Review: Captain Tsubasa 2 World Fighters
Lace up your cleats and step onto the football field once more.
THE GAME
Captain Tsubasa 2: World Fighters is a soccer game developed by TAMSOFT CORPORATION and distributed by Bandai Namco Entertainment Inc. Following the events of the first game, we once again follow Tsubasa and other iconic characters from the anime, along with a customizable character for the player. Play matches that represent the games that take place in Captain Tsubasa and become part of the story. Improve your character, use incredible skills, and win all the soccer tournaments you participate in.
MY IMPRESSIONS
As expected, Captain Tsubasa 2: World Fighters is not a simple soccer game. Special shots, acrobatic saves, and impossible dribbles are being unleashed at every moment in any match. The basic gameplay is quite simple, with buttons dedicated to the most used movements, such as shooting or stealing the ball. The pace of the game is frantic, since it's quite easy to steal the ball from the opponent and even easier to unleash special abilities, whether for attack or defense, which may seem cool at first, but becomes extremely irritating after a while. I know that when someone plays an anime game they expect something more flashy, but in Captain Tsubasa 2: World Fighters it's almost too much. In a world where players can make powerful shots, something must be done to help the goalkeepers. In this case, the goalkeeper has a health bar and, depending on how he intercepts a shot, this bar decreases, until the moment when he becomes more vulnerable and a goal is almost certain. There's a minigame when receiving an opponent's shot where you have to guess the side the ball was kicked from, causing the goalkeeper to take less damage to their health bar if you guess correctly. To kick the ball when attacking, there's also a minigame where you decide where to kick by positioning the directional pad where you want, always trying to make life difficult for the goalkeeper. All players, depending on their position on the field, have a special ability, whether it's to intercept an attacker, make a long pass, or shoot at the goal. These abilities are charged as players perform specific actions, such as dribbling past a player. Making precise touches and dribbling also charge a power chain, which improves the completion of the play. There comes a point in the match where all players have their special ability active for use, and that's when the chaos begins. Whether this is positive or not depends on the player's taste.
The story of Captain Tsubasa 2: World Fighters continues from where the previous game left off, starting with a Japan vs. Brazil match. Here we create our own player, whom we carry throughout the story mode journey. Customization is simple, but quite fun to do. By default, your character will be a striker, but it's possible to change their position, as well as change their special abilities, which are acquired through main and side missions or by leveling up. There's also a shop where you can spend points earned in story mode and exchange them for new hairstyles, soundtracks, and balls, which isn't that interesting. Speaking of story mode, be prepared to see a lot of talking before you actually start a match. I understand they need to tell a story and fill the mode's time, but for those who just want to play quickly, it really breaks the rhythm. Even though the first match is against Brazil and the following arc is about Tsubasa's time in Brazilian football, unbelievably, the game isn't in Brazilian Portuguese. I'm impressed by the lack of tact in this regard. The storylines between matches, which already break the rhythm, are not yet translated, which completely removes the audience's interest in something that could easily appeal to players from a country. And speaking of breaking the rhythm, at specific moments in story mode, the game stops everything, cuts to a loading screen to show a scene from a specific moment in the story that has to happen there, in a very poor and nonsensical way. I know that, again, they need to tell the story, but this way is terrible and I don't know what a better way to do it would be. There are also secondary missions to be completed in story mode, which would be an incentive to return to previously played matches and try to complete them, but they aren't that exciting.
The game's art and the animations of the kicks and abilities are impeccable, representing the anime very well and making everything incredible. It's really cool to recognize characters from the anime and, of course, controlling Tsubasa is simply awesome. Attacking is much more fun than defending, which creates an imbalance in the game, but that's natural, after all, performing Tsubasa's special shot is incomparable to defending a ball in the goal. Kicking the ball perfectly, to the point of tearing the goal net and the ball only stopping when embedded in a wall, is sensational. There's an online mode if you're interested in facing other players and testing your limits. To enjoy Captain Tsubasa 2: World Fighters, keep in mind that you won't be playing a regular soccer game, but a frenetic and extremely physical match, full of power-ups flying everywhere.
ACHIEVEMENTS
The achievements in Captain Tsubasa 2: World Fighters are quite simple. Generally, you'll have to perform at least one of the game's mechanics, whether it's a simple aerial goal or using a special ability, or something a bit more specific, like catching a perfect shot from the opponent or winning a match in overtime. Additionally, unlocking all the teams and cinematics in the game also unlocks achievements, but you should be able to do this simply by completing the story mode and side missions. And of course, completing the story mode itself and each arc will give you a new achievement. It won't be necessary to play online to complete any achievement, which is great, since achievements tied to online mode tend to be frustrating for more casual players. Captain Tsubasa 2: World Fighters is quite honest with its achievements, without forcing large objectives or overly complicated challenges on players, so getting 100% of the achievements should be easy to do.
CONCLUSION
I confess I expected more from Captain Tsubasa 2: World Fighters. Despite being visually stunning, with incredible effects and gameplay faithfully adapted from the anime, the gameplay doesn't quite live up to expectations. The pace isn't very fluid, especially towards the end of a match, where everyone starts unleashing their special moves and it becomes a general mess. The goal-scoring mechanics are uninspiring, as you have to keep shooting repeatedly, hoping the goalkeeper takes enough damage before you can score. The pauses in the middle of the match to tell the story really annoy me. In short, a game based on a soccer anime might not be as dynamic as I imagined.
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