I picked this game up today and I was actually fairly hesitant. It's been out in Europe for a while and I just haven't heard a lot about it, but since the girlfriend leaves town for a week tomorrow I needed something to fill some time and this seemed like a good idea.
This game is definitely very hectic and confusing at first and will take a few matches to get a firm handle of what's going on, but once you do, it's an insanely fun experience. I really don't like soccer but everything about this game is fun. Other than having to deal with another friend code, I have absolutely no complaint about this game.
The gameplay itself is fairly basic and simple but it has a lot of depth once you start diving into team, item, and terrain strategies. Being able to pick your captain and then 3 sidekick characters is great. It really allows you to customize how you want to play your team and it fun to play with. Beyond that, each character (even sidekicks) have special moves for offense and defense that brings even more to the match. It's a lot of fun trying to decide to I want a balanced team, a really quick one, offense heavy, defense heavy, ect. This mechanic just works great for the game. It also has a default sidekick group if you just want to go with what's recommended for that particular captain.
This game also has a decent variety of items very similar to Mariokart and are just as important. You often find yourself giving away the ball to do a power shot just so you can get an item. These items add a lot of strategy to the match and allow you to do some pretty fun stuff. Each stadium also has a theme with traps that you also use to your advantage. These two features together just make the already deep team system even better.
The final gameplay feature is the super shot (forget what it's called in the game). Each captain has their own special animation for the super shot (and most kick much ass) but they all do the same thing. These shots take time and the more time you have, the better these shots turn out. When you pull these off, depending how well timed you press the B button, you get 3-6 balls and then either fly towards the goalie at fast to very fast speed. After the player performing the super shot finishes the animation, the game stops again and it's the goalies turn. You use the Wii Remote as a pointer to point at the incoming ball to catch them. If you miss, the opponent gets a point for each one missed. It's really a simple mechanic that turned out to be a lot of fun.
For the graphics, I would say they are higher than your average Wii game. The stadiums definitely feel alive because of added effects (I love the cow blowing across the field in the wind stadium) and there are A LOT of effects in some of the stadiums. It's also noteworthy that each stadium that has a crowd (and most do) are full of characters. These aren't low poly characters with 3 frame animations that you see in Rayman: Raving Rabbids, these are actual well animated characters filling the stadium. All in all, it just looked pretty good.
The characters are look pretty good for the most part (I don't like Daisy's face, it looks a bit off). Every character has a personality whether it's a captain with their special intro or a sidekick celebrating because he made a goal. This game just has a wonderful atmosphere because of the colorful characters and their animations. I really couldn't expect much more. One other special thing to note about the characters is when they do their super shot. Except for the a few characters, they just look incredibly (similar to the fantastic cover art to this game). If you play this game, you might want to play as Waluigi and Daisy just to see their really cool art.
The last notable thing about this game is the online which is pretty painless except having to manage another friend code. Matchmaking is very quick and I have yet to experience any lag (and I have a slow high speed connection). They have a ranking system that seems pretty basic (points for goals, and wins) that seems to do the job well and you can see when your friends are online. All in all, the online was about as well done as they could have done (I'll always be bitter about friend codes though).
If you own a Wii, you really owe it to yourself to pick this game up. It's highly polished, it's fun, the controls are great, the online is fun, and it's just an all around good game. If I were to actually do a full review of the game (which I'll probably get around to writing tomorrow), my scores would look something about like this:
Presentation - 9.0
Sound - 8.8
Graphics - 8.9
Gameplay - 9.3
Lasting Appeal - 8.9
Overall - 9.0
And considering I grade games fairly hard for the most part and my point scale is pretty similar to EGM's, a 9.0 is pretty amazing and a must buy if you have the console.
