Mario Strikers: Battle League Football arrived on Nintendo Switch on June 10 and the title enjoyed colossal hype after its announcement during a Nintendo Direct presented on February 9, 2022. When is it more than a month later? Well, it is clear that there are a lot of things to say and not necessarily positive things if we are to believe the feedback from the community. To do so, we are going to dwell on several points which dissect a little the different aspects of the game and the ecosystem linked to it, in particular on the competitive level.
Slower and less dynamic gameplay
First of all, let’s focus on what is most important, the gameplay! The sensations are very good Switch or pad in hand and the technique has been revised upwards compared to the previous episode (fortunately you will tell me!) with animations of shots and hyper strikes of great beauty and very loving ! In addition, we have greatly gained in visibility on the field with matches that are much less visually chaotic when it hits in all directions.
However, there is a major problem in the gameplay of this Mario Strikers: Battle League Football (thank you for the long Nintendo game names, I can already do more…) if we compare it to the previous title which was Mario Charged Strikers Football. This problem is found in the pace of the game which has been objectively slowed down, in fact the title released in June 2022 has a much smaller playing field and a slower overall game speed. This slowing down of the action is a good thing to improve game reading in part, but it turns out to be a big problem when looking for dynamic and fast gameplay as the license has been able to do very well in the past.
To give a point of comparison, Mario Charged Strikers had a very nervous gameplay where the passes could be chained quickly whether players were spaced or not, distance did not influence passing speed. We therefore kept a high pace which is exhilarating, put the players under pressure, but which had the negative side of making certain actions less readable. This choice of rhythm was justified by the mechanics of charging the ball which was very well thought out with the ball charging little by little with each successful pass.
In Mario Strikers Battle League, passes remain dynamic, but have been slowed down without the ability to charge the ball with each successful pass, this choice gives the impression of being less in a hurry to carry out its actions, because the latter will above all be dictated by the timing of the strike which will be allowed or not according to the openings on the ground and thus cocking a strike at the right time and having to take a time out to put a real cannonball in the cages. Such a choice of gameplay will appeal or not to certain types of players and is not what will make the game a success or not, it’s a whole and it will go through the features of the title and its content.
A rickety content at the exit of the game
Which brings us to the content of the game when it was released and of the first update arrived on July 22. To close the loop with the gameplay, you should know that only 6 objects are available during matches to help us gain the upper hand over our opponent. In the Mario Strikers series, to recover an object, all you have to do is be the victim of a tackle on one of our players without the ball to have an item as compensation. The process is the same in this new opus with the only differences that the objects are dropped via crates thrown by the public and that theThe number of consumables has been lowered to 6 compared to 9 if we take Mario Charged Strikers on Wii.
This desire brings a positive point and a negative point, the first being that it allows the game to be more “realistic” and more demanding while always avoiding this chaos inherent in Mario football games when a plethora of different objects are played at the same time. However, having reduced the number of items and betting less on them partly makes it much less fun and dynamic once again… So yes, it’s a very good thing from a competitive point of view, especially if we take the example of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate which is played above all without object during competitions. Except that here, the gameplay is much too slow and not very punchy to go in this direction, especially if we take into consideration the hyper strikes (as beautiful and stylish as they are) which give the opportunity to score goals that count double everything by drastically cutting the rhythm of a match.
Finally, let’s move on to the different game modes and the character roster! The number of characters was increased at the release to the number of 10 with 2 new protagonists (Daisy and Maskass) who have just joined their boyfriends in the field. In itself, on this side we cannot complain too much given that there is plenty to do and that the most emblematic characters of the Mario license are present. Where the shoe pinches perhaps is on the fact of being able to create a complete team only with playable characters which gives an impression of weariness and which makes players feel that there is little diversity in the cast. Where on the Wii episode a team was composed of a captain embodied by an emblematic character such as Mario or Donkey Kong, in this new opus, we find ourselves on the ground with Yoshi, Mario, Luigi and Peach in the same team with only the guardian who is a more “ordinary” character.
It makes you wonder if it wouldn’t have been better to keep the old system with a roster of ten characters even if Nintendo wants to release more characters in the future via updates. free it will be difficult to remove the daunting aspect of the game on plan given that in its first months of release it remains a bit light and that is where the majority of players will put on their cleats and play a lot.
However if the characters can be a problem for certain the real concern for most players on the content it is to have almost no interesting game mode and even the absence of a “story” mode to make players want to go and unlock the content offered and the removal of special challenge modes as well as event lands. It’s literally less game content that has not been replaced or compensated for in the last game released… We are still talking about 17 playgrounds before compared to 5 now and 9 event grounds on the previous opus to 0 on Mario Strikers Battle League. This is unforgivable on the playgrounds where players compete locally or online, it’s a total regression on the content with no less than 12 fewer stages… Nevertheless we have added pieces of equipment to customize our characters by changing their skin and their skills. This aspect of the game is a very good idea and would have deserved better game modes precisely by making players want to farm currency to unlock them in game modes that are fun whether solo or multiplayer.
*Stadium number is now 6 since July 22 update
No 4v4 = the death of the game over time?
Which brings us to our last part concerning the multiplayer mode which is the central point of the game, especially for the skeptics who will explain that it is a football game and that there is no need for a single player mode. Spoiler alert : A lot of players like to play career mode on FIFA or do the story modes of fighting games so there was no reason not to do anything at all on Mario Strikers Battle League. It simply gives a feeling of a rushed and somewhat sloppy game, especially when you see the cuts that have been made in the modes or on the pitches.
So let’s go back to the multiplayer which could have been an absolute banger through the Club Strikers mode which allows you to have several players in your club to carry out online matches with several people, a bit like what the Club mode is. Pro on FIFA, but on a reduced scale with this Mario Strikers since you can only have 8 players on the field. However, it is very sad to see that it is still impossible to play 4v4 online (without going through a two-console system at home, which is unplayable for a very large part of the players) despite the recent update of July 22. Certainly the update brought online rankings (finally!), but still not in a modern form which consists of having odds ranked according to the mode in which we play (a 1v1 or 2v2 ranking for example).
We sincerely feel that Nintendo is picking up when it comes to competitive online games and that they simply do not want to evolve in order to leave their games in the “casual friendly” box and not “try hard”. We have the same problems on Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, Mario Golf or even Mario Power Tennis, it’s almost impossible to have balanced and well-thought-out multiplayer modes for players who would like to be the best on Nintendo games by sanding them down. It’s even more damaging on a game like Mario Strikers which suggested that it would be possible to play matches with friends in 4v4 and be able to climb the rankings or leagues together through the Club Strikers.
The lack of a 4v4 mode destroys any attempt at esports on the game and greatly compromises the future of the game, we already see it with a game that was ultra hyped before its release and then at the top of the audiences on Twitch and YouTube on the day of its release. Except that the dream only lasted a day or two before seeing players abandon the game very quickly, the latter not finding what they had bought the title for or simply by weariness with the lack of content and involvement. from Nintendo on this one.
More than a month after its release and even if an update comes to the fore bringing some new features, Mario Strikers Battle League Football has totally lost its aura and it will now be very difficult for the game to regain interest from the players and that a lasting community can be created. It’s frustrating considering the game has so much potential.has a very beautiful shell, but which unfortunately rings hollow following the unfulfilled promises or at least following the hopes of the players who took a cold shower once the game was released.
Note that we do not have the sales figures and that it may have come very well in its month of release. Nevertheless, in our opinion the game is a failure on the promises that they let glimpse of a game with a committed community and events that could be created around it. We hope in any case that a second wind can be given to it if Nintendo listens to the feedback from its players, because yes we will never repeat it enough but we love Mario Football!!