As part of an attempt to play a bunch of Rayman games, I branched out a little to this Ubisoft casual soccer game. It turns out I didn’t get far enough to even see Rayman. I didn’t feel too bad giving up on it though, as its relevance to the Rayman world is even less than the second and third Rabbids games, which I’ve decided to ignore.
I’d describe this game this game as “Harry Potter but with soccer instead of magic”. It’s based around a solo campaign mode where you play a soccer-loving boy/girl who has been selected for a wonderful, special boarding school all about soccer. Instead of Dumbledore we have Pele, yes the famous Brazilian football star Pele. Instead of Slytherin House there’s the rival Scythemore Academy. They serve as constant opponents in the campaign, and often use dirty tricks to skew the odds. There’s also a neat plot twist whereby your contract was faked and included a forced transfer to their school in third term.
I also got slight Psychonauts vibes from the game, with its cast of cartoony fellow students who each have requirements if you want to recruit them. The campaign is structured by terms, with each day having a few activities to get through including training, matches, shopping for new items, quizzes, etc. There’s a variety of drills that play out like minigames but they generally use a common control scheme so it feels cohesive. These allow you to upgrade your character, but only at certain times.
The forced activities structure feels limiting and although you can go back if you fail a milestone match, I just found the first one in third term too difficult. With no access to my trained squad, only myself, I couldn’t customise enough to overcome the two-goal penalty. Am I going too in-depth? What I mean is, it got hard and upgrading is slow. Also my skills apparently hadn’t improved to the point where I could score goals reliably, especially as the opponents got tougher. That’s when I realised that all that was standing between me and playing Rayman Origins, one of my favourite games of the last decade, was a concession that this game had beaten me.
Although the game can be frustrating to play and inconsistent in its difficulty, it has appeal. The characters are cute and the look of the fields is impressive, with colourful and eventful backdrops that change as a match progresses. Not to mention the curved playing surface which evokes an Animal Crossing world. The school hub also has some visual character.
Its status as an Ubisoft crossover also was a draw for me. Characters like the Prince of Persia (2008) will turn up, and apparently later Rayman, Jade (Beyond Good & Evil) and Altair from the first Assassin’s Creed, although I didn’t get to see them. There are costume options such as Rayman gloves or Jade’s camera that you can wear. It’s just too bad this stuff is mostly saved for late in the game, as the only way to unlock it for multiplayer use even is to progress the campaign. What’s more present are Rabbids; running the shop, and serving as opponents in a variety of drills, it’s nice to see them integrated into the world and it even makes sense with the later Rabbids games.
I can’t really recommend this game. I know I’m more persistent than a lot of people with sticking with games, and who knows this game might hit you in the right spot, or your kids for that matter. But I wanted to play soccer with Rayman, and I just couldn’t do it, and it lost its fun factor for me. At least it looks nice, and they don’t shoehorn in too many motion controls (Wii Motion Plus support is optional… heck, it might help to play better but I ain’t trying it now). DNF
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