We're playing 'Rematch': Arcade soccer returns to the field to be this summer's game.

Let's be honest. The author of this review is bored by football . If he can avoid watching it—if it's not in the background of a get-together with friends or if he's invited to a team's stadium—all the better. He wasn't one to play FIFA or PES with his friends as a kid, either, although he has played FIFA Street on some afternoons. However, if there's one football game he's played, and a lot, it's Rocket League. That's why he was surprised when the guys at Sloclap, the French studio behind Sifu, revealed they were working on a title that sought to revive that feeling of kickabout, with spectacular dribbling, passing, and shooting. No rules, no pauses. Dynamic and challenging. It was everything he wanted, what he enjoyed about football.

'Rematch' isn't a fusion of soccer and cars, but it is a no-rules arcade multiplayer game with amazing goals everywhere and a packed stadium celebrating with your team when that pass followed by a high ball ends up in the goal. The concept of 'Rematch' is incredibly addictive. It features 3v3, 4v4, or 5v5 matches, depending on whether you want a more focused approach to practicing your technique or putting your vision into action. And its approach is very different from other sports games.

Here you don't control an entire team, but rather a single player who can be a forward, a midfielder, a defender, or a goalkeeper at any given time. In fact, all you have to do to put on the gloves is be the only player inside your own goal area. You'll automatically be able to dive to block opponents' shots, making the gameplay more dynamic, versatile, and varied.

We have a shoot button, a pass button, and a defensive tackle button as our core mechanics. We also have tons of dribbling options, and a receiving system that's very responsive in all directions. With the triggers, we can change stance to go into defensive mode or run, but those three buttons I mentioned are the three pillars of 'Rematch.' The game allows you to be very creative with the mechanics, and an act as seemingly simple as receiving the ball will force you to make decisions: do I pass it with my first touch? Do I shoot? Do I lower it and drive towards goal?

As you can see, we at ABC loved the title Sloclap. Its approach is ideal for what Rematch aims to be: a quick-play game, fun to play with friends, and a surefire winner of this summer's game. However, not everything is perfect.

As much as we liked its gameplay, 'Rematch' is far from a polished title. Connection issues and lag are constant. Sometimes the game decides that your player can't perform any further actions until the next goal is scored and the positions are "reset," which dooms more than one match. Other times, your character simply misses collisions and the ball passes through them, causing a great sense of frustration. Performance, despite being near-perfect, is subpar on devices that should be able to run the game without complications. Errors and bugs that, two weeks after the title's release, it's indefensible that they haven't been fixed.

Not to mention that it's a game entirely focused on online play. It wouldn't have hurt to add some more content for offline play, as it's practically nonexistent beyond a prologue and the option to practice. A championship, tournament, or short story mode wouldn't have been a bad idea and would have added value to the game.

Furthermore, playing with friends is almost essential if you want to have fun. The experience of playing alone with just four other strangers who sometimes decide to never pass the ball or disconnect mid-match is also frustrating. The French aren't to blame for this last point; it's intrinsic to multiplayer games, and they've done a good job with the communication system to make you understand that stranger you're playing with who lives 2,000 kilometers away. However, the fact that the main mode, ranked matches, is only available in 5-on-5 mode seems like a huge mistake to us for this very reason: because if you don't have four other friends, you're condemned to the roulette wheel of seeing if the next stranger will know how to play, will be laggy, or will deign to pass.

We also disagree with the game's payment model, a title clearly offered as a service, similar to 'Fortnite' or 'Valorant' with their battle pass and microtransactions in the form of skins, but behind a paywall of around 25 euros. It's true that you can unlock outfits, haircuts, tattoos, boots... with a currency you earn by leveling up, but the focus is clearly on getting the player to continue spending after purchasing the game as if it were a free-to-play game.

With all this, we don't want to discourage anyone, and anyone who's made it this far should know that 'Rematch' is a truly great game, with flaws and defects, but with a solid and very fun foundation. We trust that the studio—which we know pays close attention to user feedback—will address the bugs through updates. At ABC, we recommend giving the game a try, if you're even interested in soccer, or if you're looking for an arcade experience to enjoy with friends.