game making each character unique, by giving them characteristic animations during the move, it is way too powerful and slows the game down every time it's used. I think it would have been fine if it was just limited to once per match, including the set-up screen, so that if you tried to use one at a bad time, you're out of luck. It'd add a lot more strategy and give it a huge risk-reward factor, while right now it's just no reward-reward."
This has at least been changed. No more spamming super strikes for 5 easy goals. Now you can only do them when a special item appears, and they only give you 2 goals. They still kind of break the pace when using them (unskippable 30 second or so cutscenes), but generally they're a big improvement here.
Anyway moving on to things unique to this game - Holy shit the way they handled customisation. So they have some pretty cool ways to alter the look of your side of the field, things like the look of the goal posts, the electric barrier pattern, the scenery items outside the barrier etc. But you can ONLY do these as part of a striker club. And only the leader of a striker club can alter them. Like you can still use your clubs field outside of club mode, even in story mode, but for some reason there's no way to just...make field designs you want. It makes zero sense. Have it so you can only use your clubs field specifically when doing club matches, but why the hell would you not let us make our own fields for single player and quickplay matches?
You might think "Well I'll just make my own private club so I can make a field how I want". Except nah, because on top of the obvious disadvantage you'd be in for ranking with a club with only 1 member, you can't actually do proper club matches like this (which you need for currency to buy customisation parts). The characters you can select in club matches are exclusively the ones the players of a club have registered as their character in said club (including their gear). So you can use YOUR character, but if you're the only one in a club it'll fill the last 3 with random characters, none of which have gear. So your only choices are to join a club and let the leader pick all the customisation options for you, or be lucky enough to be the head of a club with 19 other people (and hope they bring in good characters to use).
Also club mode launched without even having a current season lmao. Why?!
Anyway here's just a random list of other complaints:
-Zero content. 10 characters. 5 stadium themes that have zero gimmicks (may or may not be a positive to some people), and all the actual pitches are just plain grass. The only single player mode is now a simple bracket tournament with 3 matches across various cups.
-The inclusion of more timing based elements for things like perfect passes and perfect shots sounds good on paper, but in reality it just results in WAY too many goals. Especially combined with being able to min-max any stat you want. Having a max shooting stat with a perfect shot (honestly not hard at all to time) results in a goal from anywhere almost automatically. 4 minute matches will take at least twice as long thanks to the amount of goals.
-Items have been reduced to just the basic 5.
-Stadiums are tiny now.
What's GOOD about the game? Well... it still plays fairly well I suppose. There's still a lot of personality in animations (though I think the amount of possible goal animations per character have been drastically reduced?).
Umm... I dunno what else. This game is such a shell of its former self. They seemed to bank literally everything on the idea people would love being part of a club online, and maybe if you have 19 friends to join that'd be the case, but for anyone who has to resort to joining random open clubs, it's just a bad game with basically nothing to do.
haha daisy fans cope
I'm having a very hard time deciding what I feel about this game. I've played both Strikers games for hundreds of hours in the past, so of course I was thrilled to play the newest entry, Battle League. And wow is it bare bones, and have some downright bad online as far as structure goes.
This game is not worth full price, it's worth a third of the price, and the rest is an investment hoping the free updates will justify it, which I am both optimistic and doubtful of. My big issue is, if you were gonna add free updates, just add them to the base game and make the offline modes actually worth playing besides practice for online. Could've easily had tons of unlockable stuff like the original two games, instead everything in the game is available as soon as you boot up the game. There's nothing fulfilling here in that aspect.
The reason I'm not giving it a super low score is the actual gameplay is very good. I enjoy the experience of playing the game, controlling shots, and the classic Strikers style of two goals for your hyper strikes which now requires an item. Lots of items have been outright removed, once again streamlining the experience for a much more competitive environment. Unfortunately, this is not always a good thing, it's one thing to limit items, goals, and hyper strikes for a competitive format, but for casual players it's a huge disservice since all the mechanics and design of this game is catered to people who will master it, rather than having mindless fun.
Online is the last thing I'll touch on. My friends and I made a club, coming out to three. We tried to figure out how to play together, only to find out you can only play with one other person unless two of them were on the same switch. Not only is this ridiculous, but outright outdated. There's plenty of other games on Switch that allow up to Eight players in the same lobby, all on different consoles, like Splatoon. Everything else from Strikers I enjoyed is mostly gone, which is a shame since I was super excited for this game especially, as someone who thought Strikers was the best, most unique, and had the most personality for a Sports game I've ever seen. This game? Just feels like it's lost its identity.
Patch the game, add more options for players to play with friends, and please make it worth the price. Despite what I've said, I do want this game to be looked at with a smile by everyone, including me, but it's not there yet, or ever potentially. Music is insanely good at least, but once again focuses too hard on a single aspect of Strikers which was the more rock-themed music. Strikers in the past had way more variety.
Overall, don't buy this game full price. Wait for a sale, or all the updates to come out, as it stands, this isn't worth it. Though again, I do hope and wish it will be at some point.
This game is not worth full price, it's worth a third of the price, and the rest is an investment hoping the free updates will justify it, which I am both optimistic and doubtful of. My big issue is, if you were gonna add free updates, just add them to the base game and make the offline modes actually worth playing besides practice for online. Could've easily had tons of unlockable stuff like the original two games, instead everything in the game is available as soon as you boot up the game. There's nothing fulfilling here in that aspect.
The reason I'm not giving it a super low score is the actual gameplay is very good. I enjoy the experience of playing the game, controlling shots, and the classic Strikers style of two goals for your hyper strikes which now requires an item. Lots of items have been outright removed, once again streamlining the experience for a much more competitive environment. Unfortunately, this is not always a good thing, it's one thing to limit items, goals, and hyper strikes for a competitive format, but for casual players it's a huge disservice since all the mechanics and design of this game is catered to people who will master it, rather than having mindless fun.
Online is the last thing I'll touch on. My friends and I made a club, coming out to three. We tried to figure out how to play together, only to find out you can only play with one other person unless two of them were on the same switch. Not only is this ridiculous, but outright outdated. There's plenty of other games on Switch that allow up to Eight players in the same lobby, all on different consoles, like Splatoon. Everything else from Strikers I enjoyed is mostly gone, which is a shame since I was super excited for this game especially, as someone who thought Strikers was the best, most unique, and had the most personality for a Sports game I've ever seen. This game? Just feels like it's lost its identity.
