With another year to possibly grace us with a new Mario sports game, I thought it’d be appropriate to reflect on [the last one](https://youtu.be/SW2mgcAxdWs). And how that one quickly become forgotten amongst the Nintendo community. It had been 15 years since the last Mario Strikers game, and to give reference: Rosalina didn’t exist when the last Strikers came out. So needless to say, expectations from fans were high. I personally didn’t grow up playing Mario sports, but I hear endless praise for Charged back on the Wii.
But as we got closer to launch, Nintendo said those five little words that sent off warning sirens in my head: “free updates will be added.” This was immediately concerning. Now I don’t dislike free content updates on principle; after all New Pokemon Snap got one and that was pretty fun. The problem comes when we look back at the previous Mario sports games on Switch. Mario Tennis Aces had some fun competitive gameplay to stave off the monotony, but Mario Golf Super Rush I actually really hated. I was sincerely hoping Battle League wouldn’t fall into the same pit as those two.
But… it seemed like I was right to be worried. Battle League launched in June of 2022 and I bought it day 1 for full price. And I seriously wish I didn’t. There was hardly any single player content to keep me engaged, the stadiums all felt the same, the online was a crapshoot especially if I wanted to play with friends, and the overly precise timing and mechanics did not translate well into Nintendo’s online service. I bounced off hard, and by the time Daisy was added Xenoblade 3 was coming out and my attention was squarely on that. Not worth $60.
So that’s my little schpeel on Mario Strikers Battle League, one of the more underwhelming first party games I’ve played on Switch. But what did you think? Did you get more out of it more than I did?
by Asad_Farooqui
41 Comments
The Mario sports spinoffs should be $40 games. There’s no reason they should have AAA MSRP. I think our opinions of the games would be different if Nintendo wasn’t ripping us off.
Not enough content within the base game to really justify $60 unit price, and the updates they’ve added haven’t really added enough to change that opinion. A couple characters/uniform items aren’t enough, needed a new game mode or stat keeping or star-rating system for characters to really flesh it out. Or mini games, idk, it feels like it should be part of a collection of mario sports games that costs 60 bucks
It’s like they tried to do Splatoon’s model again but did literally everything worse.
Not only did it start out with less content than Splatoon does, but even the updates had less content than those games did in their updates.
Played the demo, was a bit fun at first but quickly became repetitive. Its most likely gonna end up as one of those games I’d pick up whenever I find it for 10 euros/dollars at a used/retro game store in 5-10 years from now.
However, giving credit where credit’s due, the animations are charming and I wish that was the standard for both mainline and spinoffs games of the series.
I played the demo, liked it when it worked but the lag made it borderline unplayable half the time and I have pretty good wi-fi
It’s awful. The most disappointed I’ve ever been in a Mario sports game. The mechanics just aren’t as slick as the previous games, and the AI is truly dogshit, so if you’re playing CPU’s (which is mostly how I’d prefer to play) it’s impossible to set up plays sometimes. The button layout is annoying, but there’s no way in-game to change it, so you have to remap your entire controller on the Switch menu, which is more annoying. What little content there is just isn’t worth it.
Mario Golf and Tennis ended up being really solid on Switch, and I still enjoy booting them up for some quick games every once in awhile. This one just stinks.
I think a lot of people need to realize that when we were younger, first of all we didn’t have such a huge amount of choices when it came to games as we do now, so we played the ones we had a lot more. But also we were inviting friends over and having a blast with those few games that we had. It’s not that this is a bad game, it’s actually fantastic. We just wish we felt the way we did back when the original came out.
From a mechanics perspective, I think it’s basically perfect. It’s a good mix of competitive and easy/fun. Where they fell way short is variety of game modes, and incentives to keep people playing. Unlocking gear is pretty fun, and there is Striker’s Club mode, but a story mode, or mini games, unlockable stadiums/characters would’ve gone a long way.
The roster got criticized a ton on release, but I think it’s in an ok spot right now with 16 characters. They are missing staples like Koope Troopa, Petey Piranha, Toadette, and Dry Bones, and it would be nice to have a few “out there” characters like King Bomb-omb, Nabbit, King Boo, Wiggler, etc.
Would be willing to pay money for a DLC that included, say, 4 new characters, 3 new stadiums, 2 new gears, and some sort of story mode, but that’s just dreaming at this point..
Mario tennis aces launched with 16 characters and got up to 30, it’s primarily a 1v1 game with a 2v2 mode.
Mario strikers launched with 10 characters and after updates for 16, it’s a 4v4 game.
Mario strikers updates took it to what aces launched with. With a mode that requires 8 characters in the field whereas aces needs 2. I think that encapsulates it.
Still terrible.
Great gameplay but not a lot content. However considering online is really where the replay value for these kind of games are, I think people blow out of proportion how much of an issue the lack of single player modes really was. If people really were still as interested in Mario sports games as they were two decades ago the way they claim to be, those people would still be playing the online, plain and simple.
It is just missed oppertunity and just actively shat in the mario strikers brand. Yeah content was none existent and no interesting stadions. But the biggest one was the lose of the mario strikers aesthatic. It was like the mario strikers was this in your face nothing else mario had. It was jnique and they replaced that witth the most coockie cutter new super mario bros aestathic and im just confused on the why
Very solid gameplay/mechanics, barebones content, horrible and counterintuitive online features, weak post launch support from developers. I’d say it’s worth 20 bucks max
If they got rid of the hyper strike nonsense (and all the programming and design work that entailed), it might have been easier to have a much larger cast, and the gameplay would have been paced better. Add a season mode and true 4 on 4 online and I would have enjoyed this game. I liked how it played for the most part
These Mario Sports games are always low budget and content-lite. Fine if they don’t dump the same amount of money into them as say Splatoon; a bit insulting if they’re going to charge $60 at launch with half the content coming a year later.
