Video games have been exploiting players’ brains since the halcyon days of the arcade where every cheap Shao Khan shoulder charge or blast from Krang’s ship was designed for maximum quarter extraction. The methods have changed, but many modern live-service games use FOMO, flashy effects, or other psychologically manipulative techniques to softly coerce players to cough up more cash.
Videos by ComicBook.com
But a select few have sliced the gross microtransactions out of the equation and just focused purely on the primal satisfaction that happens when the number goes up, namely Vampire Survivors. Ball x Pit adheres closely to developer Poncle’s influential auto-scrolling shooter hit by constantly dishing out bombastic upgrades that ramp up the chaos and shots of dopamine. But instead of just being about the numbers getting bigger as the fireworks go off, Ball x Pit smartly blends genres and focuses more on interactivity to stand above the growing crowd of its generic peers.
Rating: 4/5
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Upgrades are constantly handed out and provide a steady stream of satisfaction | Too much grinding |
| Many upgrades can be combined multiple times and yield different strategies | A handful of extra characters are superfluous or have lackluster gimmicks |
| Building a base provides a solid change of pace and adds to its sense of progression |
Ball x Pit‘s Brick Breaker Roots Give it An Edge
Ball x Pit’s interactivity stems from the brick breaker genre it has been mashed up with. Instead of merely firing all manner of blades and bullets in every direction, Ball x Pit confines players to an automatically scrolling vertical chamber and encourages them to strategically shoot and deflect their balls around the play field for maximum impact. This slight deviation makes all the difference since that yields a welcome, if small, amount of room for more tactical thinking.
For example, it can often pay off if players can bank a stream of balls behind a row of foes so the balls can ricochet back and forth at lightning speed off the back of the playfield and devastate the baddies bringing up the rear. Making big plays like that is rewarding as dozens of small enemy cubes explode in a puff of smoke and damage numbers in just a few seconds. It lulls players out of the comfortable trance of just shooting forward because that’s not always the most engaging or effective way to make progress.
Some of the strategy comes from how players choose their build. Each new level brings up a few ball types that offer different approaches and yield a much-needed sense of variety a game like this needs. All of that is standard, if well done, but being able to combine these upgrades is the secret sauce that gives runs that extra bit of spice. Many of these are straightforward combos, but there are a ton of secret special hybrids that can offer bigger boons with more devastating effects. And since Ball x Pit gets more satisfying when the power knobs get cranked up, these more devastating effects make the experience more engaging. Figuring out some of the more complicated ones is frustratingly vague — there’s nary a hint on how to forge Satan or a nuclear bomb — but it’s still a wonderful system that ups the power level and adds a bit of mystery to every run.
Ball x Pit‘s Upgrades Allow for Wonderful Chaos
Although it’s still not some intense XCOM-like strategy game that punishes every wrong move. It’s generally an explosive slot machine of upgrades, and those upgrades are paced out at a fittingly exhausting clip. Leveling up through dropped gems adds different ball types or passives, both of which can change how the game is played. These upgrades aren’t as glamorous as those seen in Vampire Survivors where glitter, flashing lights, and the anticipatory music is all calculated to elicit all the pleasure centers in the player’s brain; the UI is relatively straightforward here.
The true satisfaction comes from how these upgrades ratchet up the chaos. Seeing a screen slowly get filled more and more with an uncountable amount of rapidly bouncing balls is gratifying because of how that aforementioned chaos builds slowly with each new power and how much destruction they all wreak. Runs top out at about a dozen minutes, so they cut off right as those feelings plateau to avoid wearing out players or losing its magic.
The base-building aspect also helps change up the pace by forcing players out of an auto-scrolling trance. This expandable hub gives users control over their array of passive buffs, what characters they have access to, and what materials they can mine out at the end of the day and rewards those who build efficiently with greater hauls. It can be a little irksome to micromanage small structures in a packed space, but it’s a nifty way to add a metagame that’s just enough work to be engaging without becoming tedious. Ball x Pit would lose some of its magic if it was all ball, all pit, all of the time.
Ball x Pit Succumbs to the Grind Near the End
But Ball x Pit stumbles a little over its RPG systems by requiring too much grinding. Each character levels up individually. Certain buildings buff special stats and have to be maintained. Clearing stages and their faster variants with a new character adds a small percentage buff to a certain stat. Managing all of this is key to success because lacking in one area makes new levels impossible to clear.
It’s frustrating to come to this realization during a run since it takes skill out of the equation and results in a cheap death. Having to go back and repeat earlier stages over and over to grind experience or materials artificially slows progress. Ball x Pit is already relatively easy — bosses and mini-bosses have simple patterns that aren’t hard to avoid — so it’s extra annoying that its difficulty mostly derives from being underleveled and doesn’t come from skill checks. While some RPG mechanics allow for a sense of progression, they’re overtuned here and put the game in a position to where it begins to overplay its hand and lose a bit of its luster.
All of this becomes more puzzling when Ball x Pit suddenly breaks and starts to almost play itself. A couple upgrades mean this literally, as one mines materials in the base when the game is off, while the final character automatically moves, picks skills, and attacks. There’s also an upgrade in the second half that makes two characters playable at once, which trivializes the difficulty in many instances, especially since this autopilot character can be paired up with most other characters to automate grinding.
It makes sense for a game like this to revel in absurd power levels, but it shouldn’t be a game’s goal to play itself. The journey to roll credits and then unlock everything else loses meaning and just becomes a chore that can be done with little to no effort; it’s just mindless busywork at that point. Cutting some of the worthless characters with bad gimmicks that cloud the roster and loosening up the RPG mechanics would have resulted in a smoother power ramp that reached its peak as the game ended.
Even with an uneven grind that loses purpose in the home stretch, Ball x Pit is still a mesmerizing mix of the brick breaker genre and auto-scrolling shooters. It doesn’t solely lean on one pillar, though, and greatly benefits from this hybrid approach. Stacking a screen-filling amount of upgrades and witnessing their destructive capabilities is empowering and being able to bounce balls with precision means it’s more than dopamine slop to passively consume. Ball x Pit certainly traffics in that space but does so intelligently and without feeling like a guilty pleasure. It’s just a pleasure, full stop.
A PS5 copy of Ball x Pit was provided by the publisher for the purpose of this review.
Most Viewed
-
Courtesy of Toei Animation