Patch the game, add more options for players to play with friends, and please make it worth the price. Despite what I've said, I do want this game to be looked at with a smile by everyone, including me, but it's not there yet, or ever potentially. Music is insanely good at least, but once again focuses too hard on a single aspect of Strikers which was the more rock-themed music. Strikers in the past had way more variety.
Overall, don't buy this game full price. Wait for a sale, or all the updates to come out, as it stands, this isn't worth it. Though again, I do hope and wish it will be at some point.
The original Mario Strikers is one of my favorite games. This one is a good improvement on the gameplay, like its really fun. The game just doesn't really have enough to it to justify being sold for this price in this day and age. Its a shame it feels kind of like a cash grab.
The game is fun but there is NO content. We've been complaining about the lack of content for the last few Mario sports games, but I don't think it's ever been this bad. Aces and Super Rush at least had attempts at adventure modes, as superficial as they were.
The only single player content Battle League has outside of exhibition matches are cup battles, six cup tournaments where you face teams that excel in a certain attribute (shooting, passing, speed, etc.) The average match length is four minutes, and these cups have three matches each if you go all the way. There's also an online mode called Strikers Club, which is Mario’s take on FIFA’s pro clubs, however, I am yet to try this out considering not a single soul I know owns this game.
There's a fair amount of depth to the gameplay that keeps it entertaining. I particularly like how imperfect the goalkeepers are, and the gear system means that playing around with different team comps can be fulfilling, but all of this is for naught when there are only two unique modes to experiment in.
In a world lacking in tennis games, Aces was more than good enough to fill that void. But in a world where FIFA exists, Next Level Games have given me no reason to keep playing this.
The only single player content Battle League has outside of exhibition matches are cup battles, six cup tournaments where you face teams that excel in a certain attribute (shooting, passing, speed, etc.) The average match length is four minutes, and these cups have three matches each if you go all the way. There's also an online mode called Strikers Club, which is Mario’s take on FIFA’s pro clubs, however, I am yet to try this out considering not a single soul I know owns this game.
There's a fair amount of depth to the gameplay that keeps it entertaining. I particularly like how imperfect the goalkeepers are, and the gear system means that playing around with different team comps can be fulfilling, but all of this is for naught when there are only two unique modes to experiment in.
In a world lacking in tennis games, Aces was more than good enough to fill that void. But in a world where FIFA exists, Next Level Games have given me no reason to keep playing this.
FIFA with soul but it’s still FIFA
I must admit, if you asked me before this game released what I thought I'd be giving on this site, months later, it would be a 5/5. That's how excited and confident I was going in. I'm as devastated as a plumber who forgot his utility belt. I can't believe I don't care for it.
I have always felt Strikers was the best of all of the Mario Sports games, easily. Baseball comes close, as does Tennis on Gamecube. Heck, I even thoroughly enjoyed Mario Tennis Aces on Switch for months. It was a great online game.
First, let's get a couple of the good things out of the way. This games art style is unmatched. I LOVE how they draw the characters. If only they actually looked that cool in-game and it wasn't just for promotional art. I also LOVE the colour schemes and the way the UI looks. This game is one of the best looking games, art-style wise, that I've ever seen. It's hilarious because I feel like if I worked at a video game company, I would literally make a game that looked similar to this in a lot of ways. It's 100% my style.
I also really like the base gameplay of this game, but that's something that I could say for the previous two games. Not much has changed here regarding the core of how it plays.
The gear system is cool and it would have been something to appreciate in the long run as new gear was added, but... there is no long-run, here. They had a great idea: make characters more customizable to make up for the smaller roster. Make it so that small characters can be powerful, or the tough characters can be agile. However, this brings up the main problem of the game. People quickly realized there were only a few "feasible combinations". Aaaand, your system is pointless.
That's about where the good things end...
The items are pretty poorly balanced. The way stars are rewarded for being down in points is frustrating.
After hearing/reading a lot of comments online regarding this game, I must say I do not fall in line with the general critiques it seems to constantly get.
The problem with this game is NOT how much "content" it does or does not have. The problem is that it does not feel very replayable. It doesn't matter if there "aren't enough characters". What matters is that within whatever amount of characters you have to chose from, you don't have fun/varied matches. Every match ends up being similar. Regardless of your skill level, people found a few ways to go about winning and those methods are repeated over and over. There's not a lot of room for creativity or experimentation. After I got really good at the game, it felt trivial to continue to win. It was easy. Sure, I moved on to playing people better than me and got wrecked because they knew of a better formula. But... it just doesn't go any further than that.
This game feels like there's a "correct" way to score goals. It reduces the game in to a pretty stale pattern of both teams trying to accomplish the same simple task. The goalie is stupid and can be easily manipulated.
Stop using "lack of content" as a reason a game is bad. This game absolutely did not "need" more than 10 characters. It could have been totally fine with those 10. It's just no different from match to match, and that's just not fun after a while.
I say that as someone who frequently uses Daisy in Mario games, and I was very upset she wasn't included (at first). Roster size does not make or break a game. Different stadiums literally don't matter. Don't keep pushing the narrative that every game needs to suckle from the teat of Fortnite and cram new things down your throat every week.
I thought this game was gonna be my second favourite of the year. For the first couple days of playing it, it actually kind of was. I loved it until I realized there was no reason to keep playing the same match over and over. Turns out it's not even gonna be in my Top 10 games this year. :(
I'm sad.
I have always felt Strikers was the best of all of the Mario Sports games, easily. Baseball comes close, as does Tennis on Gamecube. Heck, I even thoroughly enjoyed Mario Tennis Aces on Switch for months. It was a great online game.
First, let's get a couple of the good things out of the way. This games art style is unmatched. I LOVE how they draw the characters. If only they actually looked that cool in-game and it wasn't just for promotional art. I also LOVE the colour schemes and the way the UI looks. This game is one of the best looking games, art-style wise, that I've ever seen. It's hilarious because I feel like if I worked at a video game company, I would literally make a game that looked similar to this in a lot of ways. It's 100% my style.
