Fustal (Pleasure Goal)

Soccer games are no stranger to the Neo Geo. Even though they might not be on the radar of every Neo Geo fan, SNK did extremely well in this space having made four titles in their “Super Sidekicks” series.  Other companies tried their hands at making soccer titles on the Neo Geo to hopefully get a share of the profits SNK was seeing from this market. Visco released Goal! Goal! Goal!, Tecmo released Tecmo World Soccer ’96, and Saurus released Futsal: 5 on 5 Mini Soccer.

While the offerings from Visco and Tecmo were more along the lines of Super Sidekicks, 11 on 11 soccer on a full-size field, Saurus broke from that mold. The number of active players on the field was reduced to 5, the size of the field is quite a bit smaller, penalty cards and player ejections no longer apply, and there’s no team formations to pick from. What results from this is an experience that feels more “arcade like” than the other soccer offerings on the Neo Geo.

Futsal is faster and more frenetic than the Super Sidekicks games, or the other offerings from Visco and Tecmo. While the field size has gotten smaller, the player sprites are still relatively large. This means that it doesn’t take much time to charge down to your opponent’s goal, and you can have more players in close proximity all going after the ball at any given time. If the field was larger or the character sprites were made smaller it would take longer to drive down the pitch, and the players could be dispersed across the field more. All of this results in a game that keeps the player more engaged and is something that can be enjoyed by people who aren’t necessarily fans of the sport, such as myself. I really do like how Saurus was flying their own flag in this regard, instead of creating yet another title that played similarly to the Super Sidekicks series.

Other than this, Futsal will be familiar to anyone who has played a soccer title on the Neo Geo. When you first start the game, you’re given a brief explanation of the controls: on offence, A to shoot, B to pass, C to perform a trick play, and D to save. On defense, A to steal the ball, B to intercept, C to change players, and D to save. You’re then given your choice of mode: Saurus Cup, the main championship mode, and VS Mode, for playing against a friend. Once you pick which mode you’d like to play, you’re brought to the team select where you have 16 countries to pick from. Finally, you’re given the option to have the AI control the goalkeeper or for you to control it manually. I personally always choose “Auto” instead of manual control and I haven’t had any issues with the goalkeeper underperforming.

Visually, Futsal gets the job done, but there’s no particular high points here. Saurus returns with another game using their love it or hate it pre-rendered 3D sprites. While some of their games aren’t helped by this, I think Futsal uses it effectively. The use of pre-rendered 3D is limited to the attract mode and player sprites which, in my opinion, gives the game a cleaner, more tasteful look when compared to other Saurus titles like Ragnagard and Shock Troopers 2nd Squad.

Musically, you better prepare your ears to hear the same song for nearly the entire time you play. Saurus only made a small handful of music tracks for the game. When you start, the game picks one of the tracks and that’s the one song it’ll play until you get to the “Saurus Championship”, the final tournament in the game. Getting to that point depends on what your game time is set to, but it can take anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour or more. Even when you do get to that point there’s only one song the game plays during the Saurus Championship, so be prepared to listen to that for another 8 to 30 minutes as you play through that. It’s not that the music tracks are bad, they’re upbeat and suit the game, but after that much time it becomes grating.

Some interesting things to note about Futsal are its significant regional changes between Japan and the rest of the world. The most obvious change would be the name: Futsal when the bios is Japanese, and PleasureGoal when using a European or USA bios. Personally, Pleasure Goal absolutely does not sound like a soccer game and if you told the name to people who aren’t familiar with the Neo Geo, I’m fairly certain they would say the same. There are also two omissions from the game when playing with a Euro/USA bios: player dialogue before the start of a match, and the ability to substitute players on the roster before a match and during half time. Before a match starts in Futsal, it displays a player from each team. When using a Japanese bios, the game has a bit of dialogue that’s exchanged between the two players, entirely in Japanese of course. The largest omission would be the ability to have a team roster where you can swap out players based on their condition. Depending on how a player did in the match, or if they got injured by someone on defense, their “condition” will be affected. Player condition can range from “Very Good” to “Bad”, and you will notice a drop in speed and kicking ability once a player reaches bad condition. This is where you would swap in another player from your roster before the match or at half time. It’s a surprise that this game mechanic would be completely skipped over and nullified when playing the game in English. My best guess as to why this was the case is a lack of translation from Japanese to English.

When playing on the Neo Geo CD, Futsal is completely faithful to the cartridge version with no cut content or animation changes from the MVS release. In terms of loading times, this is what you can expect when playing in the fully featured Japanese mode: From startup, a 43 second load to the main menu. There’s no loading through the how-to-play, mode select, team select, and roster setting. Once your players are confirmed, you have a 24 second load before each match starts. When half time hits, you’ll see a 10 second load to get to the roster setting screen, and once your players are confirmed again, it’s a 12 second load to get back to playing. After the final whistle, it’s a 16 second load whether you win or lose the match. If you won, it’s another 24 second load for the next match. If you lost, it’s the continue screen and then a 7 second load back to the main menu. Certainly, there are games which have longer load times than Futsal. However, if you have your game time set lower than the standard 3 minutes, it might be an annoyance for you.

In conclusion, I don’t think that Futsal/PleasureGoal offers a compelling value for what it is. The price you pay due to rarity and obscurity is in full effect here, with CD and loose MVS pricing both around $250-$350 dollars. Values for the CD copy depends on completeness with the OBI and registration card. The most I’ve seen a complete Futsal CD sell for is $400 dollars, so it really can get up there. MVS values wildly fluctuate depending on completeness as well, especially if it’s a full kit. For serious collectors of the Neo Geo, I feel that the cost won’t scare you away from a purchase. Anyone else, I wholeheartedly recommend that you try this game thoroughly before you decide to go after a copy. I find it more enjoyable than the other soccer titles on the Neo Geo, but I can’t say it’s truly worth the premium you’ll pay over a game such as Super Sidekicks 2.