Indie Rock: Lethal League (again)

The Smash Bros inspiration is clearly worn on Lethal League’s sleeve. It’s specifically the type of sleeve where the color of the arm and the neckline are one block colour while the torso is solid white. I’m describing what’s known as a “Baseball Sleeve” shirt. Because Lethal League is a Smash Bros-Inspired game about baseball. It’s a good joke.

A Lethal League match is an attempt to hit a baseball at another player. When struck, a ball moves around the field like the one in Breakout or like the screensaver of an old DVD player. Hitting the ball again will increase the momentum until it’s moving so fast it’s nearly impossible to keep tabs on the fucker. If you can hit it at that of speed then your character pauses for impact, the background flashes a different colour and begins to strain itself against the focused power being exerted in this fine point. It feels fuckin’ good, it’s like you’re pushing against a brick wall and suddenly the entire thing breaks apart.

It reminds me a lot of Smash Bros for two reasons. One of them is that Team Reptile are deliberately trying to invoke that sensation through the way matches end with an echoey announcer shouting “GAME!” over literally the same font as in Smash. The other is that the win state is similarly abstracted from just another fighting game.

In Smash, the way to win is to cause damage to another player and make it more inevitable that they are going to get knocked off the stage. You don’t just punch them until they die, you weaken them until they’re likely to lose but there’s no assurance of that at any point. Similarly, Lethal League’s form of that abstraction is the way the ball is constantly going quicker. Someone will lose at some point. It has to happen. No one can keep track of the ball at that speed. But it’s never certain who.

Save for a few tricks like bunting the ball to briefly make it lose pace and psyche everyone else out, character-specific special abilities and being able to angle the ball in directions you prefer, that’s Lethal League right there. If you want a little taste of it, here’s the playable prototype. It’s great. The full version is better.

What I also want to talk about, aside from it being good (which it is, it’s an easily accessible “fighting” game that is perfect for a party setting as much as it is tournament-level play), is the fact that it’s managed to be a non-contact sport. Though characters are carrying assorted implements that could mark the other players with bruises and contusions, the only way to score against your opponent is to use these tools in another context.

I’m reminded of a time where I tried to play The Resistance with my younger brother, who thought the entire idea of guessing what kind of person was behind a card was tedious and couldn’t understand why we don’t just flip other people’s cards over.

In the same way, the answer to “why can’t I just hit the other players with the baseball bat” is “because that’s not what kind of game this is”.

Oh, and the soundtrack is disgustingly good. This is a great video game.

Lethal League is out now for Windows PC.