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[squall23]

Genre: Super-dimensional Football RPG
Developer: Level 5
Publisher: Nintendo

From the humble beginnings of a dinky little after school club, it has been 7 years since Mark Evans led Inazuma International to victory in the Football Frontier International. The impact of Inazuma International's victory was so great around the world, football had turned into an activity of high prestige, almost fanatical and religious, and so Fifth Sector was born. Under the leadership of "Alex Zebal" (Really? THAT'S what the dub team came up with?), Fifth Sector controls football by giving every single team a balanced amount of wins and losses akin to a Totalitarian regime. Arion Sherwind has been accepted into the prestigious Raimon Jr. High with hopes of joining the great football club that Mark Evans had revived, completely oblivious to the existence of Fifth Sector.

New Gameplay Mechanics

Spirits
They're probably what you think they are. They're spirits summoned by characters to power up themselves. These spirits are actual physical manifestations of energy so that they visible to everybody unlike in previous games where spirits appear due techs. Such as how nobody actually sees Axel Blaze's fire demon during Fireball Storm.

Special Stadiums
Different stadiums will now have different effects. Some examples: one stadium will have a tornado, one stadium will have a pitch made of ice, or one will have a pinball theme with flippers and rebounding targets.

Version Differences
Mark's Wife: In Light, Mark is married to Nelly/best waifu. In Shadow, Mark is married to Camellia/fake/red herring.

Teams: In Light, players can fight Unlimited Shining and Southern Claw. In Shadow, players can fight Ancient Dark and Northern Fang.

Other differences including version-exclusive Spirits and Techs, but there quite a few of them to list.

Reviews
Nintendo World Report 8/10
cubed3 8/10
Nintendo Life 7/10

 

[kubus]

Gah, I still need to finish Inazuma Eleven 3!

Happy we're finally getting our first real 3DS Inazuma game and the reviews are positive so far. Sad to read that the dub is still really bad . Oh well.

Btw great OP!

 

[daxgame]

b but I chose Silvia as "waifu" in the previous games...

 

[Kurita]

I don't know about you guys but the game feels harder than the previous ones (haven't played Inazuma Eleven 3 though).

 

[Mauricio_Magus]

"Alex Zebal", hahahaha.

I've never played the IE games but I watched the anime, I'll never forget the salt of the Aki(Silvia?) fans when they saw that she wasn't an option to be Endou's wife.

I'll play this if we ever get it over here... NoA!

 

[Chiramii]

I couldn't get myself to finish the 3rd game in the series and see myself burnt out from Inazuma overall. I guess it's my owl fault though, as I've watched every episode of the anime so I already know how the story of each game will develop. It's a shame really, because the games are really good.

 

[Khrno]

I'm not fan of the anime, but is the game good for anyone that just likes football and rpgs?

 

[darkziosj]

I got it a while ago and man it is pretty awesome! it improves so much over inazuma eleven 3, too bad the series is not that popular, i don't even like football but man the games are pretty good, awesome mix with rpg, also i didn't watch the anime so everything is pretty fresh to me. Anyone with the light edition to unlock the extra thing?

 

[Verelios]

I...hate region locking so damn much. Arrrrg, Nelly is true waifu though.

 

[darkziosj]

I'm not fan of the anime, but is the game good for anyone that just likes football and rpgs?

Absolutely. i don't even like football but it is a great rpg.

 

[squall23]

b but I chose Silvia as "waifu" in the previous games...

I'm sorry for your loss. Because Eric x Silvia is OTP. She was pretty much torn between him and Mark by IE3 anyway.

I'm not fan of the anime, but is the game good for anyone that just likes football and rpgs?

Depends on what you didn't like about the anime. Because if it's the plot, well....... the games can get even more crazy than the anime. But if you don't mind the plot or are even interested, then yes, the games are really fun.

 

[vareon]

[jealous stare]

 

[squall23]

[jealous stare]

I wonder when/if NoA will release IE2. Because they completely missed out on releasing IE3 alongside World Cup.

 

[Peff]

I don't know about you guys but the game feels harder than the previous ones (haven't played Inazuma Eleven 3 though).

You might think so because at first you barely have options other than regular shots that the keepers are actually capable of stopping, which is cool, but just you wait until they allow you to use the first fighting spirit at your leisure. It's literally an infinite TP cheat: they have no requisite to summon, they're too powerful to tackle without another spirit and their shots are equally overpowered. It's crazy broken.