I also really like the base gameplay of this game, but that's something that I could say for the previous two games. Not much has changed here regarding the core of how it plays.
The gear system is cool and it would have been something to appreciate in the long run as new gear was added, but... there is no long-run, here. They had a great idea: make characters more customizable to make up for the smaller roster. Make it so that small characters can be powerful, or the tough characters can be agile. However, this brings up the main problem of the game. People quickly realized there were only a few "feasible combinations". Aaaand, your system is pointless.
That's about where the good things end...
The items are pretty poorly balanced. The way stars are rewarded for being down in points is frustrating.
After hearing/reading a lot of comments online regarding this game, I must say I do not fall in line with the general critiques it seems to constantly get.
The problem with this game is NOT how much "content" it does or does not have. The problem is that it does not feel very replayable. It doesn't matter if there "aren't enough characters". What matters is that within whatever amount of characters you have to chose from, you don't have fun/varied matches. Every match ends up being similar. Regardless of your skill level, people found a few ways to go about winning and those methods are repeated over and over. There's not a lot of room for creativity or experimentation. After I got really good at the game, it felt trivial to continue to win. It was easy. Sure, I moved on to playing people better than me and got wrecked because they knew of a better formula. But... it just doesn't go any further than that.
This game feels like there's a "correct" way to score goals. It reduces the game in to a pretty stale pattern of both teams trying to accomplish the same simple task. The goalie is stupid and can be easily manipulated.
Stop using "lack of content" as a reason a game is bad. This game absolutely did not "need" more than 10 characters. It could have been totally fine with those 10. It's just no different from match to match, and that's just not fun after a while.
I say that as someone who frequently uses Daisy in Mario games, and I was very upset she wasn't included (at first). Roster size does not make or break a game. Different stadiums literally don't matter. Don't keep pushing the narrative that every game needs to suckle from the teat of Fortnite and cram new things down your throat every week.
I thought this game was gonna be my second favourite of the year. For the first couple days of playing it, it actually kind of was. I loved it until I realized there was no reason to keep playing the same match over and over. Turns out it's not even gonna be in my Top 10 games this year. :(
I'm sad.
I'm a huge sucker for Mario sports games, especially Strikers, but chief... this isn't it. It's a very competent game in many regards, but it fails in so many others. Let's start off with that price tag, a full whopping $60. Not worth it at all. You wanna get this game? Wait for a sale or get it on ebay for cheaper.
This game just likes contradicting itself a lot of the time. For every interesting pro, there's an equally disheartening con.
+ The gear and customization options are cool. They add some flair and allow you to basically use anyone on any team for basically any reason.
- Because of this, none of the characters really feel unique from one another in terms of gameplay. There's no longer any strategy when picking characters, it's all up to the gear now.
+ The hyper strike is now an item you can pick up rather than something available at any time given you can charge it up. It makes it so goals are much harder to come by in most cases.
- Hyper strikes can't be blocked if timed perfectly, which honestly isn't all that hard to do, especially with a high technique character. Even though it was REALLY hard to block them in Charged, you at least got a chance to. And, personally, I miss that little mini game where you play as your goalie Kritter to block the balls.
+ Lots of personality in the animations. This is maybe the most expressive we've seen the Mario cast to date, and it really makes them stand out from one another.
- Way less animations than in Charged. While there's still personality, they don't compliment the gritty art style at all. Sure, I love seeing Waluigi dance and throw a flower in his mouth when he scores a goal, but what happened to him completely showboating? His iconic crotch thrust is just gone. Everyone is generally less angry and more expressive in their own way, but I honestly would've preferred if they were allowed to get more pissed at each other.
The content is super limiting at the moment. The only single player content available is small tournaments against CPUs that are over in about 15 minutes. The online season hasn't even started at the time of launch, which is a complete joke. The small roster limits your character choice. There will obviously be more in the future, but I'm sure we're all tired of Nintendo releasing unfinished games in an attempt to keep players interested down the line with DLC. It's not just the small roster, too. Like I said, there's almost nothing to do here other than just player soccer against another player or a CPU.
I'm sure I'll be able to get a lot out of this game with the online, but that doesn't excuse how hollow it is. Unless you're absolutely dying to play this game, I would recommend waiting a bit for more content, a price drop, or both. May come back and edit this later once the DLC comes around, but all things considered, while this isn't a bad game, it's not a very fulfilling one right now.
UPDATE: 7/30/22
The first update recently launched and it's still pretty lackluster overall. Daisy and Shy Guy are very much welcome additions, but I'm surprised people haven't been complaining about Daisy. They completely butchered her character. I feel like her and Waluigi got the most out the previous entries where everyone was pissed at each other. They were both very much sore losers and gloated when they won. While Waluigi still retains that to a degree, which I'm fine with, Daisy is a husk of her former self. She's basically just the tomboy and nothing else. She gets sad when she loses, which isn't in character at all, and instead of showboating during a victory, she merely celebrates. Maybe I'm looking too much into the semantics of what makes a Mario character who they are, but this personally was a big turn off in terms of interest. Shy Guy is amazing, though. He somehow has a more well defined personality than most of the cast (including Daisy) through some of the most simple animations in the game.
The online season started and it's literally the worst. I haven't fully explored it yet, but there's a few things about it that bother me:
-When you join an online clan (idk what they're called officially but clan is an easy word to default to) you pick a striker to represent you, basically just someone you put on your profile as your main.
-When you want to play a match in the league, you need to make a lobby and then search. Despite clans being able to house more than two people, only two people can play alongside each other at a time, which kind of defeats the point of playing with friends for points.
-To top it all off, you are FORCED to play with your teammates striker characters. Whoever they picked as their main, you have to place them on your team, armor and all. What if I don't like the characters my friends chose? The game doesn't care. Even if you don't have four people in your clan, the game will just pick default characters for you with no armor.
Basically this game is still lackluster and the online ranking system makes no sense at all. The normal online play is fine, but it sucks that I can't get anything out of it without going through the awful clan stuff. I'll raise my score from a 4/10 to a 5/10 just because I have still been having a lot of fun with this game, and having fun with games is what I care about the most, even if the game is bad quality wise. But there's still not a lot to do in this game, so I don't know how much more mileage I'll get out of it.
