Mario Strikers: Battle League

Mario Strikers: Battle League
For alternate art, see the related gallery.
Developer	Next Level Games
Publisher	Nintendo
Platform	Nintendo Switch
Release dates	June 10, 2022 June 10, 2022 June 10, 2022 June 10, 2022 June 10, 2022 June 10, 2022 June 10, 2022 June 10, 2022 June 10, 2022 June 10, 2022 June 10, 2022 June 10, 2022 June 10, 2022 June 10, 2022 June 10, 2022 June 10, 2022 June 10, 2022 June 10, 2022 October 24, 2022 (physical media)
Languages	English (United States) English (United Kingdom) Japanese Chinese (Simplified) Chinese (Traditional) Dutch French (Canada) French (Europe) German Italian Korean Portuguese (Brazil) Portuguese (Europe) Russian Spanish (Latin America) Spanish (Europe)
Genre	Soccer
Ratings	ESRB: - Everyone 10+[?] PEGI: - Seven years and older USK: - Six years and older RARS: - Six years and older[?] ClassInd: - General audience SMECCV: - Twelve years and oldercero=A Gmedia: - Seven years and older[?] GRAC: - All ages[?] GSRR: - All ages[?] UAEMC: - Seven years and older[?] ACB: - Parental guidance FPB: - Parental guidance[?]
Modes	Single player Multiplayer (2–8 players) Local Wireless Play (2–8 players) Online Play (2–8 players)
Input	Nintendo Switch: Joy-Con Joy-Con (horizontal) Nintendo Switch Pro Controller
Serial code	HAC-AWN6A-USA

“So much fun, it hurts.”

—Advertisement slogan for Mario Strikers: Battle League

Mario Strikers: Battle League (known in PAL regions as Mario Strikers: Battle League Football) is a game for the Nintendo Switch. It is the third game in the Mario Strikers series and the first one since Mario Strikers Charged over 15 years prior, featuring new gear, items, and moves. Up to eight players can play the game in multiplayer. The game also features an online Strikers Club mode where players can host clubs with up to 20 players and compete against other clubs to earn points and increase their rankings. The game released worldwide on June 10, 2022 and received three free post-launch updates before the end of 2022 that included new playable characters, stadiums, and gear sets.

Mario Strikers: Battle League was the last original game release to feature Charles Martinet voicing Wario and Waluigi before it was announced that he had moved to the role of Mario Ambassador. Kevin Afghani would succeed him in voicing both characters, voicing Wario starting with WarioWare: Move It! and Waluigi starting with Super Mario Party Jamboree.

Opening cutscene

The game's opening begins with the Mushroom Hill and Lava Castle stages combining to one field in space. The camera moves across the soccer field to then show two portals appearing, one for Bowser's team (consisting of Yoshi, Donkey Kong, and Rosalina) and one for Mario's (consisting of Luigi, Toad, and Peach), both briefly transitioning to a cel-shaded style. Once both teams land, Mario and Bowser stare at each other. The former manages to get the soccer ball first, and the game begins.

Mario passes the ball to Luigi, where the latter soon dodges a tackle from Yoshi. Rosalina walks in sight, stares at Luigi, and then tackles him into an electric fence with a dash, causing him to lose the ball. The ball bounces as Bowser and Peach try to get it, with the Peach throwing a Bob-omb right to Bowser before he could get the ball and has him flying off the stadium. Peach dribbles the ball out of the explosion and gets to the Lava Castle part of the field, passing the ball to Toad, which he then shoots. Bowser's Boom Boom goalie blocks the ball, and the camera moves to Bowser himself, who becomes extremely angry and roars viciously, breathing fire in the process.

The fire makes a transition to Luigi passing the ball to Toad, but Bowser does a Team Tackle with Donkey Kong, launching and punching Mario and Toad out and throwing the ball to Yoshi, who exerts a few moves before passing it to Donkey Kong. Donkey Kong performs his Hyper Strike, knocking out Mario and Peach, but the team's Boom Boom goalie manages to block the soccer ball from scoring. The ball then reaches Bowser, who breathes fire toward the ball and then tries to throw it, but Luigi slides and tackles him, losing the ball in the process. The ball goes back to the ground as the fire burns out and Luigi passes it to Mario. He then executes his Hyper Strike, and while preparing to kick it, gets flames in his eyes. Mario then kicks the ball as Bowser's goalie prepares to block it, and the ball circles across the air towards the goal, leading to the title screen.

Gameplay

The gameplay is similar to that of previous Mario Strikers games, where two teams of five (four players and a goalie) compete for points by getting the ball into the opposing team's net. Following the rules of street soccer, there are no penalties like fouls, meaning that players are able to tackle their opponents around the field. Like previous games, items and special moves are used to the turn the tide of gameplay. When playing offensively, players focus on getting the ball to the goal by passing or lobbing it to their teammates, and performing combos with their teammates to make powerful shots. When playing defensively, players will use various techniques to get the ball back, including items as well as tackling them. Some moves, such as free passes, charged shots, and tackling, have meters that indicate when they are most powerful, making timing necessary to have the best in-game performance. There is also the ability to dodge, which will allow players to quickly evade an approaching attacker. Perfectly timing a dodge from a tackle will reward the player with a slight speed boost.

