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Reviews Mario Strikers: Battle League | Review Thread

It's almost like Reviews these days are just "what were the reactions this game got from fans during it's Marketing phase"

lack of single player content should hurt this game score yes, but not to this degree lol

it's a multiplayer focused game with excellent gameplay
 
I was already anticipating the game to launch fairly content scarce from a single player perspective since that's how Strikers has always been and this is reviewing in line with that. That's not something I'm expecting the DLC to address. Hearing all the heaps of praise for the mechanics is getting me amped to give the game a spin, and I'm looking forward to what Nintendo has in store for post-launch content. If the game is as fun as some outlets say it is, then I think that'll carry the game's longevity well enough.
 
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Reading these reviews confirms it for me: I'll wait and see how the game is next year. I don't think it's worth my money as it is right now. Even if the post launch content is gear and characters, that's not enough. There really need to be more different modes. A story mode, 1 on 1 online like FIFA Seasons, modes with special rulesets, online tournaments, RPG mode. Anything that makes this standout and playable in different ways.

I really thought it could do low 80s, despite the lack of content. But I think this is more fair.
 
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i really don’t mind the lack of content right now. i’m here for the multiplayer and that was already a ton of fun from the demo. yeah it would’ve been great if it came out the gate with more new content but for me, i know the new content will be there eventually and i can already see myself and my friends sticking around because the base gameplay is so good.
 
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I don’t think this method of releasing these sports titles works. As in releasing a bare bones entry and then adding to it over a period of several months.

Why?

1. Poor reviews of the bare bones release put people off from buying the game.
2. Players who buy it in the beginning could result in poor word of mouth and then they themselves dropping off from playing early on.
3. Players who buy the game at a later date after all the updates will find that the online is very quiet since the early adaptors have now stopped playing.

It all means that no one really benefits from such a release. I guess Nintendo might just be happy with the total sales but as a player just keep the game in the oven until it’s ready to come out and I think the sales would be even better.
 
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YolkFolk said:
I don’t think this method of releasing these sports titles works. As in releasing a bare bones entry and then adding to it over a period of several months.

Why?

1. Poor reviews of the bare bones release put people off from buying the game.
2. Players who buy it in the beginning could result in poor word of mouth and then they themselves dropping off from playing early on.
3. Players who buy the game at a later date after all the updates will find that the online is very quiet since the early adaptors have now stopped playing.

It all means that no one really benefits from such a release.

Just keep the game in the oven until it’s ready to come out.
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This is the third Mario sports game with this content rollout. If it's not working someone is fucking up at their job big time.
 
Guess I was right about Mario Strikers since it’s reveal. NLG being attached wasn’t gonna change the amount of Content.

Looks like their Sports games will follow this method and seeing how well Aces and Golf did. I don’t think it’ll stop.

Shame.
 
Pretty average score. Reviews saying the game is great but just lack content. This is kinda good news since it will definitely get free updates in the coming months. So might just wait and buy it later when the game is more packed.
 
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Dardan Sandiego said:
This is the third Mario sports game with this content rollout. If it's not working someone is fucking up at their job big time.
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I think it's working?
Golf and Tennis had decent post-launch support and their LT sales have been among/the best for the series
This..we will see. I am expecting a decent amount of new characters, not-so-many new contents (modes or whatever) and more than decent sales
 
the slow rollout stuff must be fine for them business wise but it absolutely killed animal crossing for me and I'm tired of it

these scores make sense for yet another bare bones mario sports game
 
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In all honestly. From what I’m seeing here

This game is about the same as the previous Mario Strikers games. Only that Charged had a much better cast. So it’s staying true to the series in a way lol
 
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Formula Zero said:
It's almost like Reviews these days are just "what were the reactions this game got from fans during it's Marketing phase"

lack of single player content should hurt this game score yes, but not to this degree lol

it's a multiplayer focused game with excellent gameplay
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There are a lot of multiplayer focused games with great single player modes, even past Nintendo sports games, not to mention something like Smash.

