Mario Strikers: Battle League Review
Mario's twisted version of soccer has two teams of four compete to kick throw headbutt or butt stomp a soccer ball into the rival team's net in a highly chaotic fashion that only bears the faintest resemblance to the real world sport that inspired it the premise is simple to pick up and learn in a matter of seconds but what's impressive is how complex it can get as your skill and desire to win grows perfecting your power shots.
learning to time your dodges and figuring out how to best make use of on-field item pickups are all ways to make you a master out on the pitch eventually it begins to feel similar to a well-tuned fighting game where every action has a natural counter to it and each match becomes a test of your reflexes and ability to read your opponent's intentions a good example of that balance and depth is the ability to tackle enemy players to the ground at any time immobilizing them for several seconds that can feel pretty toxic if you're playing against an especially rude team and you might even have been subjected to the completely awful experience of being repeatedly tackled even when the ball isn't in your possession but this scenario has a clever countermeasure tackling someone who isn't in the immediate vicinity of the ball grants that team a free item to be used immediately so if the enemy is playing especially dirty.
They're also arming you with stuff like a bomb that can be lobbed back at them or an invincibility star that can give you free reign of the field for several seconds in order to become a battle league champion you'll need to learn the ins and outs of both those basic soccer techniques like passing shooting tackling and handling the ball as well as the ridiculous stuff like items and making use of your character's special abilities and stats while throwing a turtle shell at someone's face brings no end of joy the fundamentals still play a hugely important role in actually getting the ball in the net for example learning to dodge at just the right moment grants you a short speed boost afterwards whereas getting the timing perfect when charging up your tackles or shots at the goalie makes them more effective both of which can be extremely helpful in breaking through your opponent's defenses.
Mario Strikers: Battle League characters
The characters you've chosen for your team are also an important factor in what you'll be able to do in the heat of this fight of feat if you're playing as toad for example you'll be extremely fast but will also need to charge up all of your attacks if you want any hope of being able to take the ball away from someone beefy like bowser if you're playing as donkey kong on the other hand you'll be a face slapping machine but also much slower if a character doesn't feel exactly the way you want them to you can even buy them gear with the coins you've earned from playing gear augments their stats to be better in the areas you care about at the cost of being worse than others being able to tweak my mario into a goalie's worst nightmare with a maxed out technique stat to curve.
My shots around them was extremely satisfying giving my toad a full load out of strength enhancing gear so he can easily tackle some of the chunkiest enemies was enormously amusing plus dressing up rosalina like she's straight out of tron just looks cool the other major difference between characters is their hyper strike a unique ultimate ability that lets you execute an absolutely ridiculous move to score extra points these can be activated after picking up a floating orb it spawns on the pitch and include everything from wario smashing the ball with his stinky butt to rosalina literally kicking it into outer space.
Insanity one of my favorites is peaches who uses her charm to simply make the enemy goalie voluntarily toss the ball into his own net activating one of these moves requires clearing the field of enemy defenders so you can charge up your ability and play a short quick time event but the risk involved is well worth it not only do you get to see a dope cutscene play out.
Mario Strikers: Battle League in the series diffrens.
Very little of battle league strays far from what we've seen in the series before not only are all the central mechanics nearly identical to its predecessors on the gamecube and wii but there are also fewer characters than in the past just 10 total which seems like an odd move there's no story mode or campaign of any kind either and no game types aside from the standard one you play across every mode it's a pretty bare bones package all in all even if that package is extremely replayable.
Mario Strikers: Battle League offline .
The main offline mode is called cup battles where you enter your team in a routine and extremely brief tournament against computer-controlled opponents with a trophy up for grabs if you can best the enemy these tournaments are a great way to learn the ropes and build up your skills before playing with friends or in matches online but they offer few surprises and only minor differences between each of the cups you can enter into usually just different ai teams that you slightly tweaked strategies.
The good news is that some of the later cups offer a greatly increased difficulty for those looking for an increased challenge against the ai but i wish there was more diversity in what each of the tournaments offer outside of the ai modes it's pretty impressive that battle league supports eight players on a single switch which makes it the perfect party game it's hard to beat the friendship testing onslaught of dividing a room full of people against one another in a sport so immediately confrontational that said it's a little disappointing that you can only play as one of four runners on each team while the goalies are always computer controlled especially since those goalies are sometimes grossly.
AT The End
Mario striker's battle league is part skillful soccer game part ruthless brawler and almost always a complete blast to play if you've played any games in the series before there won't be many surprises in store for you in the small roster of characters and game modes is definitely disappointing but what's here is incredibly fun and replayable i'm impressed by the online mode and time i've had with it so far too as it sets the stage for a ranked playlist that i look forward to grinding my way to the top.