If you’ve ever played a fighting game, you’ll know that the aim is to hit your opponent’s body enough times to knock them down. Well, prepare to throw that completely out of the window.
Lethal League Blaze is a fighting game where you utilise a ball to hit your opponent. There’s no hitting your opponent – they have to be hit with the ball instead. It’s an easy game to get into, but it becomes apparent relatively quick that it’s a hard game to master.
As you hit the ball more and more times, the speed increases faster and faster, reaching up to a speed of one million if you’re able to bat the ball back and forth enough times without being hit. The ball can also be bunted to be stopped dead in its tracks and be hit by any other players. One more thing that you can do which is much harder, is catching the ball and throwing it back at the enemy. It’ll take a lot of precise and hours to get the skills nailed required to really enjoy Lethal League Blaze, but trust me: It’s worth it.
Other fighting games like MultiVersus, Smash Bros Ultimate and even games like Overwatch have incredibly bloated rosters now. It’s great for variety, yet not as great as a simple roster of eight or nine to learn. Each of the eight characters in Blaze have one special ability that distinguishes them from the rest, and will be a factor in who you decide to “main” in games.
It doesn’t matter who you pick to main, though – all the characters are fairly balanced and there isn’t one that can be seen as any better than the others, so the character that you decide to play as the most is entirely up to personal preference, with each having their own strengths and weaknesses that determine their playstyle.
Lethal League Blaze features both an arcade mode as well as a story mode; the story mode is restricted to the characters the game lets you select for the different levels, whilst the arcade mode allows you to try and beat all the other characters in a single attempt using the character of your choice. You can also use continues if you die, but you’ll get some sweet unlockables by managing to go the whole way without using one. The story mode also has unlockables for completing different tasks in levels, most of which are cool looking alternative skins for the characters and are worth aiming to unlock.
There’s also a few other singleplayer modes that can be collected, from team games, volleyball and free-for-all to just trying to hit the ball in the goal while the opponents either defend or attack on their side. Blaze doesn’t have a mighty selection of modes to choose from, but from what’s available is a lot of endless fun when combined with the numerous characters and adjustable AI levels that can be utilised.
Of course, it wouldn’t be a modern fighting game without online capabilities to go alongside it. Sadly there’s no cross platform play but Team Reptile is a small indie studio so it’s completely understandable why it’s not included.
I’ve played a bunch of online games of Blaze since I got the game for Christmas following my pursuit of understanding the fundamentals, and it’s fun to play online just as much as I played offline. I’m by no means perfect at the game, but I never felt as though my opponent had a significant advantage over me or was far above my own skill level. The matches were very equal and balanced not only from the selectable classes but from player ability too.
Finishing matches and games regardless of your result will give you currency that can be used to buy the remaining unlockable characters, arenas and even soundtrack that Blaze has. This isn’t paid content, either: You just need to play the game enough to get enough credits to buy what you want, so it’s a nice little incentive to keep you playing.
Levelling up through online matches also gives you even more cosmetic skins to unlock next to the ones that can be gained from the objectives in story and arcade. These skins are exclusive to online play, so you won’t be getting them from your large collection of coins that you’ll be accumulating just by playing the game. The grind is worth it though because these online-only skins are some of the best looking ones you can find in the game.
The game is a vast improvement over the original Lethal League in almost every way. It’s considerably easier, it introduces more mechanics, more playable characters and overall feels much more fluent and better to pick-up from the beginning if you’re new to the series. Compared to its predecessor, the graphics are more fresh, colourful, funky and enjoyable, but not so distracting that it takes away from the high-octane, fast-paced gameplay that Blaze employs. Although I only tested out the original game as a short comparison, it’s clear that the sequel is so much more refined than the game that came before it.
Lethal League Blaze is a fun, and innovative fighting game that tests your skill, timing, reactions and funkiness to create an experience like no other in the genre. You’ll get stressed, you’ll be relieved, you’ll have fun, but most of all: You’ll be blazing in no time.
Hitbox Hell 