Layton Studio's Soccer RPG Kicked Overseas

Tom Goldman

Crying on the inside.
Aug 17, 2009
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Layton Studio's Soccer RPG Kicked Overseas



Level-5's smash hit Inazuma Eleven is finally being translated for non-Japanese speaking audiences.

One of Dragon Quest IX [http://www.amazon.com/Professor-Layton-Unwound-Future-Nintendo-DS/dp/B003O6E7DI/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1290550113&sr=8-1] studio Level-5's most unique titles is Nintendo DS soccer RPG Inazuma Eleven, and the main reason you may not have heard of it before is because the series has never made it outside of Japan. However, according to leaked information, Inazuma Eleven has finally been translated for other regions, and could release in Europe at the end of January.

The leak has strangely been accompanied by screenshots already in English, but nothing official appears to have been confirmed yet. Bergsala, the distributor of Nintendo products in Sweden, Finland, and Denmark, tweeted [http://twitter.com/Bergsala/status/6995525958111232] today that Inazuma Eleven will be released in Sweden on January 28, 2011.

It seems odd to release a game only in Sweden, so Inazuma Eleven could be coming to all of Europe early next year. There has been no mention of an additional North American release, but Nintendo of Europe hasn't even announced the game yet, so anything's possible. Sadly, soccer is much more popular in Europe than North America, so there's always the possibility that Europe will be the only lucky ones here.

Inazuma Eleven is a significant title because it's an RPG, but it revolves around playing soccer instead of battling goblins or bandits. The game's characters still have statistics, such as "kick" and "control," and are also assigned elements, believe it or not. Players strategize their characters' movements on the field just like a real-time strategy game (see here [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0R8k9pCGl4I]), sometimes performing special moves such as the creation of a giant hand to stop the ball. Outside of the soccer "battles," the game plays out just like other RPGs, with players walking around, collecting items/equipment, and talking to NPCs.

Inazuma Eleven may have only come out two years ago, but it was still one of those titles that many non-Japanese RPG fans had accepted they'd never see. This may no longer be the case, but we'll have to wait for official information to find out for sure.

Source: NeoGAF [http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=413857]

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Therumancer

Citation Needed
Nov 28, 2007
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Sounds interesting, but I'm not much of a soccor fan, so even as an RPG fanatic I'm not sure how much I'd enjoy it.

There are games I'd much rather see ported before this one. Heck there are old games like "Soul Hackers" I'd like to see ports of before something like this. :)
 

rsvp42

New member
Jan 15, 2010
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Sounds like a novel approach to a sports game. Or maybe it's not and I just don't follow sports games much. Either way, I probably won't get it. Soccer's alright, but it's not really my thing. Besides, it'd probably end up being some super optimistic Japanese hero trying to "be the very best" player in the world. Then some overly-skinny, hair-over-one-eye player would be your rival or something. Does everything have advertisements on it? Will the whole game end in a draw half the time? <---- (knows little about soccer)

Stubee said:
Oh you mean a football RPG right?
Lol it was only a matter of time. The Escapist is headquartered in North Carolina right? Just the local parlance.
 

Vault Citizen

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May 8, 2008
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If they release it in Europe they better take out all references to the word "Soccer", its real name is football