Tehkan World Cup
Trackball-based soccer arcade hit from 1986.
Tehkan World Cup is an association football arcade game released by Tehkan (later Tecmo) in 1986, following location testing in late 1985. It features multiplayer gameplay and trackball controllers, and its arrival coincided with the buildup to the 1986 FIFA World Cup. The game became a major arcade success and was a landmark title for association football games upon release.
Quick Facts
- Developer
- Tehkan
- Designer
- Shin-ichiro Tomie; Kazutoshi Ueda
- Programmer
- Michishito Ishizuka
- Composer
- Tsukasa Masuko
- Platforms
- Arcade
- Genre
- Sports (association football)
- Modes
- Single-player, multiplayer
Facts from the source article.
Gameplay
The game offers a two-dimensional bird's-eye view of the field with multi-directional scrolling, showing only a portion of the pitch at a time. The trackball controls direction and speed of movement and shots, contributing to fast-paced play that can see a goal scored within three seconds from kick-off. A mini-map displays player positions, and two-player matches involve players facing each other across the cabinet.
Development
Tehkan World Cup was developed by Tehkan shortly after the American football game Gridiron Fight, with several of the same team members. It was planned and designed by Shin-ichiro Tomie and Kazutoshi Ueda, programmed by Michishito Ishizuka, with character and background graphics by Rie Ishizuka, cabinet design by Kohji Okada, and illustrations by Hideyuki Yokoyama. Tomie, a soccer fan, adapted Gridiron Fight's trackball controls but simplified them to a trackball and one kick button.
Reception
Tehkan World Cup was a huge success in arcades. In Japan, it ranked seventh in Beep magazine's top-grossing arcade games for November 1985, and by February 1986, Game Machine listed it as the third most popular table cabinet. It finished as Japan's fourth highest-grossing table game for both 1986 and 1987. Critics praised it: Play Meter's David Snook declared it the best soccer game available, while Computer Gamer's Mike Roberts highlighted its sharp graphics and trackball controls.
Legacy
Shinichiro Tomie, a devoted soccer fan, later created Tecmo's Captain Tsubasa games, starting with the 1988 Famicom title known as Tecmo Cup Soccer Game in North America and Tecmo Cup Football Game in Europe. He eventually worked as a scenario writer for Chunsoft's Shiren the Wander series, then returned to soccer with the Game Boy Advance game Shiren Monsters: Netsal in 2004. In 1989, Tecmo put out an arcade follow-up called Tecmo World Cup '90. Tehkan World Cup arrived on PlayStation 2 in 2004 and on Xbox in 2005, both under the name Tecmo Cup. Stuff magazine placed it fourteenth on its list of the greatest football games ever. The game was a milestone for the genre, praised as groundbreaking for its trackball controls, an overhead view that gave players a wider look at the field, and shot physics that let them steer both direction and speed with the trackball. Game designer Jon Hare pointed to Tehkan World Cup as the main inspiration for the football games he and Chris Yates made at Sensible Software. It directly inspired MicroProse Soccer from 1988, which Hare described as an arcade conversion but not a direct copy, since they added their own touches. Ideas from Tehkan World Cup and MicroProse Soccer later shaped the Sensible Soccer series, which Hare and Yates launched in 1992.
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