Soccer Story

This game was provided to us by No More Robots via Terminals.io. Thank you!

1 year ago, The Calamity tore apart the foundations of soccer and ever since that fateful day, people have been banned from even looking at a soccer ball. But that all changes when a magical soccer ball chooses you to be the savior to bring the sport back. Now, in Soccer Story, you will use your trusty ball to best bad guys, compete in other sports, and solve any puzzle and problem that comes your way just by dropping a soccer ball. Put together your team, upgrade, and bring soccer back to the glory it once had.

Playing through Soccer Story felt reminiscent of the Switch-exclusive game Golf Story. This one does have a similar premise, though it uses soccer instead of golf, and they are made by different developers. Regardless of this, Soccer Story is beaming with charm and a great mix of 2D and 3D graphics. The gameplay is simple, but very enjoyable and the humor was on point. Overall, for a small RPG, I loved playing this and it felt right at home in short bursts.

Soccer Story: Performance

For the most part, Soccer Story runs fantastic without any changes! Was able to keep 60 FPS the focus with around 9W - 11W of battery drain for around 4 - 4.5 hours of battery life! This wasn't completely unexpected due to the nature of the game, but it was still wonderful to see.

While it was like this most of the time, I did notice a couple spots that would drag the game down to 50 FPS and shoot the drain up. I decided a TDP of 8 would be best. Soccer Story can handle a lower limit, but keeping it at 8 allows the little areas that are harder to stay above 50, which still feels quite smooth. If left without a cap, these areas can go up to 17.5W drain, which I feel is way too much for a game like this. Luckily, these areas aren't huge and the cap, while it will bring framerate down, won't over draw your battery. The soccer games themselves have no issues running at 60.

I did also notice a small stutter when going into new areas, but it was only 1 spike and then back to normal.

Soccer Story doesn't have many graphical options to choose from, but it isn't necessary. The game runs great out of the box and other than those small areas, which don't last very long or break up the smoothness of the game, runs just fantastic.

I didn't notice any other issues in-game during my playthrough, but the main menu take more power than most of the game. Keeping the TDP limit on will curb this, and it goes away once you enter into the game, but it is still worth noting that it could drain to 14W - 15W until you get in-game.

Conclusion

As a game, I enjoyed my time with it. I am a fan of RPGs, especially small ones like these, and had a great time kicking the soccer ball at people and pandas alike. It isn't too detailed in its RPG mechanics, but I feel it does a good job managing all of it and putting all the pieces together for a good time. On the Steam Deck, the game works really well and feels fantastic most of the time. Other than those drops, you can play this game without a TDP limit for a solid 60 FPS the entire game, but due to some areas draining more than others, a limit will keep it in check!

Our review is based on the PC version of this game.

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