League of Evil review for PS Vita, PS4, Switch

Remarkably, this July marks the 10th anniversary of Apple launching its App Store — and with that, bringing mobile gaming to the masses. While different people will have different opinions of mobile gaming in general, I think most people would be lying if they said they hadn?t found themselves addicted to a least a couple of touch games.

One such game for me was League of Evil — and judging by its reviews, it was that kind of game for a lot of other people, too. I remember being equal parts addicted and frustrated by its twitch platforming, with levels that were over in mere seconds as you had to jump and dash and punch your way around obstacles until you reached the end and punched the head off the evil scientist awaiting you at the end of every level.

Now, seven years or so after it was first released on iOS, the game has finally arrived on PlayStation. And you know what? I like it a lot more now than I did seven years ago.

It all comes down to the fact that League of Evil is significantly less frustrating when you?re playing it with buttons instead of a touchscreen. It?s still difficult, don?t get me wrong, but the challenges here are purely in-game, rather than being a by-product of, say, the fact your thumb is obscuring the ninja lying in wait to slice you to pieces. Now, when you die it?s because you earned it, not because you were battling with one of the inherent and unavoidable flaws of its platform.

Apart from that one small — or incredibly significant, depending on how you look at it — change, League of Evil is still the same old game that made it so much fun all those years ago. The levels are still quick little puzzles for you to feel out and solve, ideally within seconds. The graphics are still heavily indebted to games of earlier eras, as is the plot (which, as the title implies, is all about you taking on a group — a league, if you will — of evildoers). There?s little here that you wouldn?t also see in the likes of Super Meat Boy.

But given that League of Evil originally came out just a few short months after SMB, it?s hard to care that much about how closely it mimics an eight-year-old game. As far as I?m concerned, I?m just pleased to see that a game I liked back in 2011 is barely showing its age, and is well worth checking out even now in 2018.

Ratalaika Games provided us with a League of Evil PS4/PS Vita code for review purposes.