Footy-mad Mario just fails to hit the target

Mario Strikers: Battle League Football (Switch, £49.99) Verdict: Mid-table

IT’S 1-1 in the final minute of the Cup. But here’s a chance for the winner. I draw my leg back, focus my thoughts and sinews on the top corner of the net. And then... an extradimensional mushroom man careers into my standing foot, before a bomb knocks me totally off my aim.

Mario Strikers: Battle League Football isn’t your traditional game of association football. In fact, it is to that noble sport what Mario Kart is to, say, Formula 1; full of pitfalls, speed boosts and characters such as Mario, Luigi, Princess Peach and the nefarious Bowser.

At least to start off with, it’s tremendous fun. Your first few hours will be spent familiarising yourself with the surprisingly intricate control system, with its dodges and precise through-balls and teammate-assisted tackles. It’s more demanding than Mario Kart but, in some respects, more satisfying — a game of skill as much as dumb luck.

Then your next few hours will be spent unleashing those skills in games of five-a-side mayhem, alongside or against either your friends or the AI. Those moments when your team pulls off a Hyper Strike — an almost unstoppable shot that’s accompanied by a nutty animation — are their own sort of victory.

But then the limitations of Battle League come sliding in, like that mushroom man. There’s currently little to do in the game beyond those Cup matches, with the same roster of characters and the same handful of stadia. The addition of upgradeable sportswear for your players, to change their abilities, only adds so much.

Which forced me, eventually, to return to the best not-really-football game of them all: Rocket League. Sorry, Mario, you’re on the bench next week.