I've played Ganbare! Super Strikers, which I bought in part because I love SRPGs and in part because I'm pissed that I missed the sale week for Golazo!
The idea of the game is excellent; you're playing soccer as a SRPG. The games are 7-on-7 on a field split into a grid; you can move all characters (except for the keeper) twice per move, plus one tackle if you move yourself into position one square in front, at the sides, at a diagonal, or behind the opponent.
The rules of soccer still apply, though. You can't cherry-pick the opposing goal by leaving your striker beyond the last defender; you'll get called for offsides and your turn will end as your opponent takes over possession. The threat is still there, though, of moving your defenders up and having a quick, deft attacker dribble past your last defender and toward the goal.
About scoring; you can shoot at the keeper at any time, but the closer you are to the keeper and the opposing goal, the higher percentage your shot is. You can shoot it right at the keeper, which gives you a lower-percentage chance to score, or to either side of him, raising the chance that you will score, but also inducing the chance that you might hit the post and have the ball bounce back into the field of play.
As you win games, you earn equipment. There are secondary goals (e.g. Score three goals or Keep a clean sheet) that, if you complete them, will endow you with more equipment. Equipping characters with said equipment and then playing a game with them in your starting seven will lead them to earning TP, which is equipment-specific points that, when maxed, teach the player a new move that they can use while attacking or defending. The player can then unequip whatever equipment they have on, but since they've learned the new move, they can keep it.
These new moves are passes and shots that have special effects on the opponents (e.g. a freeze pass that makes the opposing players who don't win the RNG battle unable to move for three turns). Each one takes away what are essentially magic points that then need to gradually refill before the move can be used again.
There is also a health bar that really works as a stamina bar; when you've done enough movements to drain the bar, your abilities in offense and defense are cut for the rest of the match. This is meant to force you to rely on your whole team instead of building up a midfielder and a forward and having them wreak havoc on the defense while everyone else hangs back to stop a potential counter-attack.
Alright, so those are the basics. I'm about four hours in, and I think the game has promise, but is poorly balanced (not talking about how cruel the RNG can be, which is just part of the genre). I think that the difficulty in teams goes up somewhat steeply compared to the equipment that you earn for winning matches. The second match opponent has a striker with a killer shot who is great at evading tackles and defenders who can make drowsy passes that put your team to sleep. There's just not enough stat-development with leveling up, even though it happens often. I'm solid at SRPGs and understand the basic rules of soccer, so I'm making my way, but I don't know if I'm loving it or if I'm particularly having fun with it consistently.
I'm going to stick with it, though, precisely because there are glimpses of awesomeness there, especially when you take possession from the opponent deep in your end of the field and move the ball back-to-front and get a successful strike off in one whole turn. There is a lot of ability there for skillful players to feel really good about the shift from defense to attack (or vice versa, though it's much harder to get back on defense if you get beaten - just like IRL soccer, actually). Things can turn on a dime, like in a real game. It feels like a proper translation of the actual game into SRPG form. So there is good stuff that I think, if I just keep working on my leveling and my strategy, I will have greater access too. You can also grind levels by going back and playing teams that you've already defeated, so if you wanted to do that, you could.
I would say this; it's only eight dollars, I think, on eShop. If you like soccer, I'd suggest giving this game a shot. If you like SRPGs, you can quickly learn the basic rules of soccer (really, staying onside is the only one that you have to know, and the game will explain it to you) and find something to enjoy. If you like both soccer AND SRPGs, this is like an ABSOLUTE NO BRAINER. For eight bucks?! You should definitely check it out.
