Mario Strikers Battle League

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If you’ve listened to the Popzara Podcasts lately, you’ve probably noticed that your unbelievably handsome co-hosts don’t tend to have a lot to say about sports games. That’s because, well, at least one of them doesn’t play them. That’s me. I don’t play sports games. Sorry, guys, I’m letting down the team. That doesn’t mean that I won’t play literally anything with Mario on the cover, though, and that’s why we’re going to talk about Mario Strikers Battle League on the Switch!

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Super Mario Strikers on the GameCube and its Wii sequel, Charged, are held to be some of the finest entries in the Mario Sports franchise! That’s why I feel terrible about never having played them. Whoops. Essentially, though, what we’ve got here is Mario and company playing soccer while caged in an electric fence. We’re going for the NFL Blitz style of sports gameplay here, so violence is both acceptable and expected. When someone takes the ball, they’re also taking their life into their own hands, so get up there and beat the crap out of them to get that thing back!

Battle League is all about 3 on 3 death-soccer. Choose three of your favorite Mario characters from a roster of around fifteen and get to kickin’. We’re talking, of course, about kickin’ both the ball and your opponents, so as mentioned you’re completely encouraged to get up there and get the ball back in the most brutal fashion possible. The rules are simple: get the ball in the goal one way or the other. Fouls? Nope. The only foul we’re worried about here is the kind of foul play you’re about to inflict on Bowser as you slam his turtly butt right into that zappy fence. Kidnap THIS, dillweed.

Shooting the ball, tackling baddies, dashing around the field and passing between teammates are all simple one-button affairs, allowing even new players to hop in and start scoring goals. The most complicated things get would be the Hyper Strikes, this game’s take on the Final Smashes from Super Smash Bros. that turn the ball into a deadly missile heading straight for the enemy goalie’s face. The degree to which these actually are deadly relies on a little timing minigame that you have to play under duress, but even then it’s not rocket science.

Note the above regarding how simple the game is to play and how you can get new players in without a hitch, because that’s actually relevant to Battle League’s biggest weakness – if you’re going to pick this one up, you’ll probably want to play with friends. There’s just not that much to do if you’re solo. There’s a simple Cup Battles tournament mode, Quick Battle exhibition matches and…er, that’s mostly it unless you’re playing online. If you do, you’re able to join the Strikers Club, a more long-form online mode that allows you to make your own teams and stadiums as well as customizing all of this to your liking. Once you’ve got a club together you’ll pit yourself in matches against other clubs.

That’s great and all, but if you’re alone and not playing online, though, you’re by and large out of luck. Get some friends or find some people on Reddit to form a club with, something like that. You end up wishing there was one of those goofy story-based campaign modes that show up in modern EA Sports games. Imagine: Mario climbing the road to the top, becoming the greatest soccer player in the land, but he’s got to start on the hard streets of the Mushroom Kingdom and…you know what I mean. It’d be great. Hire me, Nintendo.

That said, Mario Strikers Battle League is everything you want out of Mario Sports game, assuming that meaty single-player options aren’t included in that category. It’s got that Mario charm we know and love along with a heaping helping of unsportsmanlike conduct. What more could you want? Well, that would be “friends”, but even without ’em we live in the future and there’s always Discord to help arrange matches. Give it a shot and you’ll likely find that Mario Strikers Battle League is a clean goal.