J.League Live 64 is essentially FIFA 64 for the Japanese J.League. However, it does have notable differences from the Western version of the game, the most obvious being far fewer teams as it’s just the one league.

However, there are some improvements. The HUD is miles better, showing the score and the name of the current player you control. There is also some team management, so you can change your starting squad and make substitutions. The “GOAL” and similar text is also nice an colourful.

The gameplay, however, feels even more broken than FIFA 64. Passing once again is often wrong, with your player passing behind you or even empty space. This time round, it doesn’t recognise you pressing the button half of the time. To counter this, the opponent AI is pretty terrible, and even set up a few shots for me by doing a lob from near the corner into their own box.

Slowdown is also a worse problem, with the game chugging and then rapidly speeding up, leading to mistakes. This really is a terrible game.

Reviewed on Jan 24, 2024


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