eFootball Kick-Off!

eFootball/PES was, in my opinion, the second biggest absence in the whole Nintendo Switch catalogue. I think Konami missed a clear goal there, and now they're trying to be more agile on the Switch 2. After all, their efforts in the beautiful game for Nintendo platforms had been great in the past (SNES, N64, Gamecube in Japan, Wii), but the owners of those had been missing them for a couple of generations.

At first sight, eFootball Kick-Off!'s proposal seems confusing, but I think I now understand what this is all about. For some reason (probably the always controversial player packs as something similar to loot boxes?) the regular eFootball won't arrive on the Switch 2. That means no free-to-play football game on the system, no MyClub, coins, spending, and randomised elements. The title has been downloaded a billion times so it's a proven successful formula, but it won't grow on a Nintendo system, at least for now.

However, this isn't a fully fledged football title either. Don't expect the content and the bells & whistles of the good 'ol Pro Evolution Soccer, nor of your annual FIFA and EA FC.

eFootball Kick-Off! is, then, a sort of a "lite" football game with a very reduced price point. A pick-up-and-play experience you can easily and quickly buy and download from the Nintendo eShop to enjoy some matches on the go or on your TV this summer, more so when the World Cup is about to, hmm, kick off.

And with that compact format in mind, how does it fare? Well, not bad, really. For a €19.99 download, you get a game where you can play local, online, wireless, and even via GameShare, and where you can choose between friendly matches but also a couple of longer modes. One is the confusingly-named "World Tour", and the other is the likewise confusing "International Cup".

World Tour is a Campaign Mode. Like the Master League!? Well, not so much, but a space to create and manage your club as you progress through the different stages on offer. Not much to customise or manage, but it's a longer single player mode with its stats and medals, if you will.

Then the International Cup is a blatant copy of the FIFA World Cup, just without many of its licenses (more on that later, same as with Leagues and clubs). But, you know what? For me it was perfectly fine to choose Spain and see how all the groups and fixtures had been arranged already.

It's also got a couple of quirky extras, such as a Mini Game space and a players encyclopaedia, but the meat here are the matches themselves, right?

Controller in hand, eFootball Kick-Off! plays and feels pretty much like your regular eFootball. And that is good. It's clean, responsive, arcadey, magnetised to the diagonals, as you would expect. Lots of fun, if you don't expect or need something more sophisticated to, again, play on the TV or on the go.

It also offers an interesting emphasis on accessibility for newcomers to football games. This permeates both the interface and the controls, with lots of visual aids, guidance, and assistance. For example, you can learn to shoot with Castolo in slow motion, or to activate auto-passing until you get to grips with the real thing. And you can see comments from the players in dialogue bubbles in-match, which is a nice light-hearted touch.

Once you've mastered the systems, for example in easier 6v6 matches, you can try your foot at the regular 11v11 matches, with all the strategies, club playstyles, and more you would expect. So the core gameplay is there, waiting for you.

Now, while all this is to me good and enough for a 20-buck purchase, I think there's room for improvement. For example, while graphics are clean and solid, I think we can ask a little bit more from the Switch 2. It looks like a simpler PS4 version, with the same models but struggling with depth of field and suffering from Konami's now decade-old graphical glitch involving grass texture and draw distance.

Besides, you get your typical mixture of fully-licensed clubs, such as Barça, Arsenal, or Inter Milan, and even leagues, such as the French League including fresh Champions League winners PSG, and then a ton of important clubs with fake names and kits, such as the now infamous Madrid Chamartín. And the same goes for National Teams. All players have real names and faces, but that's it.

Was I expecting otherwise? No. Still a bummer nowadays, even perhaps more so when we're back to paying for the base product? Perhaps. But not my biggest issue with the game. It's fun, easy to enjoy, and it's got a nice approach to it in terms of value. And I love the menu music reminding me of the ISS/PES era, and the cute icons in Nintendo's own fashion. So, if Konami manages to upgrade the graphics to more modern standards, and if the World Tour leans closer to the ML in the future, this could be more than a summer love or a travel buddy. For now, it's okay if just like that.