Ganbare! Super Strikers doesn't really have enough interesting aspects to it to really hook me in. It has a profound lack of content- its "story mode" is just a series of menus and a couple text bubbles, which means Ganbare! needs to rely on the strength of its actual gameplay. While the game itself is evocative of various oddball Japanese sports RPGs; it fails to either carve out its own strong niche or perfectly emulate the feel of something like a Camelot GBA title. The matches themselves have interesting implementation of the various rules and manuevers of soccer, but the tactical aspect is pretty unfulfilling. At its worst, you are slogging through a 30 minute match just to lose to a series of bad RNG rolls. Overall, its an admirable attempt but nothing to write home about.

Convertir el fútbol en un juego de estrategia por turnos: podría ser un concepto ideado por la mente de un hombre molinillo, pero esta extraña amalgama ya existía desde los tiempos de Captain Tsubasa y los juegos que recibió desde NES. Aunque nunca ha funcionado especialmente bien, todo sea dicho. Muchos desarrolladores que intentaron trasladar la dinámica del fútbol a un tablero de juego se encontraron con las dificultades de replicar su acción cooperativa y simultánea, concentrada en infinidad de conflictos fugaces y doblemente interpretables no sólo entre aquellos que luchan por el balón. Si bien los managers permiten que el jugador únicamente pueda intervenir tratando de alterar la dinámica de sus duelos IA vs IA, el resultado no suele ser muy fidedigno o realista que digamos. Y aquellos otros que dejaron en el jugador la responsabilidad de controlar a un equipo entero de fútbol, tuvieron que simplificar sus conceptos o aislarlos de realismo alguno para que pudieran ofrecer un atisbo de diversión en el intento.

‘Ganbare! Super Strikers’ es otro de esos experimentos poco fructíferos, que deja curiosidad por ver cómo ha salido hasta que las lagunas en su planteamiento emergen. Con su estética propia de ‘Inazuma Eleven’ (y parecido razonable de alguno de sus personajes), los partidos de Ganbare! se desarrollan en una cuadrícula entre dos equipos de siete jugadores. En cada turno, el usuario puede desplazar a cada futbolista de su equipo hasta en dos ocasiones, dando órdenes para que pasen, chuten el balón, regateen, hagan entradas para robar el esférico o incluso ejecuten movimientos especiales que les lleve a marcar un gol. Los resultados de cada acción son aleatorios y se calculan por los stats de los jugadores implicados, de modo que, aunque puedes extender la jugada todo lo que puedas si tus jugadores están organizados sobre el césped, todo se detendrá en el momento que pierdas el esférico. Y en caso de ser muy osado, las consecuencias pueden ser gravísimas.

Para aprovechar al máximo Ganbare! conviene aprovecharlo más por su componente estratégico que como un partido de fútbol. Porque no se percibe realista y tratar de darle verosimilitud limitará tus opciones de victoria. Si te atreves a montar una defensa de 7 tapando la portería, es imposible que el balón se cuele entre los tres palos. O al revés, si consigues rodear a tu jugador con la pelota con otros compañeros alrededor, es imposible que otros puedan birlársela. Los escenarios que presenta son divertidos pero pueden llegar a ser frustrantes por su poca naturalidad (y ocasional mala leche con IA suertuda), y aunque el juego permite subir de nivel a tus jugadores para que resulte más accesible en partidos de alto octanaje, esto requiere de un proceso de grinding o farmeo bastante laborioso en el tiempo. No hay un balance claro que pueda ayudarte en desventaja frente a rivales de más entidad, e incluso algunas acciones resultan prescindibles y no merece la pena ejecutarlas.

Todo esto contribuye a que la experiencia de juego resulta bastante aburrida a la larga. Como el fútbol en sí: un deporte en el que los excesos son bienvenidos y las personas muestran lo peor de sí mismas escudadas en la pasión. De Cristo, Messi o Maradona. En ese sentido, lo han clavao. En la cruz.

It feels weird to abandon a game like 70% in, but all the tedium just added up over time. It's a solid idea and concept that gets chipped away by a lot of little annoyances that ultimately kill it for me. Death of a thousand knee scrapes kind of thing:

-The character creator is neat at first but then all the characters just feel kinda not there. Nice to have Yu Narukami and Guts Berserk on the same team, but they just feel interchangeable and meaningless. Maybe voices or more options would have helped them stand out.
-Offsides are incredibly frustrating in the fact that you can do them in the first place, which resets the field and gives your opponent the ball. Given they never make this mistake, it's terrible that you can, after all I am not a pro soccer player which is why I am playing a soccer SRPG, and the punishment is incredibly severe.
-You can only attempt one tackle a turn. If you don't get it, too bad you can only pray that they don't score on you next turn.
-If your goalie manages to catch the ball, you have no control of where they throw it, it's completely random because that is totally how goalies in real soccer work, they just grab the ball and throw it randomly.
-Getting a goal is so tough for both sides to do thanks to the powerful Goalies (and even if you get past one, the ball can just decide to hit the pole haha), that the game can easily end in a tie, where the worst tie mechanics I've seen come to light:
-First part of a tie is two 5 minute (turn) rounds. Due to how hard scoring goals are neither side will really do anything with the 2/3 turns that are given, and so the second half, which is far worse, is....
-Penalty Shots. These are pure RNG, where you have to guess which of 3 directions the AI shoots and the AI "guesses" where you're shooting. The AI will win out, and you WILL do the last 20 minutes of your life again due to a shitty RNG minigame of RPS where you have a 33% chance of being safe. I'm assuming it's because they don't want players to somehow rely on tiebreakers but it just comes across as a middle finger.

I'm sure there are better soccer sims out there that can actually score a goal.

I’ve had a few cool little experiences up to now, but this is the first truly exciting game I’ve experienced thanks to the Ukraine Bundle.

Really solid concept and execution, great music, sequentially engaging. I particularly like the mastery system which reminds me of FFTA, where abilities are learned through equipment but once that ability has been mastered you don’t need to keep that piece of equipment on your team member to have them use it.

Also, the AI ripped me to pieces a few times when I tried to complete the bonus objectives, which was a nice way of balancing the incentive to try and do them every time. As a result I missed a few pieces of gear, so might go back and try and get them now that I’ve got end-game stats.

Loved a lot here that I haven’t mentioned yet - the character and team customisation is sick, the story is sparse but has a perfect minimalist shonen vibe to it. Also love that it was made by a solo Australian developer!

It’s a little rough around the edges in some aspects which keeps it from a perfect score for me. Some menuing is a bit unintuitive and occasionally the interface gets a bit cluttered with noise which made it hard to assess my best moves. Small quibbles, nothing that kept me from enjoying this for the few hours it took me to clock it.

Can’t wait to see what this dev does next!