Mario Strikers: Battle League | NSW | Join the GR Strikers Club! | 2nd free content update coming September

twitter.com/NintendoAmerica/status/1530176027703525377

A demo locked behind a paywall.

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Drumstick wrote:A demo locked behind a paywall.

I mean the demo is online multiplayer, so it makes sense you'd pay for online. The tutorial should be available to everyone though.

Also they confirmed there'll be free updates which basically confirms this game will be unfinished on release

twitter.com/NintendoEurope/status/1530179067659661312

Wonder what other content other than characters, guessing stadiums and new gear for the characters?

Tried the Mario Strikers demo. It's really dumb that it's just the training. As with every one of these games the pitch is too small, the AI is too dumb and it'll just end up as a button mashing spam fest. I'll try it again when you can actually play a match to see if that could still be fun but not hopeful right now.

ITSMILNER wrote:

twitter.com/NintendoEurope/status/1530179067659661312

Wonder what other content other than characters, guessing stadiums and new gear for the characters?

Every character has a stadium so guessing each character release will have a stadium too. And more gear makes sense.

Edit: actually I may be wrong about that. Think there's only 5 stadium themes?

Also, a total of 20 character slots have been datamined.

20 characters is a good amount, so far we have

Mario
Luigi
Bowser
Peach
Rosalina
Toad
Yoshi
Donkey Kong
Wario
Waluigi

Taking a stab at who could be next

Daisy
Diddy Kong
Bowser Jr
Koopa Trooper
Boo
Shy Guy
Pauline
Dry Bowser
E Gadd
Petey Piranha

twitter.com/NintendoEurope/status/1531198919568510976

Anyone else try the online demo this weekend? Had a handful of games, pretty good fun but flippin' hell it was chaotic!

Hard to see what was happening between getting bashed by opponents and shells/bombs, electric fences and trying to get into position for a pass from a teammate. Maybe it's just me not being used to it; it is the first strikers game I've played.

Forgot that this was coming this week. Will be interesting to see how it reviews, and what the opinion is on single player longevity.

ITSMILNER wrote:20 characters is a good amount

It would be a good amount to have from the start. To trickle out over time? Compared to the likes of Smash, Kart, and even the old Sports titles?

Balladeer wrote:
ITSMILNER wrote:20 characters is a good amount

It would be a good amount to have from the start. To trickle out over time? Compared to the likes of Smash, Kart, and even the old Sports titles?

Comparing them to games with vastly bigger budgets that will sell 10-20x times as many copies? Doesn't seem fair. Comparing them to older Sports titles makes more sense but the Switch iterations are more online focused now which the older games didn't have, or wasn't as much as a focus. And I get not everyone is into playing onlline but releasing new characters over time is clearly a deliberate decision to maintain engagement and keep people playing. They could delay the game and release it fully loaded if they wanted but it's a design decision. And you'd have to assume they're happy with how it has worked out with Tennis/Golf as they've decided to do it again.

10 characters also is a good amount considering the amount of variations on team line ups you can do plus the options with gear upgrades. Like Tom said as well, it keeps the game going when they drop a new character every month or 2

Smash is possibly an unfair comparison but it also has bucketloads more characters that need to be made more unique than in this - and it had more characters from the start on the N64. Mario Tennis on the N64 likewise had I think twenty characters total? Maybe eighteen? And two of those you could actually unlock through playing the game. Remember when that was a thing?

I'm not saying it isn't a design decision. I'm saying that it sucks.

I just don't think these are fair comparisons. Smash has such a huge number of people working on it-I've just looked it up, and Smash credit 107 people for working on character animation and modelling alone. According to Wikipedia, the total number of people Next Level Games employ is 117 :lol:

And as for Mario Tennis on the N64, different eras, different resource requirements, different objectives in the game's development. I imagine it was far easier to tweak base models into new characters back on the N64. In Strikers, there's a lot more going on unique to each character too-they need gear moulded specifically to their unique models, the super strike animations etc.

Edit: The Gamecube entry only had 8 captains and 4 side kicks, so 10+10 is comfortably an improvement on that. The Wii had 12 captains and 8 side kicks so I guess it's more comparable to that but with the "captains" now taking every position.

I guess the question is would you rather have the game later so they can finish all the characters and release the full package or have it June 10th and have new content released in the following months. I think most people would prefer the latter but appreciate it comes down to personal choice. You can also achieve the first by just buying it later

Power Tennis also had the super shots if you prefer than comparison, although the Wii game (from a decade ago and with all those available from scratch) is I agree the best one.

I'd prefer the full game two months or whatever later myself*. Anyway by the time the final character's released it'll be 2024 probably and the discourse from around launch might have died down just a tad!

*Actually I'll take whichever version minimises crunch honestly. That might well be the live service model.

ITSMILNER wrote:10 characters also is a good amount considering the amount of variations on team line ups you can do plus the options with gear upgrades. Like Tom said as well, it keeps the game going when they drop a new character every month or 2

I really hate this theme of releasing mario sports games unfinished and then releasing new content later. It just makes me not want to buy them.

I ended up bypassing the Mario Tennis and Golf games because of the "light content at launch" approach. I would like to get 'em but only if they're cheaper and that ain't really gonna happen!

I'm not against the idea of additional content being released (I do - gasp! - enjoy a few live service games) but if I'm gonna pay out an initial £45 I want a bit more content for that money.

As others have said the lack of content on launch makes this a pass for me. I've been burned too many times now by the likes of Super Mario Party where I assumed that for a 60 quid game there'd be more content coming to make it worth that price point but apparently not.

Surprised how important the characters are to people-10 isn't a huge number but the big names are there. I guess I'm guilty of being boring and with most games picking 2-3 I like (or even 1) and sticking with them so it isn't such a big deal to me.

Tomous wrote:Surprised how important the characters are to people-10 isn't a huge number but the big names are there. I guess I'm guilty of being boring and with most games picking 2-3 I like (or even 1) and sticking with them so it isn't such a big deal to me.

I feel the same tbh. Smash Bros was just an anxiety attack in a box. Prefer the mechanical complexity to be in the intrinsic gameplay itself so you don't feel you have to swap out your characters every couple of games / bouts / whatevers in order to keep learning.

Mario Strikers: Battle League | NSW | Join the GR Strikers Club! | 2nd free content update coming September

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