This new game from the Kyoto house, Mario Strikers: Battle League, is surprisingly complex in both mechanics. It’s not that it’s hard to play; shooting on goal, passing to a teammate or cutting the ball to the opponent are small techniques that are easy to execute, but this is just the tip of the iceberg of the game’s mechanics. So, when you enter online matches or tournaments to play against the game’s Artificial Intelligence on the highest difficulty, you’ll have to know how to play very well. It’s a shame that there isn’t much to do in this game that brings together the characters of the Mushroom Kingdom to practice what we know as King Sport.
In Battle League, you will only have doubts about how to play if you want to, because everything is explained here blow by hand in several lessons where you are told everything you have to do and how you have to do it. However, this method of giving you all the theoretical-practical classes without presenting a contextual situation to use them turns out to be difficult to assimilate everything, namely the more advanced techniques. Those who adapt well to the mechanics offered will know when they will have to cancel a Hyper Shot and make a consequent feint, make accurate passes or even perform what the game considers Perfect Actions.
When we enter the menu, seconds after starting the game, the modes to play alone are scarce. They can participate in a Quick Game, the most basic of all the options available, or select tournaments called Cups in a series of games with four teams in double eliminations. It’s just that, there’s no campaign with its own narrative, no series of events with an increasing difficulty level and not even a mode with alternative rules to the classics of professional football. The basic pillars are there, it was just adapting what is done in real life but with fun mechanics, however it lacks the traditional magic of a Nintendo game in the Mushroom Kingdom.
Cups tournaments are the closest there is to a solo career, so they are the main content for anyone who wants this Mario Strikers to play solo. Each team that they will face until the final of the tournament has opponents with an Artificial Intelligence specialized in characteristics such as speed, passing or technique. Frankly, these tournaments turn out to be a good complement to the tutorial they went through, in addition to being a good source of income to earn coins.
Obviously, playing Mario Strikers: Battle League Football is a party in itself, not for the simple act of playing football, but for the small particularities of a universe like Mario’s that are embedded in it. This title makes football a chaotic sport and therefore a lot of fun. Football fields are relatively small if we compare them to the scale of a real one. The matches are full of action and tension, because there are always decisions that we have to make in a split second. Shoot or feint, pass and shoot on the first try or wait for the enemy to give us an opening so we can make a Hyper Shot; there is no lack of hypotheses that can be created if we know how to take advantage of them. It is precisely in this tension that the fun is, but it can also be the source of the greatest frustration.
As much as Mario Strikers requires a lot of skill on the part of those who play, if you play with someone who has the slightest idea of everything possible to do to change the game in your favor, it is not guaranteed that you will win the game. Imagine playing Mario Kart 8 and having a blue shell fall on you, with no chance to fight back, it’s frustrating; in Mario Strikers there are even more mechanical peculiarities to frustrate you. The goalkeepers, whichever team you choose, are always the same and you cannot control them at any point in the game other than throwing the ball after a save. There is no way of knowing if they will defend well or badly, if luck will be on our side or not. So given all these factors, playing Battle League Football with a competitive mindset is a waste of time.
Obviously, a game like this is not football as seen in the main European leagues, here we can and should use everything we can to win, namely the Hyper Shots, for the simple fact that a goal with such a shot is worth twice as much as a shot with normal force. To be able to shoot with a higher force than normal, it is necessary to collect a shiny ball, perform the special technique on the opposing goal and have a good performance in the mechanical process of kicking the ball so that it is almost impossible to block. If you’re not careful, your opponent may also be picking up the glowing sphere to get this special power, so we have yet another layer of mechanics that add more tension to the game. It’s fun to play with extra attention, but it’s tiring to always be in alert mode.
To avoid this tension that puts us almost on the edge of stress, we end up opting for a more defensive strategy and risking as little as possible. Of course, we can play with the features of Mario Strikers turned off, that is, without special items or chances of performing a Hyper Shot, but playing like this is removing the personality of Mario Strikers: Battle League Football, for that you play FIFA or something similar. This is where we see, during the successful execution of a Hyper Shot, all of the game’s unique artistic direction – the rest is an ordinary Nintendo game with all the beauty that games in the Mario world have.
Unfortunately, making special shots lose their magic over time, if I could in my umpteenth game, I would have turned off the animations I was already tired of seeing. They’re beautiful and well-crafted animations, but they’re always the same and when we want to ship the game, we’re stuck in this final moment, when the game isn’t just about that. It’s important to defend and make good passes, because if we don’t, we’re not heading towards a goal, but towards defeat.
Mario Strikers: Battle League Football lacks content, but it’s good enough as a party game – although there are more interesting options from Nintendo itself. This game is for players who want to dedicate themselves to exploring all the mechanics that the game has and as this Mario Strikers is complex in the gameplay chapter there are enough skills to improve until they get bored and move on to something more complete.
