Mario Strikers: Battle League — Tips and tricks for beginners

Mario Strikers: Battle League is a soccer game like no other that encourages tackling and crazy powerful kicks. However, there's more to the game than just running at the goal and scoring. If you want to play well and win game after game, you'll need to play strategically and work together with your teammates. Here are the Mario Strikers: Battle League tips and tricks that will help you gain more victories.

Passing wins games

Soccer is a team sport and while it's an incredible feeling to dodge down the field and score a goal on your own, teams who work together are more likely to win. Pass regularly and take advantage of those passing perks that increase your team's overall shooting power.

Don't huddle up on the field

It's a rookie mistake at any elementary soccer game: players group up in one corner of the field, leaving the rest of the field open. You need to spread out and allow the teammate closest to the ball to work on recovering it. As a good tip, always fall back in a defensive position if you see a teammate going for the ball. That way if things go south you can be there to protect an open area or will be safe to pass to.

Choose auto controls if you're a beginner

Before heading into a game, you'll be able to choose whether you control your extra teammates with manual or automatic controls. Automatic makes it so that if you pass the ball to a teammate, you automatically switch over to controlling that new teammate who just got the ball. For instance, if Yoshi passes to Rosalina, you automatically go from controlling Yoshi to controlling Rosalina.

Alternatively, manual controls make it so you have to specifically press the L button on your controller to change characters after passing the ball. If you're new to the game, automatic will likely be the easier choice for you, but you might find more freedom in playing manually once you get a feel for the action.

Turn on Visual-Assist Mode in Settings

There's a lot going on in the field, so if you're having a hard time keeping track of your characters and teammates there's a built-in mode to help. Go into Settings and turn on Visual-Assist Mode, which allows markers to show up above each of the players making it easier to tell if a player is on your team or not. These symbols also help you to better see which character from your team you currently have control of.

Don't play as Toad

I know, I know, Toad is adorable and a character that I love seeing in games. However, he is so incredibly weak in Mario Strikers: Battle League and really isn't a good character to play as. Sure you'll be fast, but you won't be able to tackle other players and will have low shooting abilities. So even if you're a Toad stan, you should choose someone else. At least until you get a handle on the controls.

Mario and Rosalina are the best characters for beginners

Each character in Mario Strikers: Battle League has different stats and Hyper Strike abilities, which determines where they rank on the roster tier list. If you're just starting out, I highly recommend you play as either Mario or Rosalina. Mario is the all-rounder character with balanced stats around the board. This makes him easier to control and a good character to use whether you're playing offense or defense.

Now, Rosalina is for players who want a more aggressive role where they lead as a forward toward the goal and take down other players. She's easily the most satisfying character to control.

Get gear to make your character better but don't expect major improvements

As you play, you can pay Coins to unlock gear for your characters to improve their stats. The thing is that the stat improvements brought to you by gear aren't huge, so while they will improve your character overall, the improvement will be minimal and might not even be recognizable. So no, I'm sorry, but even if you deck out Toad in the best gear available it won't make him a good pick.

Use Hyper Strike strategically

Every character has a special Hyper Strike move that they can use if they acquire the Hyper Orb when it appears on the field. You'll have the urge to use it right away, but the thing is, you immediately start glowing once you pick it up alerting everyone on the field to the fact that you can perform a more powerful move. This typically means that your opponents move in on you to prevent you from using your cool ability and will try to tackle you.

So, that being said, you'll want to play strategically and acquire the Hyper Orb to distract opponents, but not use it right away. Instead, pass around with your teammates frequently to mess with the other team so they don't know when you'll use your crazy attack and then let it go when you're in a good position.

On the note of Hyper Strikes, in order to use it effectively, you'll need to pay attention to the gauge that shows up after initiating a Hyper Strike and then press down at the proper moment within the green part of the gauge. Players with a higher Technique stat will have a larger Hyper Strike gauge, meaning it's easier to use their special move correctly.

Use a traditional controller if you have one

Obviously, you can play Mario Strikers: Battle League just fine with the Joy-Cons, but it's no secret that they aren't the most comfortable gamepad you can use on Switch. Many players prefer to use a more traditional Switch controller during competitive matches as they're easier to hold, and usually offer larger buttons and joysticks for more responsive play. So if you don't have a traditional Switch controller like the Pro Controller, you might want to consider getting one.

Pay attention to ? Block colors

As you play, various colored ? Blocks will pop up on the field. Obviously, you and the team you play against will have different uniform colors and the ? Blocks that match your team color are the ones that you can use. If you run into the opposing team's ? Block it will spin but won't do anything for you. Multicolored rainbow ** ?** Blocks also appear on the field that can be used by either team, so you might want to race to these goodies if you can.

Make use of the electric fence to electrocute opponents

There's an electric fence running around the perimeter of the field and any player who crashes into it not only gets electrocuted but is stuck there and stunned for a short time. Since players are encouraged to tackle each other, it's a good idea to try and launch opponents into the electric fence or to dodge at just the right moment when an opponent is charging you so they get fried. You might even want to stick close to the fence to bait people as you play.

Help Boom Boom block Hyper Strikes

Boom Boom, the goalie, is technically an unplayable character. However, there are certain times during gameplay where you can assist him in a button-mashing mini-game to help him recover from a Hyper Strike so your team doesn't get scored on. Pay attention to whenever this imagery appears over your goal and then mash the right button to assist him.

Our goal is to stop yours

With these Mario Strikers: Battle League tips and tricks, you'll be able to play more effectively to win more often. Remember that soccer is a team sport, so you'll want to focus on passing and taking down the competition together in order to come out ahead.