Anime games over the years have really changed how people interact with their favorite series. From arena fighters, slice-of-life, to even RPGs, it’s incredible to see the variety. I’ve known about the Captain Tsubasa franchise for a while; I haven’t actively seen or read much of it, but I have heard good things about its quality. So, when I was given the opportunity to play the second game in the current ongoing series, Captain Tsubasa 2: World Fighters, I was interested to see how it would stack up to other anime games and sports games I’ve played in the past. After playing through it, I was pleasantly surprised by how fun it was, with only a few things I wish were improved for the future.
An All-Star Pitch
World Fighters picks up right where the first Captain Tsubasa left off, as its story mode focuses on adapting a new arc of the manga. While the story is cheesy, it’s really hard not to get invested; everyone is so earnestly over the top in their passions and motivations. There are lines like “The soccer ball is my friend,” which never failed to make me smile. However, instead of playing as one of the characters from the series, the game lets players create their own custom character. It’s a decent character creator as it covers mostly everything you’d expect, with more to unlock via an in-game shop. Custom characters also have the option to change their moves around, copying all kinds of techniques from opponents faced throughout the story. That said, it does feel kind of redundant.
The overall gameplay loop involves swapping between characters every few seconds to either score or defend a goal. The only real time you’ll get to actually see the custom character is when you purposefully choose to score a goal with them. They are present in cutscenes, but they don’t have any voiceover at all; instead, you can choose what they say via a dialogue tree. If this was a game with an original story that focused on the custom character that could influence the story, then I could see the idea working. But since it’s adapting a set story, it doesn’t really work and just makes things more jarring. I feel more like I’m intruding on a group of friends who are being forced to talk to me every so often, rather than feeling like a natural part of the world.
Blood in The Water
At a distance, World Fighters may seem like a basic soccer game with an anime skin on top. Yet, it quickly becomes apparent that it is anything but, and is instead far more focused on having stylish, over-the-top action rather than the typically serious sports game style. This makes it stand out easily compared to games like FIFA and PES, as they don’t have a giant flaming tiger every time I shoot a ball.
Shooting is just as you would expect: get close to the goal and charge up a kick meter. However, there are two different ways to score a goal. The first is reaching the minimum charge required and just kicking a regular quick shot; the full charge, on the other hand, unleashes a stylish kick that’s seemingly unique to each player. This comes with a huge risk-and-reward system, as the closer you get to the goal, the lower the bar is for a normal kick. This means that you could either play it safe and kick it the second a shot is available, at the cost of it being a weaker shot that has a high chance of being blocked. On the other hand, you could risk getting the ball stolen while waiting for a more powerful shot, which has a higher chance of being a guaranteed goal.
While scoring goals is important, it is also vital to keep an eye on the goal itself. At the start of each match, both sides have a stamina bar that is slowly drained away each time a goal is blocked. As stated earlier, the type of kick used will determine how much of the stamina bar will be drained away, but this also has to work alongside the kick trajectory. Each time a kick is attempted, there is a small circle that determines where the ball will go; whenever the ball goes in the chosen direction, it’s up to the goalie to choose where to block.
Choosing the correct area gives you a perfect save, which takes the least amount of stamina and protects from most kicks. Being somewhat close to the area results in a normal save, while being far off from it leads to a bad save. This split-second decision-making is what truly keeps the action always on the move. What makes that action even more thrilling are the moments when stamina is so low that it can create a window for a miracle save. These appear at random and can block every single kind of kick. They are incredibly rare, and I only managed to see them a few times. Every time they did appear, though, it was a highlight of those matches.
Just because most of the action is done near the goals doesn’t mean the rest of the field is a peaceful place. In fact, most of the most dangerous plays are done here. Anyone who has the ball is at risk of having it stolen, with the two main mechanics being tackling and sliding. A tackle is a lumbering attack that seemingly guarantees the ball being stolen at the cost of a longer charge and cooldown time, while a slide is a quicker evasive move that has a smaller cooldown time but can be used multiple times and can avoid tackles. This is where one of my bigger issues with World Fighters pops up: everyone is bloodthirsty.
