Arc Style: Football 3D Review

It is seldom we find ourselves with a completely immersive football game on a handheld console. Therefore, looking towards a game like the rather uniquely titled Arc Style: Football 3D we search for gameplay gems like being able to create your own team and take on the world, a challenging AI system and an overall authentic experience of the beautiful game. So does Arc Style: Football 3D hit the back of the net, or will it be caught just offside?

You don’t have to worry about the finer points of offside or what counts as a foul in Arc Style: Football 3D as it does away with the rule book. Choose from the twelve featured teams or create up to two of your own custom teams. Every team member is different. Use their strengths wisely to rack up goals.

For those wishing to start out facing AI, you have two options. Exhibition mode, which puts you in a single match with the teams of your choosing. Or World Tournament mode, where you will face a series of teams one after the other in (you guessed it) tournament fashion. You can also use Nintendo 3DS Local Play with this game and enjoy multiplayer matches with friends.

Which sadly brings about the first con for this review, in that you can’t actually save your game during the tournament. So you can either finish it in one go, or you will be starting over the next time round. The AI lacks any kind of flair however, with particularly uninventive play amongst the team no matter what difficulty you set the game to.

So taking the option to play the AI seems rather dull from the off. However, the multiplayer has a lot more to offer. This will enable you to take your own personal team head to head with another. The best aspect of the game is undoubtably the customisation, allowing players to create their own team from scratch. Start off by naming your team, selecting a logo emblem and from there you are given a lot of freedom in making your own fantasy team.

Whether you want to recreate yourself and your friends, famous people or actual footballers themselves, they can be matched up with unique special abilities of their own with a variety of different shot techniques. Using the camera on your 3DS console even allows you to take your own picture and import it onto a player to really immerse yourself in the game itself.

But the majority of the fun stops there. There are a few odd issues with Arc Style: Football 3D. It doesn’t feel like it makes the most of the 3DS itself, for example.

The touch screen feature doesn’t work at all, it’s simply a case of using buttons to navigate your way through each screen. As for the 3D slider, it isn’t really much effect here. Particularly when you spend most of the time during creating your team looking up and down at each screen, and it isn’t all that effective out on the pitch either. It seems a shame that without these features, it falls short of creating an authentic experience on the 3DS we’ve come to expect with previous releases on the console.

Arc Style: Football 3D is a charming effort at the sport it represents, and the amount of customisation on offer is very generous for a game like this. But man cannot game on custom teams alone. And it can’t be fully enjoyed unless you have friends to play with. The single player experience is also a bit of a let down, with lacklustre AI and no effective use of the 3DS unique features. The scouting for a decent handheld football game continues.

REVIEW CODE: A complimentary Nintendo 3DS code was provided to Brash Games for this review. Please send all review code enquiries to editor@brashgames.co.uk.