Some games don’t have to do much to grab me. The moment you reveal yourself to be a creature-collecting game, you already have me. When the game is then also from a studio I trust, in this case, developer Wishes Unlimited and publisher Klei Publishing, and has who I would consider to be potentially the most talented composer in the industry working on on it Lena Raine, well then you got me really excited. Except, of course, that Beastieball is not a creature-collecting game but a turn-based volleyball RPG. Whatever that genre is, based on Beastieball, I guess I love it.
The genre name is pretty easily explained once we take a look at the combat, or lack thereof. Instead of fighting like in most other creature-collecting games, in Beastieball you play the titular game beastieball, a twist on volleyball. Matches occur on a playing field separated into two sides with a 2×2 grid, respectively, with two Beasties on the field and three Beasties on the sidelines to be tagged in for each player. Instead of attacks, you have plays that you can do with, and in rare cases without, the ball, with every turn alternating between attacking or defending a play. You can still defeat your enemy by “killing” them like in other creature-collecting games, but instead of HP Beasties have stamina that, if reduced to zero, doesn’t remove them from the match but simply means if they try to block the next ball, they will be too weak and drop it. That’s your goal at the end of the day: making the ball hit the ground, whether that means playing it towards an enemy Beastie with no stamina left or attempting to volley it directly onto an empty space.
The changes to the “combat” system are simple at first glance, and it won’t take long before you get a firm grip on them, but you’ll also come to realize that there’s a lot of added depth here compared to something like Pokémon. Just the simple fact that you can win a match against an opponent with way higher levels than you if you’re good enough to outplay them, since you can theoretically win without ever touching the opponent’s HP bar as long as you can get the ball down to the ground somehow. In fact, the direct Beastie to Beastie is deemphasized in favor of strategic play to the point that there isn’t even any kind of type dis/advantages, and you won’t miss it here either. And on top of the already deep base rules, there are also certain encounters against pro coaches that will change the rules of your matches too, requiring you to come up with new approaches to your game strategy.
Pro coaches are Beastieball’s gym leaders. After all, it’s not just the combat systems that have been overhauled to fit the volleyball sports theme, but the entire world around it too, making the whole thing feel like a classic sports anime. You are appointed the pro coach of your little town and need to travel to other cities to defeat their representatives, and in doing so raise your world ranking. You want to take part in the Crown Series after all, and to do so you need to be in the top 100 coaches in the world. A tall task, given that you start below 1000. But you’re not just doing this for the fun of it; there’s a bit more at stake than just your personal glory.
The corporation in charge of beastieball as a competitive sport wants to build a new stadium next to your hometown, and to do so they’re cutting down the trees and destroying the forest, an important habitat for Beasties to live in. The only way that you can think to stop this from happening is by becoming one of the best coaches in the world to get their attention and gather influence so you can tell them to stop. And surprisingly it doesn’t take long until you meet the big capitalist behind it all, and he’s even willing to cancel the stadium construction; you just need to become the champion. After all, the people love an underdog story, and nobody wants to see the same person win for the 8th time in a row.
The sports theme takes over every facet of the game and makes everything feel so fresh, even if many changes are just superficial ones. Instead of getting money from your enemy for a win, you collect sponsors that will give you money for every match. One small change that I think is really cool is that when your Beasties are one level away from evolving, they get debuffed since their body is going through changes that make it harder for them to control it and perform at a high level of sports.
And in general, Beastieball just has an endless amount of character and charm. While the issues at hand are serious, the overall tone is very light. I mean, one of the first pro coaches you will be playing has such a bad reputation that nobody shows up to the match. But since he refuses to play without an audience, you need to find the three most bored-looking people in the town, in the hopes that at least they might come to watch. There’s also an incredibly fashionable Power Rangers rival who literally descends from the skies with their jetpack to challenge you at seemingly random occasions. And then there’s the same journalist you will meet for every interview with different companies because she keeps losing her job at the news stations (did you know that journalism isn’t the most stable job in the world?)
And talking about character, I can’t ignore the art style. Beastieball’s style is simple but so pretty, with the 2D character models in a 3D environment, both of which are vibrant and colorful. The character designs are amazing, unique, and expressive (and you have a number of customization options for your character, by the way, including they/them pronouns, which is always nice). The Beastie designs are much better than the creature designs I have seen in other indie games of this genre, but they’re still not at that Pokémon level. If there was something to criticize about Beastieball, I suppose it would be that.
What certainly wouldn’t be the thing to criticize, though, is Lena Raine’s score, as if that isn’t obvious. But she’s one of the best in the industry for a reason, and with Beastieball, she delivers a score that, quite frankly, outdoes some recent Pokémon titles. That’s how good it is. And it’s so damn diverse too that I don’t even really know how I’d go about describing it. Just know it has that feeling of a classic Pokémon score while mixing it with Lena Raine’s synthetic sound. And it’s absolutely amazing.
Beastieball is still in Early Access, though honestly you can barely tell. Sometimes animations are missing, filled in with simplified pencil drawings, and I suppose there will be more side content in the full game, but even in its current state, Beastieball is without a doubt in my mind one of the best games of the year.
Nairon played Beastieball on PC in Early Access with a review code.
