There’s a certain level of animosity that comes at the mere mention of sports games. They’ll often summon a shudder of disdain, followed by a prompted lashing of venom from the ‘gamers’. And it’s not just down to how the genre became a getaway from gambling addictions and mass motivation.
The reality is, Rematch isn’t a ‘football game’, at least by the modern understanding. It’s the return of arcade sports games and a reminder of gimmick-free gameplay.
Rematch
Developer: Sloclap
Price: $29.99
Platform: PC (reviewed), PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S
MonsterVine was supplied with a Steam code for review
The general outline of getting the ball in the back of the net still remains true across football games. But it’s how you get that ball into the net where the differences appear. Rematch is basic, yet still able to offer a sense of depth that is rarely seen outside of brawlers or fighting games.
Pass, shoot, tackle. Basic concepts everyone can understand and do. Scratching beyond the surface reveals there’s more to becoming good at the game. The power of pass, the type of pass, passing to feet, passing into space. How to defend, where to defend, identifying patterns, and when to press. The difference between those who see things and those who do not is clear, yet both sets of players can still perform effectively.
Rematch only uses a handful of buttons/keys. One to pass, one to shoot, one to tackle, and a sprint. All can be adjusted with the additional pressing of other keys to change their style, e.g., lobbed passes. It stays in line with the ethos of simplicity, and it works.
There are tricks and flicks to learn, all of which come from button combinations and movements, but there’s nothing too complex buried within its control schemes. Everything loops and interconnects to make a consistent set of tools available to the player.
As a playable experience, Rematch is, frankly, great. The only real weakness it suffers from is something it can’t control: the player base. The reality is that there are things you can’t teach players; one of them is to drop the ego. For all the simplicity it offers, the number of players who think they are Messi or Mo Salah, only to play messily, is incredibly high.
Given the team sizes of either three, four, or five, every player influences performance. A player who refuses to pass is a player who will sink their team both in video games and real life. This, of course, makes all the other aspects pointless.
The aspect of ‘understanding football’ is also an issue. There’s no real advice for people who don’t know or play football. No nudges to help someone understand positional play or space, not even the somewhat already lacking tutorials. While hardly a deal breaker, it does feel like a silly oversight.
You’re probably thinking, ‘This is a bit brief for a review,’ but that’s the reality of what Rematch is. It has all the expected options of Quick Play and ranked. But aside from that, there are no modes to speak of…which…is fine. It isn’t a full price game, clocking in at $29.99, with no aggressive microtransactions to really speak of.
For what’s on offer, the price tag is fair. There is the option of playing via Game Pass, but it should be noted that, as of the time of writing, crossplay is not present between any platforms.
Rematch is smart, simple, and some of the most organic fun I’ve had in multiplayer in years. Creating a team goal is extremely satisfying, especially when using voice comms. Those last-second wins and heartbreaking defeats create so much drama that Neil Druckman would be feverishly trying to factor football into the next The Last of Us.
The Final Word
Simple, fun, rewarding. Rematch is a bright light in a genre long since plunged into darkness under the shadow of EA and 2k’s greed and the triumphant return of arcade sports games, even if you’ve never put a foot onto the pitch yourself.
MonsterVine Rating: 4 out of 5 – Good
