Super Dodgeball Beats (Nintendo Switch) Review

Starting up Super Dodgeball Beats brings up four menu options. Championship is where the real meat of the game lies, and kicking things off is a comic book-like, stylish telling of the story. Three unpopular high school kids decide to form a dodgeball team and gain adoration. To do so requires not only learning this strange new take on the sport, but facing off against all sorts of weird and wacky characters, like Pensioner Sportsmen, a Giant Tentacle Monster, and even a Vampire complete with Bat minions.

Right before the first match of this mode is a tutorial that covers the fundamentals; four team members in a diamond formation to correspond to the Face buttons of the controller, and a required button press to match the light rings below each character in time with the music. Successful button timing sends a dodgeball projectile at the opponent's team, and builds up a weapon indicator, which when used grants a temporary buff or ailment to foes. A gauge at the top of the screen keeps record of which team is scoring the best, and determines the winner at the end of the music track.

Super Dodgeball Beats uses the sport much more as an aesthetic than a basis for the gameplay, but it is still a stand-out combination and works very well. The matches run at a super smooth frame-rate, and the response time for button presses is solid. Plus a very catchy and enjoyable music track list plays along to it all. The feedback via the Joycon and Pro Controller HD Rumble adds that little special something to the beat as well.

Progressing through the story in Championship mode and its multiple difficulty-based chapters, unlocks a multitude of different teams, weapons and songs to use in two of the other modes: Multiplayer and Training. The latter is as expected. A quick play of any unlocked content, though it strangely doesn't offer its own Tutorial as a potential refresher of sorts. Multiplayer is where the real longevity of Super Dodgeball Beats will come into play, and the two Joycon of the system are tailor-made for this setup with each player having the diamond-button configuration needed. Sadly, this lacks online support, but two local players can still have a blast together, in what is a well-built, tricky, but satisfying package of a video game.