Inazuma Eleven 3: Team Ogre Attacks! (Nintendo 3DS) Second Opinion Review

Newcomers to the story may be a little lost by all that's going on from the start, with an opening introduction set in the future with moments that are completely unexplained, then an anime style FMV montage introducing a ton of characters in teams around the world, each with special abilities. As a quick synopsis, the series follows protagonist Mark Evans, a footballing prodigy in Japan, and, in previous entries, Mark has saved Japan from aliens and defeated evil doping footballers...

This instalment sees Coach Hillman gathering up the best footballers in Japan, including some enemies and rivals from the last release, all in the hopes of building a team to take on the best from around the world in the Frontier International Championships. This may sound familiar to those who played the previous two entries. Level 5 is following the Pokémon method of releasing variations on the same title. Team Ogre Attacks is to Bomb Blast and Lightning Bolt what Pokémon Yellow is to Pokémon Blue and Pokémon Red. What is new here, however, is the addition of the glimpses into the future. This instalment adds a new element to the story where 80 years in the future, series protagonist Mark Evan's grandson, Canon, has to travel back in time when he finds out the villainous titular Team Ogre is planning to travel back and defeat Mark's team in the same championship to destroy football. Somehow. Look, just go with it. Canon, then, now has to team up with Mark to ensure he wins. Think Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure but saving football instead of Rock and Roll.

For anyone who has played an Inazuma Eleven title before, the mechanics and controls remain the same. During matches the controls are all down to the touch screen, drawing lines for the players to move along, tapping where to pass and kick the ball, or selecting actions to take against other players. When players from two teams face off, a "command dual" begins, giving two options to decide between - to slide tackle or tackle, to feint from an attacker or barge through. There's a third option, too, although this requires having enough power. Each player can be equipped with up to six special moves that can be used until running out of strength. This is what turns the shonen anime style up to eleven, as goalkeepers can summon huge "God Hands" to stop the force of any kick, or summon the 100 Arms of Buddha to block every angle. The various other positions have abilities like summoning huge swords to smash the ball or teleporting around defenders.

These football matches are a regular occurrence, and with them being something of an RPG it includes that old RPG mainstay, the random battle… at very regular intervals, sadly. These random battles begin a 4-on-4 match against random opponents. It also includes a wealth of stats to manage, stats for players, and stats for the team itself, which controls how often games can be played. Outside of the football itself, there are plenty of areas to explore, filled with NPCs, shops, and hidden items to tap on the touch screen for goodies. Compulsive completionists will find a wealth of content here to keep them engaged, with over 2,000 potential players that are able to be recruited over the course of the game, either by defeating them in matches, scouting them in multiplayer matches, or using a player capsule machine, not to mention over 350 special moves to unlock for these players.

This is actually a port of a DS game and it shows, with the graphics looking like no work has been done at all. This is quite surprising considering Level 5 has had quite a bit of experience in porting titles over thanks to its work with the Professor Layton series. Similarly, Level 5 delivered fantastic localisation on Professor Layton, whereas the localisation on this is… interesting. It's clearly aimed at a much younger audience, so all of the characters have been renamed to fitting Western, usually British, sounding names and they speak in a range of horrendously cliché and terrible British accents, like the localisation team based it on a Carry On film. Actual text from the game, believe it or not, includes such 'classic' lines as "Shot just now were proper amazing!" and "Taking the mickey or somefing?" Indeed.