Soccer Kid Collection (QUByte Classics) Review

I played a lot of Soccer Kid growing up — first released in 1993 for the Amiga, I was still under the mistaken belief that I enjoyed football, even though I rarely watched it and owned absolutely no merch or even a ball. The game wound up releasing on eight other platforms over the next decade, so when I heard about Soccer Kid Collection (QUByte Classics), I was actually excited! Sure, there was only the one game, but there were nine versions of it! This collection has two.

Soccer Kid is a 2D platformer about a kid in a football kit who likes to kick a football around the world to defeat an alien who broke the World Cup trophy. It has a really interesting ball-specific physics engine, or at least some versions do.

The two versions that this collection comes with are PC DOS and Super Nintendo Entertainment System. Not entirely certain why those two specifically, nor why only those two, but the fact that the SNES version is called The Adventures of Kid Kleets might shed some light on it.

The DOS version is closest to the Amiga original, but has an animated intro from the Amiga CD32 where we see the alien, Scab, stealing the trophy (actually, it looks like he's kidnapping some dude) before crashing into an orbiting satellite. The levels in this version, however, don't have the scrolling backgrounds which made the original such a delight to see in motion.

On the other side, the SNES version has scrolling backgrounds, but the music isn't as good. It has a different intro, being rendered in-engine instead of animated, which differs in that the trophy is grappled instead of beamed up, then the ship crashes into a meteor. While the worlds are in the same order, some of the levels are switched around for some reason.

The SNES also has a Rewind function, allowing you to reverse time whenever you like. It has to do with how the two systems are emulated, but does come across as a curious absence in the DOS version. Both versions can be saved and loaded at any point, at least, so long as you remember to do it. Additionally, there are cheats for both, in case you're finding the timer too restrictive, want God Mode, or just a level skip.

As for the game itself, Soccer Kid is easy to control, and the variety of moves at his disposal is surprising. It's not just kicks; you can header the ball, do bicycle kicks, and even balance on the ball to get a boosted jump. The levels are quite linear with only a few hidden areas, but you usually need to reach those to find football cards — collect them all for a chance to grab a piece of the World Cup!

The SNES controls feel floatier than the DOS ones, and while the graphics are similar, the SNES looks cramped. Which is ironic, as the DOS version is literally in a smaller area of the screen, as the section with your health, score and football cards takes up a fifth of the screen.

When you're in Soccer Kid Collection (QUByte Classics)'s game selection screen, it tells you the version, the number of players, and whether or not it has Rewind. My question is: why does it say 1P for both? Surely it's only necessary to state the number of players when there's a possibility that it allows more than one? Also, it's a little confusing to use Soccer Kid for DOS and The Adventures of Kid Kleets for SNES…

Soccer Kid Collection (QUByte Classics) is an overall disappointing collection, seemingly released in a hurry to coincide with the World Cup being in America, as it is in the game (set in 1994, when it was also in America). It's hard to imagine that it was easy to obtain permission to these two versions of Soccer Kid, but far too hard to do any of the other seven. The fact that the Amiga version is missing is patently ridiculous.