Soccer Story Review – A Game Of Two Halves

Soccer Story is a delightful role-playing game that creates a fun and engaging story about kicking a football. An epic tale of destructionvent causes soccer to be banned unless sanctioned by the evil Soccer Inc. (with more than a few parallels to real-world FIFA), and our young hero’s father goes missing during the catastrophe. A year later, a magical soccer ball comes crashing into our hero’s life. The story of bringing soccer back into the world is hilarious and funny, with humorous panda goalkeepers as well as an evil soccer corporation.

Soccertown is where the magic ball was first discovered by players. It is now a ghost town. In rebellion against the authorities, graffiti is sprayed all over town. Evil Soccer Inc. referees monitor for illegal five-asides. This soccer-mad world makes it fun to live in, in part due to its absurdity.

Leo (or Kai depending on your twin) is set in the main story to free Soccertown and recruit teammates before moving on to the next location. Once your team is set, and you’ve grabbed Soccer Inc.’s attention by bringing soccer back to Soccertown, you visit new areas for story missions and various side quests. As you explore new places to liberate and discover, you’ll be able to visit the beach, forest and bizarre Zen Zone, which is modeled on a cherry-blossom-rich Japan. It’s fun to sprint around with your soccer ball in each area, and it’s rewarding to finally unlock a gate to a new zone. The zones never overstay their welcome before you’re on to the next one. 

The incentive to continually explore and complete NPC missions is huge, but you never feel bogged down, nor do missions feel tedious; they’re fun and quick to complete. NPCs are often funny and can provide a great laugh. 

Over the course of exploration and questing, you’re rewarded with coins and medals, which can be used to upgrade your hero’s speed, shooting, energy, and strength. Some missions outright give you medals, and it’s important to seek them out for two reasons: They affect your players in matches and your hero while exploring. Like any good role-playing game, upgrading your player’s stats is rewarding. 

There are many missions that integrate soccer into their mission. For example, you can shoot at sharks in order to rescue children swimming with them or save someone who is stranded on the beach by tackling crabs. The real world crossbar challenges that players face across all pitches can be emulated by shooting a ball onto the crossbar. There are some bizarre quests. Zen Zone is a game that turns into an RPG with turn-based combat while you fight huge mushrooms. These moments make Soccer Story much more engaging than doing normal soccer tasks, and it continually dives into its weirdness head-first. Some quests like finding the coconuts and running around in circles to find it can get annoying.

Soccer Story falls apart once you’re done with the missions and adventuring. Inconsistency and chaos impede the soccer matches. Shooting feels chaotic and exhausting. You can increase your scoring potential by reducing the shields of keepers. Charged shots are important, but you also have an opportunity to use defensive maneuvers while still stationary. 

Goalkeepers were able to deflect my most successful shots, even after I made upgrades. A weak shot could be taken from the sideline and float effortlessly into the goal. It is frustrating and confusing to see this lack of consistency. Speed seems to be the only upgrade that matters, as most on-field upgrades don’t feel impactful, and it’s frustrating to lose a match after seemingly having an edge.   

There’s a sense of some control, but the matches can be so random it’s off-putting. The rhythm I developed was to shoot close, hammer home the goals and then go into the corner. It became tedious and less fun than it should have been. That’s not a good sign for a soccer-based RPG. There are also many one-versus-one matches. However, due to the basic formula of Soccer Story, they felt like extras rather than useful. Soccer Story’s soccer section is only a serviceable, inconsistent game. This is disappointing in comparison to other games.

Soccer Story is about the beautiful game of soccer, but it’s mainly about story and exploration. Although the adventure and role playing aspect of Soccer Story is great fun due to soccer’s integration into the wider world, it lacks the ability to be a good sports role-playing sport. Buoyed by its charming and humorous premise, Soccer Story provides a satisfying adventure and a different type of soccer game, but one that doesn’t quite score a hat-trick.