In a game which I criticised last year for failing to meaningfully evolve this third release almost borders on the ridiculous. While I was driven through the game to experience the extra content, and to see where things differed, the level of repetition is incredibly high. Fundamentally the game’s mechanics are unchanged, as are many of the encounters, which leaves the game as a tough sell to anyone that played either Lightning Bolt or Bomb Blast. Team Ogre Attacks is arguably the best version of Inazuma Eleven 3, as it delivers all of the previous content and overlays a new dynamic over the top of it. Interestingly the series has never made it to America, which would explain why they don’t have the traditional US accents we’re so accustomed to, and also why it doesn’t spend every moment referring to the game as ‘soccer’. It’s always refreshing to hear British dialogue, and Level 5 are amongst the best at such localisation, exemplified by their work on Ni No Kuni. It’s all tied together by well produced cartoon cutscenes, presumably made by the same team behind the animated TV series, and all voiced in some very thick English regional accents. The accents really aid the humour and the likability of the game, though the fact they’re coming from the Japanese youth team is a bit odd. Inazuma Eleven has always had a good sense of humour, and Team Ogre Attacks is no different with plenty of silly behaviour and exaggerated anime moments. It’s worth playing through the game purely to see all of the 350-plus abilities that can appear from the Meteor Blade V2 to the Fireball Screw, many of which will definitely raise a smile. The third option opens up your special move menu, allowing you to unleash super powerful defensive or offensive moves which are easily the highlights of each game. In a world where a football can be helped into the net by a giant wolf or dragon it actually makes some kind of sense. To be honest, the plot reminded me a lot of Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey, which as a highlight ( the highlight?) of Keanu Reeves’ career certainly isn’t the worst thing. That plan is of course to stop football from existing, as it’s seen to be a disastrous distraction for the youth of the future. The key difference here is that Team Ogre Attacks introduces a whole new time travelling narrative across the top of the previous story, with Mark Evan’s grandson Canon travelling eighty years back in time to help prevent the villainous Team Ogre’s ruthless plan from coming to fruition. In much the same way as the Pokémon series gave us mildly refined or updated versions with Yellow, Crystal and Platinum, Team Ogre Attacks returns us to Japan to once again lead Mark Evans and his friends in the Football Frontier International tournament. Level 5 clearly know when they’re onto a good thing – we’re here again five short months after the last two Inazuma Eleven 3 titles hit our shores (Lightning Bolt and Bomb Blast, fact fans) to sample a third slice of the quirky football/RPG hybrid.
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