Before Inazuma Eleven, the idea of fusing a hardcore turn-based RPG with a real-time soccer game sounded like a schoolyard dare. Level-5, fresh off the success of Professor Layton, took that dare and built a franchise. The result is a game that shouldn’t work but absolutely does—a shonen sports anime distilled into a dual-screen cartridge where math formulas meet dramatic superpowers.

The story is pure Saturday morning cartoon fuel. You play as Mark Evans (Endou Mamoru in Japanese), the energetic, glove-wearing goalkeeper of Raimon Junior High’s nearly-defunct soccer club. The team has seven members, no drive, and zero hope.

But Mark has a dream: to lead Raimon to the legendary Football Frontier tournament.

What follows is a delightful mix of recruitment, training, and uncovering a secret soccer history involving an alien-looking team called Zeus. It’s cheesy, predictable, and wonderfully earnest. Think Haikyuu!! meets a Super Saiyan aura, and you’re close.

Level-5 used the DS’s limitations as a strength.