As a party game, Strikers is ready to go out of the gate. Watching the same single scenes for each individual character can get repetitive, but Hyper Strikes aren’t carried out frequently enough in my games for it to really grate on me (your mileage may vary).Īs far as modes and content go, Mario Strikers is a little light, depending on how many people you have at your disposal. It’s accompanied by an over-the-top Dragon Ball cinematic, then a dramatic in-game scene as the goalie tries to stop it from going in. It takes a bit of legwork to execute (you need to do a charged shot, then line up two meters, while not getting hit in the process, then actually score the goal). Then there’s the Hyper Strike: a two-goal-scoring super that you pick up on the field sparingly similar to a Smash Ball in Smash Bros. They take skill to aim and don’t dominate the outcome of the match. There’s items, and they’re fairly tempered in practice, with color-specific blocks for each team and rainbow blocks up for grabs by everyone (mushrooms make you faster, bombs take people out, that kind of stuff). Some characters just palm the ball and don’t even actually adhere to the rules of the sport. As I mentioned, you can smack Toad square in the face and slam him into a wall while he writhes in pain. It’s super arcade-oriented, and reminds me of the golden years of NFL Blitz and its ilk. There’s a lot of potential for “hero moves” from single players, like power-tackling an opposing player into the electric fence, then taking it to the goal on your own. The question is: is it fun? Absolutely! When you’re in the moment, the action itself is often nail-biting (especially when the opposing team knocks your goalie down and smacks a completely open shot against a post, then you return it, solo, and kick one in). I should point out that it’s worth going over everything above so you know what to expect, whether you’re a hardcore or casual sports game fan. Of course, there’s a perfect dodge that grants a small boost after nailing it: I know! The plot thickens.
Team tackles (where you can smack a teammate into another person) and character weights/resilience ratings add more wrinkles. With directional dodging (R) in the mix, it’s a risk-reward system, as whiffing a tackle could leave your opponent a clear path to an open shot. Charges can be canceled, and there’s a perfect tackle timing trigger (of course). When on defense (or without the ball, really) you can press or hold Y to tackle with a charged tackle amounting to a cartoonishly glorious flying kick (or smack) to the face. Nearly everything in Strikers has an extra layer to it, but it also works from a more streamlined casual perspective, where some players can completely ignore said layer. Offensively, you can combo an entire chain all the way into the goal. You can opt for a quick combo pass (timed perfectly will get you faster passes), then combo shot off of a pass with a perfect button press. Passing is done with the B button (lob passes are tied to Y), and there’s a lot of nuance to this entire system. When controlling an entire team you can manually swap characters with L. You can tilt the analog stick to aim, and things are forgiving enough where you can generally shoot at your own pace. Shots are triggered by hitting A when you’re in the opponent’s half of the field, with an option to hold the button down and nail a perfectly timed charge shot (as a little meter fills in around a circle around your character). Moving around is as simple as flicking the analog stick, and you can dash with ZR (like in most sports games such as Madden), governed by a gauge that tires you out. Mario Strikers: Battle League provides the option to play a comprehensive tutorial session with the ultra-cute Futbot mascot - and I highly suggest you do so. Mario Strikers: Battle League ( Nintendo Switch)ĭeveloper: Next Level Games, Nintendo EPD Make sure you have some people to play with, or be open to going online. Mario Strikers: Battle League ended up delivering, but there’s a proviso. But in the modern era of “solved design” (I’m using quotes liberally here) and roster-update-centric sports games, and the extreme homogenization of the genre, a silly soccer game with Mario characters in it is going to at least spark some interest on my end.
Whenever a Nintendo sports game comes out, I perk up.
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