Football Mini Stars

Genre: Sports (Soccer)

Players: 1

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Review:

Football Mini Stars, elsewhere referred to as Soccer Mini Stars – Football, is a Soccer game released in 2025 on mobile devices, Xbox one, and Nintendo Switch. This game has players playing in various soccer-themed minigames, as well as full soccer matches against computer-controlled teams.

As is implied by the “Mini” in the game’s title, this game’s soccer players are diminutive in size and characteristics, having a look so similar to Mii characters that it’s a shame this game didn’t just use the Miis. These simple characters play in similarly simple-looking soccer fields, and while the game maintains clear visuals with a steady framerate, that’s hardly a great feat given the otherwise unimpressive graphics. All of this is backed by an upbeat synthesized soundtrack that’s pretty forgettable, but works well enough for the gameplay, I suppose.

Let’s talk about the soccer minigames first before we get to the full matches, because these will be what you’ll experience first, as many of these act as a tutorial for the main game. And to their credit, many of these are enjoyable, if a bit simple. Unfortunately, other minigames are infuriatingly frustrating, especially those that have players making a shot on the goal – the camera angle that is chosen here along with the arrow-shaped aim indicator give a poor indication of exactly where your shot is aiming, and I found I only had consistent luck in this when I stopped looking at the angle of the arrow and started to memorize the location of its point compared to the net and field based on the point of view the game forced on me, something that wasn’t at all fun – before I got it, I never felt like it was my fault when I missed, and after I got it, I couldn’t fail and it just became boring.

The soccer matches themselves are overall better, and there’s the makings of a decent Soccer game here, albeit a somewhat simple one. Shooting, passing, swapping players, and stealing the ball all mostly seem fine, and there’s a “trick” mechanic to dodge opposing players’ tackles. Plenty of Soccer games can’t seem to manage the basics that this game does pretty well.

Unfortunately, there are two major problems that really ruin the potential this game had. First, there is frequently a massive input delay when performing moves, whether that’s “trick”ing, shooting, or even changing your player’s running direction. This meant that often I was failing to do what I was trying to, simply because the game refused to keep up with my commands. The other problem is that this game only supports a single player, and after playing against the soulless computer-controlled opponents for a while, you’ll really want to take on human opponents who have more of a personality.

It’s really frustrating that this game drops the ball in some really major areas, because in many ways this manages to be a pretty solid Soccer game for the measly $3 it costs. There’s plenty of different minigames to add variety, and as I mentioned the core mechanics here are all sound. But what does that matter when some minigames are absolutely horrible, it takes the game far too long to register your inputs, and you’ll get bored going up against the game’s computer-controlled players before long? The result is a Soccer game that had some good potential, but just ended up being disappointing.

tl;dr – Football Mini Stars is a Soccer game that has players playing as diminutive soccer players as they take on soccer-themed minigames and full soccer matches. While many of the minigames are enjoyable, and the core mechanics of the soccer matches are good, a few minigames are outright terrible, and the soccer matches suffer from delayed controls and a lack of multiplayer. Despite the potential this game had and its low $3 price tag, it’s hard to recommend the game with these issues.

Grade: C

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