A massive thanks to forum member gizzaciggy for sending in a review for J.League Winning Eleven Club Championship 2009, which was released last Thursday. Hit the jump to see what he thought of the game.
Shooto! Ooh, they’ve hit the bar! -Konami that is.
Granted a day spent with Konami’s new update of (deep breath) J.League Winning Eleven 2009 Club Championship may not be enough to spot any new animations and the like, I have to say in terms of features, gameplay and a lot of the presentation, “so far, so last year!”.
Fortunately for me, I am a J.League geek. I’m in it for all the lovely updated kits, rosters, the ever smile inducing John Kabira (the commentator) and the challenge. The challenge of taking my favourite team (a not very good Tokyo Verdy) from J.League 2 to J1 via the Master League. My team needs strengthening and I can’t just build myself a Tokyo Galacticos as the J.League limits you to 3 foreign players. It’s really tough in J.League 2, especially on Top Player difficulty (think I’m going to notch it down one). It’s all about build up play. Pass and move. Working the ball towards that new potential “superstar” you recently bought.
The game seems a lot like last year’s at first. However, I feel the passing is crisper, as is the shooting (very satisfying). A good solid PS2 PES and I love it. Still love the animations, the shooting and playing the AI in this series over “next-gen” PES (not including 2010). The game goes into top-laugh overdrive when you have a mate to play. Gu, gu, gu, gu, gu, gu, gooooooal!!! John Kabira adds to the evening ten fold. They really need to put his voice on future Blu-Rays as an option.
New features include Emperor’s Cup competition (basically an FA Cup style competition). There’s an Emperor’s Cup ball too. There’s more stadiums, I think it features all J1 and 2 stadiums. 56 in all. A new wider camera angle for Fantasista. 3 newly promoted teams for J2 (FC Tochigi, Kataller Toyama, Fagiano Okayama). Obviously, all J.League team rosters, kits and player stats have been updated too.
The non J.League teams have also been updated a little in the way of kits and player stats. Unfortunately, most of these kits will be out of date by now as will transfers. For example, C.Ronaldo still resides at Man Utd. Konami have tweaked their stats a little, with players losing an ounce of Stamina here and there as they’re getting older. Some players gaining extra stats here and there. For example Torres’ Attack stat has risen from 91 to 93, with his speed, acceleration and response being upped by about 1, if I remember correctly. In my opinion, I don’t think Fernando Torres is being portrayed well by Konami. Hope this is being changed for 2010! Obi Martins still has his red 99 speed and acceleration though! Del Piero’s Attack stat has gone up by 2. He’s clearly getting younger.
So, why do I think Konami have “hit the bar”? I think the series is becoming slightly exhausted on PS2 now. I think our brothers in Nippon are feeling it too. The time has come for us J.League Winning Eleven fans to be rewarded with a high-definition version. By now, most of our eyes have become accustomed to the look of pixel-sharp resolutions being presented to us from our PS3 and 360 consoles. We can’t keep going back to our dusty brick PS2s season after season. Konami, please make it happen!
Meanwhile, I’ll being doing a mixture of Master League and Fantasista. Oh, and a shed load of Edit Mode (so therapeutic).
Thanks again to gizzaciggy!
