The last few years have been great for Super Mario spinoff games. The Switch has two different Mario Party games to its name, and Mario Golf: Super Rush brought a longtime favorite Mario Sports title back after a hiatus of a few years. Soon, the trend will continue with the help of Mario Strikers: Battle League, a long overdue heir to the beloved Mario Strikers titles from the mid-2000s. In many ways, Mario Strikers: Battle League seems to preserve the mechanics that defined the first two games in the series, but it does make clear efforts to upgrade Mario Strikers hallmarks.
One of these efforts is the Hyper Strike. Longtime Mario Strikers fans likely Super Strikes and Mega Strikes from previous games, which were empowered shots that captains could perform to try to earn additional points for their team. The Hyper Strike is largely based on these techniques, but comes with a little more flexibility. It remains to be seen if Mario Strikers: Battle League's Hyper Strike lives up to the franchise's previous mechanics, but it's at least good to see that Nintendo and Next Level Games are eager to innovate. Alongside Battle League's other new features, Hyper Strikes could be a strong addition.
How Battle League's Hyper Strikes Work
While many special shots in the Mario Strikers series prioritize the captain, Mario Strikers: Battle League causes a little more chaos with its Hyper Strikes. Once in a while during a Battle League match, a golden orb will appear in the stadium. The first player to collect this orb will charge up their entire team, enabling them to perform a Hyper Strike. Unlike Super Strikes and Mega Strikes, these orbs appear to allow any of the players' team members to perform the special shot, instead of just the captain, meaning Mario Strikers fans have a little flexibility when lining up a Hyper Strike.
Once players are in position, they'll have to charge up their Hyper Strike with a couple well-timed button presses. If players successfully charge the shot and get the ball into the goal, they'll earn two points instead of one, much like Super Strikes. Notably, each Hyper Strike may impact the stadium differently. The Mario Strikers: Battle League reveal trailer shows Luigi summoning a tornado around the ball after performing his Hyper Strike, drawing in enemies and pulling them out of position. Odds are good that each Battle League character will have their own special power or status effect that triggers when a Hyper Strike is used.
Mario Strikers' Next Evolution
The apparent freedom of choice involved in Mario Strikers: Battle League's Hyper Strikes is definitely a nice upgrade on previous special shots, although it's hard to say just yet if it'll ultimately be more useful than its predecessors. That'll likely be determined by how important the special effects attached to Hyper Strikes turn out to be. Still, Hyper Strikes are an exciting Mario Strikers improvement when taken with the context of other new features like Battle League's improvements to online multiplayer and an expanded roster of playable Mario characters. Mario Strikers is changing for the better with the help of Hyper Strikes.
Mario Strikers: Battle League does appear to belong to a pattern of Nintendo reinventing Super Mario spinoff franchises lately. Mario Party has undergone a couple significant changes in its Switch days, and Mario Golf: Super Rush introduced a lot of new ideas and characters that set it apart from previous games. Mario Strikers is far from the first spinoff to change, and it likely won't be the last. For now, though, new Mario Strikers features like the Hyper Strike remain exciting in themselves and inspire hope for more positive Super Mario innovation in the future.
Mario Strikers: Battle League releases June 10, 2022 for Nintendo Switch.
