Hoo boy, there’s a lot to unpack for this preview of Beastieball. This is a game that I knew was going to be a bit of a challenge for me because I’m old, very tired of the Pokémon formula, and I’m not a fan of the CalArts art style that this game utilizes. That said, games that require a good healthy volley, such as Virtua Tennis or even Windjammers, have always been fun. Blindly going in only knowing this game was a monster catcher with volleyball matches, I was hoping for inspiration from old titles like Super Spike V’Ball or even Dead or Alive: Beach Volleyball. No, that isn’t what this is at all, but it’s much better than I expected it to be after the first 20-30 minutes of playing.
So, as you have likely already guessed from the key art, Beastieball is a game that seeks to rip off emulate Pokémon blatantly, but it changes up the formula by having you fight with your Beasties on the volleyball court instead of directly pitting your pocketed monsters against each other. Yes, as you might have guessed, one of the first things you do is choose from one of three starter Beasties; each of the three is aligned by the three core stats, which are yellow/blue/pink color-coded. In truth, it matters very little aside from the rock/paper/scissors element of strengths and weaknesses, and that’s all self-explanatory if you’ve ever played an early-gen Pokémon game. At least the devs are self-aware and there’s even a cute little nod to it in the game.
Combat is a mix of classic turn-based battle with a slight SRPG nod by being able to move your Beasties front/back/side to side in order to prepare for incoming volleys. Instead of attacking each other with the attacks directly, your attacks are used as strikes to hit the ball, and the intended target can set their defense against it, or you can opt to use an attack that lands in an unprotected section of the play grid, which automatically gives you a point. It’s a somewhat creative twist on a tried-and-true RPG trope, and it’s actually pretty fun to play, if you decide you want to. You can set auto-battle up to fight for you in every situation, and from my experience, it wins unless you’re already pretty damaged going into the fight or the enemies considerably out-level you. It’s not a challenging game, but these games are often considered “cozy” so a challenge isn’t usually what the audience is shooting for here.
As you might have guessed from the art, this game obviously targets the “modern audience” that we’ve heard so much about over the past few months. Yes, it’s got woke elements, but it’s not offensive about it – yet. There’s a pronoun selector, but from what I can tell, everything/everyone is referenced in the third person as “they/them,” no matter what you personally choose. If I had to guess, it’s just included for the sake of catering to the intended audience.
One big problem is the attempt at snarky humor and things that older players are probably going to consider “cringe”. One character, upon introduction, describes your “vibe” as being all “protagonisty,” which is eye-rollingly bad writing but might make a teenager giggle (provided they know the definition of the word.)
Everything you’ll find in Beastieball outside of the combat is exactly what you’d expect to find. Random enemies wander around the wilderness and you can play matches against them. If you meet certain conditions, you’ll impress them and they’ll ask to join your team. You buy jerseys to give Beasties to draft them to your team as opposed to buying balls and throwing them, crossing your fingers for three shakes. You’ll also find a minimal amount of platforming as there are different places you can jump up and explore to get around the terrain and find hidden gift boxes randomly placed throughout the world. You’ll also earn social battery power for fighting unranked teams in the wild, and you use those batteries to kick off social time with the people you encounter along the way. These are little hangouts where you get a little bit of backstory for the characters and improve your relationship. Since this game is still in Early Access, not all of these options are available yet, but there’s a decent amount of content to be found here so far.
Even though I’m not a fan of the art style, the ocean section is particularly nice and soothing.
I’m not entirely sure that it’s worth $25 at this stage of development because the devs estimate that the game can be completed in less than 20 hours. I found myself a significant way through the game in way less time, but I’m also not a “gotta catch ’em all” type of guy. The game could also do with a bit of toning back the forced quippy humor because where it shines the most is when it just simply tries to be a decent little Pokéclone. There’s some stuff that’s really enjoyable in here if you can wade through dialogue that sometimes comes across as hostile toward the audience. Which is really unnecessary since the audience they are trying so hard to attract is already on board based on the art, the inspiration, and/or the soundtrack being done by composer Lena Raine (known for Celeste). The concept art for the characters and their animations is a neat touch. I think there’s potential to appeal to a larger audience and be more successful if they’d consider easing up just a touch on the heavy handedness. I’ll be curious to revisit this game to see what it looks like once it’s ready for the 1.0 release.
Beastieball is available on Microsoft Windows (through Steam’s Early Access).
