Nintendo has been making Mario sports games for decades, with some proving to be quite popular. Mario Tennis on the Nintendo 64 earned widespread critical acclaim at the time of its release, as did Mario Golf. Reactions to Mario sports games have been more lukewarm in recent years for a variety of reasons, with the recently released Mario Strikers: Battle League being another example of a Mario sports game that fails to live up to the high bar set by its predecessors.

Mario Strikers: Battle League is Nintendo's third attempt at a Mario soccer game, following the GameCube's Super Mario Strikers and the Wii's Mario Strikers Charged. Mario Strikers: Battle League brings the series to the Nintendo Switch, and while the core gameplay can be plenty fun, there's not nearly enough content to keep fans engaged with the game for the long-term.

Mario Strikers: Battle League features 10 characters from the Super Mario franchise and has them compete on the soccer pitch. Like other Mario sports games, the Mushroom Kingdom's version of soccer isn't quite as straightforward as the real-world sport. The Mario Strikers characters can utilize items to take out opponents a la Mario Kart, and they can also unleash powerful Hyper Strike shots that come with an over-the-top animation and are a near-guaranteed goal worth two points.

Any given match in Mario Strikers: Battle League features two teams of four, though the small number of playable characters means that there will usually be some of the same characters on both teams. Mario Strikers: Battle League's small roster is a big disappointment, though it should be noted that there are actually more playable characters in this game than in previous entries. It's still not enough, but this is one area where Mario Strikers: Battle League is an improvement over its predecessors.

Small roster side, Mario Strikers: Battle League's core gameplay is fun. The controls are easy to understand and if anyone's having trouble, there are plenty of helpful tutorials to guide them along. There's a great deal of skill and strategy involved in the game for those that take the time to master its mechanics, but it's never overwhelming.

Mario Strikers: Battle League is even more entertaining when playing with a group of friends, with players having plenty of multiplayer options to choose from. Impressively, Mario Strikers: Battle League supports up to eight players on a single console, making it yet another solid addition to the Switch's lineup of local multiplayer and party games. It also has online multiplayer support, of course, with two players on one console able to team up to take on others online.

Like with most Nintendo Switch games, mileage will vary when it comes to Mario Strikers: Battle League's online multiplayer. Matches can often be laggy with a wireless connection, though things improve dramatically when playing with a hardwired Switch. The downside is that standard Switch consoles don't have an easy way for players to connect them directly to the Internet, so only those with a Switch OLED console or a Switch Ethernet adapter will be able to get the most of the game's online multiplayer.

When Mario Strikers: Battle League players have had their fill facing off against friends and online players, they can check out the tournament cups. Essentially the game's career mode-equivalent, Mario Strikers: Battle League cups task players with winning tournaments against AI-controlled teams, with different cups offering different kinds of play styles for players to deal with. These tournaments can be played in co-op, which is a nice touch, and while the AI rarely ever puts up as much of a challenge as real players, the matches can still be exciting, especially near the end of any given tournament.

Players are able to choose what Mario Strikers: Battle League stadium they want to play on whenever they start a new tournament or match. All five stadiums in Mario Strikers: Battle League look great, and players are even able to customize their appearance if they so desire. The problem is that the stadiums are completely irrelevant during gameplay. The camera maintains a top-down view that focuses almost entirely on the field, meaning the impressively-detailed decorations of the stadium are impossible to see. The only time players ever really get a good look at the stadiums is during replays, but most will likely skip those anyway. It would have been tricky to properly showcase the stadiums while simultaneously keeping the focus on the action, but as it stands they kind of go to waste.

While playing Mario Strikers: Battle League's tournaments and other game modes, players earn coins that they can then spend on gear. Mario Strikers: Battle League's gear system lets players outfit the various members of the roster with new helmets, gloves, armor, and boots to tweak their stats. Those that really want to take a deep dive and micromanage their characters may have fun with this, but it can be safely ignored without putting oneself at any major disadvantage.

Beyond getting coins to purchase new gear, there's not a lot to Mario Strikers: Battle League's progression, so it's hard to see how the game is going to keep players engaged for the long term. The single-player experience is especially lacking, as there's only a handful of tournament cups and nothing worthwhile to unlock besides harder difficulties. Actually playing Mario Strikers: Battle League's over-the-top take on soccer is plenty of fun, especially with a group of friends, but the lack of worthwhile progression or unlockable content seriously hurts its longevity.

Those who were starving for a new Mario Strikers game will likely get a lot of playtime out of Mario Strikers: Battle League despite its general lack of content, but those who need a little more meat on the bone will likely come away disappointed. The core gameplay is great, but there's not much to the game beyond that.

Mario Strikers: Battle League is out now, exclusively for the Nintendo Switch.