And even a lot of games that do not, have a lot of multiplayer content anyway. No one would ever say something like Mariokart 8 Deluxe is lacking in content. It has way more characters, stages, options, and even multiplayer modes.

And yes, while gameplay can be good even when it has depth, the problem is you are limiting yourself to people who just want to dive deep into the mechanics. That makes the games far less accessible, and quite a bit worse as a multiplayer game.

Like, my wife is not good at Smash or Mariokart. She really doesn't want to(or need to) dive into the mechanics. However, playing with all of the characters, seeing all the stages, playing all of the tracks keeps it a massively enjoyable experience for her. And even though there is a huge skill difference between her and myself, the content keeps it moving along and enjoyable. What is there in Strikers for a player like her? A handful of stages, and some characters. She will bounce off of that in about 10 minutes, and that explains why there is such a huge gulf in reviews.

For someone who likes diving in the mechanics, getting better at the game, diving into online. I could really see it being a 10/10 experience.

But there's a lot of people who don't want that, and who play games for a lot of other reasons. I could really see that being a 5/10 for a lot of people too.

Mario Strikers seems to lack a lot of accessibility due to lack of content. Does that make it bad? I don't think so. But it's clear that it really only serves well a single type of player.
 
Aostia82 said:
I think it's working?
Golf and Tennis had decent post-launch support and their LT sales have been among/the best for the series
This..we will see. I am expecting a decent amount of new characters, not-so-many new contents (modes or whatever) and more than decent sales
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Is it working or are these games selling because it's on one of the best selling consoles with a consumer base itching to buy games? If Nintendo thinks these games are selling well because they launch them a bit bare-bones and then fill it up later than they are misguided lol.

In fact, I'd argue to say they'd sell more if at launch these games had more content. Post-launch content is more for those who already own the games and how many people cared about the Mario Golf update? How many people know the actual roster for Mario Tennis now? As someone who played that game a lot, I wish people stuck around for it because it didn't take long for the userbase to abandon it.
 
Hocot8 said:
Is it working or are these games selling because it's on one of the best selling consoles with a consumer base itching to buy games? If Nintendo thinks these games are selling well because they launch them a bit bare-bones and then fill it up later than they are misguided lol.

In fact, I'd argue to say they'd sell more if at launch these games had more content. Post-launch content is more for those who already own the games and how many people cared about the Mario Golf update? How many people know the actual roster for Mario Tennis now? As someone who played that game a lot, I wish people stuck around for it because it didn't take long for the userbase to abandon it.
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Yeah, any game on Switch is gonna sell well if not the best regardless of quality. People forget that games like Swsh and Dread are top sellers
 
Hocot8 said:
Is it working or are these games selling because it's on one of the best selling consoles with a consumer base itching to buy games? If Nintendo thinks these games are selling well because they launch them a bit bare-bones and then fill it up later than they are misguided lol.
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The jump on sales of the Mario Sports game has been bigger than the jump most other low-selling series have made, is around almost double the best entry for both Tennis and Golf. While it may be because the audience of the Switch like this type of games more than prior Nintendo audiences, it shows that this model at least somewhat works
 
Hocot8 said:
Is it working or are these games selling because it's on one of the best selling consoles with a consumer base itching to buy games? If Nintendo thinks these games are selling well because they launch them a bit bare-bones and then fill it up later than they are misguided lol.

In fact, I'd argue to say they'd sell more if at launch these games had more content. Post-launch content is more for those who already own the games and how many people cared about the Mario Golf update? How many people know the actual roster for Mario Tennis now? As someone who played that game a lot, I wish people stuck around for it because it didn't take long for the userbase to abandon it.
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post-launch support for online multiplayer games to me are more important for global sales than a "meaty single player experience".
that's what me (and you and other here and on other message boards) would prefer, but evidently it's not what the mass market is looking for, in an online multiplayer game

