LockBall

Hello and welcome to the first review of the new year!
This 2023 begins with LockBall, a game by Sagitar...
wait a moment, no, this is not REALLY an entire complete game, it's rather a minigame taken from Sagitar's rpg and social simulator (not a classic jrpg but a sort of game similar to Harvest Moon) called World's Dawn, a RPG Maker VX complete game that includes LockBall as a diversion/minigame together with fishing and others activities.

Well that's what I believe, since I just discovered this, because it was LockBall that attracted me, due to the extremely rare presence of rpgmaker action games. And this is also an action game about a sport, so even more rare!

Anyway let's see: LockBall is more or less a game like soccer, but with just two players and without a time limit : to win, a player has to score five goals, and that's all. The game is simple and that's also reflected by the controls, since we just move with arrow keys and kick/lock pressing spacebar/enter.


Aha! I'm dominating this match! The tournament lets us duel against different opponents, unlocking them for the exibitions matches...

To score a goal you can just push the ball inside the soccer goal, or kicking it inside from distance, but a player can also "lock" the ball preventing it from entering by pressing the spacebar/enter key... oddly it seems it's possible to lock the ball even if the player is on the opposite side of the the LockBall field, I don't know if this is supposed to be magic or it's a bug (I do not know the story of LockBall), anyway it happened a couple of time during my games, but since happened both to me and to the opponent, I consider this a feature.
It's also possible to have contrasts with the other player, pushing him/her and remember that there is NO possibility to send the ball outside the field: the ball always stays inside and when it touches one of the corners it is sent inside. But you can also dribble the opponent and then run all the way down the court, to the upper/lower left extremity and then push the ball down/up inside the soccer goal. Easy? Well yes, at least in the beginning, but later opponents will be fast and skilled.

Anyway as you play you can also improve your player's characteristics (that are automatically increased playing more an more matches, both in tournament and exhibition) and unlock new alternated skins (you begin with two and can earn other two, sadly you cannot play as one of the opponents, but that's ok, aside for skills and aestetic they do not have other differences).

For the rest there isn't much to say: the map is just one, the LockBall field (that I guess in the whole game it's always the same location, so it's ok!), even if the weather and time of the day is random, so you can play during a sunny morning or a rainy late afternoon, but nothing else changes. Charset are clearly classic RPG Maker VX Rtps (or recolored edits? I don't know for sure) so nothing new even if the menus are custom made and the game has nothing in commond with other RPG Maker VX games you may have played. And then the music, that I cannot recognize but I find it really appropriate, it's really perfect for an action/sport game.


... and each opponent will be more skilled than the previous. Paxel? He is a beast!

Final Verdict
LockBall was probably never meant to be a full game, but just a simple action minigame like those found in other games (Neo Jado is the only game I remember that included a similar sport minigame, but just one match, no different opponents or tournaments), and I must admit that due to the limitations of RPG Maker for what concerns action games. And instead the result is pretty good, the game requires precision, quickness and some skills when facing the real champions of LockBall, and tricking the computer controlled player it's not that easy. Well done, probably this is not a game meant to be played for many hours, but just periodically, being it a little diversion and not a long and complex adventure. In any case it does what it offers really well. Nicely done!