Battlerite

god i wish this game wasn't dead
it's the epitome of moba, wich circles back to fighting game

Battlerite is a game I desperately want to enjoy. The concept is interesting in that it satisfies the same cravings a MOBA would, but it is seriously harmed by a few big flaws.

Where a full DotA-like lasts quite a while, has deathmatch elements without being strictly a deathmatch, and has more complex interactions between players for it, Battlerite is a pared-down version of the DotAlike/MOBA genre -- a fact which is a big part of its allure. Losing in Battlerite doesn't feel like you're locked into suffering for another 45 minutes. The matches are quick and action-packed the whole way through. That's why I keep coming back. That's why the rating is as high as it is -- the action (when played with a friend) carries it that much. That being said, while the small 2v2 and 3v3 deathmatches can be fun gameplay-wise, the stripped-down MOBA aesthetic does ruin some aspects of the game.

Because there are fewer characters in a shorter, faster-paced game, characters are significantly less specialized than they would be in a more fleshed-out game of this type. Most abilities fall into the categories of gapclosers/evades, counters, special ranged, stuns/snares, and healing. There's also straight-up shield moves. Almost every character has at least one move that fulfills each of these functions, even if it's not the primary function of that move (a gapcloser that can be cast in the opposite direction to evade). What this means is that the characters that are more specialized either have nothing even close to a counter, or they are downright useless as a result of getting countered HARD. Health pools are not that varied -- the widest gap I can think of is 40 health in a game where plenty of characters have an ability that can do 20+ dmg on a low cooldown. Characters do feel different from one another in terms of how the abilities feel on the surface, but the lack of specialization among the characters means only the characters with special "gimmicks" ever feel useful -- there's no need for a healer if virtually every character has a self-heal move, but what if the healer can out-heal virtually every attack in the game? The idea of "focusing" characters does little in many of the 2v2 matches.

The game has potential but unless Battlerite gets a significant rework of character movesets in the direction of increased specialization (which I no longer see happening given its exit from Early Access) then the core gameplay is going to be inherently unsatisfying. Thus far it has become very clear that character balance is a significant weakness for the devs, with characters like Raigon remaining perennially rage-inducing to face assuming the enemy player knows how to locate their keyboard.