Lethal League Blaze: Baseball But Actually Interesting
by Sam Billot, Senior, iPreparatory Academy
by Sam Billot, Senior, iPreparatory Academy
Lethal League Blaze is a fighting game with a significant twist. However, it is a fighting game with a very significant learning curve. For those unaware, “a learning curve” is the amount of time and effort you need to put into any game to become better at it. But, I believe the game is so unique in its style, music, and graphics, that it makes it worth the “learning curve.”
Gameplay
Lethal League Blaze is antigravity murder dodge ball. That may sound odd, but instead of beating each other up, in Lethal League Blaze, the player smacks a ball at another player at next to light speeds. This gameplay, just whacking the ball back and forth with increasing speed each hit, is incredibly fun and engaging.
The fighting in the game is all mind games, as the aim is to mix up and outsmart your opponent while also having lightning fast reflexes to track the ball as it bounces around the arena. In a standard match, the player gets 5 lives, whoever loses all their lives first, loses. You lose said lives by getting hit with the ball a certain amount of times, depending on the speed. Sometimes the ball will scrape the player, dealing next to nothing; at other times the ball can eliminate the player because of the velocity...
The player can do many things to the ball to keep control of it or confuse the opponent; for example, the player can bunt the ball, causing it to briefly slow down and jump upwards so to change its angle. Not to mention the many characters that hit the ball at different angles, have different movement abilities, and special abilities that add even more mixup potential.
The fighting in the game is all mind games, as the aim is to mix up and outsmart your opponent while also having lightning fast reflexes to track the ball as it bounces around the arena. In a standard match, the player gets 5 lives, whoever loses all their lives first, loses. You lose said lives by getting hit with the ball a certain amount of times, depending on the speed. Sometimes the ball will scrape the player, dealing next to nothing; at other times the ball can eliminate the player because of the velocity...
The player can do many things to the ball to keep control of it or confuse the opponent; for example, the player can bunt the ball, causing it to briefly slow down and jump upwards so to change its angle. Not to mention the many characters that hit the ball at different angles, have different movement abilities, and special abilities that add even more mixup potential.
Stuff to do within the game
The game itself holds plenty of things to do with all this gameplay. Primarily, there's always the “versus mode,” fighting against other people. Play can be locally with some friends on a couch, or play can occur online in either a casual mode or competitive with rankings. In addition to all that, there are plenty of different game modes to play, such as volleyball, and something similar to soccer with a goal area. As for Singleplayer offerings, the game is somewhat light but provides plenty to do for a good 5 hours. There's a story mode which adds some context to the world and the characters. Also there is an arcade mode in which the player goes through a series of fights with a boss at the end. Outside of the actual fights, the store affords the player the chance to spend the currency earned from fighting where there is an opportunity to buy new characters, skins for said characters, maps, music, and some extras.
Style, Graphics, and Music
The best way to describe this game in terms of style, is very “funk.” Every character is charming and the world is colorful, and the game is absolutely oozing with style. The game has a sort of cyberpunk aesthetic with a large amount of stylised characters like a giant sentient boombox or a master graffiti artist. The graphics, cell shaded 3d, is visually stylish, and the stages change with the increasing ball speed. As for music, it’s absolutely amazing, made from a large assortment of EDM music artists. One song was actually made by a composer from a legendary Sega game, which also happens to be the best song in the game.
Overall, Lethal League Blaze is a very good game: its gameplay is unique in addition to the presentation being absolutely top notch. The game is 20$ on steam, but can also be found on PlayStation and Nintendo Switch for the same price. I highly recommend this game, and believe anyone interested in fighting games should give Lethal League Blaze a look.