King of Ping Pong: Megamix Review

I have to admit, I have a soft spot for the publisher Eastasiasoft. They are the publishers of a lot of those little fun games that take up more of your time than you think they will. They also occasionally release some big hitting titles too, but today the focus is on a small one called King of Ping Pong: Megamix.

As the title suggests, this is a game about table tennis, aka: ping pong. Not many of those around, are there?! When firing up the game, you cannot be disappointed with the clear and striking visuals alongside the overall production level of what is supposed to be a small game. The artwork is especially pleasing, as are the interesting character designs and audio. 

Once you start playing the game, however, it all starts to fall apart.

You take part in a tournament to play against other AI-controlled opponents. Each one has specific playstyles that you must try to master to beat them. First to five points wins the match. 

The controls are very simple: move left and right, and there are only three positions you can be in, to hit the ball back to the opponents left, middle, or right. You can hit the ball back to three different spots, depending on which button you press. You have to try to time your hitting back, but it’s very easy to miss completely.

There is also a power up (R1) button where you can hit the ball hard once a meter has been reached. Each player has a stamina gauge that, when depleted in the case of the AI, makes them stop, but in your case, your movement is reduced to half speed. 

And that’s it. Play a very simplified version of table tennis in a tournament. So, what’s the problem? 

The problem is the difficulty.

Each character has different “special” moves (unlike you, who only have the basic return and a one hit power up) that they can use as often as they like. By far the worst of these is the opponent who curves each shot, which is nearly impossible to read. You line up thinking the ball is heading, for example, to the left, only for it to spin at the last second to the middle, and you have no time to react to change your position. Other characters have other specialties, but the curve ball player was, in my opinion, the hardest of the lot.

The other issue is the opponents never miss shots. It’s incredibly easy to swing your bat too early or too late, but the opponent AI never does. They are always perfect. That is frustrating. 

The next issue is, even if you hit the ball back to spots where the opponent is not currently positioned, they always get there in time and return. They are never late, and they never miss. There are reasons to make sure you hit away from the player, but I can never recall winning a single point in 50 matches by the opponent not getting over to the left or right of the table in time during normal play. The ONLY way I’ve ever won a point in every match is simply by having a long enough rally that they run out of energy and stop.

Finally, I looked back on the matches I won, and I realized that I didn’t win them by being able to read their special moves. I won simply due to the fact that, for that specific match, they didn’t seem to use their special abilities during the rally too much, so I managed to get lucky. Most of their shots were just normal returns. 

I’ve played 50 matches and lost 46 of them. 46 times “YOU LOSE” has been blasted in my face over and over again.

I watched the official Eastasiasoft YouTube channel, and as luck would have it, they had a playthrough of the same game. The guy in the stream mentioned that his bosses (Eastasiasoft) have told him this is a hard game. In the 1 hour 40 minutes of his stream, he got to the exact same spot I did and couldn’t progress. See below.

My point is, what is your definition of fun when gaming? For me, this game isn’t fun because it’s not fair. The odds are utterly stacked against you, and only luck will get you through. Like the streamer above, I can’t even get past the amateur league to get to the hard one. I too have spent nearly 2 hours playing the game to be repeatedly told “I’m a loser”, and frankly, I’m tired of it already. 

 

Summary 

I get it. King of Ping Pong: Megamix is meant to be a hard, fun little simple pick up and play table tennis game, with great visuals and audio in the style of a fighting game. It’s great except where it counts: the gameplay. The game is hard for all the wrong reasons. I only ever won a match due to luck. The odds are stacked against you as each opponent, even the very first, never misses a shot unless they are stationary from exhaustion. Exhaustion is, ironically, what I felt trying to play this game. 

However, if you are one of those types of gamers that likes a rock-hard challenge, go knock yourself out with this one. I would argue that the challenge isn’t actually fair, but still. It’s reasonably priced for its content, so you may actually enjoy this and feel it was worth it.

Developer: Suspicious Jam

Publisher: Eastasiasoft

Platforms: PlayStation 4&5, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, PC

Release Date: 17th September 2025

Gaming Respawn’s copy of King of Ping Pong: Megamix was provided by the publisher.