To be fair, this looming threat of punishment makes high-level fighting gameplay especially intense. Not just being stuck in a long combo, but the notion that I cannot advance, be still, or even retreat and recollect my thoughts without my every decision being severely punished and immobilized by my opponent. What frustrates me most about losing in traditional fighting games is feeling like I can’t play at all. How did they hit the ball back while it was bouncing everywhere at blinding speeds? How did they pull off that bunt-smash combo? I applaud after my biggest losses, which would be a much more meaningful gesture if I didn’t always play alone in my living room without a mic. At the end of a high-speed volley, even if I got ended, I feel bewilderment and awe. Even losing at other party games usually leaves me feeling indifferent rather than consistently enthusiastic for another shot at victory. Snatching victory from these intense moments is exciting, but I won’t win a Nobel Peace Prize for telling you that consistently winning feels great.Īnd yet my losses somehow leave me just as delighted. Those explosions are only interrupted by bunts, throws, and special attacks that can toss your rhythm into the dumpster if you don’t keep your wits sharp. Once the ball reaches maximum speed, each subsequent hit becomes an impressive feat in itself, punctuated by deafening rumbles and violent tremors. The longer a volley continues, the more precise timing and positioning the ball demands, and the more damage it inflicts. If you try to hit that supersonic ball back too quickly, its holder can easily parry your hit and smash your face.
If you don’t hit that supersonic ball back quickly enough, it could ricochet in a half-dozen different directions, and it becomes much more difficult to time your counterattack.
Blaze’s advanced techniques are similarly straightforward, adding different ways to manipulate the ball’s movement or punish hasty opponents.Īs the ball reaches higher speeds, timing your hits becomes less a dexterity game and more of a rhythm game but with more explosions. You hit the ball, aim it to surprise your opponents, and avoid taking a 200+ MPH gravity drive to the face. The bare essentials of Lethal League are almost as simple as Pong. Thus you remain focused on the ball throughout the entire match, which is much less demanding than, say, memorizing frame data and planning out fighting moves like real-time chess. Once you hit the ball, it deals damage to anyone else it touches unless they hit it back. Even though you are fighting other players, your attacks only interact with the ball. It’d be hard for any game to cater to both casual and competitive play without an easy-to-learn, hard-to-master learning curve. Technical flaws aside, it’s the closest thing I’ve ever played to my dream online experience as a competitive casual. It ain’t a perfect port (I will keep beating the Switch Online dead horse even though I just bought three months of Switch Online for this game) yet it’s a thrilling game with a high skill ceiling that always leaves me excited for another go.
But I’ve never found a game that satisfies both with just its online play… until Lethal League Blaze’s Switch launch two weeks ago. These conflicting interests are a big reason why I want fighting games to have better single-player modes alongside robust online competitive scenes. It’d be fun to develop those skills, but my interests and passions are already spread across so many games, I doubt that trade-off is worth it for someone like me. There’s something about most competitive games that makes me feel like it’s not worth playing them unless I’m as dedicated as the players who keep curb-stomping me. I generally prefer competing in party games even though they don’t have the same edge to them because my losses aren’t so discouraging. I never thought to invest that much time and energy into traditional competitive games when I had it. I get a thrill from trying to climb up leaderboards and learning new things about the online versus games I enjoy. But I’m always too intimidated to, for example, attempt to reach a silver rank in Street Fighter V.
Like a deconstruction of a shonen protagonist, I admire the spirit of competition, but I’m much more of a casual than a hardcore player. If baseball mascots are furries does that mean Ballhead is Raptor’s fursona?
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