BALL x PIT – PS5 Review

We normally open our reviews by saying what genre the falls under and that’s usually pretty straightforward. With BALL x PIT, the latest game by Brooklyn’s own Kenny Sun, it’s just not as clear how to classify it.

The problem is that the game is three different genres but in equal parts. It’s definitely a rogue-lite with its use of temporary and permanent upgrades echoing such titles as Rogue Legacy and Vampire Survivors. But there’s also a town-building element which is pretty substantial too.

It’s the main gameplay mode that’s really unique and has attracted the most attention. Following the mother of all sinkholes hitting a big town, a giant pit is formed which attracts treasure hunters. In execution, this means that you’ll be picking a playable class and proceeding along the pit in search of rewards.  This plays out as a cross between a bat and ball game, like Arkanoid, and a vertically-scrolling shoot ’em up. Enemies take the form of bricks and move down the screen towards you, damaging you if they hit the bottom.  You aim balls at them which will cause them damage before bouncing off.  Of course, what you really want are lots of bounces between enemies and walls before the ball heads back to you as you need as much damage per second as you can muster.

Along the way you’ll pick up gold which can be spent on permanent upgrades in the town builder section of the game and gems which level up your character during the run.  When you level up you’ll be offered a selection of new, or upgraded, gear options.

This come in two types. The most important being the balls themselves. The game will offer you all sorts of variants. Fire, ice, wind, rock, ghost, vampire and more. Each ball type has a different way of hurting enemies. But where BALL x PIT really gets interesting is in how they can be merged.

Any ball can be fused with another, giving you all the stats and powers of both but in one unit, freeing up a space to put in another ball. But certain balls will actually evolve with each other. Fire (called Burn) and rock (Earthquake) will make a Magma ball, Freeze and Ghost will make a Wraith. You get the idea. The game doesn’t tell you these combinations but if you’ve got two compatible balls levelled up to level three, you’ll be able to ‘evolve’ them when you pick up a Fusion Reactor (these show up pretty regularly during a run).

Finding and exploring all these combinations is great fun but what’s also good is that your character will be generating mini-balls too, so eventually you’ll be filling the screen with projectiles and when it’s in full-flow, Ball x Pit is remarkable. The videos of this during the pre-release period generated a ton of buzz on social media and the game absolutely lives up to it. But it’s not just chaos, there is still strategy and skill required.

You also earn passive items too.  These provide various buffs, perks and boosts.  Some will heal you, others will augment your damage and so forth.  Again, check them out and see if you can evolve them.  It’s all super enjoyable and unbelievably satisfying.  The feeling of wiping out a whole wave of enemies with a tsunami of bricks is undeniably great and the game executes the ball movement brilliantly too.

For some players, the gameplay between runs might be a bit of a let down as it changes up the pace a lot.  Here you are given a space where you can build your town. Buildings require cash (earned in-game) and materials (earned in this section) and will offer up some very powerful perks and abilities. Before long you’ll be able to send out two playable characters on a run, upgrade all your specs and start runs with levelled up gear.  These are truly meaningful upgrades and they make a ton of difference to your attack and defence.

The ball-bouncing mechanic is actually used in this part of the game too. You’ll point your villagers in a direction and watch as they bounce their way through materials and off of buildings (which, in turn, builds them or reaps their rewards). And weirdly, this section starts to become as compelling the main game.  At least for us.  The process of setting up your town to take advantage of any proximity buffs your buildings have was incredibly satisfying and as the main mode starts to get easier, we actually found ourselves looking forward to tweaking and expanding our town a lot.

BALL x PIT really is a remarkable game.  The gameplay is a truly unique mix of styles that all work perfectly together.  There are so many ball, item and player types to earn and explore too.  And there is almost limitless replayability value as you can level up the game once you beat all of its stages.  And while the game uses a strange kind of upscaled, zoomed-out PS1 kind of visual style, it leverages that with a lot of detail and just a shocking amount of visual flair thanks to how well it manages all that ball movement.  The game is as impressive as the previews suggested but even more addictive and enjoyable than you might have thought.

For us, this is right up our alley.  Fun arcade action mixed with accessible town building and dopamine-inducing upgrading that always has something good to reward you with.  It doesn’t get better than that and at a price that puts every bland mid-budget indie title to shame.  BALL x PIT is the truth.