Captain Tsubasa 5

"Captures the Tsubasa essence."

Captain Tsubasa has always been a fan favorite, mainly because there are barely any other soccer anime. Tecmo bought the licence to produce Tsubasa games, and they created a brand new genre, mixing soccer with Role-Playing. This might sound weird, but the truth is that the final result is amazing.

Classic characters from the serie, such as the hero and playmaker, Tsubasa, the ace goalscorer Hyuga, the great goalkeeper Wakabayashi, the gutsman Ishizaki, the field artist Misaki and the ill-hearted Misugi, plus lots of more Japanese, gather with Santana, Schneider, Pierre, Diaz and more foreigner players... adding the Tecmo exclusive ones, such as Stratto, Gertize and Shiniori, this game is well provided of stars.

Graphics: 7/10

There isn't anything special on the graphics, it's just plain 2D that you've seen many times around with older games. There are nice animations, but that discussion doesn't belong to this part.

Gameplay: 10+/10

As I've said before, this gameplay can't be compared to any other game. On a normal soccer game, you'd have a button to pass, other to shoot and a last one to long balls. This game is very different you have to press the action button, the game will freeze for some moments while you take your choice, and, as the Role-Playing game this is likely, you have a HP gauge, and special moves that are stronger, but consume large amounts of that gauge. This might be slightly confusing at beginning, but as time goes by, this will turn each time more addictive.

Story: 10+/10

Even if the general Captain Tsubasa anime story is great, Tecmo added teams and players, and created a brand new plot to Tsubasa, but the sweetest thing is that, even you consider one of the stories, you can't discard the other, because they can make up for each other. It's all based on Tsubasa's road for being the World's best soccer player... you may think ''This is always the same thing'', but nope. Every player has his own personality and abilities, and there are dozens of them.

Audio: 5/10

Not really good sound effects, and not really good Background Music. It's interesting how it changes when the timer about to expire, but heh, nothing that we hadn't already seen. Nah, these sounds don't really convince me.

Video: 10/10

These videos are just too good! The introduction is excellent, probably the best I've seen for Super Nintendo, and one of the best of all systems. It's cool the way lots of Tsubasa characters appear doing their best special moves... it can't really be explained now. All the in-game videos are perfect as well.

Replayability: 9/10

This game's replayability is hard to explain. You start playing this like frantic, then after a few days you stop. One week after, you play it again frantically, then a few months you stop. You don't feel like playing it anymore, but you still have to give it a time... occasionally.

Buy or rent?
This game is extremely rare to find, so if you ever find it, don't waste your chance, and get it. Especially if you're a Tsubasa fan.

Finishing:
9/10

I guess there's nothing more to be said... wait. Tsubasa rules!

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 04/19/03, Updated 04/19/03