NPCs will chase you to the ends of the earth, spamming the slide over and over again just to steal the ball away. Further, they would spam the tackles, which can be timed to temporarily knock players out when they’re about to shoot the ball. This mechanic was one of the most frustrating for me, especially when NPCs would use it the second a match started. At some points, I would spend a quarter of the match in the same spot stealing a ball from the opponent, only for them to steal it back a millisecond later. It became a mild headache to deal with how aggressive some NPCs would be. I thought switching from normal to easy would help, but while opposing teams were less aggressive, they still made matches feel like a war rather than a soccer match. I can’t even imagine how bad it is on hard, which I never checked out, as I was a bit scared of how they would hunt me down on the pitch.
Yellow Card
While I had mostly fun with the overall gameplay of World Fighters, in spite of the difficulty, there were some moments that made my experience with the game feel exhausting. My main issue with the story mode is that the game focuses more on cutscenes rather than integrating the narrative into the gameplay. Cutscenes can go on for 5-10 minutes of pure dialogue, and while the story is fine, it often became very tedious. Near the start of the story, there’s a moment where the characters are worried about an upcoming tournament being canceled because the country it was going to be set in was going to war. I liked this at first, as it gave a bit of tension to the story and made me wonder how the game would resolve it. However, this problem is dealt with in that very same cutscene just a few minutes later. I’m not asking for the story to be hacked to pieces; I just want it to be a bit streamlined so that my eyes don’t start to glaze over from staring at the same text box for over 10 minutes before the game lets me play.
Cutscenes don’t just appear off the field but also during matches. They can appear at anytime; whenever a goal is blocked, a ball is stolen, and even the second a match starts. What doesn’t help is that anytime these happen, it takes a few seconds for them to load, making what should be an action-packed game into a slow and tedious one. I understand that these moments are mostly taken from the manga and are supposed to further enhance the story, but they happen so often that it breaks the flow of the gameplay. This is especially true for special cutscenes where either a player or opponent unlocks a move from deep within them, causing them to score a goal no matter how far away or how full the stamina meter bar is. It felt more like World Fighters wanted me to watch a story, rather than organically experience it.
Alongside the story and offline mode was an online mode that I wanted to try out. Unfortunately, the closest I got was finding someone after waiting for a long time, only to immediately get a matchmaking error. It is hard to say whether this was because no one is playing the game, or if there are some problems with the netcode, but it was a shame either way. I had a lot of fun playing offline, and I would have loved to see how it felt playing against a real person.
The Next Challengers
World Fighters really surprised me with how fun and charming it could be, while at the same time, having moments that hindered its potential to be an incredible soccer game. The overwhelming amount of cutscenes really bogs down the simple yet great gameplay and interesting mechanics. While I did find the aggression of the NPCs a bit too much, even on easy, it made for some unique moments where it made this game really feel like everything was on the line rather than being just another soccer game.
The story ends with a to-be-continued, hinting at another Captain Tsubasa game somewhere down the line. I hope they learn from the mistakes made here and fix my two biggest issues: streamlining the story and also removing the custom character. While custom moves are interesting and make for unique gameplay, they would work better as an option for the story rather than the required way to experience it. This would give me a chance to mix and match, and also become more naturally invested in the characters as their story continues.
Fans of Captain Tsubasa will have a lot of fun with this game. Those who are more unfamiliar with the series, like me, will likely find the experience a bit rocky. Still, if you’re able to stick it out, you’ll find a great story with some fun characters. I hope to see them on the field again someday, but for now I’ll probably check out the manga to see where the story goes next instead.
Disclaimer: Bandai Namco provided a PC (Steam) copy of Captain Tsubasa 2: World Fighters for review purposes.
