eFootball Kick-Off! - Switch 2 Review

Whether you think of Pro Evo, International Superstar Soccer or even Winning Eleven, Konami’s football games and Nintendo consoles have a happy history. It’s been a little while, but now Konami is back with eFootball Kick-off! for the Switch 2. As is often the case, the Nintendo version is a little different from the version you’ll see on other platforms - but does that make it better or worse? Well, it’s a game of two halves…

The Good

Let’s start with the most important part of any football game (yes, I will be calling it 'football', not 'soccer' - Konami finally seems to agree with me in this game so I will happily follow their lead) - the football match gameplay itself. If you have played football games before, you will immediately feel right at home diving into a match, with everything you’d expect of a modern football game: fluid animations, crisp passing and intuitive controls are all present and correct, and you’ll soon be regularly carving up defences. More intricate controls, player archetypes and tactics are also available for those who wish to use them, all as expected in the modern football game. 

The default settings lean towards the easier side - the game pointedly caters to beginners and younger children with plenty of assists available, going as far as auto-passing and single-button controls. But you can adjust the game speed and difficulty to your liking and I found a level where the CPU was scoring at least as easily as I was, and the focus was on passing and tactics rather than holding down the sprint button. The match presentation itself is also fully realised - replays, commentary and introductory cinematics are all accompanied by solid graphics and respectable player likenesses (not always a given in eFootball history). 

One of the next most important parts of a football game is its features, and while eFootball Kick-off! is not perfect (more on that later), what is there is generally pretty good. In single player you can jump into a quick game, play the ‘International Tournament’, which is literally a timely World Cup mode in all but name, or play the ‘World Tour’, where you’ll face teams from around the globe and if you win, take their best player for your team, gradually building up a team of world-beaters, pleasingly including some legends (my team currently runs through 2000s-era Dennis Bergkamp). For the main single-player mode, it is a pretty simple but fulfilling loop and focuses on just playing matches. You can also play online, though matchmaking is a bit patchy, and also play local multiplayer using GameShare - including on Switch 1 consoles, which is a generous touch.

Perhaps the most important part of any game is the price, and for eFootball Kick-off! It is certainly worth remarking on. Unlike eFootball on other platforms, this is not a free-to-play game. It will set you back ~$20USD, which for a game where you can play Pro Evo-style football, is excellent value. And perhaps most importantly, the Nintendo version doesn’t have microtransactions and the associated feel of constantly pushing you for money, which I consider a big win.

TL;DR

• Good football gameplay and a fully featured match experience
• Excellent value for money (and no microtransactions)
• Single-player World Tour mode is fun, and there is good multiplayer support (including local gameshare)

The Bad

Not every decision in the Nintendo-specific version of eFootball: Kick-off! has made the game better. The modes detailed above are all ultimately a little basic - the International Tournament is just a customised tournament, and World Tour doesn’t have the depth of similar modes in other football games. There is certainly potential for additions to be made to make this a more rounded offering. Even the extra mini-games and player viewer don’t add much currently. The game relies on the experience of playing football alone, which will satisfy purists but won’t hold everyone.

There are also some minor decisions that are a little strange - for example, in this version of eFootball the players have little speech bubbles pop up over their heads, complete with emojis. Seeing your keeper yell ‘good tackle <thumbs up>’, or your star striker show a crying emoji because he is played out of position is certainly strange, but not necessarily bad (and you can turn it off). What is both strange and bad is that some of the game settings you can customise in a quick match cannot be changed in other single-player modes for no obvious reason. Little items like that mean it feels like this game is missing a couple of iterations on some features.

TL;DR

• Game modes are a little basic
• Some minor interface and settings annoyances

Final Score: 8/10

The phrase ‘Nintendo Switch Edition’ usually signals a letdown for Nintendo and football fans, but this time it is actually for the better! Yes, some of the modes are a little bare-bones and there are some odd decisions made, but there are also no microtransactions and some nice touches for newbies. Perhaps most importantly, for ~$20USD there’s classic, fully-realised football gameplay - and you can’t say fairer than that.

Thank you for checking out our eFootball Kick-Off! Switch review, thank you to Konami for providing the review code and thank you to our Patreon Backers for their ongoing support:

• Andrew Caluzzi (Inca Studios / Camped Out)
• Bel Cubitt
• Bobby Jack
• Jack Caven
• Nintendo Maniacs
• RedHero