Captain Tsubasa: Rise of New Champions

Review

“The boy was raised with a soccer ball never far from his feet. At eleven, his move to the city of Nankatsu would be the catalyst for two fateful encounters, one with the star of Brazilian soccer, Roberto Hongo... and the other with the goalkeeping prodigy, Genzo Wakabayashi. The good fortune of meeting these two became the robust roots of his passionate life of soccer.

Fighting alongside teammates and rivals alike, forging bonds while severing others, every experience became his strength. It’s been four years since those two fruitful encounters. He has faced down countless trials. And now... he finds himself ready to spread his wings and greet the wide world. His name is Tsubasa Ozora.”

After agreeing to Bandai Namco Privacy Policy, you find yourself in the tunnel waiting to head out onto the field for the finals of the first “Jr. Youths World Challenge” which is being held in America. The finals are between Japan and Germany! The winner will have bragging rights and be able to call themselves World Champions. This isn’t a full match however, but a small tutorial of a few basic: Dribbling, Shooting, Tackling etcetera. To finish this tutorial, you must follow and complete certain moves in order to progress.  Once completed, follow the movie clip and you’ll find yourself at the main menu screen.  

On the main menu you will find; The Journey (here are two single player story campaigns - “Episode Tsubasa” and “Episode New Hero”), Versus  (offline matches that support up to four players), Online Versus (here you can face off against the world’s best online players), Practice (here you can undergo training and learn new skills), Ultimate Edit (you can make changes to players and teams you have created), Collection (here you can enjoy special videos and music), and finally, Options (so you can configure your systems settings).  

In the Episode Tsubasa, you’ll follow Tsubasa through the thrilling competition of the middle school Nationals. Episode New Hero allows you to train your own hero in the original story. Match settings are optimised to fit both stories, so you’re unable to change any game settings.  The Episode Tsubasa campaign is recommended for new players to familiarise themselves with the game, while Episode New Hero is for those players with more experience under their belts.

As I’m a bit rusty at the old football (that’s right it’s FOOTBALL!!! Not Soccer!) I went and played the Tsubasa campaign. Tsubasa plays for Nankatsu MS and they have won the Nationals for the last two years running.  This year Tsubasa and teammates will be going up against some of Tsubasa’s old teammates like Kojiro Hyuga, Captain of Toho MS and Shun Nitta of Otomo. Both teams express their desires of beating Nankutsu and becoming champions. After some boasting and chat, you’ll have the option to either learn some more basics and skills, or start your next match.

You don’t actually play all games in the Nationals to reach the final; this is played on in the story, which will have Nankatsu MS and Otomo MS reach the National finals. This means you’ll be up against Nitta, who is desperate to beat Tsubasa and prove that he’s the best. This will be your first full game, the winner of which will be crowned National Champions. It’s not going to be easy . . . the Otomo team play defensive and haven’t dropped a point throughout the tournament.

Each player has Five Stats (Offence, Defence, Power, Speed and Technique), which will determine their General Offence and Defence, Shot Power, Movement Speed and Kick Gauge Fill Speed. Performing a Critical Defence allows you to successfully tackle a player who is filling their Kick Gauge. The longer you hold down the shoot button, the more powerful your shot will be.

You can activate Shooting Moves by filling the Kick Gauge and while the Spirit Gauge is above a certain amount. Shooting Moves vary depending on the player; however, all Shooting Moves will weaken the opponent's goalkeeper’s Spirit.  The lower the goalkeeper’s Spirit, the better chance you’ll have to score. Successful Tackling, Dibbling or Dueling will fill your V-Zone Gauge. Activating V-Zone Gauge when it’s full and on the offensive will allow your teammates’ Spirit and Kick Gauge to refill faster.  Additional effects will depend on your team captain.

In the Manage Team Menu, you can select up to Four Tactics which you can swap on the fly any time within a match. There are Fifteen tactics you can choose from, ranging from Offensive and Defensive Formations, to Left-Side and Right-Side Focus. So, you should be able to find the right tactics to help you beat your opponents. At the end of a match you will be shown detail of the match, Score, Ball Possession, Shots, Successful Moves, Corner Kicks, Offside Penalties and V-Zones Activated.

In the settings there are options for Graphic Settings (Anti-Aliasing, Texture Quality, Shadow Quality, Depth of Field and Bloom). Window Settings (Display Mode, Resolution, Framerate Limit and V-Sync), Audio Settings (Music, Movie, Menu SFX, Story Voice, Match SFX, Match Cheering, Match Play-by-Play Voice, Match Player Voice), Match Settings (Match Time (Half), Overtime, Penalty Kick off, Number of Substitutions, Stadium/Field, Time, Ball Type and Camera Type), Language (Subtitles and Languages English, Brazilian Portuguese, Latin American Spanish, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Arabic and Traditional Chinese), Key Config (Button Layout 1 to 8), Other Settings (Skip Story and Skip Bonding Events).

I have enjoyed playing Captain Tsubasa – Rise of New Champions so far. The graphics are good, the ambience and music are good. However, it did get very frustrating with the game crashing all the time. Sometimes I’d be five minutes into a match the next time it would three quarters of the way through the match. I tried everything I could think of to stop the game from crashing - made sure drivers all up to date, tried to run the game without the anti-cheat, turned off Steam overlay etcetera - but no joy.

I searched the internet and found a couple options to try, one of which was to restart a new game, which I didn’t fancy doing but after trying all sorts I had no other choice but to try. However, there’s a second part to starting a new game and that is not to do the tutorials which show up before matches. It seems that if you do the tutorials, then it corrupts your game save and will then crash when in a match. I wouldn’t mind this option, but as I haven’t learnt everything yet, it’s nice to have a butcher’s at the tutorials. I haven’t had a problem since I restarted the game without doing the tutorial, but it shouldn’t be like this, so it really needs sorting out.

I haven’t tried any of the other game modes other than the Tsubasa story campaign mode thus far.

Review written by Piston Smashed™ for Zeepond.com!