More stuff:

- You can now tap either an enemy or the ball to get players to sprint towards them. It's sad that this is essentially the biggest gameplay tweak, but it is very, very useful.
- Funny how even though the game was close to launch it still holds up very well graphically. Nice, clean visuals.
- I still don't know why they insist on having a thousand useless head swaps per game instead of a hundred that are clearly useful in some way, but hey.
- Nice way of handling random battles. Some people give chase later on, but as far as can tell you can just refuse to play with no penalty? Not that you need to because at that point you already have the first fighting spirit.
- Not sure what to think of the 11 v 11 matches. They used to be the highlight of the other games, but they're REALLY scripted this time around. The whole "take people to the circle to trigger cutscene" thing feels like the kind of stuff they'd do in the first game, when they hadn't figured out how to pull it off organically. It is opening up, though, so we'll see.
- Hino has outdone himself. I'm not one to immediately dismiss something as kiddy, but holy cow is the protagonist in this a BLITHERING IDIOT. It's painful how a couple of hours into the game he STILL reacts to people worried about grades with "What? But why don't they want to play troo footballz!?!?" and he never, never, never backs off. Seriously, if this is ever released in the US and people who hated Tales of Graces f play it'll probably be like in Raiders of the Lost Ark. I also had to laugh at the ridiculous anagram, unless

Spoiler

he turns out to be an evil twin brother or something, but I doubt it

- I really like the OST. For as terrible as the story is, which is a lot, the music really does manage to get you in the mood for the big scenes, especially that theme that plays when your team is turning things around. I do wish the alternate random battle themes popped up more often, though.

 

[cw_sasuke]

Was gonna buy it till I saw a video with the horrible voice acting - hell naw.

 

[Foffy]

The pain of region locking now comes to North American consumers for 3DS....;_;

 

[vareon]

oh god I just read Alex Zebal. looooool

 

[galvenize]

I'm gonna buy Light, and make Nelly the captain of my harem new all girls team.

 

[sd28821]

god i have never hated a dub so much the worse had to be them changing things that where already English for no real reason .

 

[Tizoc]

Might pick up Light, but....6 months later they announce another I11 game :V

 

[Haunted]

Wow, they have stands now?

I've only played the first two on DS, but gawd damn things are escalating with this series. :lol

 

[sd28821]

can some one explain to me why a bunch of Japanese kids all seem to have come from a foreign exchange program and why they have names such as Michael ball zack nickname kaiser etc.

 

[NeonZ]

can some one explain to me why a bunch of Japanese kids all seem to have come from a foreign exchange program and why they have names such as Michael ball zack nickname kaiser etc.

As far as the names go, localization. They have Japanese names in the Japanese game, but the localization changes their names.

 

[zeromcd73]

can some one explain to me why a bunch of Japanese kids all seem to have come from a foreign exchange program and why they have names such as Michael ball zack nickname kaiser etc.

It's so weird playing the Japanese games and seeing Endou -> Mark

 

[Brawly Likes to Brawl]

can some one explain to me why a bunch of Japanese kids all seem to have come from a foreign exchange program and why they have names such as Michael ball zack nickname kaiser etc.

Because when the localization team was working on the first game, nobody apparently gave them a warning that starting with the second game it would be impossible to hide the fact that this series takes place in Japan.

 

[Haunted]

Because when the localization team was working on the first game, nobody apparently gave them a warning that starting with the second game it would be impossible to hide the fact that this series takes place in Japan.

Impossible to hide? Humbug, they just have to really lean into it.

 

[sd28821]

As far as the names go, localization. They have Japanese names in the Japanese game, but the localization changes their names.

to be fair i have less issues with the name changes and more with the unnecessary added accents and catch phrases .

actually ignore that i forgot how dumb some of the name changes are.

 

[galvenize]

I think I read it somewhere once but I'll ask again, how many playable characters are there in the game?

Also the dub is really killing me. Those french and italian accents lol. What have they done to you Tsurugi? He had such a cool voice.

 

[sd28821]

I think I read it somewhere once but I'll ask again, how many playable characters are there in the game?

Also the dub is really killing me. Those french and italian accents lol. What have they done to you Tsurugi? He had such a cool voice.

the sad thing is he had a better voice in the dubbed version of strikers actually that voice was perfect

 

[squall23]

I think I read it somewhere once but I'll ask again, how many playable characters are there in the game?

Hundreds? I don't know. You can pretty much recruit anybody in every team and then there are a plethora of unimportant unknowns that can you take if you actually want them.

 

[galvenize]

Alright, been playing this game for a while now and I have one major complaint: All the new non-story scout characters don't have any facial animation. It may seem like a little thing but it's huge for me as I don't feel like the characters I'm using are "alive". Lazy devs.

Another thing. I feel like a lot of things are being restricted to me because it requires linking: Can't fight Team Zero and I can't recruit bloody Nelly since it requires a manual drop from Team Zero.

 

[SolicitorPirate]

So this just released in Australia and I'm about two hours in.

The fact that the game literally opens with a guy praying for the power to rule all football bas already ensured my love for this game. The fact that I have a team mate named Tsun Derrey, whose bio is basically 'she's a tsundere' is just icing on the football shaped cake.

 

[Lombax]

Anyone know if this is coming out in the US? A quick amazon search only displayed Japan versions.

Thank you.

 

[Imp the Dimp]

Is this a game a good entry to the franchise? I could also get the very first Inazuma Eleven off the eShop and play it on the DS but as far as I know their stories are separate so I'm inclined to go for the more modern game. Good choice?