Lethal League Blaze
Review

Lethal League Blaze (2019) is a fighting sports game where you battle various characters by batting a high speed ball back and forth. It's unusual because the ball is the focus of combat, and the way you damage opponents. You need to use your abilities and the momentum physics of the balls movement to gain the upper hand.

Play is set in Shine City's anti-gravity ball league that has long been illegal. The group who kept playing was dubbed the Lethal League. Even now, with their sport pushed underground, players and crews compete in the League for challenge and respect.

The goal is to beat your opponents with the ball. You can manipulate it to get the perfect angle and use your character's special moves to surprise them. But every strike speeds up the ball to shatteringly extreme velocities. You can tag the ball to your colour, but on those high speeds the tables are quickly turned.

The result is a Jet Set Radio styled game that combines tennis, dodgeball and Street Fighter. It looks simple but has a surprising level of depth and skill to bunt, spike and smash the ball. Add to this the different abilities that you need to learn (and discover) for each character and the game is a considerable challenge.

Our examiner, Andy Robertson, first checked Lethal League Blaze 23 months ago. It was re-examined by Jo Robertson and updated 13 months ago.