Game Reviews

 The Inazuma Eleven series has really taken off in Europe over the last few years. Although it has been a big thing in Japan for quite some time, the games – and with it, the associated Animé – have only recently been translated from Japanese. Inazuma is unique in the sense that it is a football game, where you can directly play the matches, but it also combines many JRPG elements into proceedings, with social links, item collection and levelling up all important aspects to consider. The cartoon has obviously brought the series to the mainstream a little more and now the series, that has so far been exclusive to the Nintendo DS, has arrived on the Wii.

STORY: The series normally follows Mark Evans, a talented young goalkeeper who has organised a football team for his school, and is now taking on some of the best young teams from around the world. However, this Wii version of the game is a much straighter football title, and most of the RPG elements and story-based gameplay has been dropped for the title, making this a game that comes across more as a tie-in with the cartoon that is currently showing on ITV, rather than a fully-fledged entry into the series. The story is never even really touched upon, and instead you simply play in a series of tournaments that re-creates some of the most famous matches from the Animé. The game even starts with an extended montage of clips from the cartoon, so it sets the tone of what we should expect from the title. It is a shame really, as these are the things that make the Inazuma games stand out from other sports games.

GRAPHICS: The whole game has a cel-shaded cartoon look, which suits the title perfectly and ties in with the animated feel that you would expect from the game. Animations are striking and over the top, especially when a special move is executed, and the colour palette is bright and bold, making all of the characters look very expressive as well as making the game exciting to watch. Stadiums and pitches are a bit more plain and understated, but the action in-game is so fast-paced and frantic that you aren’t really looking at the scenery as you play. The menus and presentation still maintain the RPG influences, and this certainly doesn’t look like your typical FIFA Soccer with a slick design and booming pop music; this remains a very Japanese affair.

SOUND: The game also maintains the same feel in the audio department, with high-tempo animé style music booming out throughout the menus as well as during the games, in an attempt to inject the excitement and atmosphere of the television series into the title. This also goes all the way down to the voice-overs, which make full use of the actual voice cast of the cartoons. However, that isn’t to say it is all perfect, as the voice clips tend to repeat far too often, For example,  the number of times that you will hear your team members shouting “let’s go” during a game or a training session is far too high, and the match commentator doesn’t have enough phrases and will soon become irritating; even in a match with halves as short as three minutes.

GAMEPLAY: To put it simply, the game plays a lot like Mario Strikers Charged Football. You do have full eleven-a-side teams however, and you control the players directly, switching from one to the next. Basic moves are what you would expect – passing, shooting, sprint and evade – which are all complemented by a series of special moves that are character-specific and can be pulled off once you have built up enough Inazuma points; which are accrued as you play through a match and perform successful passes, tackles and attempts on goal. These are either defensive/blocking ones, which take the form of speed boosts or attacks and allow you to escape defenders, or take the ball off the opposition.