Coming into its fifth iteration, one would have thought it would be hard to make a serious tactical error in this football RPG series, and yet this performance is – amid a flurry of red cards – a gaffer-sacking, confusing, buggy mess.
Arion, captain of his school’s famous football team, arrives for the new term to find he’s the only football lover left and that his team never existed. The mysterious Alpha, it transpires, has been travelling through time and changing the past to erase all football. With the help of Fei Rune, a mutant from the future, and the robotic Clark von Wunderbot, Arion must travel through history in a time bus to save the game. (Yes, really.)
Sadly, Inazuma Eleven’s bright visual style and energetic soundtrack are about all it has going for it. Gameplay revolves around gathering up team members and then “battling” Alpha’s football-hating minions by… well, playing football. These matches are functional but dull, with very little variety. You have barely any control, apart from guessing whether a blocker or attacker will go left or right. And watch out for your saved files vanishing too. A great game if you want children to play more sports – because it makes video games utterly unappealing.