This game just likes contradicting itself a lot of the time. For every interesting pro, there's an equally disheartening con.
+ The gear and customization options are cool. They add some flair and allow you to basically use anyone on any team for basically any reason.
- Because of this, none of the characters really feel unique from one another in terms of gameplay. There's no longer any strategy when picking characters, it's all up to the gear now.
+ The hyper strike is now an item you can pick up rather than something available at any time given you can charge it up. It makes it so goals are much harder to come by in most cases.
- Hyper strikes can't be blocked if timed perfectly, which honestly isn't all that hard to do, especially with a high technique character. Even though it was REALLY hard to block them in Charged, you at least got a chance to. And, personally, I miss that little mini game where you play as your goalie Kritter to block the balls.
+ Lots of personality in the animations. This is maybe the most expressive we've seen the Mario cast to date, and it really makes them stand out from one another.
- Way less animations than in Charged. While there's still personality, they don't compliment the gritty art style at all. Sure, I love seeing Waluigi dance and throw a flower in his mouth when he scores a goal, but what happened to him completely showboating? His iconic crotch thrust is just gone. Everyone is generally less angry and more expressive in their own way, but I honestly would've preferred if they were allowed to get more pissed at each other.
The content is super limiting at the moment. The only single player content available is small tournaments against CPUs that are over in about 15 minutes. The online season hasn't even started at the time of launch, which is a complete joke. The small roster limits your character choice. There will obviously be more in the future, but I'm sure we're all tired of Nintendo releasing unfinished games in an attempt to keep players interested down the line with DLC. It's not just the small roster, too. Like I said, there's almost nothing to do here other than just player soccer against another player or a CPU.
I'm sure I'll be able to get a lot out of this game with the online, but that doesn't excuse how hollow it is. Unless you're absolutely dying to play this game, I would recommend waiting a bit for more content, a price drop, or both. May come back and edit this later once the DLC comes around, but all things considered, while this isn't a bad game, it's not a very fulfilling one right now.
UPDATE: 7/30/22
The first update recently launched and it's still pretty lackluster overall. Daisy and Shy Guy are very much welcome additions, but I'm surprised people haven't been complaining about Daisy. They completely butchered her character. I feel like her and Waluigi got the most out the previous entries where everyone was pissed at each other. They were both very much sore losers and gloated when they won. While Waluigi still retains that to a degree, which I'm fine with, Daisy is a husk of her former self. She's basically just the tomboy and nothing else. She gets sad when she loses, which isn't in character at all, and instead of showboating during a victory, she merely celebrates. Maybe I'm looking too much into the semantics of what makes a Mario character who they are, but this personally was a big turn off in terms of interest. Shy Guy is amazing, though. He somehow has a more well defined personality than most of the cast (including Daisy) through some of the most simple animations in the game.
The online season started and it's literally the worst. I haven't fully explored it yet, but there's a few things about it that bother me:
-When you join an online clan (idk what they're called officially but clan is an easy word to default to) you pick a striker to represent you, basically just someone you put on your profile as your main.
-When you want to play a match in the league, you need to make a lobby and then search. Despite clans being able to house more than two people, only two people can play alongside each other at a time, which kind of defeats the point of playing with friends for points.
-To top it all off, you are FORCED to play with your teammates striker characters. Whoever they picked as their main, you have to place them on your team, armor and all. What if I don't like the characters my friends chose? The game doesn't care. Even if you don't have four people in your clan, the game will just pick default characters for you with no armor.
Basically this game is still lackluster and the online ranking system makes no sense at all. The normal online play is fine, but it sucks that I can't get anything out of it without going through the awful clan stuff. I'll raise my score from a 4/10 to a 5/10 just because I have still been having a lot of fun with this game, and having fun with games is what I care about the most, even if the game is bad quality wise. But there's still not a lot to do in this game, so I don't know how much more mileage I'll get out of it.
I feel so bad for my uncle who waited for another inclusion to the Mario Strikers games. Sadly, this one is not even close to the big leagues of the other Strikers. Three strikes and you're out. Wait, wrong sport...
Mario Strikers: Charged Football was one of my favourite games on the Wii and my friends and I were so hyped for this game.
And within maybe a week, possibly two, none of us were playing this. Only two players can form a league team despite 4 characters per team. None of the new mechanics account for charging the ball in the previous game. The character roster is smaller and the character customization means no character stats are unique.
And within maybe a week, possibly two, none of us were playing this. Only two players can form a league team despite 4 characters per team. None of the new mechanics account for charging the ball in the previous game. The character roster is smaller and the character customization means no character stats are unique.
Absolute garbage. I scrapped my whole video on this game just because of how bad this game was!
UNACCEPTABLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Do not buy unless you have no friends. even if you had friends this game blows because the CPUs in this game is ABSOLUTE GARBAGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
UNRELIABLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I HATE THIS GAME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
UNACCEPTABLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Do not buy unless you have no friends. even if you had friends this game blows because the CPUs in this game is ABSOLUTE GARBAGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
UNRELIABLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I HATE THIS GAME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Typical tacos made games never good I swear
With Mario Strikers: Battle League, Next Level Games is once again confirmed as one of Nintendo's most talented studios, packaging an excellent title in gameplay but in desperate need of content.
Throwing into the field, you immediately realize that Battle League is an adrenaline-pumping experience in which reflexes and tactics are the main factors to be able to excel, with an unexpectedly deep gameplay that entertains a lot and requires you to improve game after game. The field that hosts the 4v4 matches may initially seem not very large due to the chaos of the matches dominated by fouls and objects, but you get used to it quickly; however, it's disappointing that the choice of the two sections of the pitch are only aesthetic and practically useless.
The 10 characters are diversified in their statistics such as shooting, passing, speed, etc., and customizable through pieces of equipment according to your tactics; Next Level also does not betray at all the strong personality and the unique style that distinguishes the Mario Strikers series, giving all the characters breathtaking and over the top animations, which constitute the second strong point of the title.
