Battlloon is one of the many, many indie games that have made their way on to the Nintendo Switch. The Nintendo switch, while still only getting stronger and seemingly holding its own in the console world, has become one of the platforms of choice for independent developers.

Battlloon is very simple in premise, you control a balloon by inflating it and letting the air to control your movements while at the same time trying to push your opponents in the spikey parts of the arena wall. This is not meant to be a single player game and the only way you can play alone is in training mode. This gets really boring, real fast. But as I said, it is not meant to played by yourself. It is a 2-4 PvP online or local party-type game.

You play locally or online against your friends as 1 of 6 different balloons that have different strengths and weaknesses. Your balloon competitors are:

Mr. Balloon: he is basically an all-rounder with the exception that he gains speed near the walls.
Birdie Jay: a fast and nimble balloon that is quite easy to control, but not real strong and can be pushed around somewhat easily.
Astro Cat: Another all-rounder, but this one is cute.
Morphy: A bat that can get quite savage in attacks
Tako-San: An octopus that fills with air very quick and releases it just as quick. Not real fast or easy to manoeuvre. Probably the most useless in my opinion.
Puffer: A big, fat balloon that doesn’t get pushed around easily, but rather does the pushing. He is slow though.

The controls are simple, press a button to inflate, release the button to let the air out to move and use the Left Stick to control your direction. It doesn’t take long to get used to as you would expect with such simplistic controls. The aim of the game is simple, push your opponent in to the spikes while trying not to get pushed in to them yourself.

it is a worthwhile addition to your switch library, but leave it alone if you mainly play solo

Once you do get the hang of it, you can start becoming a little more tactical… It is a great feeling just sitting there like a stunned mullet while your enemy is steaming toward you to push you in to those deadly spikes, only to move at the last second and watch them smash in to the spikes instead. You do need quite a nimble balloon for this though. As I said, each balloon has its own pros and cons.

I can’t imagine Battlloon holding your attention for long stints of gaming with mates, but it is certainly fun for a good little while until it isn’t. I did find myself coming back to Battlloon again and again while we had friends over for a good ol’ weekend BBQ.

Overall Battlloon is good fun in short stints. It’s colourful and easy to play, the music does grate at you after a while, but you sort of tune out to that quickly once you are on a winning streak against friends. If you are a person that plays these sorts of games with mates, it is a worthwhile addition to your switch library, but leave it alone if you mainly play solo.

Written by: Kurt Frohloff

A Founder of MKAU, a gamer, a family man. I have a love of all things gaming and a wish of mine is to have more time to actually play the games we review here!