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.

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.

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.

The core gameplay is fun but it has the problem that every other Mario sports game on switch has with the lack of content, all the CPU cups can be cleared in just a few hours. If I’m being honest from my playtime I think I prefer a lot of the gameplay and elements from the GameCube game and Charged. The roster in this game just kinda sucks too, and it’s really confusing since that’s usually the thing Mario sports games get right as of late but no Daisy, or really anyone else than the bare minimum you should expect for a Mario spin off. Unless something changes this will probably be the last Mario sports game I buy.

Well it could of been worse. At least their not charging a player character casino like FIFA does.

I will give a few positive for this game and its the animation of the characters. it feels like the budget for DK to bust a move or Rosalina kick her ball to soccer galaxy went to. The controls will take time to get used to but it does feel odd that the A button is the Charge kick when the others used to be the B button. and sadly you cant change the controls.

The real kick in the electric fence is the lack of characters, game options and animations. you can only use 10 characters but Mario Strikers Charged has 12. and those are the captains with Mario Strikers charged you get sidekicks like hammer bro, boo, monty mole and others. I prefer that you have only one captain so not everyone can't spam their Super Strike when they have the ball. It would of been nice to change the controls or be able to save replays of the games. you can use your switch to record it but during online game its awkward. A few more victory and lose animations would of been nice cause you watch the same thing and feels repetitive.

Mario Strikers Battle league feels hollow and i don't see myself going back for this once Nintendo spoon drops add on to it.

utterly unplayable. The stage is too small which causes a big chaos. It's really hard to get sense of what you are doing and sometimes even to track the ball position. There a few mechanics that are completly useless comapring to others, and items ruins the game (examples: the star item gives you invencibility for a few seconds which for some characters its a garanteed goal). Its too easy to score a goal from any distance possible. Animations are cool but there are so many unskippable cutscenes during a match that it smashes all the flow you were getting. I was expecting too much of this game. It's really bad for me, and I really enjoyed tennis aces. They shoul've really make a bigger stage for starters. Also, really lack of offline content as per usual in this games now a days for nintendo

I'm a big fan of the Mario Strikers games. And Battle League is a welcome addition. It takes a different approach by increasing the skill cap, and changing up how you build your team (both character wise and gear). I like that Battle League doesn't make the old games obsolete, but you could also say that occurs because this game lacks content.

The addition of several mechanics makes this game have a lot more depth, visuals and music are strong as well. Online is also a focus point for this new entry but its limited.

My biggest complaint with this game is the amount of content. 10 characters is not enough, especially when all characters are on the same tier, instead of having a a captain and side kicks. 5 maps that are visual only is also disappointingly low.

I do love this game, and hopefully I can revisit this review after the free updates and can commend the game for its new additions but I'm keeping my expectations low on that front.

Yet another undercooked Mario sports title hits the Switch. I've bought all of them, so guess I'm the person to blame.

The biggest changes here are the mechanical ones. The "captain + sidekicks" setup from the previous games has been removed in favour of picking your four favourite Mario characters. Not a giant issue, if the roster didn't consist of just 10 characters. It leads to a severe lack of team diversity and also means that the captain of your team is considerably less special. These used to be the identity of your squad, with the team's colour and emblem being based upon them. But here they're just the person who starts closest to the ball. The previous game also had 12 captains, which is bigger number than 10. Embarassing.

The sidekicks also let lesser Mario characters get some spotlight and had their own unique skills which just brought so much flavour to the game. Monty Mole, Boo, Birdo and Hammer Bro all doing things unique to their character. The mole digs, the bro hammers, the bird shoots eggs. Here everyone feels the same, they're just a football avatar in a Mario shape.

They've tried to make up for this with the option of adding gear to your character, so you can absolutely ruin their design trying to achieve a "min-maxed" setup. You like Wario? Well, here he is with bits of neon strapped to his arm, a goofy helmet with a light on the side and samurai armour.

The gameplay has also undergone an overhaul which has made it more complex, and thus less immediate. "Charging" up the ball by making successful passes and going for a powerful shot is gone, in favour of "perfect passes" which are exact timed button presses. More skill-intensive sure, but not any more fun. It's maybe something I will warm to with more practice, but the content isn't there to give me the desire to do so.

These changes have likely been in favour of the game's 8-player mode, to prevent sibling arguments over "BUT I WANT TO BE THE CAPTAIN!". Yet, this mode is not playable online. The game has skewed so much towards its online content, but not having the 4v4 mode is so frustrating.

Set up your team and play with your friends. We mean friend, just one of them. Yes, we changed the entire roster and teambuilding mechanics for an 8-player mode, but you can't have it.

Overall, Mario Strikers Battle League is lacking in all departments. For a game released 5 years into the Switch's life, it's a joke. Maybe in a year's time they'll have added more characters and equipment and stages and single-player content, but it shouldn't be this way.

TL;DR no daisy no petey piranha shit game

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

🤮

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.

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.

It's at least better than the two other Mario sports games on the Switch. The stage hazards are gone, characters only have two winning animations and one losing animation. The special event matches from Wii are gone as well. The sidekicks are gone. The items are fewer and no character-specific items...

But, the animations for the characters on the field are a great detail, with them reacting to getting a goal, losing a goal, getting to have the ball at kickoff after a goal, and their own trophy-winning animations. Boom Boom even reacts differently to each and every Hyper Strike, getting affected by it in each unique way. Online is stronger and more focused on clans and fighting other clans. You can make your own club team outfits, club team names, and even use them in random online battles. And the base game is still fun. It's not just a novel distraction like golf was.

It's a 7 out of 10, but it only BARELY owns that 7.

If I was rating this based on gameplay alone it would be a solid 9. Takes everything I loved about Mario Smash Football, removes everything I hated from Mario Strikers Charged, and creates a modern interpretation of the gameplay which I've really warmed up to as I've continued to play. It's more readable that Charged, chaotic but fun. Unlike the other two games I don't constantly feel the urge to turn items off. Online play is great and works really well, and I enjoy the club system.
However. As a game? This is poor. Where's all the content? There's a couple of AI tournament brackets, online play, a tiny handful of gear choices, characters and stadiums, and that's it? POOR. I know this game is getting post-launch support. I know it's a scummy modern Nintendo thing but I'm excited to see how the game looks when all the content is actually in place. With a bigger roster (looks like they're going for 20 based on leaks), more stadiums (with varying sizes), more gear options, more online options (like 4v4 teams, I'm not even annoyed by that but it should be there), more options in general (let me change the zoom on the pitch, let me turn off music during gameplay but keep the music during celebrations), this will be incredible. I'm putting it out there. I do wish there was substantial single player but I'm not going to kid myself into thinking that's coming.