Splatoon, Mario Golf, Mario Tennis, Mario Strikers, Switch Sports...these are online multiplayer-focused games, that benefit a lot from ongoing support, in order to keep them still "relevant" in the eye of the consumers, keeping them active online (that's exactly their selling point)

even Mario Kart 8 started with the usual amount of tracks and no battle mode, and received full DLC, additional contents, now a brand new wave of DLC - that surely contributed to its sales-legs

if you are saying that they should have ALL the post-launch contents day one on the cart, and after that continue ALSO to develop and offer free contents for years...yes, it's ideal, but pretty unrealistic

listen, I'm not here saying that I love this approach, or that everybody should buy day one just trusting them to add "enough" contents; I'm simply saying that it's understandable for someone to wait-and-see what the added contents for free will be, while for others the core machanics of the gameplay and local + online multiplayer is enough and that for Nintendo a day-one purchase is not necessarily better than a purchase made 3 months later when they add a free Daisy DLC to Strikers, because this will bring a new wave of online players into the game, that will still have an active community
 
Seems like the norm for these sports and smaller multiplayer games to have small amount of content at launch.

Hope this doesn’t potentially happen to the next MK and Smash but it probably will
 
Shiba said:
Seems like the norm for these sports and smaller multiplayer games to have small amount of content at launch.

Hope this doesn’t potentially happen to the next MK and Smash but it probably will
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It already happen to Mario Kart with 8 lol

And it’ll never happen for Smash.
 
Hocot8 said:
Is it working or are these games selling because it's on one of the best selling consoles with a consumer base itching to buy games?
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Credit goes to awng782 from Install Base for this chart

078709edaed3374724bbeeb40dec941baac339f68b5af8f581dd542f8d7a662d.png


Tennis Aces exhibited some overall solid legs, which hasn't been the case for every Switch success story. It was regularly in the marketing conversation and you can even see that trailers for it like Pauline have millions of views on YouTube, long after the initial game had released.

As much as we might not like it, Nintendo most likely have data supporting that the GaaS approach absolutely pays off for them, and that it's here to stay.
 
Aostia82 said:
post-launch support for online multiplayer games to me are more important for global sales than a "meaty single player experience".
that's what me (and you and other here and on other message boards) would prefer, but evidently it's not what the mass market is looking for, in an online multiplayer game

Splatoon, Mario Golf, Mario Tennis, Mario Strikers, Switch Sports...these are online multiplayer-focused games, that benefit a lot from ongoing support, in order to keep them still "relevant" in the eye of the consumers, keeping them active online (that's exactly their selling point)

even Mario Kart 8 started with the usual amount of tracks and no battle mode, and received full DLC, additional contents, now a brand new wave of DLC - that surely contributed to its sales-legs

if you are saying that they should have ALL the post-launch contents day one on the cart, and after that continue ALSO to develop and offer free contents for years...yes, it's ideal, but pretty unrealistic

listen, I'm not here saying that I love this approach, or that everybody should buy day one just trusting them to add "enough" contents; I'm simply saying that it's understandable for someone to wait-and-see what the added contents for free will be, while for others the core machanics of the gameplay and local + online multiplayer is enough and that for Nintendo a day-one purchase is not necessarily better than a purchase made 3 months later when they add a free Daisy DLC to Strikers, because this will bring a new wave of online players into the game, that will still have an active community
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I'm saying they should have some of the post-launch content, especially when previous iterations of the games had more content.
Blue Monty said:
The jump on sales of the Mario Sports game has been bigger than the jump most other low-selling series have made, is around almost double the best entry for both Tennis and Golf. While it may be because the audience of the Switch like this type of games more than prior Nintendo audiences, it shows that this model at least somewhat works
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I argue that that is hard to say tbh. If the model worked more people would've stuck with those games post-launch but that's not quite what happened. Definitely didn't for Golf and Tennis was eh. The single player stuff really dominated the discussion.

I think these games being on the switch is why these games sold and that they weren't completely garbage games like Mario Tennis: Ultra Smash was haha.

Decoyman said:
Credit goes to awng782 from Install Base for this chart

078709edaed3374724bbeeb40dec941baac339f68b5af8f581dd542f8d7a662d.png


Tennis Aces exhibited some overall solid legs, which hasn't been the case for every Switch success story. It was regularly in the marketing conversation and you can even see that trailers for it like Pauline have millions of views on YouTube, long after the initial game had released.

