On the game's store page here on Steam, I saw a headline from some reviewer that stated, “Soccer for people who think they don’t like soccer.” After playing [i]Charrua Soccer - Pro Edition[/i], I'm not sure it convinced me that soccer is a fun sport to play on a PC yet alone watch on a TV or in person.
[i]Charrua Soccer - Pro Edition[/i] looks like a mix of Roblox and as though the figures on the foosball table escaped the metal rod they are suspended from and have unleashed themselves to play without those constraints that only allows them to move laterally, but because kicking a ball is the only thing they truly know, they didn't think of enjoying their newfound freedom by doing anything else, as anything could be more fun than soccer as demonstrated by this video game, even birding or watching paint dry.
I get that it's an arcade version of the sports genre, which generally means that you can expect faster paced gameplay, far shorter round(?) timers, and sometimes flashy, explosive animations that are unrealistic to what you would see in reality or in another sports video gaming franchise like FIFA or Madden, but it's just not good. The "arcade" classification seems to be used as a justification to create low-effort characters that look like something from Nintendo's Miiverse or a LEGO set as well as selling silly cosmetic additions in a store, like the option to add a hat to the soccer ball or make the players look like a mascot gone wild in a fursuit. These items are purchased using in-game currency that you collect by playing through the career mode, and I didn't notice any option to spending real money to skip the grind, so that's good at least.
The players themselves are reminiscent of a LEGO figure because of the perpetual toothy grin and a complete lack of facial animations or dynamic expressions and because I think they only really have four joints that move, all located in their arms and legs. The arcade nature of the title largely comes from the sheer violence that exists where you can pelt someone with a soccer ball and knock them down, and in a way, it's almost like a brawler but on a soccer field and a ball as the main weapon. I found myself just trying to injure my opponents by kicking the ball in their face, but it doesn't appear there is an injury system to the game.
I'm unfamiliar with the development studio that designed this video game, but it looks more like a junior developer's first game or even an entry for a game done quick more than something that can be considered a fully fledged soccer game with all of the necessary components that come packed into the genre. In fact, in my independent research of this studio and this video game, it appears to have been a mobile game originally that was ported to the PC market and being sold for $12 USD full price as of this review. This is rather scummy from the developers and gives red flags, as this title is definitely not worth $12 USD.
What did surprise me, however; is that the video game does support numerous resolution modes, including windowed fullscreen. Although, the settings menu is delivered as this odd horizontal slider, giving credence to it being a mobile port as this is far more typical of mobile game design.
There's a variety of teams to represent different countries, all having fictional but generic names for the players rather than being named after the professionals, which is perhaps understandable. There's also the female leagues, but the female characters are just as blocky and squared as the others and so there's hardly a difference between male and female soccer players beyond the women having longer hair and a pointed chest that you can notice more closely in the replay camera. You can create your own team in the game's 'career mode' and even play as the world's first unisex soccer team by adding male and female players together, as it doesn't really matter. The game doesn't take into consideration biological differences between men and women and how men are naturally better competitors of any sport, so the ladies won't deter you from achieving the gold trophy or whatever gets awarded to the best team of the season. This career mode has a variety of different options, truly allowing you to customize your entire team from its name, the flag that represents it, uniform, the coach, etc. Career mode itself is what you can expect: you basically just play through a circuit of other teams until you declare yourself the best Roblox soccer team ever. There's also a few other changes you can make of a more tactical nature where you can arrange your team and change their 'attitude' to something more aggressive, but as I've seldom played sports games before, I can't really make too many comparisons in what it is otherwise lacking. There is indeed something lacking here to create a game that has any replay value, though, maybe something like a sniper rifle for the dude who sits in the net to give them extra purpose and you can shoot a pesky player who keeps tackling you and stealing your ball. Now that sounds like a good arcade soccer game to me.
The video game itself just tries to strip away what makes a sports game boring by thrusting you into the action to play sooner rather than later, but the core gameplay is still there: it's still a soccer game and I wonder if the arcade nature truly helps it shine as a better alternative to a soccer video game that is more realistic and slower-paced in its design, or even any other arcade-y alternatives. I can recognize the strategy required to playing the field properly, you have to know the rules of soccer, know the positions of your players so that you can safely pass the ball to another character off-screen without worry of its interception, etc., but I didn't find it fun to play any longer than what was required and I'm pretty sure it does lack certain rules like implementing offside penalties that I know are a thing. I once scored a goal by running the dude who helps alleviate the pressure from the guy who sits in the net all game, and surely that isn't allowed in an actual soccer game?
Perhaps anybody reading this review can tell that I am not a sports fan, but I'd say it is up to the developers to convince me what I am missing out on. This video game didn't convince me. It's very basic and generic in its character design and graphics, probably due to its original release as a mobile game, the control scheme on the keyboard is a bit confusing at first with the five different types of kicks you need to learn and remember, and there's not much else to look at to distract from the tedium of just watching foosball figures running around and slide tackling each other. It might be more enjoyable to play it with/against friends, but even then, that's a stretch to just playing any other sports game if you are into that genre, and online play against strangers is going to be dead in this game as well.
Basically, if you're interested in trying this game but don't know if you want to spend the money on it, you might as well just try it first, for free, on your mobile device or tablet or just install something like BlueStacks for your PC to access the game's mobile version.
