As the Club World Cup approaches its conclusion, I start to recall my very fond memories of playing soccer games from way before they became the “thing” that they are today. The types of titles that if played today by a modern EA FC (the new name to what used to be FIFA Soccer, to the uninitiated) or PES, would make their brains melt. But back then I was just a little kid and didn’t know any better because there literally wasn’t anything better at the time. Hence, my nostalgia for Jaleco’s Goal! – yes, with the exclamation mark.
Having had the opportunity to jump back into it thanks to Jaleco Sports: Goal!, a compilation of the first two Goal! games, one that was released for the NES and the other for the Super Nintendo, it’s clear that both are definitely museum pieces, for the nicest use of the term as it exists. These are extremely old and were surpassed by releases that came after them in their particular consoles, so it’s important to view them through the right lenses: of what was available at the time they were new.
When it came to NES soccer games, well, there was Soccer, released by Nintendo as one of the system’s very first “black box” carts, and boy, it was a rough one to love. It didn’t follow fundamental aspects of the sport and frankly, much like Volleyball, it was just offensive. And I can say this from experience, as it was basically the only game in town for me when it came to playing fake soccer, outside of foosball, part of the 99-in-1 cart my family used to own in the early 1990s.
So when my older brother’s school friend lent us his copy of Goal!, we were flabbergasted by it: it actually felt like soccer and man, it had some NICE graphics. Right. I was 5 or 6 and my brother 9 or 10, so what did we know? Still, we had a blast playing it together, or as close to that as it came, since I was so little and had just started playing videogames and my skills were at a very fundamental level then, ahem not that they are any better today when it comes to soccer games.
Fast-forward to today and my old ass self booting this up now, having not touched any form of a soccer game since probably the pandemic. Yup, Goal! is a disaster. It moves at the pace of an old printer, you know, the one that made all that noise, where we used those paper rolls with tracks on them. That’s how it feels to slowly, very slowly pace my player through the field, hammering on either A and B hoping that a sliding tackle will come off.
Then there’s the problem of actually controlling my guys, especially when playing defense. Misremembering how Goal! works after years of playing much more superior soccer videogames over the years, I assumed the goalie would be computer-controlled. Nope. He moves in the direction I’m holding when the ball happens to get close to him, meaning that goals from the opposition are likely to happen 99.999% of the time.
So by now you’re probably yelling at the screen telling me to “get gud”, right? Well, the thing is, it doesn’t work the same for the other team being handled by the CPU. Their goalie is basically Spider-Man. For the two or so hours I’ve spent playing Goal!, I did not, in fact, score one, but suffered quite a few. Even playing as one of the “good” teams against a “bad” one. Sigh.
As a historical piece, having the opportunity to play Goal! anytime you feel like it without having to dig your NES or whatever equivalent you might happen to own in this day and age is frankly neat, but that’s not likely to happen naturally as it’s not all that fun to play, I’m sorry to say. If you want to power through it, though, you can do it with a friend next to you or online, and there’s a few options to pick from: World Cup, which goes without saying, Tournament, where you pick which teams you want to play against, and Shoot Out, which is an all-out penalty kick fight, and we all know how crazy those can go.
Now let’s talk about Super Goal!, also known as Goal! 2, the other game included in Jaleco Sports: Goal!. It came out two years before the worldwide behemoth that Konami’s International Superstar Soccer would become, so it helped opened up the way by offering some decent soccer, especially compared to what was available at the market during that point, which was Super Soccer, developed by Human, which outside of being the very first game that was pulled from Nintendo Switch Online and having a surprisingly insane story mode where the ref steals the world cup and challenges you to play against his all-powerful team – that’s not me having an acid trip, it’s really like that – it wasn’t very good then and it’s just awful by today’s standards.
Super Goal!, however, is way better than Super Soccer. First and foremost, is actually playable, for starters. It has rules, which is a step above its predecessor. There’s offsides, something that Super Soccer lacked, it looks much better as players have actual human proportions, and… there are cheerleaders. Okay, that last part I can brush off and give Jaleco the benefit of the doubt, after all, they were trying to market the game to the North American public. All kidding aside, for as clunky as it feels, especially compared to International Superstar Soccer, it works well for what it is.
Animation-wise, Super Goal! doesn’t hold a candle to that other game, sadly. There’s no telling how fights for the ball will end as both players just freeze in place for a few moments as you mash buttons and the ball ends up flying either way, and aiming at the goal is incredibly difficult when you just can’t see it until you’re way up the goalie’s sweaty face. Add to that the digital pad’s limited range, something that can’t be fixed by controlling the game with an analog stick, and I just have to stop and think how much more patient I used to be as a kid in order to enjoy playing a soccer game that way.
Granted, I spent way less time playing Super Goal! back when I was a kid as I did with the first one. I was slightly older at the time and we didn’t get to it right away, languishing with Super Soccer instead as one of our only Super Nintendo carts for years. By the time Super Goal! rolled around to its cartridge slot, we already had a pirated copy of the very first FIFA Soccer, and while way uglier than Jaleco’s effort, it played way better, and with International Superstar Soccer around the corner, Super Goal! didn’t get much of a chance. Hey, Konami, come on, easy money idea here: just release a retro collection for your SNES soccer games now, will ya?!
As it stands, warts and all, it’s easily the best of the two games included in Jaleco Sports: Goal!. So much so that I was able to score a goal, granted it was through a penalty kick but DETAILS, am I right? What is important here is to point out that while not the best soccer games ever in any way, shape or form, it’s a valiant effort by Sickhead Games and publisher Rock It Games to bring back these games as historical pieces. Otherwise virtually inaccessible, they can now be played and appreciated for what they are, necessary steps in the evolution of the sport in videogame form.
In that regard, Jaleco Sports: Goal! does the bare minimum when it comes to emulation options. You can toggle a TV-style frame and turn on a CRT filter, that’s about it. Oh yeah, there is an option to rewind so you can cheat defeat when playing solo. It’s nice being able to co-op with friends, though, if you can rope someone equally as nostalgic as you into tackling these together, which can be fun in a pinch, I suppose. Gallery-wise, there are some nice models of the game boxes with all the Nintendo logos Photoshop-ed out as well as the original English and Japanese manuals, which are always nice touches when it comes to retro compilations. All in all, a neat collection to say the least.
