Dodgeball Academia

Dodgeball is something that is a bit alien to my country culturally, it simply isnt wildly played in schools like it is in the rest of the world im assuming. That is to say that the sport means very little for me, so Im really surprised as to how this small indie team from Brazil manage to create such a passionate action rpg around it.

You play as Otto , the new kid in a school where the only thing the kids do is play dodgeball. Classes are centred around techniques, you have shop to buy equipment to add traits to your characters, and there are plenty of younguns to challenge your skills. It offers a very ironic style of humour, that is unfortunatly very dragged out. As a result I started skipping scenes early on. I got the geist of the story, and honestly dont think I missed much. Some people will enjoy the humour on offer here, but its just not for me. Ultimatly its a story about forging friendships and crushing rivals, to become the best dodgeball team. There are a lot of parallels to the pokemon games and other quips at JRPGs.

Visually the game is really stunning, offering a kind of straight edge animation with lots of exageration, but filled with charm and personality. Its really easy for this style of young adult cartoon lookalikes feel generic and dull, but everything from the animation to the character designs to the world itself feels so vibrant and captivating. Which is a blessing because the actual map on offer in the game is very short, and you will be visiting the same locales quite a few times.

So the gameplay can be divided in the actual dodgeball games and then its more RPG elements and exploration.
The dodgeball games are short and intense. Some matches are one vs one, but most are team based, as each team competes to wipe out the other teams health. When a member goes out, it gets placed on the sideline, and are still essencial at mainting presure and control of the balls in play. Its a very simple game early on, which does get a bit repetitive for the number of battles it throws at you, but it gradually increases in complexity with new mechanics added. You can grab enemy shots, have a meter for ultimate attack, swap team members, equip members with two items that can really create unique "builds". Its strong enough to maintain short 30 to 60 mins sessions, which is really the time it usually takes to beat each of its episodes.

The map of the game is like I mentioned rather small, but its worth exploring for the considerable amount of chests to be found, which can have either equipment, health items or stat improvement items (one use only). Side missions are also interesting enough have tend to wield considerable rewards, though there are a few there feel more like failed experiments on the core formula of the game.

Overall I had a really great time with this shortish RPG. Its one of those indie projects that you just can feel all the passion and attention placed in the project, even when takes in isolation its components arent the best. A dev team to pay attention to.