SPORTAL Review

SPORTAL is a roguelite arena FPS where you'll be fighting for your life using whatever sports equipment you can find against hordes of monsters that look like they crawled out of '50s-era B-movies to rip your face off! Developed by Sleepwalking Potatoes and published by Retrovibe, since the World Cup is still going on at the time of writing, I decided to give this game a shot… although it barely involves any football to begin with. Let's see if we're getting a home run with this game or striking out.

The story is rather straightforward: you wake up in… I guess Hell, but a lot more sports-themed. With your only ally being a head in a jar (because it was easier to animate; their words, not mine!), there's only one way forward: to head into the elevator and start rampaging your way back to the real world, no matter how many corpses you'll have to climb over… including your own. It's a simple narrative that doesn't get in your way if you want to get to the slaughter, which is good for a game like this.

As for the presentation, it's pretty fine for what it is. SPORTAL is heavily inspired by the '50s sports era (except extremely demonic), while the graphics are based on the '90s era of games. The depths of this bizarre world are rather dark and twisted, while consisting mostly of abandoned sports shops (which are just set dressing) and stadiums that double as battle arenas. It's a smoother-looking version of QUAKE… and that soon becomes very apparent once you start playing.

The game just throws you into the fray without any preamble or tutorial. If you want the controls, you'll need to check the Options menu. While it can be quite nice to just throw yourself into it, there is a possibility you could miss out on an important mechanic.

SPORTAL is a very fast shooter where you'll be swarmed by enemies in every level, doing everything you can to survive. The main loop of the gameplay is heading into a room, killing everything that wants to kill you, and then leaving. Repeat until you reach the boss, beat it, and then enter the portal to do it all again. Simple, right? Well… yes, actually. Other than different arenas, new enemies, and a random chance of getting a special modifier like Low Gravity, Hazard Free, Scarecrows, and Arachnophobia (don't worry, no actual spiders), it doesn't really shake up your strategy often enough. It's still engaging, and you will die if you lose focus, but… it starts to get samey the further you go, which I don't often feel when I play roguelikes.

As mentioned at the start, your weapons won't be swords or guns. Nope, your arsenal will consist of whatever bat, stick, ball, or whatever that's been used in a sport. Pelt your foes with pucks, whack some heads with baseballs, throw exploding American footballs, and more. There are only eight base weapons in the game, but there are also over 120 variations, so you're spoiled for choice for whatever tickles your fancy. However, at the start of the run, you only have access to slingshots and one of two randomly selected weapon types. If you want more, you'll need to choose the option when levelling up, as well as any other equipment you may want, like pads, masks, and backpacks for passive bonuses.

Though I think I found hockey sticks to be the best weapon type to use, as pucks bounce between enemies once they hit something. It's fast, there's plenty of ammo, and it can clear out groups almost instantly. Seriously, the only drawback is that you won't always get them. Though speaking of, I was annoyed by the fact that you can't skip rewards, which I found really bothersome because you can get some seriously terrible choices. You can re-roll for some money, but there were times when I just wanted to skip it. Also, the option to re-roll is pretty out of the way, to the point where I only discovered it on my last run of the game.

With all that being said, you don't just have to rely on new weapons and equipment. You can visit a machine to use the coins from dropped enemies to purchase permanent upgrades for your character, such as more HP, armour, ammo, weapon slots, or even just more types of coins, so you can access the more powerful upgrades in the skill tree.

Now, typically these upgrades are only available during your downtime, like after you've died and now you're prepping for the next attempt, but that's not the case here. The upgrade machine is available after every single arena fight, meaning you get better and better throughout one run rather than several. This can really snowball you into a powerhouse if things go your way. You go from a weak human with a dinky slingshot to an overpowered god with a baseball bat that can summon lightning a little too quickly for my liking. After only three and a half hours, I had the skill tree mostly unlocked without trying that hard.

I think SPORTAL's biggest problem is that there's not much to it at the end of the day. I beat the game in, like, five hours, and that's only because I tried going through all the levels… which you can skip as long as you've beaten the previous boss. And there's no reason to go and play more aside from achievements. No bonus challenges, no rewards (not even a cosmetic trophy), even the ending is a PowerPoint presentation with credits. Not even a unique track.

At the very least, SPORTAL runs perfectly fine. There haven't been any framerate drops, staying at a stable 60 FPS all throughout, and I didn't run into any glitches other than the occasional amusing ragdoll physics freaking out. But any other gripes, it's the UI. It can be kind of hard to read at times.

SPORTAL is a good roguelite with a fun journey through the depths of— they never really named the place, so… uh… the home of the Cincinnati Staplers! Unfortunately, it doesn't quite have the replayability I'm looking for in this genre. A good roguelike should be able to keep me on my toes all throughout, and still leave me wanting for more even after I've collected everything. This doesn't quite get there.