Sonata bounces the ball off the air while Candyman makes it phase through the arena for a single bounce. To make matters even more interesting, the playable characters all offer up a special super attack to switch things up even more. Throwing the ball diffuses any weird bouncing angles it’s fallen upon, meaning you can change the ball’s direction in a heartbeat.
Why not spike it for an instant speed boost? Maybe it’s going too fast so you bunt it straight up, slowing it down but opening it up to be stolen by your opponent. Sure, you could just hit, but there’s so strategy in that. Instead of giving all the unique fighters combos and distinct combat stances, Team Reptile rather spent their time perfecting how one can interact with the ball. Maybe I’m looking at it through the wrong lens (far be it from me to speak towards developer intentions) but Lethal League Blaze feels like a fighting game that the developers got bored with, which isn’t a slight to their game at all. Each player has a life bar and a set of lives and if you get hit too many times, or just once with a ball that’s broken the sound barrier, that’s a knockout. Then my opponent spiked the ball, so I returned the favour, all the while watching in awe as with each progressive hit the ball became faster and faster until it was a mere blur on the screen, daring either player to fool-heartedly leap into its path and give it a whack. Which seems manageable enough to start when I first started up a match of Lethal League I was questioning the lethality of this so-called league when the ball was served at me the speed of a cat being told to come in from outside while you hold the door open for it. With every hit, the ball gets a little faster. Two players in a 2D-arena hit a ball at each other.
A fictional, futuristic sport that’s been moulded to appear like a fighting game and yet despite my lack of interest in both genres, I keep going back to Lethal League, largely because it’s so much damn fun. So when Lethal League Blaze slid across my digital desk I wasn’t quite sure what I would make of it. How do you remember all their names? They all look the same from so high up! As for sport, I’ve yet to find one that holds my attention for an entire match let alone a season. Whether it be Mortal Kombat or Street Fighter, I’ve struggled to fully immerse myself in the nuances of the fighting game genre. For me, I have two of those: Fighting games and sports. My point is, there are some things that we desperately want to love but sometimes just don’t get around to it. Hell, maybe it’s just a pair of jeans that you’ve been hoping will fit after a long and exhausting diet. Lots of people think they’ll get wrestling a shot only to have no idea what’s going on and feel uncommonly concerned for the physical well-being of large men in speedos. Maybe all you’re friends are metalheads and you keep listening to different bands, hoping you’ll get the appeal only to go back to Fleetwood Mac. Everyone has that one thing they just keep trying to get into and ultimately never do.
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