The Indie Informer

When I started playing Beastieball for my initial preview a few weeks ago, I only planned on playing for an hour or two. Instead, it consumed my entire day, and the Early Access release became one of my most anticipated games of the year. After playing that expanded version and completing the campaign, I’m pleased to say that Wishes Unimited has crafted an experience that lives up to my lofty expectations.

For the unfamiliar, Beastieball is Pokémon meets volleyball. You recruit a group of Beasties to join your team and travel across the lands to defeat ranked coaches and become number one. Instead of battles, Beasties compete in the titular turn-based sport, where they can win either by knocking opponents out or hitting the ball into open lanes. As you travel with them, Beasties will form relationships with each other, having small side dramas like developing feelings for one another or becoming jealous of a teammate’s performance.

While Wishes Unlimited has plenty of new features to add to the game once it leaves Early Access, it rarely feels like a game still in active development. The two exceptions to this are occasional bugs (two of which delayed this piece but have since been patched out) and unfinished artwork. The latter is very noticeable, as many Beasties have rough sketches in place of battle animations, but it isn’t disruptive. At the very least, the base art of every Beastie is complete, so it’s only noticeable in battle. It also oddly fits with the game’s 2D Paper Mario-like sprites, though I still look forward to seeing the final product.

The rest of the base game is complete, including the charming story, which took me about twenty hours to finish. What I love about the adventure (and the game in general) is how it twists basic concepts and structure introduced by the Pokémon universe into far more coherent, relevant themes than Game Freak has ever been able to do. It’s a story about climate change and preserving nature, but also about humanity and pushing back against powerful institutions. The idea is that by becoming the league champion, you hope to stop that same league from bulldozing the Beastie preserve in your hometown, but as the game goes on it begins to question whether that’s even a reasonable thing to expect and whether we should rely on corporations to change in the first place.

It also introduces a large cast of memorable characters (I love to hate the Sports King), many of whom you can befriend. Once you have someone’s phone number, you can call them to hang out and improve your bond, which opens up individual side stories for characters who have an otherwise minor role in the game. If you get close enough to them, they can even teach your Beasties plays or boost their experience for a limited time.

Beasties normally learn new plays by leveling up, similar to many other RPGs. In most examples, the exact level and moves learned are kept a secret, leaving players to consult online wikis and guides to know what happens when. Beastieball, however, takes a different approach; every move, along with the level a Beastie learns it, is included in the Beastiepedia, a database used to track which Beasties you have and haven’t seen. It also includes all the moves they can learn by bonding with other Beasties, base stat spreads, and potential color variations. You can even sort the listings by a specific stat, as I did in the late game when I wanted to pick a Beastie to strategically round my team out.

Wishes Unlimited takes this approach in battle, too – at any time, you can hover over a move and see exactly how much damage it will do depending on who it hits. You can also do this for opponents, seeing their entire lineup of moves and estimating the possible outcomes. This transparent approach to sharing information with the player is one of my favorite mechanics in the game because it makes losing far less frustrating. When I have all the information and still don’t come out on top, I have no reason to be frustrated with the developers – I had every opportunity to adapt and overcome. I’d rather lose to a checkmate than a trick shot, and Beastieball hands me the former every time.

I eagerly await the game’s full release, but while I’m sure it will improve in the months to come, I have no regrets about spending time with it now. Between its charming dialogue, razor-sharp battle system, and head-banging soundtrack, Beastieball’s Early Access may just be the first draft – but it’s also a first-round draft pick.