Super FamiComplete #96: Goal!

 

Title: Goal! (NA) Super Cup Soccer (JP) Super Goal

Release Date: 04/24/1992

Developer/Publisher: Jaleco

Time has flown since my last post, but here we are with three short posts that I am going to knock out at once. I am inching ever closer to game #100 and want to get there by the end of August. With today's trilogy we are also starting with the best of the bunch, a soccer sim by Jaleco. 

Background

This game is the fifth game in the Tose/Jaleco Moero!! sports series that started on the NES, and is actually the port of the NES version of the game called Goal! Two. "Moero" translates to "burning with passion" and is the same overall sports series in which Super Bases Loaded resides. Being the first soccer game for the SNES in this series, they stripped the "two" from the title to make it less confusing (at least that is my head-canon). Of course there is another sequel in this series, so that will be covered down the line at some point (let's be honest there is another soccer game in like 20 games too after some more baseball and golf and boxing and tennis and formula 1 racing). 

That man with the killer gams on the cover is John Brady, an amateur soccer player from London who just happened to be living in the US (not a super well known property). 

Gameplay

This is another soccer sports sim, and definitely a good bit more polished than World League Soccer. Instead of little lego men and a birdseye view, you actually have the traditional "television" side view that you would have if you were watching a match on tv. The soccer players actually look like people, even if everyone on your team looks exactly the same, and there is definitely more nuance to the actual soccer. 

When starting, you have the traditional choice of whether to play a season or just an exhibition. For the sake of this review, I played one match with me as Germany and the computer as Scotland (it should be noted that they didn't get the rights to official emblems and team colors, so it is just generic designs). You can choose the length of each half, and how stringent you want the rules, with the ability to turn off fouls and offsides calls. Finally, before the match begins, you choose the field position of your team, splitting up the ratio between defense, midfield, and attack. 

From there...it is soccer, and a pretty good SNES approximation of soccer. You control the teammate who is closest to the ball, and you have the ability to do short passing kicks, long distance clearing kicks, slides to steal the ball, and can get into little kicking wars to wrest control of the ball from other players. Again, pretty stock standard. The opponent AI is...interesting? Like it seems to be a bit more complex that it should be. I'll give an anecdotal example. After scoring my first goal, I was up against Scotland 1-0, and the computer acted as if it had been slighted. Over the next two minutes of gameplay, the computer seemed to purposefully slide right into my player and cause a foul to be called. This happened five times, I kid you not. There are plenty of little behavior touches like this; perhaps they were trying to simulate some of the hot headed actions soccer players take sometimes? 

Where this game really shines is the presentation: you have a thumping music throughout the match, which slowly gets faster as the game progresses and reaches its climax. As well, the characters are not really well animated, but there is a variety of animations to their movement and kicks. When you score a dramatic goal, you even get a little cutscene of your team freaking out. At halftime you even get a little performance by the Jaleco cheerleaders who do little routines (my favorite is when they make the weird Shiva construct). The big strikes to its presentation only really occur due to the fact that these aren't based on any particular teams, meaning the players don't have names and are all weird clones, but I concede to it being an artifact of this era where the replication of the sport itself was the novelty. 

Music

While not as strong as World League Soccer the music is still pretty good; a common theme with sports games. Due to the fact that it is hard to search up "Goal!" I've included a longplay instead. 

Overall

If you are looking for a decent SNES soccer sim, then this will work for you. The presentation, again, is what sells it over the stellar gameplay.