The newest Mario sports title is here! Over the years we’ve been treated to a variety of Mario-themed sports games but one of the most fun has always been Strikers, starting with Super Mario Strikers, then Mario Strikers Charged and now Mario Strikers: Battle League for the Switch! The logo hasn’t changed much but there are a few new things hiding under the hood with this latest incarnation of Strikers, starting off with a spectacular intro cinema sequence. Nintendo has gotten really good at these things and it’s safe to say that the cinema is top tier as one would expect for a first party title. What you might not expect though is that the high-res pre-rendered visuals continue throughout gameplay, adding to the overall immersion level in Battle League!
Naturally, you’re choosing a team of soccer players to battle your way to victory in a variety of cup matches and online play. Each team consists of four players and you can choose from Bowser, Donkey Kong, Luigi, Mario, Princess Peach, Rosalina, Toad, Waluigi, Wario, and Yoshi. Any character can be team captain but unlike Charged, there are no sidekicks to be seen here and your only goalie option is Boom Boom, a weird choice since he pretty much blocks the entire goal most of the time. You can choose a whole team of Toads or Yoshis this time around though.
Once you’ve selected your team lineups, it’s time to kit yourself out and play! For some reason, you can only select from five outfits, red, pink, orange, green, and yellow. Even though other teams are in a variety of different colors, none of them are available to players, at least in Cup Mode. Grey, black, purple, light blue and blue are available in quick matches, but not for player one, irritating if you have a preference for certain colors.
Regardless of the color palettes, you can either take the time to go through the tutorial or just start playing. The tutorial is surprisingly comprehensive and as there are a number of new features and tweaks it’s recommended you at least give it a run-through. The sheer complexity of Battle League necessitates you learn the specifics or get utterly obliterated by the CPU (you will anyway) and virtually anyone who’s practiced. Let’s take a look at some of the details of the play system and you’ll see what we mean.
In Battle League, you shoot with A, pass with B, and drop an air pass with Y. Each of those options has a perfect timing option which allows you to make perfect passes and shots designated by the ball electrifying as you kick it. Nail a perfect shot or a perfect pass combined with a perfect shot and you’ve got a much higher chance of getting the ball in past Boom Boom. But there’s more! Shots can be charged with A for more force. Additionally, you can hold down the L button while taking your shots and you can target the ball by flicking the left stick up, down, left or right. This allows you to sneak a shot right past the goalie even if you aren’t charged up. Sounds straightforward, right? Well, it isn’t. While you’re doing all that, enemies can tackle you, literally knocking you down and taking the ball away. There’s very little chance to line up a neat shot before you’re boxed in by enemy players and as you advance through the cups they get better fast.
Speaking of tackling, there are a variety of aggressive options in Mario Strikers: Battle League. If you don’t have the ball, Y allows you to tackle an opponent, knocking them down and allowing you to perhaps steal the ball. You can charge a tackle to be more effective too, knocking them aside for longer. Tackle them while they don’t have the ball though and it’s a color-coded question box for them with an item to help out during gameplay. Like shots, tackles can be charged for more force and you can even do a powerful team tackle in the unlikely event that you’re on the other side of a teammate and hit tackle with an enemy right next to them (these are hard to pull off). Don’t worry though, you can dodge a tackle and dash across the screen as well, passing and juking until you get those vital seconds needed for a clear shot at the goal. A perfect dodge (much like the pass and shot) leaves your enemies eating flaming dust and if you’re lucky, you might get to score. This isn’t a high point game though, so expect scores to be in the 1-8 range most of the time.
Remember those items? There are several ways to get a boost in Battle League, including a penalty question block because the other team roughed you up and a rainbow question block that any team can grab. They’ll drop a variety of items into your panel at the top of the screen including mushrooms that give you a speed boost, red and green turtle shells which knock over enemies, a Bob-omb that will blow a hole in the field and anyone near it, and a power Star which makes you invincible for a few moments, allowing you to run roughshod over the competition. While they make a hole allowing you to score now and again, items aren’t game-breaking or anything and if you’re playing against the CPU, good luck getting them in the first place.
Finally, there’s the Hyper Strike. A glowing electric ball drops onto the field occasionally and the team who gets it is electrified for about 20 seconds or so. If you are on the opposing side of the field, you can hold down a charge shot and drop into Hyper Strike mode. Beware though because if the strike isn’t triggered, you’ll find that you can be tackled! Triggering a Hyper Strike drops a rapidly moving bar onto the screen under your character. There’s an arrow inside with a black section, an orange section, and a blue middle. Your goal is to hit the A button when the arrow is within the blue section of the meter. It’s tricky but not impossible. Hit both blue sections of the meter and your shot is unblockable, netting you two points instead of one. You’re also treated to a rather lengthy (and unskippable) cinema of the character taking the hyper strike shot. If you fail to hit the meters correctly, chances are Boom Boom will block your shot (unless it’s with Toad for some reason, that underground Hyper is a killer!).
