Overview

In 1992 Jaleco released ‘Super Goal’, the 16-bit SNES sequel to their classic NES football title. However, that year they also released an NES sequel and rather than re-package the old game they actually attempted a number of fairly radical changes. Unfortunately, despite a number of good ideas, Goal! Two fails in the fundamentals.

Graphics

Wow. While the screenshots might look only marginally impressive for an NES game, when you see this baby in motion it’ll really have your jaw on the floor. As you can see from the shots, the biggest change from the previous game is the camera angle; rather than a top-down view Jaleco employed a ¾ diagonal view that would later be found in EA Sports’ early Fifa games and Konami’s ISS Deluxe. Whether or not the change from top down view to diagonal is an improvement is a matter of preference. What is universally impressive, however, is the fact that when you pass the ball more than 30 yards the camera instantly switches to a zoomed out view so you can position the receiving player or your defender(s) before switching back to the regular view as the ball comes down. The game also switches to the zoomed out view for corners allowing you to see what’s going on inside the box. Goal! Two’s framerate is also mightily impressive never slowing down even when the camera switches to the zoomed out angle.

The player models are also improved and the diagonal ¾ view allowed Jaleco to show off more of their work than a birds-eye view would. There isn’t variation between the individual models per-se, but again this is an 8-bit title. The animations, however, are fantastic. The running and kicking is silky smooth and there are also some really neat animations for heading and even bicycle kicks!

The presentation is complete with cute little animations for offside calls, and of course, Goal’s signature cut-scene goal celebrations that are slightly improved from its predecessor (funny to see some early videogame advertising with ad boards for ‘Bases Loaded’ and ‘Rival Turf’!).

Sound

One area that Jaleco didn’t improve on is the audio, you get the customary looped crowd sounds and not much more. On the bright-side, you can actually turn off the in-game music if you so desire.

Options

Along with a new option to turn off the music, Jaleco also added 8 more teams to increase the roster of available sides to 24. Unfortunately they took out the few club teams that were present in the previous game which means the net number of available teams is the same. Gameplay options are either exhibition match (in which you can actually pick to play as two human players versus the CPU) or the ‘Super Cup’ which is a 24 team World-Cup style tournament. The ‘shootout’ mode from the previous game (the 2 vs 2 drill) is mysteriously absent.

Another notable addition is the ability to pick your starting 11 players from a squad of 15. The players still aren’t given names (just squad numbers) but the team selection screen does a good job of displaying each player’s stats so you can put your best side on the field.

Gameplay

Unfortunately, despite stellar graphics and solid options, it all falls apart for Goal! Two when it comes to the gameplay. Control is the standard d-pad for movement, A button for pass/switch player and B button for shoot/tackle. The player movements are responsive and the auto zoom-out feature is fantastic allowing you to play the long passing game without the need for a radar to know where your players are. The variety of goals you can score is also impressive with headers being a good addition to the game.

So far, so good, unfortunately, Goal! Two’s Achilles Heel has to do with the shithouse system of passing. As mentioned before, the A button passes and the longer you hold it down the higher and further the ball goes. So if you want a long 40 yard lob you hold A down for a second or two, and if you tap A for a second then you push a short 5 yard pass in front of you. Unfortunately, there seems to be zero gradation between those two extremes! As a result it’s nigh-impossible to make a simple 10-20 yard pass on the deck. In fact the only way to pass to a player nearby is to tap the A button once to make a shitty 5 yard pass, then tap it again to control the guy on the receiving end of the pass and bring him closer to the rolling ball. As you can imagine this isn’t only frustrating, but it practically ruins the game. The original Goal! was a classic because it stuck to the principles of pass and move but also threw in some neat dribbling. Goal! Two’s stupid passing means that even basic passes become aneurysm-inducing and against the better teams you find yourself pinned in your own half because you can’t make a pass without giving the ball away! Adding to the frustration are the butter-finger goalies who give out rebounds like they’re going out of fashion.

Goal! Two does have its moments, it is fun when you finally do manage to string together some passes and get around the opposition’s penalty area. Unfortunately, you spend more of your time inadvertently giving the ball away in your own half and swearing blue murder than having anything close to fun.

Longevity/Replay Value

Not much at all, as multiplayer falls prey to the shit passing that the single player does and as a result you spend matches scrappily trying to keep the ball or lobbing hopeful passes downfield. It’s like watching Wimbledon, but boring and without Vinny Jones and John Fashanu.

Overall

I find Goal! Two to be very perplexing. You’d think that with a version of Goal! coming out on the SNES in the same year, Jaleco would just ‘mail it in’ with their NES sequel and just rehash the original game. Instead, they’ve redesigned the graphics engine and put a significant amount of work into it. Yet, it seems that once they improved the graphics they said ‘screw it’ and utilized a crap game engine. Strange, but true.....

[cue Twilight Zone theme]

Lavan Chandran

5/7/2005

Screenshots taken by me.