yo. I'm not much of a review writer. They mostly seem to end up as mini faqs, as I explain things a bit more than I review them. =\ I also don't know how to show restraint in a review, I'm certain I'll type more than necessary. japanese text is me entertaining myself.
ok.
バトルサッカ 2!!
The "Battle" series. Where Banpresto decided to combine Gundam, Kamen Rider, Ultraman, and their various other forms in the most unsuitable games possible. Dodgeball!? Sure. Pinball? Why not. Cart racing? Hey, the masked Riders all have bikes, so it makes some sense. And then, there was Soccer. . .
eh, I'm not much for intros so I'll stop that there. Battle Soccer 2 is the follow up to the original Battle Soccer(obvious). The simplest way to explain it is, Kunio's soccer(Nintendo World Cup) with Super Robots and Tokusatsu instead of Yankis and other sorts of roust-abouts, and also without you acting as the team captain and shouting out orders to your teammates. Of the 3 series characters are pulled from, there are seperate "hero" and a "villian" teams. The Gundam team features the Zeta and GP-01, whereas the villain squad has the Sazabi and the Psycho-Gundam, along with others. Each team has seperate general stats, as well as each player having a unique special attack, along with seperate power/speed/stamina attributes.
バランスいいぜ!!
The game is light on modes, with only a 2P and tournament mode. In the tournament mode, after each successive victory, you will gain characters from the enemies team. The more powerful ones coming near the end. A password to access your complete squad is given as well, for you to use in 2P games, and that is very useful, should you have someone to play against that is interested in developing their own team. You can even use your completed password in the tournament mode, if you like. This is a nice addition to the game. Adding a bit to a fairly simple 1P experience. Do you go for the ultimate ensemble squad? Or maybe you just want to check out what each character can do? All I know is, when one character makes your team look foolish during a game, and you steal him for your own use, it is a very nice feeling. moving on. . .
The gameplay is pretty standard. Before each match, and at half-time,you pick your formation, along with setting which players you want in the game, and where. There is a small amount of fields to play on, from the obligatory rocky/grass/ice/desert areas, and the others, such as space and a factory. Some of the areas modify the gameplay a bit, and they do it in a way you expect.(for the slow, ice makes things slippy)
During the actual game,Slide tackling appears to be your only form of defense, helped a bit by a dash technique that the offense lacks. The offense is limited to passing and shooting. There is no putting the ball in the air for a bicycle kick, and crawling about on the ground heading the ball as you can in Kunio's soccer(if someone can tell me what the hell that even is, feel free). However, there is a bit of depth to these simple maneuvers. The Gundams and a few other characters will draw their beam saber at the end of the slide tackle maneuver, which increases their chance for a successful knockdown, and other slower characters have shorter distances. Each succesful takedown will leave your foe dazed for a short while , and repeated successful tackles(which can only be done on a character with the ball =\ ) will drain their stamina, and they will weaken and slow to the point of uselessness.
On the offensive side, the special maneuvers are handled differently than in Nintendo World Cup. Instead of kicking during a certain frame of your run animation, there is a repeatedly building and falling power meter that you have to watch. When it is nearly filled and yellow, you can perform your special.
ライダ--キック!!!
True to form, each character has a unique maneuver they perform before they do their special. Sazabi and νGundam use their superior newtype abilities to teleport about the screen, Zeta transforms into a flying unit, The Masked Riders. . . Kick(with jumping variation!), the Ultramen fly around a bit before letting the ball go, with Ultraman Final releasing it like a fireball. Some of these maneuvers are lengthy which increases the possibility of being tackled mid-performance, others dash forward and need to be done a small distance away from the goalie so that he does not take it before you finish the performance. The types of kicks also have a nice amount of variation. Some are clearly meant to be done at a distance, and its important to know what the characters optimum range is.
Passing the ball is also pretty important at times. Direction is controlled by the D-pad, and the person you will pass it to is also shown on the map on the bottom of the screen, as well as having an arrow around your character point to him, which is very useful if you don't have the time to check the menu(when the defense gets in your way, often you don't have much time to react). Another nice thing is that you can switch over to your controlling your goalkeeper and back with a tap of a button.
The graphics throughout the game are solid. Each and every character is a uniquely rendered sprite. There are not team templates that are switched around a bit. When they score, the characters jump around and celebrate. When they miss a Penalty Kick, they slump over, or perhaps they cry. Each sliding tackle performed looks slightly different for each character. One masked rider may strike with his sword, the other may kick, the other charge up his foot for his kick. The animation is light, but , these are SD characters, and really, there isn't much to animate. The special effects that play behind the special kicks(variations of screen flashes and the like) are chosen at random, so there isn't any "seen that before" quality to them. The Sound effects are simple, but effective. Whenever a beam sabre is pulled, you hear the sound of it being unsheathed. But everything else is just the SNES blips and bloops of balls being kicked that you'd expect to hear. The music is ok. They don't seem to play anthems for the teams, save for a 5 second diddy that plays before each kick off(or not any that I'm familiar with). The music is fitting anyways, but after hearing all of the excellent themes in the Super Robot Wars games,its a bit dissapointing to not hear them in this one.
Anyways, the gameplay is solid, though it may not seem that way when you first start. There are a wide variety of characters to make your team out of after playing through the game, and its all around good fun. If you can get someone to have a go at 2P then the replay value is covered. That shouldn't be hard unless the people you know have something against old games. There's not much in the way of a story. . .well . . .except for a page in the booklet. So as long as 1P mode is fun, have at it. I guess you could play it like pokemon and keep collecting characters, I dunno. but I love this game. If you enjoyed Nintendo World Cup, and perhaps would have rather controlled people individually, or just simple arcade style games in general, then check it out.
elephant.
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