Mega Man Soccer (SNES) Playthrough - NintendoComplete

A playthrough of Capcom's 1994 soccer game for the Super Nintendo, Mega Man Soccer.

This video shows a full run through the Capcom Championship mode.

Mega Man Soccer was the second Mega Man game for the SNES, released just four months after Mega Man X (   • Mega Man X (SNES) Playthrough - Ninte...   ), and it was developed for Capcom by Sun L, the people behind Mega Man II (   • Mega Man II (Game Boy) Playthrough - ...   ), Bonkers (   • Bonkers (SNES) Playthrough - Nintendo...   ), and Magical Quest 3 Starring Mickey and Donald (   • Disney's Magical Quest 3 Starring Mic...   ).

In one of Capcom's more blatant and cynical cash grabs of the 16-bit era, Mega Man Soccer begins with Dr. Wily's 8-bit robot masters attacking, of all things, a televised soccer match. Instead of going after them in the traditional run-and-gun way that the series is known for, Dr. Light orders Mega Man to take the fight to the enemy out on the pitch. Because video game logic, I guess.

The structure is similar to the standard Mega Man games: you play a match against each of the eight selectable robot masters, and when you beat one, you recruit him as a member of your team. They each have their own soccer-related stats, special attacks, and positions that they are best suited for.

Once you've assembled your team, you head off to the flying skull castle to play space soccer against Enker and Protoman before finally taking on Dr. Wily himself.

Mega Man Soccer plays like pretty much any soccer game from the 8-bit era. You have a button to pass, to shoot, and to punt, you can head the ball and tackle, and since this is Mega Man, you get a special shot (which can stun an opponent or blow them out the way) to use once every half.

Unfortunately, the game is more than a bit stodgy at its center. The characters move sluggishly, you can't manually switch which character you're controlling, and the view is so zoomed in that you can't see what's going on unless you focus on the mini-map at the top of the screen. The action often slows down when too many players are on-screen at once, and the AI is dumb as a post. I actually managed to capture a fun instance of this: during the last match, since I had a huge lead, I was curious to see what the computer would do if I stopped pushing buttons. You can see the results for yourself at 3:16:38. You can also score goals against any goalie by shooting from directly below him or by luring him out of the box and tapping the ball in behind his back. That makes for a super easy game to win.

The game also lacks any sort of ending under normal circumstances. Though the ending is buried in the game's code, upon defeating Wily, the game normally dumps you straight back at the title screen. I was able to access it using a Game Genie code, so I show it at the end of the video at 3:18:11.

The characters have all received nice 16-bit facelifts and I suppose that it might be fun for a bit with a friend, but I've never had any love for Mega Man Soccer. The stages are ugly, the game's mechanics are riddled with oversights and glitches, and the music is awful across the board.

But don't let me stop you if the game piques your interest. I loathe it, but who knows? You might well find more fun with Mega Man Soccer than I did.

If you'd like too see more Mega Man, check out my playlist!    • Mega Man Playthroughs   I've played nearly 40 of them at this point.
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No cheats were used during the recording of this video.

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