Angel_Arle Rockman reviews
Part 1: Rockman for Famicom
Part 2: Rockman 2: Dr. Wily no Nazo for Famicom
Part 3: Rockman 3: Dr. Wily no Saigo!? for Famicom
Part 4: Rockman World for GB
Part 5: Rockman 4: Aratanaru Yabou!! for Famicom
Part 6: Rockman World 2 for GB
Part 7: Rockman 5: Blues no Wana!? for Famicom
Part 8: Rockman World 3 for GB
Part 9: Wily & Right no RockBoard: That's Paradise for Famicom
Part 10: Rockman World 4 for GB
Part 11: Rockman 6: Shijō Saidai no Tatakai!! for Famicom
Part 13: Rockman World 5 for GB

With the Famicom saying its final goodbyes to Rockman, it’s time to move on to greater fields. That being the Soccer fields! Yep instead of a Rockman 7 at the moment we got Rockman’s Soccer. A very weird idea for a spinoff. Like a board game I get especially in that era of gaming but why a Soccer game? Were soccer games ever popular in Japan? I wasn’t really looking forward to this game considering I’m not one to play sports games most of the time. This one was developed by Sun L though some sites say Capcom so who knows who really made it! This also will be a fairly short review this time.

The plot of Rockman’s Soccer takes place after the event of Rockman 4 which I swear is like the third or fourth game to be like this. We have Rockman, Dr Right, and Roll (yeah remember her?) watching a soccer game until Dr. Wily causes havoc with previous Robot Masters. With no other choice they turn Rock back as Rockman and he’s now ready to face every Robot Master…by playing Soccer.

So this review is going to be about the Capcom Championship mode where Rockman has to face eight teams and then do three additional moments to see the ending. A team is divided with 8 members but you start off with only Rockman. Fortunately everyone has the ability to clone themselves so you can now have an 8 Rockman team. The Robot Masters you must face are Cut Man, Elec Man, Fire Man, Wood Man, Needle Man, Skull Man, Pharaoh Man, and Dust Man. You can choose any of them in any order like the games. Once you set your positions and who will be doing what position then you’ll be ready to play a game of Soccer!

Well the gameplay sure is Soccer. If you thought this was going to be some over the top soccer game, well you’re dead wrong. It’s soccer and you got Rockman characters playing it. You pass with the Y button, you kick with the B button, and you punt with the A button. If you hold R and then kick then you can use your special move. Sadly every special move is identical to each other but it’s just a different animation. It hits whoever it comes into contact first and stuns them. You’ll want to hit the goalie because it’ll most of the time land in the goal giving a free point. Unless you know the exploits in this game or get lucky, you’ll be praying the AI doesn't get them and hit one of your other teammates. Most of the game consists of one team trying to reach the goal but constantly getting buggered by the other team’s defense or the goalie having the most cheater hitbox I’ve ever seen. Seriously screw the goalie it’s too good when you don’t know exploits. The best luck you’ll ever have is in hopes they stay lying on the floor for a couple of seconds to let you kick it into the goal. Games last 10 minutes but will constantly be stopped because time doesn’t go when the goalie has the ball. Once you win a match, you’ll be given a new Robot Master as a teammate to use which by the end you’ll never have any Rockman on your team because they are inferior to the Robot Masters.

There are some things left to say like how there’s a slide and shoulder push for defense, there’s an overtime where you kick five goals to see who wins the most goals, and there’s even other modes outside of the game besides this story mode that I didn’t even want to bother with. There’s even other Robot Masters in the other modes for you to use. It’s just the game is such a slog that I couldn’t care. Nothing fun is happening in this game and it feels like the same thing is happening for every match. I just felt mad playing it begging for the game to the end. Once you beat all eight Robot Masters then you can fight Enker, Blues and Wily. First off, Enker!? They brought him back again? Granted he is cool so I’ll let it slide. Second, why Blues? Why is he siding with Wily again? Enker is hard to beat because his stats are good and can ignore power shots. Same goes for Blues and Wily though Blues does lose to Enker’s special. I just don’t have much to say to be honest. I did win against Wily in overtime and now for the ending. There’s actually no ending, that’s right the ending wasn’t even put in the final release. You can use cheats to have it be viewable but it makes me wonder just how much time they had to make this game. There’s even another ending for a different mode that would have had Kalinka and Roll in it which kind of makes me sad it went unused.

Then you have the visuals and they’re okay. They don’t really impress me at all but they also don’t look bad. The sprites could be better in some areas though. When you see the introduction of each opponent, they still look like the Famicom sprites and some even worse use than usual like Dr. Wily. The cutscene in the intro looks nice at least. The music however is just not really enjoyable at all. I would say this is the worst the series has had so far but Rockman World 2 exists. I don’t know if it’s just the game irritating me or just feeling like it would never end but some of the music got on my nerves. The Cut field especially got me bad. Otherwise it’s just nothing special.

This is one of those kinds of reviews that makes me go “I just wanna get to the next game.” because Rockman’s Soccer is not a fun game for me at all. It’s slow, uninteresting and nothing about the game excites me or has me engaged. I know this game has fans and don’t say there isn’t because they do exist, even unironic ones. For me though, if it wasn’t for just having to beat every Rockman game, I would have dropped this so quickly because man this game is not fun at all. Soccer fans might like this one but for someone like me, no thanks. Honestly playing this made me not want to play Soccer games ever again for the most part so thanks Capcom. I guess before I say goodbye, there is one more thing I want to discuss. The game’s commercial in Japan used a song called “We Are Rockman” and it's full version can be listened to here if you wanna give it a listen. It’s the perfect Rockman song if you wanted to hear F*ck in your song. Well, I’ll be back to the Game Boy one more time with Rockman World 5 next time. Apologies for the short review but that’s what happens when I’m being tasked to do sports stuff. See you next time!