EVOLUTION SOCCER
Developer: evoga/brezzasoft Year: 2001 Genre: sports
No, you’re not reading the year wrong – this is an old-style arcade football game in 2D from 2001. The Brezzasoft Crystal System was intended to be a replacement for the Neo-geo MVS, which was still hugely popular in the South American market due to its low cost, and a half decent football game was thus important to its success.
The game was codeveloped by
Mexican firm Evoga and short-lived SNK successor Brezzasoft, but curiously didn’t include any of the development staff responsible for the rather excellent Super Sidekicks series of football games.
Evolution Soccer plays much like the Super Sidekicks games – it’s fast-paced and light on fouls. The game’s main design wrinkle is that it features a super bar, much like fighting games. You can choose a team captain at the beginning of the game, and he’ll have his special moves listed – again, with fighting game-style inputs. Get it right and you’ll unleash a massively powerful shot that almost guarantees a goal.
Evolution Soccer isn’t a bad game, but it’s easy to see why it never came home. It was just created to cater to a very specific market, and never meant for home console owners.