Behind a meticulous work there's a really poor offer: almost non-existent single-player content (in addition to the local matches there are only tournaments against the CPU that allow you to earn coins) that leave room for the soul of the game: the online multiplayer. The possibility of being able to join clubs online with other players and play weekly seasons is interesting, but even here it's difficult to imagine how such a game can last over time based only on this mode, making Battle League a game that holds up almost exclusively thanks to the gameplay that undoubtedly does not tire.
Plus Rosalina is fucking broken man omg
Throwing into the field, you immediately realize that Battle League is an adrenaline-pumping experience in which reflexes and tactics are the main factors to be able to excel, with an unexpectedly deep gameplay that entertains a lot and requires you to improve game after game. The field that hosts the 4v4 matches may initially seem not very large due to the chaos of the matches dominated by fouls and objects, but you get used to it quickly; however, it's disappointing that the choice of the two sections of the pitch are only aesthetic and practically useless.
The 10 characters are diversified in their statistics such as shooting, passing, speed, etc., and customizable through pieces of equipment according to your tactics; Next Level also does not betray at all the strong personality and the unique style that distinguishes the Mario Strikers series, giving all the characters breathtaking and over the top animations, which constitute the second strong point of the title.
Behind a meticulous work there's a really poor offer: almost non-existent single-player content (in addition to the local matches there are only tournaments against the CPU that allow you to earn coins) that leave room for the soul of the game: the online multiplayer. The possibility of being able to join clubs online with other players and play weekly seasons is interesting, but even here it's difficult to imagine how such a game can last over time based only on this mode, making Battle League a game that holds up almost exclusively thanks to the gameplay that undoubtedly does not tire.
Plus Rosalina is fucking broken man omg
I still remember the exact moment that this game was revealed, I was ecstatic. Nintendo hadn't forgotten about Mario Strikers after all! They knew what we wanted and were gonna give it to us, and to make things better it was coming out in just a few months! I couldn't have been more clueless. Mario Strikers Battle League is to this day the most disappointing game that I have ever played and has little to no redeeming qualities.
Of all the aspects to dislike about this game that gameplay is the one that I hate the least, granted that means I still hate it quite a lot but it's not as bad as the rest of what makes this game bad. The general gameplay here feels like they completely forgot how to make a Mario Strikers game, because it just straight up doesn't have the balance or fun of those games at all. The captain and sidekick system are completely gone, now there's just a roster of like 16 or so Mario characters to choose from, none of which are all that surprising to see present or different in ways that makes them feel better. What's even stranger about this is that you can break all continuity and just choose four of the same character to fill your team, so if you want four Bowsers or four DKs you can have it, and nobody will say a thing. It's like if in real soccer four Messi's walked onto the field for a game, you'd think that would be bizarre and pretty unfair, but it's done completely straight faced here and it just shows that they really put no thought into this game at all. The way items are handled is really bad here as well, instead of the game giving them out to a team that fills the requirements to earn one in the situation, the game just drops random item blocks on the field from time to time. If the current match is at a neutral state an item block that anyone can grab will drop, if one team is at even a slight disadvantage though the game will drop team specific item blocks that only the disadvantaged team can get and will continue to do so extremely frequently until that team gets its shit together. Another feature done for the worse here is the Hyper Strikes, this game's equivalent of the captain specific special shots from the previous games. In this game you can no longer pop one of these whenever you want, you have to wait for a Strike Orb to appear on the field, grab it and then you'll have around 30 seconds to pull off a Hyper Strike. Pulling off a hyper strike is insanely easy, given that you get to a spot on the field with ample distance between you and your opponents all you have to do is press "A" twice on a meter that determines the shot's accuracy, if you press the button twice while on the smallest blue section your shot will go in no matter what and score you two points instead of one, the problem is that this timing is incredibly easy to hit leading to virtually no challenge when it comes to these other than finding a safe spot to use them. The fact that you can't use them whenever you want though and that any character on the field can use them, rather than just the captain, makes them quite useless in the long run. These kinds of shots were so useful in the other games because they were a risk and reward type scenario to use helpful for tying the game when you got desperately behind or pulling farther ahead, here they just show up to infrequently to strategize around and to be considered any kinds of useful.
Like I've already mentioned, I was extremely hyped for this game before it came out and bought it Day 1, I remember coming home and playing like 2 to 3 hours of the main tournament mode before inevitably getting bored and putting it down, hoping I'd never have to play it again. What's funny is if I had only played a like 2 more hours of the tournament mode I would have seen all that the game has and ever would have to offer in terms of content. Mario Strikers Battle League is easily the most barren and worthless Mario Sports game in terms of content and surprisingly enough it wears that on its sleeve unashamedly. I am not joking when I say that literally all there is to do in this game is the tournament mode, which consists of six tournament cups, each having a four-match bracket within it and that's all. Now there is of course also the online mode that Nintendo was clearly putting all their stock into when making this game but clearly after seeing how bad this game is everyone who bought it as a whole decided to forego the online and move on with their lives and I don't blame them. This is quite honestly one of the lightest games in terms of content that I've ever seen and it's absolutely shameful, then again perhaps I should thank it because if there were more content here I'd be forced to play this game longer.
Finally, we get to the most egregious aspect of Battle League, the presentation. I loved the style of the other two Strikers games and have already gone on in lengths about that in the reviews I've done for them, so you can imagine my distaste when I'm presented with a game that throws all that out the window. Battle League attempts to copy the former games' style visually and musically in some places but completely misses the point of it but toning things down and not allowing the characters to be unhinged like they were in the previous games. Instead of actually charming and funny win/lose animations like we got in the previous game we instead get the most homogenized cutscenes of Mario characters doing typical Mario character things that fit Nintendo's evergreen vision for them rather than one that makes them more fun and interesting because God forbid these characters be interesting. And it's not just the characters either, the stadiums are no longer fun or different instead just being basic stadiums with themed backsplashes that do nothing but change the color of the grass, the UI is abysmal and boring to look at, and the music tries so hard to be crowd-pleasing only to be the most forgettable few notes repeated that I've ever heard. It's because of this game that this series that I loved has lost its soul and Nintendo refuses to let it go and find it again.
