If I had a dollar for every Arkanoid inspired game, roguelite, post-apocalyptic fantasy, bullet hell, city building sim, arcade/action game, I would have – well, exactly one dollar. Ball x Pit triumphs by taking familiar, accessible dynamics from gaming history and combining them into an instantly understandable and engaging whole. It’s one of those surprise successes of a game that could easily be recommended to almost anyone for uncomplicated fun, following in the footsteps of titles like Vampire Survivors in providing an excellent out-of-the-zone experience and focus.
In a loose narrative introduction, we see the mighty city of Ballbylon destroyed by a massive glowing interstellar ball, leaving a immense pit in its wake. You must rebuild a city at the edge of this pit and send brave souls into the depths to fight monsters and recover resources. It’s mostly silliness, beyond establishing a loose fantasy setting to serve as a backdrop for the action.
Once the “story” is established, Ball x Pit is divided into two separate play loops, each of which connects to the other. The primary entertainment is the arcade-style brick-breaking mode, in which you control townsfolk who dash across a vertically scrolling playing field below, firing balls with a variety of magical, explosive, or other effects. Balls can bounce off walls, as well as rows of hostile brick-shaped creatures that march inexorably down the screen. Much like the classic games it’s based on, there’s a nice thrill in charting the physics and trajectory of fire, maximizing bounces and the satisfying crack as each enemy clears the field.
Each entry into the pit allows you to collect resources, but also XP gems, which gradually enhance your devastating brick-breaking ability with passive skills and better balls at that stage. In turn, leveling up also allows these balls to fuse and evolve, leading to even crazier on-screen displays. Perhaps you’ll poison your enemies before you shoot lasers at them. Maybe you blind them and then send bullets that produce additional bullets after each hit. Creating the perfect combination gives great satisfaction.
Players also unlock additional characters over time, and I’m amazed at how much each character changes the feel of the game. You can shoot balls through enemy bricks. Another shoots balls from the back of the court. In each case, these recent characters (and the upgrades you apply to them) change your movement and aiming tactics and contribute to a growing sense of wonder.
Enemies are often more than just building blocks and employ a variety of attacks and techniques to force a strategic change in the way you engage on the battlefield. This is especially true of the mini-bosses and main bosses in each level, which often add entirely recent dangers, turning the screen into a bullet hell. This can pose quite a challenge, but the pixel art style doesn’t provide the level of precision dodging required, which can be frustrating at the end of a 15-minute attempt at a level. I appreciate that the hidden settings option adds a hitbox, but even with this option enabled, projectile dodging feels imprecise.
After each run, returning to the top of the pit and a chance to build a city using resources – the second core game loop. New blueprints acquired in the Void can add additional global character upgrades, add recent heroes to take to the Void, or enhance resources even further. In a nod to consistency, the ball and brick mechanics remain here in the city, as each turn above ground allows you to harvest along with the city’s growing population, sending them back and forth across the city to build, improve, and harvest wheat, wood, and stone. Freely rearranging buildings and expanding the buildable space encourages experimentation with layout to maximize yields, and it’s almost embarrassing how much time I spent tweaking my layout.
If there’s a flaw with Ball x Pit, it’s that repetition can ruin at least some of the fun later in the game, and that’s probably before the end credits roll, as all levels have to be completed multiple times (with different characters) before you can proceed. Once you’ve mastered the basics of city simulation, late-game city development will also become a bit stale. The variety of playstyle and insane on-screen destruction are sure to be enough to keep the fun going forever, so the addition of the more challenging New Game+ is still worthwhile and welcome. Still, some of the challenge and sense of discovery fades in the later hours.
Even if some of the fun wanes towards the end, Ball x Pit remains an incredibly addictive update to the archaic arcade formula. It’s basic to get lost in the stream of seemingly endless bouncing balls, and I found myself constantly wanting to unlock recent characters, levels, and recent balls to experiment with in combat. This is one of those “don’t judge a book by its cover” games where the real excitement only comes to airy once the controller is in your hands. You only need to complete one level to become a believer.
