Title: Battlloon
Genre: Miscellaneous, Party / Minigame
Modes: Multiplayer
Developer: noname studio
Publisher: UNTIES
Platform(s): Switch (reviewed), PC
Release: February 28th, 2019
Battlloon is a retro arcade style battle royale game (in the purest sense). It’s similar to bumper cars; you inflate your balloon character and ram others into spikes. Each KO gives the player points, and the first person with enough points to cross the finish line after each round wins.
The Tip and The Top
The best thing about Battlloon is its simplicity. You use the joy con stick to maneuver the balloon character around the arena and use one button to inflate your balloon and release that same button to release the air that you built up, allowing your character to fly across the battle area. That’s it. It’s so simple that even a 4 year old can pick it up and play.
Each character on the game’s roster does have different traits as well, which makes the game play a bit more interesting. One balloon is giant and hard to knock back, but it takes longer to fill up your air while using this character. Another character is quick, but isn’t as good at knocking opponents back. There are a handful of characters to choose from, and playing around with each one and finding what suits you the best is one of the game’s strengths.
Each level also introduces environmental obstacles. For instance, in one level there is a giant bomb that keeps building up, and if you are near it when it explodes, your character is knocked out for a short amount of time, leaving you vulnerable to attacks.
The game really shines when you get a group of people together as Battlloon allows up to four players to battle it out. It’s simplistic yet challenging as you try to take out the other players.
The Flip and The Flop
Unfortunately, the multiplayer mode is the only mode offered. You don’t have the ability to take on AI characters in a single player battle (or even add AI players in multiplayer). So if you don’t have friends that are into retro style arcade battle royales, you’re out of luck.
The game doesn’t offer much in the way of content outside of the different characters you can pick from. You only have one mode to play, and that’s the battle royale mode. It would have been nice to have other modes to play or the choice of which arena to play in. Alas, that is not the case.
Final Grade: C+
What Battlloon does well, it does extremely well - offering up a simple arcade battle royale experience. Get a bunch of friends together, and you’ll have fun. Unfortunately, the lack of additional content will only allow the fun to last for a little while. But, for those of you that are looking for a couch multiplayer game, this may be right up your alley.
Review copy provided by Stride PR