''Tecmo Cup Soccer Game'', known as ''Captain Tsubasa'' in Japan and ''Tecmo Cup Football Game'' in Europe, is an

association football Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

sports video game A sports video game is a video game that simulates the practice of sports. Most sports have been recreated with a game, including team sports, track and field, extreme sports, and combat sports. Some games emphasize actually playing the sport (s ...

for the

Nintendo Entertainment System The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) is an 8-bit third-generation home video game console produced by Nintendo. It was first released in Japan in 1983 as the commonly known as the The NES, a redesigned version, was released in America ...

. Released in

1992 File:1992 Events Collage V1.png, From left, clockwise: 1992 Los Angeles riots, Riots break out across Los Angeles, California after the Police brutality, police beating of Rodney King; El Al Flight 1862 crashes into a residential apartment buildi ...

Tecmo , was a Japanese video game corporation founded in 1967. It had its headquarters in Kudankita, Chiyoda, Tokyo, Chiyoda, Tokyo. Its subsidiary, Tecmo Inc, was located in Torrance, California. Tecmo was formerly known as Tehkan. Tecmo is known for ...

, the objective of the game is fighting your way from junior league all the way to the finals of

World Cup A world cup is a global sporting competition in which the participant entities – usually international teams or individuals representing their countries – compete for the title of world champion. The event most associated with the concept i ...

. The game is based on the ''

Captain Tsubasa is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Yōichi Takahashi. The series mainly revolves around the sport of association football focusing on Tsubasa Oozora and his relationship with his friends, rivalries with h ...

manga Manga (Japanese: 漫画 ) are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, and the form has a long prehistory in earlier Japanese art. The term ''manga'' is u ...

series. ''Tecmo Cup Soccer Game'' is a heavily Americanized version of the Japanese ''Captain Tsubasa'' game released for the

Family Computer The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) is an 8-bit Third generation of video game consoles, third-generation home video game console produced by Nintendo. It was first released in Japan in 1983 as the commonly known as the The NES, a redes ...

system, featuring a different main character, a different introduction and more western-looking players. The game contains elements from

role-playing game A role-playing game (sometimes spelled roleplaying game, RPG) is a game in which players assume the roles of player character, characters in a fictional Setting (narrative), setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within ...

s as the players have skill levels and are mostly controlled by different kinds of text commands.

Summary

Considered to be the first of many games based on the series, which have appeared on many systems, this game was the innovator of games that would be known as "Cinematic Soccer". Rather than having direct control over the action like a standard soccer sim; the game has a cinematic angle with the player having to choose his actions from a timed list and the results of these actions are animated on screen. Present-day games with a "

career mode Career mode is a video game term referring to the mode of gameplay that involves taking control of a single character and guiding the character through a structured career. The mode is normally associated with sports games, where it is referred to ...

" setting would be inspired by this game's setup.

Reception

''Captain Tsubasa'' topped the bi-weekly Japanese ''

Famitsu formerly ''Famicom Tsūshin'', is a line of Japanese video game magazines published by Kadokawa Game Linkage (previously known as Gzbrain), a subsidiary of Kadokawa. ''Famitsu'' is published in both weekly and monthly formats as well as in the fo ...

'' sales chart in May 1988.

Differences

The changes from ''Captain Tsubasa'' to ''Tecmo Cup Soccer Game'' include: * As stated above, the intro was slightly changed. When the game was turned on, a soccer ball can be seen on a blue floor, rather than being accompanied by a young Tsubasa (on a green floor, probably to indicate grass) as in the Japanese version. Also, in the Japanese version, the plane was still shown (without the sky) in front of the logo, while in the American version, the plane was not shown in front of the logo at all. * The main character (and pretty much all other characters except for the announcer and the referee) have been altered. Tsubasa, a spiky-headed, black-haired kid, has been changed to Robin Field, a blonde young adult. * ''Moete Hero'', the theme for the Captain Tsubasa anime, used in the intro and the second half of the game, has been replaced. * When a new game begins, the words above the announcer that say "ON AIR" have been replaced with "TECMO!". Also, the "JBS" logo has been omitted. * The board behind Billy, the instructor, goes from green to blue. There are no kids sitting down with him. * The password system has Japanese characters replaced with the English alphabet. * In the first half of the game, the song that plays while the player's team has the ball has been changed because it was a part of the song ''Moete Hero''. * In Captain Tsubasa, the player had to go through a short little sidequest after each match to have Taro Misaki play on his team, but Taro's ''Tecmo Cup Soccer Game'' counterpart joins the team right away and is portrayed as Robin's brother, Cecil. * The quality of all goalkeepers in the game was dramatically upgraded, with some GKs (particularly the Zaps and Ninjas) being able to stop the special shot of Robin. Also, the GKs of Arabia (Argentina in the original), and Cameroon (formerly Uruguay) are very hard to beat. * There is a version in Spanish which was released in Spain, called ''Tecmo Cup Football Game''. It's similar to ''Tecmo Cup Soccer Game'', except the game is in Spanish language.

References

''Captain Tsubasa''
(infobox details) at

GameFAQs GameFAQs is a website that hosts FAQs and walkthroughs for video games. It was created in November 1995 by Jeff Veasey and was bought by CNET Networks in May 2003. It is currently owned by Fandom, Inc. since October 2022. The site has a databa ...

{{Authority control 1988 video games Association football video games Captain Tsubasa video games Nintendo Entertainment System games Nintendo Entertainment System-only games Sports video games with career mode Tecmo games Video games developed in Japan Video games scored by Keiji Yamagishi

Summary

Reception

Differences

See also

References