Captain Tsubasa – Rise of New Champions

Here they are, with the ball at their feet and no one capable of standing in their way. The stadium buzzes with the excitement of watching them play... They’re here to win, but there’s always good sportsmanship on display, and the fans want nothing more than... Oliver and Benji, masters of the ball!

Can you honestly say that doesn’t bring back memories?  Are you chanting?

Bandai Namco bring us an arcade football game based on the Oliver and Benji anime, letting us play as the main characters: taking their special shots and experiencing their showy football.

What this anime meant to an entire generation remains unparalleled. Captain Tsubasa, along with Dragon Ball and The Knights of the Zodiac (Saint Seiya), was one of those responsible for the explosion of anime. This football series was off-the-scale, match after match brought to life with impossible shots, players suffering from heart conditions (the legendary Julian Ross), fierce rivalries, and even personal beef between the players and their coaches.

We could spend hours talking about that anime and everything it gave us (sequences of Mark Lenders training for the tiger shot on the beaches of Okinawa, the friendship between Oliver Atom and Benji Price, the goalkeeper of rival St Francis, the Derrick twins and the infernal catapult…) but let’s focus.

The first thing worth pointing out is that most of the previous console adaptations either never left Japan or were modified (such as Tecmo Cup Soccer for NES) and there hasn’t been a desktop release since PS2.

Captain Tsubasa Rise of New Champions starts years after what we witnessed in the anime. We see our favourites playing for the Japan national team, and competing in the final against Germany, captained by Karl Heinz Schneider. As the climax of the match sets in, we get to experience (in a flashback) both sides of the single player mode: the story of Tsubasa Ozora and the story of a new player, who we get to create.

This mode takes us back to when Tsubasa was playing at high school – just after his mentor Roberto Hongo (Sedinho) left to go back to Brazil, and them winning their second championship against Toho.

The matches themselves have been spiced up with sequences which introduce rivals, training sessions or whatever’s going on in the locker room. It's a welcome addition that pays tribute to the work of Yoichi Takahashi. The icing on the cake is being able to unlock video sequences, with various stills taken from the series. Prepare to relive the moments that first won you over. 

The single-player stories exceed 20 hours of gameplay in total – not bad at all!

If you’re a fan of the series, you simply MUST play this game. It’ll bring back memories like no other game ever has ever done before. If, for some reason, you are not a fan, we would still recommend giving it a whirl, because it really is a different kind of football game. Enjoy incredible shots, saves and stunts! There’s no way you haven’t sung the theme tune while reading this…