As much as we might not like it, Nintendo most likely have data supporting that the GaaS approach absolutely pays off for them, and that it's here to stay.
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I'm not saying that these games didn't have "solid legs" though. I'm just not sure it has much to do with the GaaS approach.
 
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Brock Reiher said:
Yeah, any game on Switch is gonna sell well if not the best regardless of quality. People forget that games like Swsh and Dread are top sellers
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Its a good thing Dread is easily best or at worst 2nd best title in the whole series! Definitely deserving of the sales for a critically acclaimed game and Game of the Year for most people in 2021.
 
Decoyman said:
As much as we might not like it, Nintendo most likely have data supporting that the GaaS approach absolutely pays off for them, and that it's here to stay.
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Here is where my curiosity is: what kind of data could they possibly have in this regard?

I don't think "these games sold more" or "these games showed they have better legs" are points that prove the GaaS approach is being embraced by the public. These are Switch games so, based on the trends we are seeing across all franchises, these better sales and legs should perhaps be more properly attributed to the platform than to a design strategy.

Like I said in another thread, it seems to me like a classic case of "correlation does not imply causation".
 
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Earthbounder said:
Here is where my curiosity is: what kind of the data could they possibly have in this regard?

I don't think "these games sold more" or "these games showed they have better legs" are points that prove the GaaS approach is being embraced by the public. These are Switch games so, based on the trends we are seeing across all franchises, these better sales and legs should perhaps be more properly attributed to the platform than to a design strategy.

Like I said in another thread, it seems to me like a classic case of "correlation does not imply causation".
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We've seen multiple Switch success games like Astral Chain and Paper Mario completely crater in legs after their original quarters. After the latter was reported to be the fastest selling game in the series with 3m in its first quarter, it's only moved 100k since then in the subsequent quarter. On one hand that might be an apples-to-oranges comparison since those are single player games, but something like Luigi's Mansion 3 has had fantastic legs by contrast. Switch games sell well but people neglect that because of their premium price, it's rare for many of them to exhibit good legs.

The GaaS approach clearly has the benefit of Nintendo managing to keep these games in the marketing spotlight. Again, refer to how the Pauline trailer for Aces released eight months after the original game's release and netted them millions of views on YouTube alone despite the game basically being old at that point. It's not just sales metrics you can look at, but social media metrics too.

Of course, in an ideal world, we'd have games launch in a meatier state and then have that same DLC just add onto the solid core package.
 
Honestly i think i might skip this one since i got switch sports , mario golf and tennis. i feel i got enough mario sports and this one seems to be light on single player modes compared to the other two mario sports games and i see the online not lasting as long as switch sports which i see can last years.
 
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Reviewers wanting single player content in a multiplayer game always get a side eye from me. Not every game needs to have single player campaigns. I'd much rather have more online modes and characters.
 
Earthbounder said:
Here is where my curiosity is: what kind of data could they possibly have in this regard?

I don't think "these games sold more" or "these games showed they have better legs" are points that prove the GaaS approach is being embraced by the public. These are Switch games so, based on the trends we are seeing across all franchises, these better sales and legs should perhaps be more properly attributed to the platform than to a design strategy.

Like I said in another thread, it seems to me like a classic case of "correlation does not imply causation".
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I think that the matter is the opposite: people (on message boards) complain about lack of (single player mostly) contents in Nintendo sports multiplayer online games; mass market isn't, because they are selling. so the question should be: what are the evidence for the message board users theory that these games have been damaged in terms of reception by the GAAS approach?

mazi said:
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NLG tech wizards again?

Tamantayoshi said:
What have critics been saying about online at least? Is it good?
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From reviews, it seems pretty solid (within the Nintendo Switch frame of possibilities, of course)
 
Earthbounder said:
Here is where my curiosity is: what kind of the data could they possibly have in this regard?

I don't think "these games sold more" or "these games showed they have better legs" are points that prove the GaaS approach is being embraced by the public. These are Switch games so, based on the trends we are seeing across all franchises, these better sales and legs should perhaps be more properly attributed to the platform than to a design strategy.