A new technique introduced in this game is called the Team Tackle. If a player tackles their own teammate, they send the teammate quickly across the stage. This can be used both defensively, by using Team Tackle at an opponent and stealing the ball from them, or offensively, by getting the teammate close to the goal.

Similar to the Super Strike from Super Mario Strikers and Mega Strike from Mario Strikers Charged, the new Hyper Strike acts as the game's special move, and is activated in a similar manner as the latter. Unlike those moves, however, Hyper Strikes must first be obtained by collecting a Strike Orb that occasionally appears on the field. Additionally, rather than just having aesthetic differences, each character's Hyper Strike has different gameplay-related properties, making them similar to that of the Special Shots from Mario Sports Mix. If perfectly timed, Hyper Strikes are able to bypass goalies, making a goal guaranteed.

Another new concept introduced in this game is customization. In addition to aesthetic customization options, like team color, gear can be purchased from the in-game shop with Coins, which allow the player to adjust various attributes such as their movement speed, curve shots, resistance to getting the ball stolen from them, and more. When selecting characters, the player can choose whether to equip their character with gear or not.

Controls

General

Action	/
Move
Dash
Switch character	/
Use item
Dodge	/ / Shake	Shake

Offensive

Action	/
Basic shot
Charged shot	Hold then release	Hold then release
Aimed shot	Tilt and tap	Tilt and tap
	Hold , tilt , then release	Hold , tilt and tap
Pass
Lob pass
Combo pass	/ as soon as a pass is received	/ as soon as a pass is received
Combo shot	as soon as a pass is received	as soon as a pass is received
Charge up Hyper Strike	Hold (after collecting Strike Orb)	Hold (after collecting Strike Orb)
Stop Hyper Strike needle	(when charging Hyper Meter)	(when charging Hyper Meter)
Free pass	Hold /, then press /	Hold , then press /
Charged free pass	Hold /, then hold / and release	Hold , then hold / and release
Cancel charged shot	/ while charging shot	while charging shot

Defensive

Action	/
Basic tackle
Charged tackle	Hold then release	Hold then release
Cancel charged tackle
Team tackle	(towards a teammate)	(towards a teammate)

Items

Items return from previous games, though this time, they are obtained from ? Blocks thrown from the audience stands like in other Super Mario spinoff games. There are both ? Blocks that can be collected by anyone, and ? Blocks that can only be collected by a certain team. Each team can hold up to two items.

Item	Description
? Block	Provides an item when touched. Spectators can throw two kinds of ? Blocks onto the field: Rainbow-colored ? Blocks can be used by either team. Exciting plays and dangerous tackles make these appear more often. Team-colored ? Blocks can be used only by the team matching its color. When a player who does not have the ball is tackled, regardless of which team they're on, their team will receive a team-colored ? Block.
Mushroom	Greatly increases your speed for a short time when used.
Bob-omb	Explodes when thrown, knocking away players on your opponent's team.
Banana	Causes any players who come in contact with it to fall over.
Red Shell	Chases after a nearby opponent when thrown, hitting them and causing them to fall over.
Green Shell	Travels in a straight line when thrown and will bounce off of fences. Players hit by one will fall over.
Star	Makes you invincible for a short amount of time and boosts all of your character's attributes. If you touch an opponent while it's active, you will knock them down.

Game modes

Like with the previous games, Mario Strikers: Battle League has a large emphasis of multiplayer content, though there is some single-player content present.

Cup Battles

Returning from the first game, up to four players can be compete on a tournament bracket as a team in six cups, the first five cups of which are named after different gear sets available, and the last one (the Championship Cup) can only be unlocked once the other five are beaten. The tournament is double elimination, meaning that if a team loses their initial match, they are sent to the loser's bracket where they have one last chance to survive and make it to the finals, but losing again will cause them to be eliminated. The player then will be offered a choice for a rematch, but would have to spend coins on doing so, and the amount of coins to spend will increase for every rematch. Once all six cups are beaten, the Galactic Mode is unlocked, which is the same as the normal cups but harder and grant higher rewards. Each normal cup rewards the player with 400 coins for beating it the first time and 50 coins for every subsequent time, while beating each of the Galactic Cups rewards 1000 coins for the first time.

Normal Cups

Cup	Description
Cannon Cup	See if you can beat teams who focus on shooting!
Chain Cup	Test yourself against teams that focus on passing!
Turbo Cup	Fight it out against teams focused on speed and movement.
Muscle Cup	Go up against teams focused on strength!
Trick Cup	Take on teams focused on technique!
Championship Cup	Here it is! It's time to go up against the all-around best teams!