I think New Pokémon Snap got it right with feeling like a complete experience from the get-go. I guess there’s enough of a fanbase that will buy them regardless but as a passive fan, none of the games look compelling enough to buy. I was going to buy Super Rush until I saw it’s lack of content.
Mario Party looks like it suffers the same issue. All of these AA games look super half baked to me. I’m sure Nintendo’s run the numbers to discern it makes no difference among the core fans. Me not buying doesn’t offset the extra $1 million in dev costs to add 5 more characters and stages.
It stunk
Sucks
Massive disappointment.
Beyond being an incomplete shell of a game, the developers/Nintendo refused to listen to the gamers, and waited until the game died before making any meaningful changes.
In my personal opinion I don’t find the gameplay of sports games very engaging, so if I’m playing one it needs to be very polished and full of content. These latest releases seem polished, but devoid of any real content to sink your teeth into. I won’t be buying any on release anymore, I’ll say that much.
the most regret I’ve ever had buying a new title
My biggest gripe with Strikers and another reason why I think it straight up died was the online.
If you go back to the initial trailers it all makes it seem like you can play 4v4 online. Now technically, you can! But the details matter! It was never blatantly obvious that to do 4v4 online you needed 2 people in the same room with 2 other people in some other room vs the same setup to do 4v4.
4 switches couldn’t connect to one team! I mean just intuitively you would expect that you could have 8 unique players online! But that wasn’t the case and the subsequent updates never added that. Unfortunate really. 🙁
It’s a very fun game with so little content that it stops becoming fun quick.
Needed more modes, more maps, more characters, etc.
It’s the biggest piece of dogshit.
An overpriced, disappointing and shallow Mario sports game on release and is barely any better now. You really could’ve played the online playtest demo for an hour and gotten most of what the game had to offer.
I wish this drip feed content would stop. I’d rather have 100% of a game on release + added content afterwards rather than 50% of a game on release + slow content releases to patch in the last 50%, if even that.
I think it’s a good game, I quite enjoy the gameplay, but it feels like the last great era of Mario Sports games is lost on the Gamecube. There’s some unforgivable modern day expectations and standards that Battle League is missing and some of the structure of how the game works just doomed it to retain any kind of respectable player base.
I played MSC religiously
BL ain’t it
Nintendo got me good with this one. It seemed fun at first but after about 4 games you realize there’s not much there. At that point they already had my $60 tho.
It was DOA without the inclusion of 4v4 online multiplayer. Only being able to play with one friend online at a time in a game with 4 players on a team was a beyond stupid choice, especially with the emphasis on the club mode.
Probably the most ripped off I’ve ever felt by Nintendo. My friends and I were so excited to play together, but Nintendo said no.
I think soccer sucks and I’m excited for new Mario Baseball
I’ve seen zero mention of this game since it launched. I think that about sums it up.
I’m pretty bummed about it.
I really enjoyed the original Strikers and Strikers Charged. For years I’ve been saying that they should bring it back, but when they finally do, they didn’t invest enough in it to make it succeed.
I’m at a different place in my life now where I don’t play as much multiplayer so I’m not sure I would’ve bought it regardless, but I root for Strikers to secure its place as a loved Nintendo sports game with regular entries. Hopefully they don’t blame the franchise for this entry’s shortcomings and failures. I’d love to see it get another shot next generation.
I will say, I brought this game to my bachelor party the weekend it came out with enough controllers for 8 people and it was a fucking blast. Haven’t played it in the intervening year since at all though. The money I spent was worth it just for that one night. Reminded me of good ol local multiplayer days. But the solo experience is quite bad
I was so excited for this one after having played and loved the Gamecube Strikers (having gone undefeated in my play through if memory serves me correctly) and Strikers Charged. This one though, fell flat to me for some reason; even by trying out the demo it just lost the feel that the first two games had when I first picked those up.
I kinda already forgot it existed. I don’t even know if it got post-launch updates because I saw what they offered for $60 at launch and just walked away from the game.
I’d love a good arcade-soccer game and I loved playing Strikers on the GameCube, but this wasn’t it. Though at least Nintendo is consistent: Their sports games (apart from Mario Kart) have been disappointing for a while, the recent Mario Tennis games also haven’t been nowhere near as good as Power Tour. And I think Mario Golf Super Rush was also super barebones and pales compared to Advance Tour?
At this point, Mario sports games are firmly in the “Wait for the reviews to come out, and if it’s not good on Day 1, don’t bother” territory for me.
Unfortunately I didn’t launch it again since August. Was terribly disappointed by the field size and lack of content. New characters didn’t change the field so it still is a hard pass for me.
I absolutely hated it. Finicky controls, total lack of content, miserable online. Zero fun at any point with the game I think I sold it after less than a week of play. Maybe my biggest disappointment on switch.
Mario sports games have just completely fallen off at this point they launch them all unfinished and by the time they are finished nobody cares anymore
I was really excited for this game. I really enjoyed the game cube version. I was going to buy this game but waited and read reviews first. I’m glad I waited. I wish it was a better game but the reviews are damning.
I saw the trailers and was thinking that the game wouldn’t have a lot of content and would disappoint people, I think I was right. I already buy less $60 games so I never bought it. The updates seemed pretty minor and they ended them too soon.
The Mario sports games just don’t have the same feel as they did in the Gamecube era. These games just don’t have the content to match and its genuinely frustrating that they keep releasing them with a barebones feel and give us 2 or 3 free updates.
Rip mario strikers lol