Pixel Cup Soccer – Ultimate Edition

Genre: Sports (Soccer)

Players: 1-8 Competitive (Local Tournament)

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Review:

The Pixel Cup Soccer series of retro-style Soccer games started out on iOS, with the 2016 release of Pixel Cup Soccer 16. This was followed by Pixel Cup Soccer 17 on PC in 2017, with Pixel Cup Soccer – Ultimate Edition releasing on PC and Nintendo Switch in 2022. Not having played the earlier games in the series, I cannot say how Ultimate Edition compares to those earlier games, nor what makes it “Ultimate”. Judging from screenshots, the series seems to have remained consistent in its style, but beyond that I can’t really compare and contrast these games.

As the title indicates, this game does indeed feature visuals that are at least inspired by classic 2D pixel art games, though it’s hard to tell if the game actually is in 2D, rather than just being stylized that way, as the game makes use of some decent real-time shadows and confetti effects that get me thinking that this may be 2D characters of a 3D background designed to look 2D, and there are other nice touches here like gouges in the soccer field. In any case, it looks decent, evoking the look of classic 8-bit and 16-bit games in the genre without being bound by those limitations.

These visuals are not backed by a soundtrack, but the game still has some good sound, with some great crowd noises, good-sounding noises for dribbling the ball, and you can even hear the splashing of steps on the wet field when it’s raining. This is joined by more videogamey sound effects for moves by the players on the field, keeping things grounded in the game’s retro style.

As for the gameplay itself, what’s here is decent as far as Soccer games go, but highly chaotic. I found it difficult to deliberately make headway against the opposing team, and often when I succeeded I didn’t feel like it was due to any great playing that I did. That’s not to say that this game isn’t enjoyable, but this definitely muted my enjoyment.

A few other issues dulled this enjoyment further – the controls for penalty kicks are odd and don’t mesh with the rest of the game, and the way you swap out characters on your team while playing feels clunky. To be clear, none of this makes Pixel Cup Soccer a bad take on the sport, but it definitely doesn’t help.

I really wanted to like Pixel Cup Soccer more than I did. The presentation is wonderful, with great visuals and sound. But the gameplay itself just seems like a mess. I still felt like I got some fun out of it, but there are just too many issues for me to want to return to this game often.

tl;dr – Pixel Cup Soccer is a take on the sport that makes use of retro-style visuals with some nice modern touches like real-time shadows and confetti effects, and some solid sound design. Unfortunately, the gameplay is nowhere near as refined as the presentation, with multiple issues that make things far too chaotic to be especially enjoyable. This isn’t a terrible Soccer game, but it’s definitely not a great one.

Grade: C

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