There isn’t much to say here, the game features all new generic techno-dance fare (KCET must have written a program that randomly generates this stuff) for the menus while Kabira-san does his thing with the commentary. I wish they would put him in the US version! My beef with the audio comes from the crowd sounds which, while acceptable, just don’t have enough real-life chants! Popping in WE9 into my PC shows that the game is less than 1.5 GB in size – that leaves about 3GB left, why not fill at least some of that up with chants, KCET (if you’re not going to give us more teams and leagues….grrrr).

Options 80/100

There are no major additions to the available game modes with the exception of the Nippon Challenge though there are other areas of the options and game modes that warrant some in-depth (and overly verbose) discussion.

1) Nippon Challenge

In this mode you play as Japan and have to manually pick an 18-man squad of eligible players to take through through the Asian Confederation championships from qualifying to the finals (if you make them!). What’s particularly neat about this mode because it allows you to play against tons of other teams that haven’t been in previous KCET games such as Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Iraq, India, Palestine and more! Unfortunately, in true asinine Konami style, you CAN’T pick these teams to play as in any mode! I don’t know if you can unlock these teams later on and if so I’ll post an update, but regardless, to not include these extra teams to the team selection is just brain dead.

2) Master League

If you’ve played WE8:LE then the ML in WE9 is more or less the same. One of the differences between the two is that that the CPU automatically puts you in a division by country whereas before you had to unlock the ability to have La Liga, the EPL, Serie A and so on as divisions in the Master League. Another change is the ‘Regulate Condition’ (according to Fernando’s fine translation patch) which basically allows you to randomize your squad’s status arrows prior to a match. So if your top striker has a downwards white arrow you can try to roll the dice and improve his rating but you may do so at the expense of another squad player who may have his status arrow downgraded.

Finally, the player development potential curves are much more varied and more realistic. Now, instead of variations of a parabola, curves can have multiple plateus, have bi-modal peaks, and anywhere in between.

Overall, the Master League is a substantial improvement over WE8 but it is so far behind the career mode in Fifa 2005 that it’s laughable. Compare the ML to what’s in-store for Fifa 2006 and you can only wonder why the hell have KCET been just repackaging the same Master League the past few years. KCET and Konami really have to pull their thumbs out of their asses and get more licenses and turn the ML mode into a full-fledged career mode.

On a final (final) note about the ML, my other big beef with this mode is the fact that after 10 bloody years KCET still haven’t restricted the number of available subs to 5! You still get to have 11 players sitting on the bench which is not only ridiculous for club football it also takes away any strategy that you’d have to employ if you could only have 5 lads on the bench on match-day. Anyone who’s played through a single league campaign or any of the J-League games can tell you how much more challenging it is to pick only 5 potential subs for a match.

3) Rosters

Since this is a KCET game the rosters are not up to date with respect to the litany of summer transfers that have taken place. This really needs to be addressed and especially so with the European release of PES 5. I understand that the transfers that occurred just prior to the game’s release (such as Julio Baptista and Robinho to Real Madrid) aren’t in the game but neither are transfers that took place more than a month before the game’s release (such as Zenden to Liverpool). Thankfully, the edit mode allows you to easily correct these and also add the more recent transfers such as Owen to Newcastle and Van Der Meyde to Everton. Too bad Rafa Benitez didn’t have access to this mode on deadline day…….

4) Online

Japan only as far as I can tell, but I can’t wait for the US version so I can have my ass handed to me by the growing legion of Winning Eleven fans in North America and the World!

5) Tactics/Strategies

There are a few notable changes/additions to the tactics, one of which is that players now have a tree-based structure to what positions they can play as well as the addition of two new positions; wing-back and floating attacking midfielder. Another addition I really like is that individual formations now have pre-arranged subsets as well as pre-arranged variations on striker positions. For example, within the 4-4-2 formation you can pick between SIX subsets/variations of the midfield as well as TWO variations on striker positions. This means that you can quickly choose between TWELVE variations of a single formation without even touching the manual modification button (which, of course, is still present)! Pretty neat, huh?

6) Miscellaneous

One of the options present in the game is a PSP Data Link that will (I think) allow you to sync WE on the PSP with WE9 on your PS2 (perhaps you’ll be able to continue an ML season – much like you can continue a Madden season on Madden PS2 and PSP). Another option, and one I’m a big fan of, is the option to have the intro sequence only for a select few ‘important’ matches in the ML. So while the bulk of your matches will be intro-free, cup matches and crucial league matches will have the pre-match fan fare to get you even more psyched up! I really like the fact that KCET have identified local derbies as important matches and when I played as Liverpool in the Master League it was great to see the CPU automatically choose to show the intros to the matches against Everton! Finally, there’s a profile option that tracks your individual gamer statistics (games won, lost, goals etc) which is a nice addition and one that’s been a long time coming.