Like I said in another thread, it seems to me like a classic case of "correlation does not imply causation".
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We know that they collect a shitton of data from Switch users, coupled with real-time sales data from the eShop, social media metrics, comparisons to other titles etc. it's probably not that difficult to see some kind of correlation. Not that publishers aren't infallible but that begs the question: Why do they keep doing it?
 
I mean in terms of modes at least, how much less content is there really in this game compared to other Mario striker games? Lack of characters is dumb but this seems to be fine otherwise. 75 is pretty close to the other games in score, idk I wasn't really expecting much more.
 
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Dardan Sandiego said:
We know that they collect a shitton of data from Switch users, coupled with real-time sales data from the eShop, social media metrics, comparisons to other titles etc. it's probably not that difficult to see some kind of correlation. Not that publishers aren't infallible but that begs the question: Why do they keep doing it?
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Yeah, I can only see three possible answers to that question:

1. They have the data to back that decision up, in which case I am curious to know what it is.

2. It allows them to get games out there earlier.

3. They are looking at both sales and "legs" and thinking "Yeah, this approach pays off". In which case I don't think they are using the correct reasoning and are harming these franchises in the process (at least in the eyes of a more dedicated fanbase).
 
Brock Reiher said:
Yeah, any game on Switch is gonna sell well if not the best regardless of quality. People forget that games like Swsh and Dread are top sellers
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As they should. Both are great games!

But clearly, it seems with the sports titles, Nintendo wants to focus on multiplayer and not single player much.

Also, not sure why people keep bringing up Aces. That had a good chunk of content on release and roster. People keep confusing them not caring for the SP campaign as it having no content.
 
Will for sure pick this up, because I don't need a single player story focused campaign in a multiplayer game. I just want to know if the game is good for matches online, local, or to fuck around with AI to practice. And it seems that the common thread on all reviews, is that the game plays great. That is all I needed to hear.

Someone on the other site made what I think is a valid point. Single player games that throw in a throwaway multiplayer side mode is perfectly fine, but a multiplayer game gets a throwaway single player experience, that is not fine. Nothing wrong with a game just being "we are multiplayer mainly".
 
Oof lots of mixed reviews

Oh well at least there's confirmed updates

I did play the demo though and I enjoyed it. I think it could become the most popular Mario sports title.
 
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Did they mention anything on control remapping (not on a system level from Switch's menu).
 
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Yeah this is going to be so much “FUN” especially playing local co-op with the family. Can’t have a “family friendly” Nintendo game and don’t offer “REAL” local co-op.
 
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People expect robust SP gameplay from their sports games. Super Rush is fine in that regard because of the nature of golf itself - it's you versus the course as much as anything else, and mastery of the courses takes time and skill.

But tennis and soccer need more robust SP options. Look at a comparable modern arcade sports game like Super Mega Baseball 3. There is no excuse for Nintendo to publish games with way fewer SP options in comparison.
 
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Clix said:
As they should. Both are great games!

But clearly, it seems with the sports titles, Nintendo wants to focus on multiplayer and not single player much.

Also, not sure why people keep bringing up Aces. That had a good chunk of content on release and roster. People keep confusing them not caring for the SP campaign as it having no content.
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I agree about aces, also I actually liked its campaign, its underrated imo.
 
TheGreatMightyPoo said:
This game is going to be great months from now when the extra content rolls in.
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I doubt it

Most of the content they'll add isn't going to substantially change how fun the core gameplay loop is. More characters and more equipment really isn't going to turn this game around. The few gimmicky modes they might add will likely get played for a day and then never be touched again. Golf is the only Mario Sport that I think can substantial improve with updates as new courses add a lot more to golf then a new stadium or gimmick mode does to Tennis or Soccer.
 
Tamantayoshi said:
I agree about aces, also I actually liked its campaign, its underrated imo.
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Campaign was solid. It was just a bunch of mini games and challenges, and a way to unlock stuff. My only issue with the campaign was that the second half got a bit too difficult for me.
 
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