Original Release: SNK, 1992, Arcade
Other Releases: Neo Geo CD (1995)
SNK’s first tilt at arcade soccer prior to the Super Sidekicks series, Soccer Brawl offers a simplified 5 vs 5 game with robots and weapons
Soccer Brawl (Arcade, SNK, 1992)
Where to Buy: eBay
How to Emulate: Arcade Emulation Guide
For whatever reason, you just can’t sell soccer in the United States despite its popularity everywhere else in the world. They’ve got that US professional league that has had all kinds of money dumped into it, and the season seems to literally never end, and yet still just a niche following. Even attaching weapons and explosions to the process never really got over in the video game world.
Case in point, Soccer Brawl. I don’t pretend to understand the mysteries of why the US won’t embrace soccer, but with this particular title I think it’s just that it was an unbalanced and unplayable mess. It suckers you in by taking it easy in the first match, but then the second match on is a non-stop weapons spam fest in which the computer gets more fast and overwhelming each time out and also seems to actively exploit the stupidity of your goalie (who likes to automatically throw the ball right to a nearby attacker who then does a header for an instant goal).
It also has a very annoying control hink, having to actually hold in the direction you want to shoot, instead of auto-orienting on the goal like literally every other 2D soccer game of this sort. The only thing that keeps it halfway manageable is that the computer somehow seems to struggle with this concept too, and often inexplicably shoots the ball out of bounds giving you a throw-in.
And while we’re on annoyances, since the theme is “robo-soccer” there are no penalties. Players wear down after a couple of attacks and begin hobbling around slowly, so there’s no reason not to just spam attacks at them to turn them into degraded husks within the first minute or two of play.
Decent presentation (other than uninspiring team colors), but the actual design seems to have been poorly thought out.
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