Soccer Story Reviews
Soccer World is a valiant attempt at a Sports RPG, but fails to hit the mark.
While Soccer Story is a tale about the beautiful game, the soccer matches take a backseat to story and exploration. The adventure and role-playing aspect is a lot of fun, especially with soccer so integrated into the world, but the weak soccer matches keep it from truly being a great sports role-playing game. Buoyed by its charming and humorous premise, Soccer Story provides a satisfying adventure and a different type of soccer game, but one that doesn’t quite score a hat-trick.
Soccer Story delivers a colourful, charming take on the 'sports adventure', bursting at the seams with earnest effort and care from the development team. It's a fun experience, though it doesn't reach the heights of the genre's most famous release. Bugs and hitches pop up occasionally too, but if you're seeking some light entertainment and happen to love football, its cute visuals and charming world make it worth consideration.
Soccer Story has some great ideas, and makes football a vessel for solving fun puzzles and reintroducing the game back to the world.
A bold, brave and interesting attempt to translate the football mechanics in an old school action JRPG. The result is a fascinating, colourful and bizarre mix between Soccer Kid and The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past which works in a sweet way until you have to play actual 5-a-side football: on the pitch Soccer Story fails to bring in actual drama and challenge, lowering the fun, the scope and the ambitions of the game.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Soccer Story is rather simple in terms of gameplay, but it does carry an interesting novelty thanks to its soccer gimmick. It also features a cute plot with quirky characters that harken back to the classic top-down RPGs of the SNES era. Fans of these old titles and retro sports games alike could get some enjoyment out of Soccer Story’s genre-blending premise, and it isn’t too difficult for younger players to pick up.
But ultimately, this game misses the target. If you’re itching for some footie amid the World Cup, and you absolutely can’t stand sims like FIFA 23, we suppose you might eke some mileage out of it. Otherwise, leave this one on the bench where it belongs.
The idea of Soccer Story is good on paper, but as the saying goes, the best teams don't play on paper. A cutesy, goofy facade can't mask the messy, frustrating game underneath.
Soccer Story is an adventure capable of entertaining those who love football thanks to many fun challenges, a light atmosphere and the constant promise of new things to come. Some technical problems, easily circumvented AI and an RPG soul only hinted are its limits, but it remains a love letter to football for football lovers.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Sports Story is a great idea that struggles to reach its full potential. While the soccer-focused tasks use the theme in fun and innovative ways, too many missions include menial tasks. On the pitch, the gameplay is basic and due to this, it doesn’t manage to string enough elements together to deliver a clinical finish.
Soccer Story is by no means a perfect game, especially where there are bugs and glitches that require a hard reset and cause a loss of progression, but it does manage to deliver an entertaining time on occasion, even if it doesn’t necessarily have to do with the ball on the pitch. It might not be a great recommendation for those that are looking for more soccer action, but as a narrative-driven roleplaying title that just so happens to involve soccer, Soccer Story remains something worth checking out if you temper your expectations.
I really wanted to like Soccer Story more than I did by the end. Its quirky, soccer-filled dialogue and setting is really charming, and I had a blast kicking my soccer ball everywhere to uncover secrets. However, in trying to craft a puzzle-RPG and soccer game hybrid, Soccer Story doesn't really succeed in either side of that equation. Zelda fans will probably be turned off by the reliance on fetch quests and simplistic puzzles. Soccer Story's lack of intricate team management or diverse match types probably won't appeal much to soccer game aficionados either. Soccer Story is a decent enough experience, however it is held back by the lack of a strong gameplay foundation and annoying technical issues, which may at least be ironed out in the future.
Despite some good ideas, Soccer Story fails to deliver in some of its design choices, feeling like a first but deeply improvable step.
Review in Italian | Read full review
There are too many technical and gameplay hurdles for such a simple game.
Review in Russian | Read full review
Soccer Story could’ve been a lot of fun, as other games like Golf Story and Sports Story (both from an entirely different developer, I’ll note) have demonstrated. Instead, it just leaves a lot to be desired.
Who knew that sports RPGs could consistently be so engaging, approachable, and charming?!?
When the soccer (I’ll begrudgingly use the word for this analogy) is the worst part of a game called Soccer Story you’d be forgiven for thinking it would be a miss. Not so. A interesting cast of characters, plenty of fun tasks, a beautiful art style and more come together to make this a blast to play.
Soccer Story is an unusual football-based RPG. With zany characters and colourful backdrops, this is a strange game to play. However, its reliance on simple quests and too much back and forth undermine its potential.