Super Nintendo
Released in 1995 by Konami
Grade: B
I appreciate International Superstar Soccer Deluxe for its ambition and innovation much more than I enjoy it as an all-around game. It depicts certain soccer elements better than anything else of its time, but it also has some key shortcomings.
Where it falls in the series
It’s the second of two Konami soccer games on SNES, following International Superstar Soccer. Both editions are rare to find and extremely expensive.
Konami’s first foray into 32 bits, Goal Storm on PS1, came out just a month later. This series is still going, currently called the Pro Evolution Soccer series. Soccer remains the only sport with two game publishers competing for simulation prominence, although sales of Pro Evo are consistently lower than EA’s FIFA.
Praises and gripes
Your view of the action is slightly off center, so the midline actually runs diagonally up the screen. It gives the game a unique feeling of depth, sort of a faux 3D effect, but it also makes you feel like you’re on the side of a mountain. It can cause nagging difficulty especially on defense.
The bigger issue is that the view is so close in. I get why they did it — the graphics are some of the best in any 16-bit sports game — but it’s too limiting. You see less than 5% of the field at a time. You often need to pass to somebody who’s off screen, referencing the radar display. You’ll learn to sense where players are, especially when the ball is flying through the air. Sometimes I don’t know where I am on the field and I’m surprised to find I’m so close to the goal or the sideline.
The action moves fast, but not out-of-control fast. Players can shoot, pass, loft a long ball, or sprint. Kicks aren’t instantaneous, giving opponents a fair amount of time to go for a slide tackle or standing challenge. On defense, the game switches players for you automatically, and you don’t always control the ideal player. You spend a lot of time holding sprint (which unfortunately can’t be mapped to the shoulder buttons), but you need to be strategic to avoid exhausting your players near the end of the game.
Goals come in an assortment of ways, and the logic generally seems fair. The CPU relentlessly runs down the sideline and centers the ball for a header. You can niftily string together passes or exploit a few juke moves. Rebounds and other pileups near the goals can result in some heart-stopping moments. I like that shots can miss the net and that the goalkeepers are fast, keeping scores realistically low.
The action isn’t always graceful and it’s particularly hampered by the limitation of the D-pad. Players don’t have momentum, making sharp zig-zag cuts like it’s Tecmo Super Bowl.
Despite that, there are times when this game feels surprisingly modern. Simple moments like a well-orchestrated set of passes have a delicious soccer-like flavor. I’m sure people in 1995 thought, “Damn, this game blows everything else out of the water!”
You know what else is vastly ahead of its time? The options. There are FIVE difficulty levels (unheard of at the time), extremely deep tactics that you can adjust on the fly, player customization, uniform customization, practice modes, instant replays, tournaments, and a “scenario” mode placing you in key moments from famous games. I was impressed that the weather affects the field physics. There are 32 international teams with made up players, and it’s pretty cool how they actually look different.
The presentation is solid all around. The field has a nice look, the players are well animated, the displays are clear, the menus are user-friendly, and the sound is … well, it’s just okay. I like the goofy announcer making basic calls like “Great header!” and “Down the wing!” but I’m not sure why the crowd sounds like a plane taking off.
I can embrace the challenge this game offers in a much more patient, invested way than other 16-bit games. In 1995, the only other games that could replicate sports close to this level were EA’s hockey and football games. The early FIFA games weren’t even in the same ballpark (or shall I say, the same “pitch”). You gotta give Konami credit for doing more with soccer than anyone else could at the time.
Published July 22, 2022