Street Power Soccer‘s initial announcement was pretty exciting. As someone who grew up playing FIFA Street, I was looking forward to anything that would remotely resemble one of EA Sports’ finest games of all time. Even if it was a smaller game from a team with a smaller budget. There was some potential for Maximum Games’ new title to cover a niche in the sports genre, but all we ended up getting was a pretty mediocre dud that just made me want to recharge my old PSP in order to play the old FIFA Street games once again.

The game does fill in that void left out by EA Sports not caring about freestyle football games… to a degree. Yes, it features 1v1, 2v2 and 3v3 games in which the first team to score five goals win, with no fouls, urban locales, and a huge emphasis on flashy dribbling. While FIFA Street had a meter that could be filled up by performing tricks and combos, Street Power Soccer features powerups, collectibles, and special moves. The gameplay is stiff and doesn’t offer anything that wasn’t already present in those fifteen year old games (my goodness, we’re getting old), but it’s functional. I was actually expecting worse controls. You know what’s sad about it, though? The “alright but unoriginal” controls are the best thing this game has to offer.

These matches aren’t fun to play. There are no tournaments or leagues to partake on, just a very barebones “career mode” that acts like a story mode in lower budgeted fighting games, as in, it’s there to teach you how to play the game and that’s it. Besides some half-baked football, there are a handful of freestyle modes included in here, which act less as modes per se and more like a collection of simplistic minigames, including one that reminded me of Guitar Hero and other rhythmic games… if those had bad controls.

Another thing that annoyed me about Street Power Soccer was its presentation. It’s not exactly a good-looking game, even though I do appreciate its decision to implement a very subtle cel shaded coat of paint on top of its super deformed characters. With that being said, I can barely discern one from another, and they are supposed to be real-life freestyle superstars. The backgrounds are also underwhelming. The favelas and backalleys from FIFA Street looked more detailed way back in their 480i, 4:3 days, and that’s saying something.

Street Power Soccer‘s main offender however, is its sound department. Hoo-boy, this one is bad. Not only is the game completely deprived of sound effects, you’re also constantly barraged with really loud, terrible music, be it when you’re in a menu or while you’re playing a match. These range from your passable UK grime songs, which aren’t anything special but definitely aren’t as good as the stuff released by Dizzee Rascal or Skepta, to completely abysmal funk carioca songs with the worst lyrics imaginable, to the point of giving me a migraine after a while. If you actually decide to buy this game (and mind you, it costs 50 bucks), play it on mute. Thank me later.

Playing Street Power Soccer right after tackling another lighthearted arcade football experience in Captain Tsubasa: Rise of New Champions just makes the overall experience even more annoying. It’s not pretty to look at, its soundtrack is atrocious, and its gameplay is way too stiff for a freaking freestyle game. It’s half-baked in every single aspect, not to mention atrociously expensive for its current price tag. I’ll just stick with FIFA Street for the time being. I can still wait until a proper successor eventually shows up.

 

Graphics: 5.5 The cel shaded visuals are occasionally charming, but they’re way too basic. Backgrounds look like they came straight from a PS2 game, and it’s hard to distinguish a character from another.	Gameplay: 6.0 The controls get the job done, even if the inclusion of powerups felt completely unnecessary. They are responsive, even if the button placement itself isn’t exactly the most intuitive.
Sound: 2.0 Street Power Soccer features an earache-inducing soundtrack with terrible beats and lyrics. It’s also loud as all hell, and you can’t create a custom setlist.	Fun Factor: 4.0 They are charging way too much for a bare bones sports game with very little content to offer and not a lot of polish to begin with.
Final Verdict: 4.5

Street Power Soccer is available now on PS4, Xbox One, PC, and Switch

Reviewed on PS4

A copy of Street Power Soccer was provided by the publisher.