Unexpectedly, Lethal League turned out to be one of my top favorites for the year for what's ultimately nothing more but a multiplayer title that delivers on its core concept with fantastic execution.
If I were to boil it down to a single sentence, it'd be best described as Battle Pong with parries, one-hit kills, super moves and characters that each possess various different attributes (movement speed, ball trajectories, jumping arc quirks etc.) to differentiate themselves from one another. For a game as straight-forward as this, all of the 5 characters (with more in the pipeline) feel quite different due to their respective strengths and weaknesses, without it resulting into one character being head-and-shoulders above the rest. They're all 'viable' if you have a full understanding of the game's mechanics and utilize the most out of what's been given to them. Latch (the cyborg crocodile) has the lowest jump height for example, but he can climb walls to compensate, has wider arcs for his swing than most and eats the ball to temporarily interrupt the rhythm of a round - albeit not without a HUD notification for the opposing player to realize when he can strike back - if he activates his super. Candyman (the smileyface head guy) on the other hand can simply jump very high with floaty hangtime and has a special ability where the ball goes through walls for a short period of time (let's say little over a second), including the potential to
reset this duration with each consecutive swing. Everyone has their 'gimmick' and it's a delicate balance where no one is particularly dominant, despite all odds.
There's more to the big picture though, elements that provide much needed depth with all the nuances that aren't immediatedly apparent when you're trying to make sense out of the frantic pace whilst you're learning the ropes. Bunting (see the purple glow) is a huge game changer; master it and it drastically reduces the hitlag (read: the animation where a character is frozen in place), builds more super meter and
could throw off someone's timing, BUT you run the risk of the enemy intercepting it more easily (even with 4 available directions to help negate vulnerability) and of putting yourself in quite the pickle with considerably increased ball speed. Use it willy-nilly and you will get punished by any experienced player or worse, embarrassingly being smacked in the face due to whiffing. Parrying (indicated by a blue flash around the ball) comes to mind too; it depletes your entire super meter upon use no matter what, meaning you gain defense at the loss of offense and you look plain silly if the enemy doesn't fall for it whether by psyching you out with baits or not. You'll briefly stun the opposing player (long enough to maybe end the round) if successful however and you can even apply parries aggressively to stiffle the other guy's game flow with a little foresight, but it's certainly not an end-all be-all manoeuvre. Moreso an interesting dynamic that lends itself well to mental back-and-forths.
There are even more relatively minor intricacies worth noting - quick-jumping to accelerate your descent,
charging up your swing (fairly dangerous) for multiple benefits,
clashing with your foe as he's trying to hit your ball et cetera - and it all just adds up to precise,
mindgame-centric dueling (with reflexes and timing at the forefront) as soon as both players can consistently visualize the majority of any given character's angles in front of them. Easier said than done of course, because the game continuously ramps up its speed (which admittedly can be fairly stressful) to ridiculous lengths and I wouldn't even be joking if I were to say it can ratchet up its pace well beyond the following instance:
Lethal League perfectly blends a simplistic core with layered complexity thrown into the mix and it does so without straying too far from the base formula. Sure, you could say you heard this all before with regards to other indie darlings, but in my opinion the developers did this well enough where I can genuinely say there's still room for improvement left after 40+ hours of playtime. Hours with barely a hitch online to boot; the dev team was sensible enough to integrate GGPO netcode for its multiplayer, unlike much-lauded competition such as Nidhogg, Samurai Gunn and Towerfall Ascension, each more expensive than Lethal League at that. And for what it's worth: if 1 vs 1 isn't your cup of tea or if you'd rather have more people involved locally, then there's always 2 vs 2 teams or 4-player Free-for-alls at your disposal. Which in turn, for better or for worse, are even more absurdly hectic.
Lastly: credit where credit's due concerning its audiovisual presentation. Lethal League has a stylized 2D look with some cool stages / character designs (including
this boss) and the hiphop-esque music (choice sample
#1 and
#2) is reminiscent of Jet Set Radio, oddly enough. My only complaint is that I wish there was more of everything, primarily because the general aesthetic and soundtrack is so well done.
It's a solid, thoroughly entertaining multiplayer title with no (relatively speaking) insane dexterity requirements. Remember though:
"no weak shit."
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