I can say in confidence that Mario Strikers Battle League is the both the worst Mario Sports game and just one of the worst games I have ever played in general. It is a spit in the face to the legacy of Mario Sports games and those like me who grew up enjoying them and now that I have finished it, I am glad I will never have to play it again.
Of all the aspects to dislike about this game that gameplay is the one that I hate the least, granted that means I still hate it quite a lot but it's not as bad as the rest of what makes this game bad. The general gameplay here feels like they completely forgot how to make a Mario Strikers game, because it just straight up doesn't have the balance or fun of those games at all. The captain and sidekick system are completely gone, now there's just a roster of like 16 or so Mario characters to choose from, none of which are all that surprising to see present or different in ways that makes them feel better. What's even stranger about this is that you can break all continuity and just choose four of the same character to fill your team, so if you want four Bowsers or four DKs you can have it, and nobody will say a thing. It's like if in real soccer four Messi's walked onto the field for a game, you'd think that would be bizarre and pretty unfair, but it's done completely straight faced here and it just shows that they really put no thought into this game at all. The way items are handled is really bad here as well, instead of the game giving them out to a team that fills the requirements to earn one in the situation, the game just drops random item blocks on the field from time to time. If the current match is at a neutral state an item block that anyone can grab will drop, if one team is at even a slight disadvantage though the game will drop team specific item blocks that only the disadvantaged team can get and will continue to do so extremely frequently until that team gets its shit together. Another feature done for the worse here is the Hyper Strikes, this game's equivalent of the captain specific special shots from the previous games. In this game you can no longer pop one of these whenever you want, you have to wait for a Strike Orb to appear on the field, grab it and then you'll have around 30 seconds to pull off a Hyper Strike. Pulling off a hyper strike is insanely easy, given that you get to a spot on the field with ample distance between you and your opponents all you have to do is press "A" twice on a meter that determines the shot's accuracy, if you press the button twice while on the smallest blue section your shot will go in no matter what and score you two points instead of one, the problem is that this timing is incredibly easy to hit leading to virtually no challenge when it comes to these other than finding a safe spot to use them. The fact that you can't use them whenever you want though and that any character on the field can use them, rather than just the captain, makes them quite useless in the long run. These kinds of shots were so useful in the other games because they were a risk and reward type scenario to use helpful for tying the game when you got desperately behind or pulling farther ahead, here they just show up to infrequently to strategize around and to be considered any kinds of useful.
Like I've already mentioned, I was extremely hyped for this game before it came out and bought it Day 1, I remember coming home and playing like 2 to 3 hours of the main tournament mode before inevitably getting bored and putting it down, hoping I'd never have to play it again. What's funny is if I had only played a like 2 more hours of the tournament mode I would have seen all that the game has and ever would have to offer in terms of content. Mario Strikers Battle League is easily the most barren and worthless Mario Sports game in terms of content and surprisingly enough it wears that on its sleeve unashamedly. I am not joking when I say that literally all there is to do in this game is the tournament mode, which consists of six tournament cups, each having a four-match bracket within it and that's all. Now there is of course also the online mode that Nintendo was clearly putting all their stock into when making this game but clearly after seeing how bad this game is everyone who bought it as a whole decided to forego the online and move on with their lives and I don't blame them. This is quite honestly one of the lightest games in terms of content that I've ever seen and it's absolutely shameful, then again perhaps I should thank it because if there were more content here I'd be forced to play this game longer.
Finally, we get to the most egregious aspect of Battle League, the presentation. I loved the style of the other two Strikers games and have already gone on in lengths about that in the reviews I've done for them, so you can imagine my distaste when I'm presented with a game that throws all that out the window. Battle League attempts to copy the former games' style visually and musically in some places but completely misses the point of it but toning things down and not allowing the characters to be unhinged like they were in the previous games. Instead of actually charming and funny win/lose animations like we got in the previous game we instead get the most homogenized cutscenes of Mario characters doing typical Mario character things that fit Nintendo's evergreen vision for them rather than one that makes them more fun and interesting because God forbid these characters be interesting. And it's not just the characters either, the stadiums are no longer fun or different instead just being basic stadiums with themed backsplashes that do nothing but change the color of the grass, the UI is abysmal and boring to look at, and the music tries so hard to be crowd-pleasing only to be the most forgettable few notes repeated that I've ever heard. It's because of this game that this series that I loved has lost its soul and Nintendo refuses to let it go and find it again.
I can say in confidence that Mario Strikers Battle League is the both the worst Mario Sports game and just one of the worst games I have ever played in general. It is a spit in the face to the legacy of Mario Sports games and those like me who grew up enjoying them and now that I have finished it, I am glad I will never have to play it again.
AAA sports game release finished challenge
Nintendo stays determined to ruin every Mario sports game.
Nintendo needs to stop releasing half-baked switch sports games
This might bump up to a 3.5 when the game is actually finished but right now this is the worst offender of the Switch Era Mario Sports games' "just add the content later" approach. Next Level games does an amazing job bringing personality to these characters yet again and the core gameplay is extremely solid but there is just nothing here to really keep you coming back. Also, they made the pitch a bit too small for my liking. Feels like having some variety in field sizes would go a long way towards mixing things up with the gameplay, and if they scrapped that idea because it wouldn't fit with their weird "every stage is a mash-up of two different stages" gimmick then that was an extremely bad call.
Strikers never had a lot of content, it's all in the gameplay, which is even better now.
Edit: after playing the "ranked" mode it goes down in ranking a bit as that mode isn't great
Edit: after playing the "ranked" mode it goes down in ranking a bit as that mode isn't great
too short
not enough content
not gonna return to this ever because i will have lost all my interest when they have fully updated the game
never ever gonna buy a “live service game” or party game from nintendo ever again
still traumatized from their new mario party not having enough content
🤮
not enough content
not gonna return to this ever because i will have lost all my interest when they have fully updated the game
never ever gonna buy a “live service game” or party game from nintendo ever again
still traumatized from their new mario party not having enough content
🤮
Nintendo really hates releasing full games now, huh? 60 bucks for this little bit of content is just scam and I’ll rate it as such!
