Like a deconstruction of a shonen protagonist, I admire the spirit of competition, but I’m much more of a casual than a hardcore player. I get a thrill from trying to climb up leaderboards and learning new things about the online versus games I enjoy. But I’m always too intimidated to, for example, attempt to reach a silver rank in Street Fighter V. I never thought to invest that much time and energy into traditional competitive games when I had it.

I generally prefer competing in party games even though they don’t have the same edge to them because my losses aren’t so discouraging. There’s something about most competitive games that makes me feel like it’s not worth playing them unless I’m as dedicated as the players who keep curb-stomping me. It’d be fun to develop those skills, but my interests and passions are already spread across so many games, I doubt that trade-off is worth it for someone like me.

These conflicting interests are a big reason why I want fighting games to have better single-player modes alongside robust online competitive scenes. But I’ve never found a game that satisfies both with just its online play… until Lethal League Blaze’s Switch launch two weeks ago. It ain’t a perfect port (I will keep beating the Switch Online dead horse even though I just bought three months of Switch Online for this game) yet it’s a thrilling game with a high skill ceiling that always leaves me excited for another go. Technical flaws aside, it’s the closest thing I’ve ever played to my dream online experience as a competitive casual.

Lethal League Blaze excites the competitive casual in me screenshot

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Source: Destructoid Lethal League Blaze excites the competitive casual in me