Mario Strikers: Battle League

MARIO STRIKERS: BATTLE LEAGUE

Welcome back to the Mario series, everybody! We'll just be coming back her for a few weeks, first to cover every Mario property that has come out since I finished, and secondly to give a possible second chance to a list of characters that have been knocking around my brain and making me question my own judgment ever since I finished. Before we get to that, though, let's do the new games first!

Mario Strikers: Battle League is a new entry in the Strikers series, based around football (or soccer for Yanks like me), and is the apparent third in a series of new revivals for old sports series. As such, I fully expect to see a new Sluggers game sometime soon, with Rosalina, Lumas, Pauline, Boom Boom, Pom Pom, Nabbit, and all of those random enemies that have seen playability in recent years, like Spikes, Chargin' Chucks, Ninjis, and Chain Chomps. Looking forward to it, Nintendo!

Our game came with a lot of the old favorites, including Mario, Luigi, Peach, Rosalina, Toad, Yoshi, Donkey Kong, Wario, Waluigi, and Bowser, with Shy Guy, Daisy, Pauline, Diddy, Bowser Jr., and Birdo as DLC later on, and Boom Boom as the goalie. There's also a little tutorial bot named Futbot, but he doesn't seem playable, and the Super Team already covers our representation here (maybe a Futbot-themed color swap?). The game play is pretty much as you used to know it, with the electrical gates covering the out-of-bonds regions, items such as the mushroom, banana, red shell, green shell, star, and bob-omb doing what you'd expect, and Hyper Strikes that function as the super move.

The stages this time all take place in this big dome out in space, where two halves are generated and combined at the start of each match, meaning each side of the stage has a different gimmick to it at different times. The possible combinations include Lava Castle, Spooky Mansion, Jungle Retreat, Mushroom Hill, Royal Castle, Desert Ruin, Planetoid, and Urban Rooftop, all about what they sound like.

Anyway, that's it for now! Here's what we've got:

Characters:

Mario

Luigi

Peach

Daisy

Rosalina

Pauline

Toad

Yoshi

Birdo

Donkey Kong

Diddy Kong

Wario

Waluigi

Shy Guy

Bowser

Bowser Jr.

Futbot/Super Team: Hyper Strike, Mushroom, Red Shell, Green Shell, Banana, Bob-Omb, Star

Stages:

Galactic Strikers Federation

Lava Castle

Spooky Mansion

Jungle Retreat

Mushroom Hill

Royal Castle

Desert Ruin

Planetoid

Urban Rooftop

Thanks for reading! Next up, Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope!