Overview
Ah, ‘Soccer’ on the NES – who doesn’t have fond memories of this
classic title? What? You’ve never played it? Well that makes two of us
and after spending some time with this game on Nintendo’s Virtual
Console on the Wii I’m at a loss as to why, with other decent soccer
titles like Goal and Nintendo World Cup, Nintendo bothered to include
this game in the Virtual Console catalog.
Graphics
While the visuals in Soccer feature vibrant colors the overall
graphical fidelity lags notably behind other (admittedly released later)
NES titles like Goal and Nintendo World Cup. Player models are decent
but the animations are pretty basic with shoddy transitions between
them. Ironically, I think some of the better animations in the game come
from the cheerleaders that appear at half-time!
The camera is zoomed-in fairly close and as a result the camera
doesn’t have a problem following the action (a short pan left or right
covers the entire field). Apart from the in-game action the only other
screens in the game are the intro and menu screens – it’s very apparent
that this is a first generation NES title.
Audio
I actually like the funky music that plays through matches but apart
from that there’s not much else here.
Options
Again, being a first-generation NES title the play options are about
as barebones as you can get. There are seven international teams
(including, somewhat hilariously, Great Britain) and no tournament or
league option – you simply play exhibition matches. Three different half
lengths and 5 different difficulty settings round out the options.
Gameplay
As you can see from the screenshots Soccer is 6 on 6 on a
moderately-sized pitch. With respect to controls the D-Pad moves your
player, A is for shoot/tackle and B is for pass/switch player. When
shooting, your aim is determined by the D-pad and there is an arrow
along the opposition’s goal-line that indicating the ball’s trajectory.
One feature of the controls that I like is that you also control the
keeper (he follows your movement on the D-pad) and this helps to get you
involved a bit more in playing defense.
Unfortunately, the biggest problem with Soccer is the poor
responsiveness of the controls. While player switching is instantaneous,
there’s often a lag between pressing the tackle button and your player
actually doing something. Not helping matters is the fact that for
shooting and passing your player seems to stop running before kicking
which slows everything down. Ball movement is very floaty and there’s no
sense of ‘weight’ behind the players. Finally, once you get the
mechanics of shooting down putting the ball in the back of the net is
pretty easy and the AI is about as simplistic as you can get.
I
was surprised, however, to find that the game actually has a solid
incorporation of the off-side rule which is something I never expected
for a 5 on 5 football game!
Replay Value
Even if the game had a 2008 feature-set the replay value would still
be low as the game just isn’t that much fun to play.
Overall
There’s an expectation when you play retro games that the visuals,
audio and options are going to be sub-par but there’s also the
acknowledgement that good game play is good gameplay regardless of how
old the game is. Ice Hockey is a perfect example of this – a barebones
title with respect to features and presentation but still a heck of a
lot of fun to play even 20 years after it’s release. Unfortunately,
Soccer fails in this regard as the primary gameplay mechanics are weak
and as such, even 500 Nintendo Points ($5) is still a bit too steep for
this game.
Take a pass on this game and wait for Goal or Nintendo World Cup to
come to the Virtual Console if you’re jonesing for a retro-soccer gaming
fix.
