I have a new, all-consuming obsession, and that obsession is Ball x Pit. I didn't intend to replace all my free time with honing her version of the roguelike Breakout, but its reliance on strategy (with a butterfly's kiss of luck) and tempting upgrade paths both on and off the playing field took over the primal parts of my lizard brain to the detriment of all other civilized activities. I on the hook. In fact, Ball x Pit is the only video game I've played since I first started it a couple of weeks ago. I can't break out of the satisfying cycle of completing a level and upgrading my orbs, upgrading the city to unlock more orbs, and then jumping back right away. It's a disease, a disease for which there is no cure – and frankly… I'm not even sure I would want to be cured of the madness that has taken over me. I've recommended it to everyone, and so far those who have taken my advice have inevitably told me the same thing: “You ruined my life, you idiot.” This is fantastic. Join us. We're all jumping around here.
From a distance, Ball x Pit looks like one of those cheesy games they advertise on TikTok or Reels. You know the ones: “We're playing a game, the comments said it's a fake part 17” or something like that. At first glance, it looks like some kind of endless runner trying to hook you with in-game jewels or some of the predatory junk that is all the rage these days. But what is especially important is No is generally one of those games as it is completely free of microtransactions and truly respects your time as it vacuums everything up. It provides satisfying upgrades at each level and then gives you the ability to build more permanent forces at your home base. There's nothing cheap or underhanded about it. It makes you feel powerful rather than cheated, and even with the RNG element in each level, it requires you to make the most of every opportunity rather than relying on dumb luck or random chance. When you beat a level, it feels like you've earned it.
The actual gameplay also seems simple at first glance: your character or characters march across the playing field, firing bouncing balls at wave after wave of enemies. The balls are armed, enemies are crushed under the onslaught, and eventually you get to the unique boss of this level. This is the main loop, but the key word there is “basic”. Because, my friends, Ball x Pit is much more complicated. First, there are different types of balls that you can shoot. For example, your starting character, the Warrior, starts the game with a special orb that gives a “bleed” status effect that stacks and deals additional damage on subsequent hits. As you defeat enemies, you'll also collect gems to level up, which then gives you a choice of orbs and other power-ups to use during that particular run.
There are special orbs with status effects or area of effect damage, orbs that spawn more “baby orbs” (weird), and many other options. In addition, there are buffs, passives, defense boosts, and even allies that will join you in marching forward, dealing damage or even health. Some bonuses are much better than others. For example, the Earthquake orb deals damage around the enemy it hits and, like most AOE orbs, becomes incredibly powerful once fully upgraded. Others, like Wretched Onion, suck. Part of the fun is figuring out which upgrades work best at which level, as well as learning what happens when you combine certain orbs with fusions and evolutions that further mix or change their powers.
Fusions can simply save you a slot by combining two effects into one orb, but instead certain combinations get a chance to evolve into a new power. For example, combining a Horizontal Laser with a Vertical Laser creates my personal favorite, the Sacred Laser. It shoots beams of pure fiery death vertically. And horizontally upon impact, while simultaneously dealing area damage, which is not only useful, but also just the rules.
The cool thing is that merging orbs both increases the damage you deal and gives you the ability to add even more. It's hard to keep track of all the options, but the in-game encyclopedia shows you the combos you've unlocked. I've played over 30 hours and I still have merges that I haven't found yet that I find damn interesting.
To be fair, laser balls in any configuration do a ton of damage, burning rows and columns, sometimes adding stacking status effects like radiation, as well as dealing regular hot laser damage. When you're fully charged and the RNG gods are supporting you, it's a beautiful bloodbath. Lasers, explosions, and effects fire constantly, and damage meters fill the screen, with entire rows of enemies turning into experience gems, as well as gold for you to spend in your city between runs.
The city is the other half of Ball x Pit, and is extremely important to the development of your characters. In addition to constantly increasing stats just by playing as them, building certain buildings and character homes will also provide buffs and bonuses that you absolutely need to get through later levels. But while this is very important, the city-building portion of Ball x Pit is extremely clunky – in fact, it's probably the worst part of what I consider an otherwise polished game.
Once you complete a level, whether or not you successfully did so, you will be returned to the city interface where you will build structures from the blueprints you collected in the field. You also build resource tiles: forests for wood, fields for wheat, and rocks for…well, rocks. These resources, in addition to gold, are necessary for the construction and modernization of new buildings. Luckily, there are plenty of ways to gather resources beyond just harvesting, including during runs and through passive buildings like the quarry, but collecting them manually is where the fun comes in.
