The Inazuma Eleven: Victory Road beta brings the football RPG into a confusing new era

thesixthaxis.com:

If you asked me what my favourite football née soccer game is, it wouldn’t be anything as prosaic as FIFA, Pro Evo or Football Manager. It wouldn’t even be Sega Soccer Slam – though that’s a close second. It would be Inazuma Eleven. The fact that it is as much a Pokémon-esque RPG where you’re collecting football players as it is an actual game of football only makes it better. As does the fact that it, and its mainline sequels, were all played with the Nintendo DS’ stylus. If I’m being honest, the fact that it’s only vaguely a football game at all is probably what makes it my favourite football game.

The problem is, we live in a gaming world now largely bereft of styluses, so the careful drawing of routes between other players and the tap-tap-tap of selecting special moves simply isn’t going to happen. With Inazuma Eleven: Victory Road, Level-5 has opted instead to give us an action-based football game that carries the RPG legacy of the original Inazuma Eleven games. The mix, based on the most recent multiplayer beta, is somewhat confusing.

This is a game that has sown the seeds of dread into fans’ hearts, thanks to it’s seemingly perpetual stay in development hell. Originally slated for release in 2018, it’s not only six years late, but it’s had four name changes, suggesting that Level 5 not only doesn’t know how to make that jump from the cosy controls of the DS, but also doesn’t know what to call it.

You now control your players with the analog stick and the majority of the Nintendo Switch’s buttons. It’s a good start, I suppose, but one that tricks your mind into thinking this is going to be Captain Tsubasa rather than what it is. Much like the original series, when your player comes into contact with an opposing player it starts a mini-battle, slowing time down while you make a choice. It’s still a choice that you have to be relatively quick about, but there’s certainly more time than you’ll get when a player is sliding in for a tackle in EA Sports FC or FIFA.

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