Captain Tsubasa 2: World Fighters

Genre: Sports (Soccer)

Players: 1-2 Competitive (Local / Online)

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Review:

Captain Tsubasa 2 is a Soccer game that follows in the footsteps of its predecessor, once again delivering an adaptation of the long-running sports manga and anime of the same name, with just as much focus on characters and story as on “the beautiful game” itself. This game’s story is based on the “World Youth Arc” of the manga, for those who follow the series. For players who don’t follow the manga, the short version is that the titular Captain Tsubasa and your own custom-made player character will be heading to places around the world to challenge other teams and befriend players.

Much as with the previous game, Captain Tsubasa 2 makes use of cel-shaded 3D visuals in an anime style designed to imitate the manga and anime, with over-the-top visual effects and cinematic moments to make a ridiculously dramatic spectacle out of a bunch of teenagers kicking a ball around on a field. This is joined by some good (mostly Japanese-language) voice acting, and a stirring, dramatic cinematic soundtrack that further elevates the already high level of drama this game presents.

Unfortunately, this comes at a high cost on Nintendo Switch. Much like the previous game, Captain Tsubasa 2 has some real problems with dropping framerates (especially in cutscenes, which are frequent), but in addition now there are frequent long loading times that really drag down the pacing of the game. It’s especially frustrating when you have long loading times sandwiching already-dull story cutscenes (look, I get being a fan of a sports drama, but when the depth of the dialogue amounts to “we’re gonna’ play our best!” “oh yeah, we’ll we won’t take it easy on you either!”, then yeah, I’m definitely going to be strongly considering that “skip” button).

The loading times are bad enough, but sadly I feel like the gameplay has also taken a hit here. In the first Captain Tsubasa game, I felt like there was some good depth, to the point where I was confused as to whether that game wanted to be a more arcadey experience or something closer to a Simulation-style game. Here, I feel like there’s no such confusion – Captain Tsubasa 2 is distinctly an arcade-style take on the sport, and I feel like it’s a much worse game because of it.

In the original game, players had to take repeated shots on the goal to essentially “weaken” their opponent’s goalie before they could score a goal, reducing shot-scoring to a matter of depleting a health bar. Here, I feel like this sort of simplified approach has been extended to everything, and it seems to have resulted in gameplay being a constant barrage of tackling and tackle-evading until you’re close enough to make a shot on the goal, with players’ individual health bars reflecting damage taken from tackles. Not only does this make the gameplay much simpler, but it makes things really repetitive too.

I could still see some Soccer fans enjoying Captain Tsubasa 2, especially if they enjoy the mangas or animes. But players just looking for an enjoyable Soccer videogame have better options, including the previous Captain Tsubasa game. I recommend playing one of those games first.

tl;dr – Captain Tsubasa 2 is a Soccer videogame that is once again based on the long-running anime and manga series. Unfortunately, this time around the simplified gameplay has resulted in a shallower game that’s far more repetitive, and on Nintendo Switch it’s made worse with framerate issues and long, frequent loading screens. Fans of the franchise may still enjoy this, but players just looking for a good Soccer game have better options.

Grade: C

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