Mario Strikers: Battle League (NSP, XCI) ROM + v1.3.2 Update

Mario Strikers: Battle League is a wild and intense 5-on-5 soccer-like sport where anything goes! Score as many goals as possible by tackling enemies and pulling off Hyper Strikes to boost your score. Beloved characters from the Super Mario series, including Peach, Toad, and Yoshi, will stop at nothing to secure a win, even if it means getting a little rough. This is a 2022 sports video game developed by Next Level Games and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo Switch. It was released worldwide on June 10, 2022. It is the third game in the Mario Strikers series. The game received mixed reviews, with critics praising its gameplay mechanics, multiplayer, and presentation, though it received criticism for its scarce launch character roster as well as lack of single-player content.

GAMEPLAY

Mario Strikers: Battle League is a five versus-five soccer video game. The game shies away from realism, in favor of chaotic, over-the-top gameplay. The game maintains the main premise of the sport, where players maneuver players around a field to pass and shoot a ball into a goal to score points, with the team with the most points at the end of a game-winning the game. However, the game takes many liberties with the sport. Aggressive tackles and attacks are completely allowed, though they give the opposing player “items” to use at their disposal.

Items often function in the same way as Mario Kart or Mario Tennis – banana peels can be placed on the field and characters will slip on them, while shells can be shot at characters to temporarily knock them over. No “out of bounds” exists on the field, instead, an electric fence is placed around the field; players can check and knock opponents into this fence to stun them. Additionally, collecting a glowing orb that appears on the field allows the player to perform a “Hyper Strike” and score a 2-point goal if the move is charged up without interruption.

In the game, the player picks a major Mario franchise character like Mario or Princess Peach – and a team of three other characters to round out the rest of the team. All characters have various strengths and weaknesses, and Battle League additionally allows for the customization of equipment on characters as well, affecting character’s stats for things like speed, strength, and pass accuracy.

Up to eight players can play local multiplayer matches, with players using just one Joy-Con each, allowing for four versus four games, with the computer handling goalkeeping. Online multiplayer is also available, including a “Club Mode” where groups of up to 20 players can create their game season, with leaderboards tracking scores.

DEVELOPMENT

The game was first announced during a Nintendo Direct on February 9, 2022. It is the third entry in the series, and the first new entry in almost 15 years, following a lengthy gap in releases after Super Mario Strikers (2005) for the GameCube and Mario Strikers Charged (2007) for the Wii. The game was developed by Next Level Games.