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Just in case you weren't paying attention, the World Cup started this week. The globe's biggest sporting event is the perfect excuse to play football-based video games, which is why I've dusted off my copy of what I consider to be one of the best representations of the sport ever seen – Konami's Jikkyō J. League: Perfect Striker.
Prior to the game hitting the N64 in 1996, I'd had several soccer games which had captured my heart. Microprose Soccer, Sensible Soccer, Kick Off 2, FIFA and – of course – the legendary International Superstar Soccer on the SNES.
It was this game that my childhood gaming companion James (I've already mentioned him here) and I would play endlessly, and the moment we discovered in 1996 that the core development team behind it was working on Jikkyō J. League: Perfect Striker for the shiny new N64, it was clear we had to obtain a copy.
That proved to be quite the quest in itself, as anyone who dabbled in Japanese imports back in the '90s will attest. James had a PAL N64 that he'd bought at launch, so a region converter cartridge would be required to run the game – and those were still insanely expensive at the time, given that the console had only just arrived in the UK in 1997. Then there was the fact that the game itself was still incredibly pricey on import; I believe James paid almost £100 for his copy from Telegames, which was based in nearby Leicester.
This outlay wasn't the end of our troubles, as it was then discovered that this NTSC title would only run in black and white on James' bedroom PAL-standard TV – so his dad kindly allowed us to use the (fancier) TV in his home office, which could thankfully display the game in full, glorious colour. With all of the technological ducks finally lined up in a row, our shared love affair with this incredible game could finally bloom.
It's important to remember what the state of play was like with football video games when Jikkyō J. League: Perfect Striker launched. FIFA 96 on the PS1 had ultimately let me down with its 2D sprites and shallow gameplay. Likewise, Sega's International Victory Goal on Saturn proved to be a painfully limited experience (despite the rocking soundtrack). Even Konami itself had disappointed me with its first PS1 football game, Goal Storm. The most fun I'd had in the world of 32-bit football was Adidas Power Soccer on PS1, and even that began to lose its appeal when the novelty of its gimmicky unstoppable shots wore off.
In comparison, the 64-bit Jikkyō J. League: Perfect Striker felt like a truly next-generation experience. The animation was mind-blowingly good, putting the aforementioned FIFA 96 to shame and overshadowing future FIFA entries on PS1 and N64, while player models looked realistic and a world away from the oddly angular characters seen in Konami's Goal Storm.
Sonically, the package was just as strong; crowd noises were context-sensitive and reacted to the on-pitch action, while the Japanese commentary gave me and James enough amusing soundbites to last a lifetime (indeed, we still (mis)quote stuff like "Bongo shotto!" to one another on WhatsApp to this very day).
However, what really set this game apart was the depth of its control system. Jikkyo J. League: Perfect Striker was the first football game I ever played that offered analogue control, and this allowed for some truly mesmerising moments of skill. It also borrowed the all-important sprint button from International Superstar Soccer on the SNES (which, just in case you didn't know, is part of the same core series and was released as Jikkyō World Soccer: Perfect Eleven in Japan).
Above everything else, though, it was the groundbreaking 'through-ball' button that really opened up the gameplay. A simple tap could completely unlock your opponent's defence, with players intelligently running onto pinpoint threaded passes in a way that previous football games had never really managed to achieve. It wasn't always a foolproof way to score, but it offered a tactical element that felt incredibly refreshing; timing a through-ball correctly remains one of the biggest buzzes you can get from this kind of game.
Still, like ISS before it, Jikkyō J. League: Perfect Striker does have some easily-exploitable ways of putting the ball in the back of the net, and Konami would tinker with the game engine for subsequent sequels. Even the Western version of Jikkyō J. League: Perfect Striker, ISS 64, featured plenty of improvements, especially to player AI – but as a fledgling fan of the J-League, I always preferred the 1996 original, and that's the version that James and I put the most time into – even when games like ISS Pro and Sega Worldwide Soccer '98 appeared.
A lot of football video games from this period have aged like milk; I honestly struggle to play some of the early Pro Evo titles (Konami's ISS successor), while most other '90s efforts feel painfully simplistic once you've gotten past the obvious nostalgia.
Jikkyō J. League: Perfect Striker somehow avoids this; I'm not sure if it's because I have such a strong nostalgic connection with the game or if it's the fact that the core mechanics are so perfect attuned and free of the needless complexity that would become part of modern football sims that they remain timeless, but it's a game I always find myself going back to whenever I desire a soccer-themed fix.
And, thanks to the arrival of a new World Cup, that time is now.