LogFAQs > #975392307

Dodgeball Academia (PS4)
For the most part, this was a blast. Dodgeball is a sport that's very near and dear to my heart in a lot of ways and one that I think has been historically underrepresented, not just in video games but in pop culture as a whole.

Dodgeball Academia does a great job capturing the controlled chaos that is dodgeball, both in the battles and the story. Making it an Action RPG was a great call. There's strategy in the game of dodgeball, but there's obviously silliness too - in the end, it's a sport about trying to hit other people in the face with a ball, and a lot of strategy can fall apart when there is, in fact a ball flying at your face. It's basically a sports anime in video game form, to the point that the dialogue will often directly call it out. If that sounds like it could be a perfect recipe for cringe, it's really not - the writing is legitimately funny and clever and doesn't just try to force meta jokes into everything for the sake of it. When you see lines like "Quick! Get them while they're dazed by the socio-cultural implications!" coming from the mouth of an otherwise pretty dim protagonist, it becomes very obvious that everyone who had a hand in making this game had a perfect idea of what they wanted it to be and what it should be. It's just dripping with charm all over.

Battles definitely get a little repetitive and the sidequests that are available are mostly junk (though plenty of them are also quite funny, don't get me wrong), but this isn't something that overstays its welcome by any means, especially if you aren't trying to be a completionist at all. TL;DR, if a dodgeball anime RPG sounds like it might be appealing to you, this probably will be.