Oh brother you'd better have some friends around to play with for this one because otherwise you just bought yourself a $60 coaster.
It sucks because there's a great game buried in here! The classic death metal grungy Strikers aesthetic has been toned down a bit to match Nintendo's modern, more generalized approach to the Mario series but it's still there in spades, plus Next Level Games has brought their amazing and personality-filled animation style from Luigi's Mansion 3 over here too. The chaotic anything goes approach to soccer still works so well, and I thought switching from 1 captain character and 3 teammate characters to just 4 captain characters was a great idea that makes it feel less like you need to get the ball to one specific character and more like you can change things up on the fly. The mashup courts are a fun idea, although they all feel kind of samey and I do miss more unique courses like the mud pit and windy island from Charged.
But of course, it doesn't take long before Battle League's problems rear their ugly head. Only 10 characters at launch for a game like this is just pathetic and reeks of this game getting forced out the door so Nintendo could have a June release. Series favourites like Daisy, Boo, and Diddy Kong are absent right now, and you can feel their absence when you find yourself seeing Luigi on seemingly every team in the tournament mode. Part of the fun of the game is mashing characters together and see how they combo on a team but with such a limited roster you'll find a team that works for you so quickly that there's really no reason to try anyone else. There are also only 5 possible options to choose from for the mashup courts, which is very disappointing considering they're just backgrounds. Tournament mode is fun if only because it lets you play the game but the AI is laughably easy to beat and it really amounts to nothing, aside from giving you coins that allow you to buy minor upgrades for the characters.
Most disappointing of all is the online mode, which forces you to join an online team to even play it. Most I could see were invite only so that was a wash.
Maybe I'll come back in a year and find Battle League is the best Strikers game ever, but right now outside of local multiplayer there really isn't any reason to check this out, and that's very unfortunate.
It sucks because there's a great game buried in here! The classic death metal grungy Strikers aesthetic has been toned down a bit to match Nintendo's modern, more generalized approach to the Mario series but it's still there in spades, plus Next Level Games has brought their amazing and personality-filled animation style from Luigi's Mansion 3 over here too. The chaotic anything goes approach to soccer still works so well, and I thought switching from 1 captain character and 3 teammate characters to just 4 captain characters was a great idea that makes it feel less like you need to get the ball to one specific character and more like you can change things up on the fly. The mashup courts are a fun idea, although they all feel kind of samey and I do miss more unique courses like the mud pit and windy island from Charged.
But of course, it doesn't take long before Battle League's problems rear their ugly head. Only 10 characters at launch for a game like this is just pathetic and reeks of this game getting forced out the door so Nintendo could have a June release. Series favourites like Daisy, Boo, and Diddy Kong are absent right now, and you can feel their absence when you find yourself seeing Luigi on seemingly every team in the tournament mode. Part of the fun of the game is mashing characters together and see how they combo on a team but with such a limited roster you'll find a team that works for you so quickly that there's really no reason to try anyone else. There are also only 5 possible options to choose from for the mashup courts, which is very disappointing considering they're just backgrounds. Tournament mode is fun if only because it lets you play the game but the AI is laughably easy to beat and it really amounts to nothing, aside from giving you coins that allow you to buy minor upgrades for the characters.
Most disappointing of all is the online mode, which forces you to join an online team to even play it. Most I could see were invite only so that was a wash.
Maybe I'll come back in a year and find Battle League is the best Strikers game ever, but right now outside of local multiplayer there really isn't any reason to check this out, and that's very unfortunate.
of all of the mario sport games on switch this one pisses me off the most. i love mario strikers and this version of it has nothing to do. tournaments and normal matches are all you can do. gear is under-cooked. stadiums have no gimmicks other than how they look. the field is smaller and the goalies suck leading to high scoring games. just a lame game im sick of nintendo not putting enough effort into these games
I had one of my closest college friends come into town this week. When playing some Mario Party, we reminisced about some of our favorite childhood games. My friend mentioned Mario Strikers, a game that I too was quite fond of as a kid. When mentioning that a new entry was released not too long ago, my friend and I knew that we were gonna buy it. After playing a lot with him, by myself, and online, I can confidently say that Mario Strikers: Battle League is a game with a very fun foundation, but its severely underbaked in almost every other aspect.
The core gameplay of Battle League is actually really fun. It's not the most complex soccer game out there, but it's incredibly fun and satisfying to play. It's one of those games thats easy to pick up, but difficult to master. There two different types of passes, good timing needed for successful shots and hyper shots, several ways to slide-tackle and dodge, and lots of items to use to gain the advantage.
The roster isn't as big or varied as I would like. However, Nintendo is continuing to add more characters to the roster through free updates. Each character excels in 1-2 areas, while needing other teammates to pick up the slack in other areas. Team composition is pretty important, but it also open to a lot of experimentation. You could have a team full of powerhouses, or a team that focuses purely on using speed to out maneuver opponents. I typically go for a more balanced team, but the game is certainly open for experimentation.
The game also adds gear, which can affect the different stats of any given character. This gear is balanced by not only increasing stats, but lowering them as well. There's several different sets to unlock through the single player content as well. I like the gear overall, though I am sure that the stat boosts are exploitable in some way.
This game also confirms that Next Level Games are the absolute best at animating Mario characters. Their work in Luigi's Mansion 3 absolutely blew me away, and this continues with Battle League. All their animations are extremely expressive and have a ton of little details in them. This is highlighted the most in the hyper shot animations and the little animations that play in-between goals and resetting the ball. Nintendo needs to keep giving Next Level Games Mario games to work on, because they do an absolutely phenomenal job making these characters come to life.
This pretty much exhausts my praises for the game. See, for everything I love about the core gameplay and little details, Battle League is so severely lacking in content, it's baffling. Now I know that games like Mario Tennis Aces and Mario Golf Super Rush were two other sports games that were lacking in content, but I feel as though those games at least tried to have story modes and extra multiplayer goodies to keep players playing. Battle League is so lacking in fulfilling content that it is truly baffling how Nintendo expects us to fully appreciate this game.
