"It's hard to imagine how a sequel got this stripped down."

I found out about Tecmo World Cup '92 during a random thrift store visit, It was laying around (who knows how a Japanese game ended up there), and I liked Tecmo and had to give it a try. When I finally tried it out it donned on me that the game was a mixed bag and lacked the depth that Tecmo's other titles were so well known for. Tecmo World Cup '92 is a sequel to Tecmo World Cup, which came out in 1990 and made sense since 1990 was a year in which the World Cup was played. The Japanese Tecmo World Cup '92 name doesn't make a bit of sense since the World Cup wasn't even played during 1992, and in the USA the game is simply called Tecmo World Cup since the prequel wasn't released stateside, where the name makes more sense, the game was actually programmed by a company called SIMS, they obviously weren't big enough to publish it themselves so they approached Tecmo who slapped their endorsement on it and sold it for SIMS, it probably would've been better had it been programmed by Tecmo themselves. Read on to find out just how well the game fares against Temco's other sports games and as a soccer game in general.

For those of you who have played the game before, you will realize upon starting the game up that there aren't many options to start with, one and two-player mode, and World Cup mode and an options menu which you can select exhibition or professional mode, a difficulty level, and a few controller settings. World Cup mode simply takes the four best teams and you face them one by one until your team is the champion. There isn't anything else, and a career mode would have been great, but SIMS' offerings are pretty cut and dry here.

You select your team of choice and a field formation, and it's off to play. The field is large and the players are very easy to see with bright colors for their clothing, the ball is easy to see and controlling is easy to manage but the gameplay is really pretty much as boring as the options menu. You can adjust the timer for each game, but a game set to forty minute halves only lasts about ten minutes because the timer counts very fast. There are no time outs, no cards and no fouls whatsoever. Occasionally, you'll get a free kick but not too much more.

Tecmo pretty much ignored all of the rules of professional soccer and went straight for the most basic game possible. When you do score, there's never a cheer from the crowd or an announcer or anything remotely praising your effort at all and absolutely nothing between halves other than a side change and a view of the final score at game's end. I think each team has its own stats to some degree because some play better than others, but it never actually shows visible stats for any team. There aren't any player numbers, and every player is a carbon copy of the next, so there isn't too much variety at all. Sadly, even the amazing cut scenes highlighting the great plays in Tecmo's previous games are absent.

The graphics don't add to the game in any way. As I said above, each team member is the same, and you never get much of a view of the crowd or any scenery, and I don't believe there's any advertising on the walls of the field. Moreover, there are no options to change the style of the field or the weather.

TWC's audio isn't much better. There's no announcer and the few sounds to be heard are only the few from passing and kicking the ball, and not having much crowd ambiance only makes the experience all the more generic. The one good thing going for the audio is the music, as there are a few mildly catchy tunes that play during the game that help to break up the tedium. However, while they are good enough to listen to, adding actual sounds that pertain to soccer would have made much more sense.

When I first played Tecmo World Cup '92, I was going to score it much higher, but then as I played it, and I realized just how few the options are and how lacking the game is. Still, it isn't horrible, and I actually enjoy it periodically. Maybe it's easier for me to play since I'm not a diehard sports fan and don't need all of the heavy duty options, but it still could have been better. It does have the feel of an arcade-style soccer game and has some good value for two players. I added it to my category of games that I call "good multi-player screw around games," or "games that are good when you have a few people around that want to play a game but don't want to get too involved in something." It was a cool find for me since I found the Japanese version and for casual two-player mode, but your mileage probably won't be much more than that.

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 12/22/09

Game Release: Tecmo World Cup '92 (JP, 01/31/92)