Sega Saturn
Released in 1996 by Sega
Grade: C
This game makes a decent first impression with graphics and gameplay depth that aren’t bad by Sega Saturn standards, but it lacks finesse and becomes a constant struggle to play.
Where it falls in the series
It’s the second of three editions on Saturn in North America. Our friends overseas saw more of this series, including two Dreamcast editions in Europe.
Praises and gripes
This is one of those games that will make you appreciate little things in modern soccer games that makes them intuitive to play.
It starts out okay, making elegant use of 32-bit graphics to give you a clear view of what’s going on, particularly after switching the default vertical camera to a more workable side view. It has strong tactical options and a control scheme with two types of tackles, a supercharged speed burst, standard low pass/high pass/shoot commands, and on-the-fly strategy buttons to let you go man-to-man or double-team. The auto player switching is terrible, but you can change that to manual.
The action has a realistic pace on a realistically-sized field, but the players have extremely simple AI and some herky-jerk moves.
Players stick to their positions like little machines. If you move a guy side-to-side across the field and then dish the ball, you’ll watch him hilariously turn away from the play, back to his prescribed spot on the other side.
When you run with the ball and try to pass on the move, your guy stops for a moment before unleashing the pass.
In modern soccer games, you can “queue” up a pass while your guy corrals the ball. Not so in this game. If he needs to complete an animation while you press pass, he simply won’t pass it, and you need to press the button again.
The shooting aim seems off, and while I was able to set up realistic scoring chances, I actually scored goals in the weakest of ways, usually by stealing the ball from a hapless defenseman and kicking it past the goalie.
When you add all these things up, this game is just a total pain in the ass. I got better at it as I played, but I never felt, “Ahh, this feels right.”
It feels like a step in the right direction for 32-bit soccer, better than other games released in 1996, but I can’t I recommend the final product.