There is of course a quick match mode for offline, online, and multi-system play. This is pretty much the most basic of basics. For single player content, the game has Cup Battle. This mode sees you forming a team to take on several different opponents, varying in difficulty based on the cup selected, in an attempt to win the whole cup. This mode is so damn repetitive that I got so damn bored playing it. Each cup plays the exact same: face off against 2-3 different teams in 3 matches to win. That's it. Sure, the computers do get slightly better with each cup (with a STEEP difficulty spike in the last 1-2 cups), but other than that, it plays the exact same every time. The game wants you to do this 6 times, and then 6 MORE times after that to unlock more gear and face off against stronger computers. This is so damn boring and repetitive, even with the solid core gameplay. But most offensive of all: it feels lazy.
The biggest online offering in Battle League is the Strikers Club. This mode sees you joining a club and playing with other people (or just yourself) in a club and gain points towards making your club #1. This mode is...okay. I can see this being stronger if you have a group of friends that are in the league with you, but it feels strange to just join some stranger's club. It feels best to play on your own since you can fully control all the characters, but you can play with others through online co-op if you so choose. This mode feels alright, but it made me want an offline season mode, like something from FIFA or other more mainstream sports games. Give us a team to manage, have us unlock more gear this way, and give us some kind of cheesy Mario story to go with it. But no, we get this instead.
Mario Strikers: Battle League was a game I loved playing in the moment, but overall its such a disappointment. I will play this from time to time, especially with friends, but outside of that, this game does not feel worth the $60 it goes for. These Mario sports games just keep getting lazier and lazier. Where is the effort anymore into making a worthwhile package outside of purely multiplayer or online options? Or more characters and gear to unlock in meaningful ways? Such a damn shame.
The core gameplay of Battle League is actually really fun. It's not the most complex soccer game out there, but it's incredibly fun and satisfying to play. It's one of those games thats easy to pick up, but difficult to master. There two different types of passes, good timing needed for successful shots and hyper shots, several ways to slide-tackle and dodge, and lots of items to use to gain the advantage.
The roster isn't as big or varied as I would like. However, Nintendo is continuing to add more characters to the roster through free updates. Each character excels in 1-2 areas, while needing other teammates to pick up the slack in other areas. Team composition is pretty important, but it also open to a lot of experimentation. You could have a team full of powerhouses, or a team that focuses purely on using speed to out maneuver opponents. I typically go for a more balanced team, but the game is certainly open for experimentation.
The game also adds gear, which can affect the different stats of any given character. This gear is balanced by not only increasing stats, but lowering them as well. There's several different sets to unlock through the single player content as well. I like the gear overall, though I am sure that the stat boosts are exploitable in some way.
This game also confirms that Next Level Games are the absolute best at animating Mario characters. Their work in Luigi's Mansion 3 absolutely blew me away, and this continues with Battle League. All their animations are extremely expressive and have a ton of little details in them. This is highlighted the most in the hyper shot animations and the little animations that play in-between goals and resetting the ball. Nintendo needs to keep giving Next Level Games Mario games to work on, because they do an absolutely phenomenal job making these characters come to life.
This pretty much exhausts my praises for the game. See, for everything I love about the core gameplay and little details, Battle League is so severely lacking in content, it's baffling. Now I know that games like Mario Tennis Aces and Mario Golf Super Rush were two other sports games that were lacking in content, but I feel as though those games at least tried to have story modes and extra multiplayer goodies to keep players playing. Battle League is so lacking in fulfilling content that it is truly baffling how Nintendo expects us to fully appreciate this game.
There is of course a quick match mode for offline, online, and multi-system play. This is pretty much the most basic of basics. For single player content, the game has Cup Battle. This mode sees you forming a team to take on several different opponents, varying in difficulty based on the cup selected, in an attempt to win the whole cup. This mode is so damn repetitive that I got so damn bored playing it. Each cup plays the exact same: face off against 2-3 different teams in 3 matches to win. That's it. Sure, the computers do get slightly better with each cup (with a STEEP difficulty spike in the last 1-2 cups), but other than that, it plays the exact same every time. The game wants you to do this 6 times, and then 6 MORE times after that to unlock more gear and face off against stronger computers. This is so damn boring and repetitive, even with the solid core gameplay. But most offensive of all: it feels lazy.
The biggest online offering in Battle League is the Strikers Club. This mode sees you joining a club and playing with other people (or just yourself) in a club and gain points towards making your club #1. This mode is...okay. I can see this being stronger if you have a group of friends that are in the league with you, but it feels strange to just join some stranger's club. It feels best to play on your own since you can fully control all the characters, but you can play with others through online co-op if you so choose. This mode feels alright, but it made me want an offline season mode, like something from FIFA or other more mainstream sports games. Give us a team to manage, have us unlock more gear this way, and give us some kind of cheesy Mario story to go with it. But no, we get this instead.
Mario Strikers: Battle League was a game I loved playing in the moment, but overall its such a disappointment. I will play this from time to time, especially with friends, but outside of that, this game does not feel worth the $60 it goes for. These Mario sports games just keep getting lazier and lazier. Where is the effort anymore into making a worthwhile package outside of purely multiplayer or online options? Or more characters and gear to unlock in meaningful ways? Such a damn shame.
ugh, so very disappointing. I did play a bunch on release, it was pretty fun playing online. But dear lord is there nothing to do in this game; no side modes, not a big roster. Just another mid Mario sports game in the switch era.
A strong foundation surrounded by the barest of bones I have ever seen. The game looks great and is a well tuned competitive football game. Its lacking much of the charm of previous games with characters having no unique abilities and the stadiums just being bland and just cosmetic . Even character animations which look great lack the specific strikers charm and are far less in abundance than previous. While the gameplay is great there is nothing to bring you back, with free updates just adding characters and armour failing to address the games problem. A good game that should of been a great one
Mario Strikers: Battle League even if extremely visually polished and good looking, still remains an underwhelming sequel to the series because of the lack of characters, a more in-depth single player experience and overall variety.
This game could've been AMAZING. But it's the same with all recent Mario sports games. No content, cool gameplay.
You can play it with friends, but if you play this alone, there is like 3 hours of fun in there.
Sad, because the predecessors were awesome.
You can play it with friends, but if you play this alone, there is like 3 hours of fun in there.
Sad, because the predecessors were awesome.