Summary
Street Soccer is a quick sports game where you play 3v3 or 4v4 games of soccer. You can play single matches or compete in cup matches for a championship. Gameplay is repetitive and the opponents aren’t challenging, making games easy to win. If there was no other soccer game, this could work but it’s hard to find any alternative that’s worse.
Developer – N/A
Publisher – Eathrabaria
Platforms – Switch 2 (reviewed)
Review copy given by publisher
A pickup game of soccer can be a fun experience as it’s a smaller field with more opportunities for goal scoring. Street Soccer attempts to replicate that experience with a short game and throwing you directly into the action. Fewer players and a smaller field means more clashes, competitive scores, and thrilling strategy. That’s the intention but the actual outcome is far from the typical soccer experience and not in a good way.
Street Soccer uses only touchscreen controls to give you better control of your actions on the field. It takes some adjustment to switch from using a controller but it allows you to respond to situations quickly. Learning how to play takes little time and even without a tutorial, you already know what to expect. Gameplay also runs smoothly and there are few issues other than the occasional graphic glitch.
Unfortunately, the novelty of touchscreen controls can’t make up for the poor AI opponents or gameplay. It’s easy to run past players and goalkeepers to push the ball into the goal. Shooting is almost irrelevant because the goalkeeper can catch any shot coming their way. There’s no need for passing to set up opportunities to score. You can easily run circles around the goalkeeper before running into the goal with the ball.
The AI opponents barely catch up and do silly things like pass to you or suddenly lose control of the ball. It’s not hard to have lopsided scores where you are winning by an unbeatable margin. Even if your opponents manage to score, you can easily turn the tides unless you’re deliberately not paying attention. This makes gameplay too easy and things quickly become repetitive, cutting your interest short.
You can only play quick matches or a cup which are just variations of the same game. There are options to switch jerseys or locations but it doesn’t fundamentally change anything. You are just playing soccer repeatedly until you get bored. Without any other game modes, it’s difficult to maintain your interest past a few games. Soccer fans may enjoy playing easy games but the low difficulty means the challenge evaporates quickly.
Street Soccer’s main draw is their touchscreen controls which they implement well. Everything else creates an easy game of soccer that quickly becomes boring after a few matches. If there was more to investigate or work with, gameplay could be more appealing. But at its core, this game relies on a lack of sports competitors to succeed. Unfortunately, there are plenty of soccer games on the market that offer more depth and you could be better satisfied by those.
