Unfortunately Soccer Story is a total misfire. I'm not sure whether it was capitalizing on the World Cup hype or attempting to beat Sports Story to the punch that made Panic Barn want to push this game out before it in this underdeveloped state, but here we are.
I really wanted to have a good time with Soccer Story. I love Golf Story to pieces and don't really care about the obvious influences if it means another fun sports RPG, but the devs just wrote down all the ingredients without knowing the recipe.
In concept it's great: open-world soccer RPG that you interact with using a magic ball, playing in matches to take down the hilariously villainous Soccer Inc. who banned soccer across the land. Kicking the ball around in the overworld is actually not so bad, and wanting to see where they would take that was part of what kept me going to the third area. The stylized graphics are nice, and they make the otherwise unexciting pixel art really pop.
But man does this game give you nothing exciting, no motivation to care about anything. I think the dialogue was the epitome of this.
The characters all speak using monotonous, abrupt speech that just feels like placeholder text. I cannot read the emotion on any character. When your player loses a match, the owner guy says "You lost the match.". And your player replies "Okay!". I feel nothing. If you've ever listened to a casting audition, the speech reads like the crew feeding the lines to the actor. No emotion, just words for function.
Besides that, the endless amount of bugginess in small (text cues not appearing properly) to big (softlocks) ways, the 2 pieces of music which are by no means bad but get a bit old after the 100th time hearing them, the far, far too easy matches that feel like a chore, the boring collectibles that reward you with boring rewards, the endless fetch quests to move the plot forwards, ALL OF THIS just sours the experience to a point where I can't help but get sucked out of the game and start wondering if this is really my time being well spent. It's not.
I really wanted to have a good time with Soccer Story. I love Golf Story to pieces and don't really care about the obvious influences if it means another fun sports RPG, but the devs just wrote down all the ingredients without knowing the recipe.
In concept it's great: open-world soccer RPG that you interact with using a magic ball, playing in matches to take down the hilariously villainous Soccer Inc. who banned soccer across the land. Kicking the ball around in the overworld is actually not so bad, and wanting to see where they would take that was part of what kept me going to the third area. The stylized graphics are nice, and they make the otherwise unexciting pixel art really pop.
But man does this game give you nothing exciting, no motivation to care about anything. I think the dialogue was the epitome of this.
The characters all speak using monotonous, abrupt speech that just feels like placeholder text. I cannot read the emotion on any character. When your player loses a match, the owner guy says "You lost the match.". And your player replies "Okay!". I feel nothing. If you've ever listened to a casting audition, the speech reads like the crew feeding the lines to the actor. No emotion, just words for function.
Besides that, the endless amount of bugginess in small (text cues not appearing properly) to big (softlocks) ways, the 2 pieces of music which are by no means bad but get a bit old after the 100th time hearing them, the far, far too easy matches that feel like a chore, the boring collectibles that reward you with boring rewards, the endless fetch quests to move the plot forwards, ALL OF THIS just sours the experience to a point where I can't help but get sucked out of the game and start wondering if this is really my time being well spent. It's not.
Reviewed on Dec 07, 2022