Rival Stars Basketball Review

As a freemium-based arcade basketball title, Rival Stars Basketball suffers from a somewhat predictable flaw. It’s good fun to play, providing you can be patient when it comes to suffering those all-important energy timers. After a time they’re going to grate, even if they do improve a little as you progress.

The idea behind Rival Stars Basketball is that you collect various cards corresponding to your players, then combine and evolve them to become even better before pitting them at your opponent. Each match consists of you choosing a card to hopefully be stronger than your opponent’s choice with occasional interludes for more interactive gaming.

The more interactive moments involve you swiping to either catch the ball or pass it to another player. They’re pretty simple but break things up well enough to ensure that each match is quite appealing. Early on it seems like you can never fail, but you’ll soon realize that accurate passing and shooting does make a difference.

There’s a campaign mode but the focus of Rival Stars Basketball is its online tournament mode as the campaign mode isn’t hugely lengthy. Playing against other players and watching your rank steadily improve is reasonably satisfying anyhow. That’s also where you feel most proud of yourself as you put together an increasingly strong side to fight it out.

Rival Stars Basketball would be a pretty entertaining game but the aforementioned energy bars and timers really restrict what can be accomplished. You’ll soon find yourself limited in what you can do given that each match only takes a few minutes but can often take quite a lot of energy.

Patient gamers will still enjoy what Rival Stars Basketball offers, but those who want something lengthier will soon find their attention drifting elsewhere.