It’s been a very long time since we’ve had a new installment of “Mario Strikers”; not since 2007 on the Nintendo Wii, and a couple years before that on the GameCube. As a big fan of the original on GameCube, I was really looking forward to picking this title up and giving it a go. Developers Next Level Games are back at it as well, fresh off their success with “Luigi’s Mansion 3.” While “Mario Strikers Battle League” plays very similarly to the previous installments, and did a great job bringing back nostalgic memories, I couldn’t help but feel that this isn’t really the complete experience I was expecting especially from a game with beloved Nintendo characters.
There’s “Mario Tennis,” “Mario Golf,” and a handful of other Mario related sports games that actually play like the sport is intended to play. For some reason with “Mario Strikers” they decided to take soccer to the absolute extreme. The players don’t wear regular soccer jerseys, they’re in epic protective gear, and the whole game is sensationalized to be as crazy and as fun of a soccer experience as possible. There’s also a great Hyper-Strike feature that makes your character have their own unique and crazy way of hitting the ball in the goal which is always fun to experience. All the characters feel very different from one another, and yet you can improve the stats to each one by buying specific gear to help with their worse traits. While this is cool, I often felt like If I’m trying to be quicker, why not just select a character that’s quicker rather than changing a different one? It just seems easier to play as someone else, rather than to going out of your way to improve the stats of someone specific. Maybe that’s just me, but no one else has a problem with this.
That isn’t my only issue with the game, either. The roster is only 10 characters (which I know they plan on adding more over time, but still seems low at launch), and the few stadiums to choose from. With only five stadiums, they don’t seem all that unique. I don’t even care that it gives me the option to level select because they’re so identical; there is just no story, or campaign mode. The best way to play solo is either cup battles, or offline mode in which you play a tournament with AI opponents. Every match of course is two teams, with four playable characters per team, as well as a goalie. Another gripe is you cannot play as the goalie; you’re stuck having it be not the most trustworthy of AI.
When playing online, you can create a club with your friends and play in online tournaments. What seemed the oddest to me was that while you can have eight players play locally on a single Switch, or be able to connect a second Switch and split the group between two consoles. There is no way to add more than just one Switch in person. Nintendo has always been a company that encourages playing with friends at home and in person, so the option to not be able to connect several (or at least eight) consoles seems like a huge missed opportunity.
While this game has some good, but mostly bad, it’s difficult to say it’s not a fun game, because it really is. It’s still addicting, it’s still the same “Mario Strikers” I remember from fifteen years ago. The controls are easy to understand, yet a bit more complex to actually master, which I think is great. There is just a lot of potential still waiting to be utilized here and I feel like you can experience everything this game has to offer in just a couple hours of playing, which to me makes “Mario Strikers Battle League” somewhat incomplete and hard to recommend at this time. A year from now, after several updates, perhaps I’ll be singing a completely different tune and praising this title more, but for now, I need to call it for what it is… a little undercooked.
7/10
For more information, visit: https://www.nintendo.com/store/products/mario-strikers-battle-league-switch/
Related: Reviews by Nick Navarro
Gaming since I was given an original Nintendo as a kid. I love great storytelling and unique ingenuity. When both collide in a single game, I'm a happy gamer. Twitter/IG @NickNavarro87
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