Galactic Cups

Cup	Description
Cannon Cup	Duel the experts of shooting!
Chain Cup	Match wits with the pros of passing!
Turbo Cup	Chase down the aces in speed and movement.
Muscle Cup	Try to overpower the giants of strength!
Trick Cup	Challenge the wizards of technique!
Championship Cup	Enter battle against teams who have mastered everything. It's the ultimate challenge!

Quick Match

The player creates two teams with up to eight players along with picking an outfit and field of their choice to play in either offline, local play, or online matches. When playing offline, the player can configure the match length, CPU difficulty, enabling or disabling items and Hyper Strikes, and the time of day the match takes place. When playing online, players can either do matches with another person or compete by themselves.

Strikers Club

The newest mode included in the series, which has players creating or joining a club with up to 20 members to improve their division ranking across seasons by winning matches and gaining points for their club. Clubs can be named and customized with many options including team outfits, gear, and stadium elements to take online against other clubs. Seasons happen every other week that may sometimes feature custom rule sets, and clubs can gain tokens to customize their stadium. If certain conditions are done, then individual club members will be awarded with achievements which gives them more coins.

Striker Rankings

Added in the version 1.2.0 update, players can compete in a leaderboard and climb the ranks, with a rotation starting every off season and ending on the final day of a season. To qualify for the rankings, players would have to play at least five matches online in either Quick Battle or Strikers Club, which, depending on the win-lose ratio, will earn them a skill score to start out with. They will then be able to move up or down the ranks depending on their performance in matches.

Characters

The character select screen, with all post-launch characters available.

There are 16 playable characters available in the game. Of those characters, Rosalina and Pauline are playable for the first time in the Mario Strikers series, while Toad, Shy Guy, and Birdo are now selectable as team captains after previously being sidekicks. Unlike in previous games, rather than having one captain and three generic sidekicks as teammates, teams in this game (apart from the goalie) are comprised entirely of main playable characters, though the player does have the option to include multiple Toads, Yoshis, or Shy Guys on a team, in a similar vein to sidekicks. Because of this, any character on a team can perform their Hyper Strike during a match, as opposed to previous games, where only the captain could perform special moves. Themes for each character when they shoot a goal make a return from Mario Strikers Charged, but unlike that game, they are all rock-and-roll-themed. Boom Booms are seen as goalies, taking over the role from Kritters in previous games. The game launched with 10 characters; the other 6 were included through 3 updates of 2 characters each, the first of which was released on July 21, 2022, the second on September 21, 2022, and the third on December 13, 2022.

Every character has five different attributes:

Attribute	Description
Strength	This attribute determines the power of a character's tackle and their resistance to being tackled.
Speed	This attribute determines a character's running speed.
Shooting	This attribute determines the power of a shot and its speed.
Passing	This attribute determines the speed of a pass, as well as the range of a free pass.
Technique	This attribute determines a character's shot accuracy and curve, and it affects how the character dribbles the ball. It also affects the meter for the Hyper Strike and the timing of perfect moves, making both easier to execute if the attribute is high.

Playable

The stats in the following table are the characters' default stats, without any gear applied.

Character	Description	Type	Default color	Default team #	Hyper Strike	Strength	Speed	Shooting	Passing	Technique
Mario	Mario's high technique and shooting attributes make him a great choice for those seeking a balanced, capable character.	Technique	Red	1	Fire Cyclone	11/25	12/25	14/25	10/25	16/25
Luigi	Luigi is a well-rounded team player who excels at setting up shots with his high passing attribute.	Technique	Green	2	Spin Tornado	11/25	11/25	10/25	14/25	17/25
Bowser	Bowser's powerful offense dominates the field with incredible shots and brutal tackles.	Physical	Black	66	Flame Cannon	17/25	9/25	17/25	11/25	9/25
Peach	Quick and capable, Peach's high movement and technique attributes help her confuse and evade opponents.	Speed	Pink	10	Dance of Hearts	9/25	17/25	9/25	13/25	15/25
Rosalina (new)	A powerhouse on offense, Rosalina's mighty shooting ability will put any goalie to the test.	Offense	Cyan	11	Orbital Burst	14/25	9/25	17/25	10/25	13/25
Toad	Toad’s high speed and passing attributes are perfect for any team looking to quickly set up a potent offense. In Quick Battle and Cup Battles, you can have more than one Toad on a team.	Speed	Red	12	Drill Smash	9/25	17/25	11/25	15/25	11/25
Yoshi	Yoshi is always ready to help out his team with excellent passing and strong shooting. In Quick Battle and Cup Battles, you can have more than one Yoshi on a team.	Offense	Green	8	Egg Stomp	10/25	10/25	17/25	17/25	9/25