Review: Mario Strikers: Battle League

destructoid.com:

Whenever a Nintendo sports game comes out, I perk up. No, they’re not all winners. But in the modern era of “solved design” (I’m using quotes liberally here) and roster-update-centric sports games, and the extreme homogenization of the genre, a silly soccer game with Mario characters in it is going to at least spark some interest on my end. Mario Strikers: Battle League ended up delivering, but there’s a proviso. Make sure you have some people to play with, or be open to going online.

Mario Strikers: Battle League (Nintendo Switch)Developer: Next Level Games, Nintendo EPDPublisher: NintendoReleased: June 10, 2022MSRP: $59.99

Mario Strikers: Battle League provides the option to play a comprehensive tutorial session with the ultra-cute Futbot mascot — and I highly suggest you do so. This game has depth.

Moving around is as simple as flicking the analog stick, and you can dash with ZR (like in most sports games such as Madden), governed by a gauge that tires you out. Shots are triggered by hitting A when you’re in the opponent’s half of the field, with an option to hold the button down and nail a perfectly timed charge shot (as a little meter fills in around a circle around your character). You can tilt the analog stick to aim, and things are forgiving enough where you can generally shoot at your own pace. When controlling an entire team you can manually swap characters with L.

Passing is done with the B button (lob passes are tied to Y), and there’s a lot of nuance to this entire system. You can opt for a quick combo pass (timed perfectly will get you faster passes), then combo shot off of a pass with a perfect button press. Offensively, you can combo an entire chain all the way into the goal. Nearly everything in Strikers