During the harvesting phase, you use unlocked characters as balls, aiming from the bottom of the board and letting them rip, beyblade style, towards the object you want to hit. They then bounce off walls and buildings, collecting resources from resource tiles and upgrading any buildings you've marked for upgrade. This process is fun, but also quite tedious, as you can move buildings around before harvesting to optimize their placement, but there's really no convenient way to do it.
I usually end up moving everything to one side of the map and then shuffling all the pieces and pieces back to where I want them to be at that particular moment. Ball x Pit seems to be aware of how cumbersome city building is because there is no penalty or resource cost for moving tiles. I'd like to see some option to wipe the slate clean without having to go through and manually remove every building, or maybe a paddock where I could temporarily dump structures while I reconfigure my layout.
And you'll have to reconfigure your layout often. Upgrading buildings requires your characters to bounce off buildings multiple times, and if that building is in a weird location, good luck finding the right trajectory to consistently hit it enough times during the harvest phase without reorganizing half the city. I often had to move relevant buildings near the launch area, which meant moving everything else… and then, after all was said and done, reorganizing it again. I don't like it at all.
It's such a bummer because you can't ignore it since the layout of the city is extremely important to how strong you are in the levels themselves. Some buildings provide buffs that enhance the effects of other nearby buildings, so their placement is critical to your continued success. This need for careful planning belies the reality of constantly shuffling tiles when it comes time to harvest, build, and upgrade.
However, building issues aside, I really like how your city structures contribute directly to the action itself. The better your city, the better your characters and the more blueprints you find, the more opportunities you will have for a new playthrough. Moving everything around can be challenging, but the results are meaningful and can sometimes be unexpected, which is ultimately positive.
Double down on your strategy
A little early on, you unlock a building that allows you to bring two characters into battle instead of one, adding another layer of challenge and experimentation to each run. It almost feels like cheating at first, but it would be functionally impossible to progress further without it. I'm still figuring out which combinations work well and which ones are total crap. Since you still get gold and experience even on a bad run, I don't even mind when I choose a completely bad combination because I still made some progress. There were also a few times where I thought I'd figured out some god-tier combo, only to get three-quarters of the way through the level and realize I'd made a terrible mistake.
The worst thing was when I combined a Warrior with a Flagellant for the first level in New Game+. The balls fired by the Flagellant bounce off the bottom of the screen rather than the top, and the Warrior has no special attributes other than being your starting character. The first level boss, the Skeleton King, requires a hit to the back of the head to deal damage. The RNG gods rewarded me with a few decent fusions, but they all ended up bouncing harmlessly between his two hands in front, leaving me almost completely ineffective. A stray child's ball would occasionally bounce off the wall to register a little damage, but I ended up losing on purpose just to exit the level.
As frustrating as this is, it's symbolic of what I love about Ball x Pit: the game requires strategy in almost every aspect. Of course, the orbs and upgrades you are offered depend on RNG, but you also have a choice of which ones to use and which ones to combine and evolve. I could identify good and bad character combinations based on their attributes, and made mental notes about which pairings would suit my specific needs as I progressed through each level. The Juggler, for example, throws balls at enemies – pairing him with Shadow, whose balls shoot from the back of the field, and then going the heavy AOE upgrade route allowed me to take out almost any row of enemies on the board while still taking a ton of damage from the balls bouncing into the back.
This combination of strategy and knowing how to best improve any combination of characters for a given level is what keeps me coming back again and again until I'm tired and foggy. When everything lines up and you're destroying entire fields of enemies, when the screen is completely filled with lasers, explosions and little balls flying in all directions, you feel a huge sense of power. From an outside perspective, honing your upgrades, combined with careful building placement and frequent stat boosts from powered-up buildings, makes it seem like Ball x Pit will get easier over time. But it does a rare thing: instead of making you feel light, it makes you feel strong.
When I finally beat the main story and watched the credits about 20 hours later, I immediately launched New Game+. I never do this. But this completely insignificant story is only a small part of Ball x Pit for me. The real joy here comes from building up your abilities and combos, and seeing what treats will unlock as you run. I play in moments where the music is almost drowned out by the sound of explosions and laser shots, or when I get a gold bonus for clearing the field of enemies, and then do it two, three, even five more times in the same level. It scratches an itch deep in my lizard brain. Hard work pays off, but the right combination of upgrades and luck pays off even more.
