Soccer Story is an Adventure RPG by PanicBarn and published by No More Robots. And while this may come as a bit of a shock, your enjoyment of the game is probably related to how much you like Soccer.
As the story goes, the Apple Cup was interrupted by The Calamity™ which rent the earth asunder and took a considerable number of players to their doom. Since then, no Soccer has been played unless it’s approved by Soccer Inc., the only safe form of Soccer. Yes, that means that nobody can even seemingly practice The Beautiful Game. But you play a boy/girl that dreams of bringing it back to the people, and you’ve got the help of a magic ball that’s going to do it. That said, the game doesn’t take its story too seriously, and it’s kid-friendly.
The game is split between two modes, so to speak; the adventure RPG side of things, and the soccer matches. You’ll wind up spending most of your time in the former; the overworld has a number of puzzles and side activities to give you all the upgrades and coins you need to really begin boosting your team, most utilizing the magic ball. If I had one complaint about it, it would be that you’re going to spend an awfully large amount of time trying to spot things hidden next to or just barely behind objects with some verticality. And no, you don’t get any hints. I walked past a green target I was supposed to hit several times because it was on the side of a tree’s canopy, and it just blended in.
As for the soccer matches, your overworld upgrades affect them. That said, some of your overworld skills are sealed off, like the targeted shot. And, as a ‘Murican, this is where I hit a few road bumps. The first match is against toddlers and they absolutely trounced me. This is not helped by the fact that your upgrades for this match are limited, and you’re getting used to some control quirks for the first time. Aside from that, things work like a lot of simple sports games do. I did, however, avail myself of the option to turn down match difficulty. I’m not Mr. Soccer, here. I just wanted to move on to the next section of adventure play.
As far as the technical is concerned, the controls are good. The music is good, too. The one thing I noticed and really liked, however, is that this is a Switch game with graphics settings! They’re simple, of course (there’s really only two options) but it does come with a performance mode. There is a definite hit to the graphics when using it, but it’s nice that they gave the option. For reference, I took it; all of these screenshots are taken in performance mode.
There is one thing about the game, though, and it’s important. It’s made for people that love soccer. You can really tell, too. If you’re not into soccer at all, you’re going to notice. That said, as adventury games go, it’s also pretty dang good. And if you’re playing on the full spec mode, the 3D elements are fairly pretty, and mesh well with the 2D sprites
As for recommendations, though, as stated above, that’s probably going to come down to your love of soccer. Because you are playing as soccer boy/girl trying to bring back soccer to the soccer people in soccertown by playing soccer matches to reclaim soccer from the evil soccer company. But even if you don’t, there is a solid adventure here, if you’re willing to put up with a very soccer-heavy story. And, well, it is in the name.
Soccer Story is a good adventure that anybody can enjoy. But it probably helps if you really like soccer.
Pros:
+ The Game Looks Good
+ Offers Performance Mode
+ Kid Friendly, Adult Approved
Cons:
− Some Interactibles Can Be Hard To Spot
− Flavor Is Very Soccer-Forward
Final Score:
*We were provided a download code for the purposes of this review*
About Author
