What do you get if you mix the personality of the Smash Bros., the simplicity of Divekick and baseball? Lethal League, a fighting game unlike anything you have ever seen.
Developer and Publisher Team Reptile describes Lethal League as “a competitive projectile fighting game,” the first of its kind. The objective of the game is to defeat opponents by using your bat to hit them with an anti-gravity ball. All players have a set amount of life stocks. One life stock is used each time a player is hit by the ball. The winner is determined by whichever player (or team) has a life stock remaining, similar to the Last Man Standing rules in other games.
Unlike the intimidating complexity of many fighting games, Lethal League has only three buttons: jump, swing, and bunt. Pressing the swing button hits the ball like you would expect, but the ways the ball is hit varies depending on the direction the player chooses to swing the bat. Players can choose any of eight directions to swing the bat. It is 100 percent possible to swing the bat on time, and swing in the wrong direction as I have done countless times.
Swinging in certain ways can also give players the ability to speed up the ball which sounds pretty pedestrian until you realize the game has achievements for reaching ball speeds of over one million.
Pressing the bunt button pops the ball up when contact is made, which allows players to briefly stop the momentum of the ball. No matter if the ball is going slowly or blindingly fast, the ball will slow down to the same speed each time. Bunting balances out the chaos, and allow players to inhale before quickly deciding their next move.
The last mechanic to note is the special meter, which is located directly below each player’s life stock. Players get one bar for their special meter each time the ball is hit. Special meters fill up after four hits, which allows players to take advantage of extra techniques such as a special move. All five characters in Lethal League have unique specials that do crazy stuff like hitting the ball through the walls, changing the initial trajectory of the ball, or scooping the ball with your mouth and spitting it out at dizzying speeds.
Lethal League is very simple to understand, yet it has the sort of depth that allows no set of rounds to look the same. Like other fighting games, what looks like random chaos is actually a battle of wits and precision. Reflexes are important for victory, but Lethal League does a great job of rewarding players for anticipating the opponent’s next move and baiting the reaction. Every scenario has an appropriate counter if the player can find the proper read, which is why guessing and reacting can be viable options, but not versus an opponent familiar with your tendencies.
Lethal League is a game primarily meant to be played against human opponents locally or online. The game utilizes GGPO netcode which has been highly praised in the fighting game community, and was even adopted by Capcom for re-released games such as Street Fighter III: Third Strike and Marvel Versus Capcom Origins. I had a few issues with desyncs and random crashes, but the in-game lag was mostly negligible. Lobbies can be set at a maximum of four players in one-on-one fights, a free for all, or team battles. The one player mode is relegated to a barebones training mode with an entertaining set of challenges to complete. It's like typical arcade mode with limited continues, it’s fun but not the same experience.
The music and art in this game is eccentric, hip, absurd, and a throwback to many games of generations past. Some songs from the soundtrack, and their accompanying hip-hop, house mixtapes, are available for free on Team Reptile’s website. The art and animation are really solid, and the graphics will run on almost any computer as the system requirements don’t require much more than a working operating system.
Installation for Lethal League is close to bare minimum. I downloaded the game on Steam, and was playing five seconds later without additional steps. USB controllers are supported and highly recommended for fun’s sake.
Lethal League is the kind of game that is fun to spectate, and hard to put down. The online community is active and full of people who have already set up their own tournaments via forums, and written in-depth strategy guides for newcomers and experts alike. Team Reptile has successfully put together a great game, and fostered a solid relationship with the fighting game community. This is what unsuspecting spectators of Ultimate Fighting Game Tournament 9’s Grand Final Mystery Game imagined when Lethal League debuted as a flash game on May 26, 2013 and Team Reptile has fulfilled those expectations. Here’s to hoping more content for this game in the future.
Score: 8.5 out of 10
Lethal League
Platform: PC
Release Date: August 27, 2014
Developer/Publisher: Team Reptile
Players: 1 to 4
Price: $13.99
