With the World Cup just ending, Soccer fever is on the rise. This also makes it the best time to release soccer theme video games. Now most people will expect a full fledged sports game, but with enough imagination, you can have a 2d-platformer that is soccer themed. The perfect example is Soccer Kid Collection.
Soccer Kid Collection is a re-release of the SNES version with updated graphics but i wouldnt call it a collection per say, since it just has two different versions of basically the same game. Personally they should have just re-released the Soccer Kid game and save themselves time and effort but that’s just my opinion. You play as Soccer Kid, a young boy who is a huge fan of soccer, going around jumping and exploring the town trying to reassemble the broken and stolen world cup. While exploring you have to use your trusted soccer ball to attack enemies, collect items and solve puzzles. In a way this shows how in soccer you need to have complete control of the ball at all times. You need the ball at all times, since it’s the only way to defend yourself and losing it will leave you defenseless.
I will admit the game looks great with all the upscaling done to the sprites. In the options you can change the style to your preference and customize your experience. While playing I get the nostalgic feeling of playing classical video games, with their sprite art style and unusually high difficulty. Old games are known to be hard but this game is hard for different reasons. I just wished that you could still accuse the famous cheat codes we used to use during that time to really get the nostalgic feeling, since most of the games back then almost required cheat codes just to enjoy them. But sadly this game doesn’t have such codes, which in my opinion was definitely required.
The main mechanic of the game is using your soccer ball for everything and that’s where the issue lies. The game doesn’t even give you a tutorial or even button prompts. It took me forever to find out how to kick the ball and to respawn it. A simple button prompt telling you the controls when you start could easily fix this problem. While you can look up the controls in the menus, most new players don’t bother looking and start playing and will immediately have a bad time. While i was glad that you can respawn the ball if you launch it and it falls in a pit or pops when it hits spikes, because i didnt know how to get a new ball, i ended up going through half of the level, losing a life and having to redo the whole level due to lack of useful checkpoints. I’m not asking to have my hand held the whole time, but would it kill them to tell you what the buttons are when you start the first level. The actual platforming isn’t that hard and can be done with a couple of tries, it’s just that when you jump you don’t have your ball with you so you have to kick it across the gap and hope it makes it, if not you can just respawn it once you get across so it’s not that big of a deal. I do like the idea of learning how to control the ball just like in real soccer, just in a different way. I just think it could have been handled better and made easier to understand.
The game has collectable cards based on actual soccer players (or at least look like actual players), for those who love finding collectables in hidden places. This game definitely shows its love for the game of soccer. You will find so many references to the time period during the Fifa Cup, minus the fact that aliens stole and broke the world cup, but regardless I feel like the developers really showed love to the sport whether they are fans or not.
In conclusion, Soccer Kid Collection, while not my cup of tea and it not truly being a collection, does have a charm to it. With the classic feel of 90’s difficulty, nostalgic graphics, and with a cool yet difficult to master mechanic with ball control, this game is a decent experience for anyone who is a 90’s kid and fan of soccer. While I personally don’t have it in my top 10, I say give it a try if you’re interested.
Score: 6 out of 10
Reviewed on Nintendo Switch