Football anime Inazuma Eleven has been one of my favourite franchises ever since I first saw the TV show in the early 2010s. I’ve played every entry in the JRPG series on the DS/3DS/Wii, watched the show more times than you can count on one hand, and Inazuma Eleven: Victory Road has been my most anticipated game for almost a decade. The game may not be perfect, but I still can’t believe that it’s finally here, and that it actually lived up to my excitement.
If you don’t know Inazuma Eleven (you’ve really missed out), here’s a quick elevator pitch: an anime-styled football franchise centred around Japanese middle-school football clubs. Oh yeah, I almost forgot… These kids have incredibly awesome superpowered abilities. And they don’t even seem like kids, since they struggle with so many adult-themed problems. At least three characters have been in car “accidents,” and one boy deals with grief and split-personality issues after losing his entire family to an avalanche. The series has had multiple seasons and some reboots with different casts of characters. The original trilogy of seasons has always been my favourite, but the others are also decent. So, it’s definitely worth a watch, even if you don’t like sports.
This review isn’t about the anime though, but about the newest entry in the video game series, Inazuma Eleven: Victory Road. This is the latest creation of Akihiro Hino, the president of Level-5, who is also responsible for other notable video game series such as Yo-kai Watch and Professor Layton. The game features multiple modes, the major ones being: a story mode with brand-new characters, Chronicle Mode which lets you play through every match that ever occurred in the series, and, last but not least, the online competitive mode.
Heartwarming Narrative
Since the story and its characters have always been the power behind Inazuma Eleven, let’s start there. This story takes place 25 years after the original saga. You play as Destin, a kid who used to love football, but now despises it after being diagnosed with a heart disease that forced him to stop playing. He transfers to one of the few schools without a football club to avoid the sport, but when he meets a troubled guy named Briar, he sees potential in him to become a star football player. That’s when Destin starts a football team and decides to become its manager.
This is actually the first time in the series that you step into this role. And that’s what makes the first few chapters of Victory Road kinda weird, because you’re not playing football, instead, you have rock-paper-scissors-based battles. I personally didn’t really like this, but I stuck around for the story, which started to grab me when the first chapter ended. And ‘once the ball started rolling’, everything became even better.
The story shows a contrast between the completely new character Destin, a talented footballer who was forced to quit his passion due to illness, and Harper Evans, a player born with the talent and privileges to develop it, but who doesn’t really enjoy playing. Harper is also the son of the legendary goalkeeper Mark Evans, the main character of the original trilogy. It’s a heartwarming story with a really likeable brand-new cast. Besides the gameplay being a little boring in the beginning, the other issue I have with this game is that it’s way too easy. It never really felt like I was close to losing a match, even when I tried to be as underleveled as possible.
Love Letter to the Fans
This is also what ruins Chronicle Mode, a game mode that should be a dream for every Inazuma Eleven fan. You play through literally every major match from the various seasons of the show. During these matches, you have to complete objectives using the original players to keep things accurate to the events of the series, and there are visual novel–style scenes before, during, and after each match. This could (and should) have been a love letter to the franchise, but it’s ruined by how easy the matches are.
Every game ended with at least a four-point difference. My keeper had the most boring job ever, since the NPCs couldn’t even come close to my goal, unless it was forced by the objectives. It’s also really annoying that you have to beat a team twice to unlock the next game. The second time is without the story objectives, and you play with the team you’ve put together by playing Chronicle Mode and online. This is an even worse experience, since this team will always be very overleveled. But it’s still pretty cool to play through the Inazuma Eleven timeline and relive these moments. It’s just really disappointing that the difficulty of the NPCs makes the experience a little boring after a while.
Competitive Mode I’ve Dreamt Of
This issue is completely fixed in the online mode, since you’re playing against other players. This mode is where the game really shines. You can play with almost every major player from Inazuma Eleven and the GO series. This mode is so fun to play, and the developers really did a good job with creating a whole new gameplay system, since the original controls relied completely on the stylus of the DS. It is actually fun to play, and I think it has potential to develop a decent competitive community.
It also really feels like it is the first time I can build the team I’ve dreamt of since I was a kid, and it’s so cool that I can use it against other players. The one issue I have, though, is that the balancing could’ve been better. Almost everyone uses the same players, since some of them are clearly stronger than others.
Verdict
I started by saying that the game isn’t perfect, and that’s still true, which makes it hard to recommend to people who aren’t familiar with Inazuma Eleven. However, it’s an ode to the fans, and as someone who has followed this series for almost 15 years, I can say that Akihiro Hino really created my dream game. The story is just as heartwarming as in every other game, and the innovative gameplay is highly enjoyable. That said, I hope Level-5 addresses the balance and (lack of) difficulty issues in the future. But most importantly, I hope that this isn’t the last we’ve seen of this incredible series.
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