While that’s the majority of the gameplay, getting it down is a master class in practice, intuition and skill. Just playing casually against the AI will get you crushed fast, and as you play, you slowly master the timing on passes, shots, perfect shots and Hypers. At first, you’ll mostly be scoring with hypers but things start to settle down after a few hours of gameplay. Each component of Battle League is carefully designed to maximize your skill set. In order to complement you preferences, you can also choose two versions of each character, a standard template or one with gear. In the main menu of Battle League, you can select Gear Settings and kit out all ten characters. There are a variety of options available for each and every item you put on raises a stat by two points and lowers another by two. Changing up your characters’ abilities is a matter of fine tuning each player to match your playstyle in an attempt to inject some much needed individuality into Battle League. While this is admirable, it still feels like you’re running somewhat standard players even after you manage to scrounge together some gold and determine what your favorite abilities are.
As you can see, there’s a lot going on here. Or at least it sounds like a lot. Really there are only 3 modes in the game, Cup Battles where you earn a trophy cup and a bunch of gold and fight your way through several leaderboards, a Quick Battle option for up to 8 players that just want to jump in and scrimmage, and the Strikers Club which allows you to start your own club, invite your friends to join, and play online! Stikers Club gives you options on how to design your home stadium, team rosters, outfits, and more. It’s a bit more intensive to start and you can always just join someone else’s club if you want.
Realistically, Mario Strikers: Battle League is a game that’s designed primarily for head-to-head play. If you’re planning on playing against the CPU, you’d better be a master-level player because you’re going to get trounced. But playing with friends in couch co-op or online is where Battle League shines. Realistic playstyles instead of CPU-style passing and dodging, a bit of challenge, maybe some trash talk on the couch, that’s what Battle League is really designed for. As soon as you start playing it with a friend, it’s easy to see why the franchise has received a third entry. It’s simply fun to play with both friends and strangers!
That’s not to say there’s nothing wrong with Battle League. Perhaps the most notable aspect of the game is how tight the field feels. This is a small field with some large players and the tides can turn against you awfully fast, especially when playing solo. In addition, the walls are electrified, fun if you knock an enemy into them but rough when you’re suddenly fried and outnumbered. The different stages don’t feel any different either. Sure they look cool as all heck, but that’s it. Lava, Spooky, or even the Royal Castle, it just doesn’t seem to matter, even if you tweak things in Strikers Club. On top of that, the game simply feels a bit slow, a bit unresponsive. Because of that, timing shots perfectly and getting them past the ridiculously large and skilled Boom Boom goalie is a struggle at best. It’s frustrating to take 3, 4, or even 5 shots and suddenly see your ball on the other side of the field dropping into your net.
Players on the field look small too, and doubly so in docked mode, making it easy to confuse teammates with opponents, especially with only 10 options for players. There’s not much making this feel over the top either. Older gamers might remember Sega Soccer Slam, a wild, over-the-top soccer game on the original Xbox and you might think that Mario Strikers: Battle League would follow suit with a kid-friendly soccer game or at least a mode that encouraged younger players but there’s nothing of the sort here. This is a tough game with complex controls that has limited appeal to Nintendo’s younger target audience. Instead it’s a tight, serious soccer game that is designed for hardcore sports enthusiasts but throws a bunch of blatantly illegal moves into the game pushing away unskilled and skilled players alike. These design choices are baffling for a first party game of the pedigree that Strikers has but here we are anyway.
Visually, the entire game (aside from regular gameplay) is an absolute smorgasbord for the eyes however, with each goal dropping cut scenes, replays, and even defeatist clips from your opponents. Eventually you’ll cycle through them all but the aesthetic gives a very televised feel to the game with multiple replay camera angles. Unfortunately, it also breaks up the flow of the gameplay and skipping through scenes still gives a pause, throwing off your rhythm and making everything a bit more challenging than it should be. The soundtrack is also explosive, with hard rock/metal remixes of your favorite Mario tracks. Honestly, the soundtrack is almost a bit too heavy for the game, like the devs were trying to compensate for making gameplay less exciting by making it sound as cool as possible and while a bunch of electric guitars are unarguably cool, the music is almost out of place in Strikers as well.
Overall, you’re going to get out of Mario Strikers: Battle League what you put into it. If you’re hoping for a campaign mode, a kid-friendly version of the game, or any sort of depth you’re out of luck here. This is a multi-player experience through and through and with the right group of friends on or offline, an absolutely mesmerizing one. But with some odd design choices and a high degree of technical difficulty, the audience for Battle League is fairly specific, limiting its appeal and ultimately its long-term staying power in your game library. The multiplayer really is the best part of things here and that’s a shame because Strikers has the potential for so much more! At a premium AAA price of $60 though, you’d better have some friends to hang out and play this one with your or a good pantheon of friends on Switch Online because you’re going to need em!
This review is based on a digital copy of Mario Strikers: Battle League provided by the publisher. It was played on a Nintendo Switch in both docked and undocked modes. Mario Strikers: Battle League is exclusive to the Nintendo Switch.
