Some games are good.things that can be attached to the body steam deck or change relax for a moment.One such game that also happens to be released on day one Xbox Game Pass For consoles and PCs, yes football story. Considering we’re currently in football season, I tried it out and was impressed with its mix of RPG, football and puzzle games.
Soccer is full of familiar lines and small jokes, as is the game’s entire premise. Football has been banned, which means no one can pick up the ball and kick it. This is illegal. Soccer Inc has taken full control of the sport which means kids can’t just play soccer with each other, local teams don’t exist anymore and no one has seen soccer in person for a year. You can’t bring the beautiful game back until the magic football arrives.
Sure, the premise is a weird one, but the game is wrapped in the kind of whimsy and charm you find in Pokemon games, so it just kind of works. The adventure focuses on finding and bringing back old football clubs, each with club offices located in new areas to explore. These clubs are as wacky as the game itself, with toddlers, OAPs and even sharks making up teams you can fight against.
Most of your time in Football Story is spent exploring the world, solving small puzzles, and using your magic football (of course) to interact with objects. But you do play actual matches, and to get good grades, you’ll need to use upgrade tokens to upgrade your team’s players – some earned and some purchased with coins you collect. The soccer gameplay itself is arcade-friendly for the genre, immediately fun rather than in-depth – though it’s not easy, as I found out with five losses to The Toddlers in a row.
What I love most about this cute little adventure from developer PanicBarn (published by No More Robots) is its tone. There are some clever nods to the real-life world of football and plenty of wry humor here. Shortly after entering the game, I was convinced it was a reference to the now-famous Keanu Reeves Cyberpunk 2077 E3 reveal moment. See for yourself below:
I’m not going to pretend that Soccer is the game of the year, or that it’s breathtaking, but I’m enjoying every moment I’ve had in th is world. Sometimes all you need in a game is a clever twist on a fairly standard genre, and Football Story delivers on that. It’s on Xbox Game Pass, so you can try it out as part of your PC, Xbox, and Cloud (if you have Ultimate) membership, plus, for those who aren’t into subscription games, it’s available on PlayStation, Switch, PC and purchased on Xbox.
