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.