I have searched for this game in this forum, I see people talked about it but couldn't find it's thread. Decided to make a video of it and open it's thread.
World Fantasista is an obscure football game developed and published by SquareSoft in 2002 for PS2 and only released in Japan. Konami dominated PS2 era with WE/PES, deservedly so, while World Fantasista is not a successful competitor, it still had a unique approach. Played it on PC with PS2 emulator PCSX2. I saw that people cliaming it's unplayable on emulators but with the current PCSX2, I played the game. Only setting I recommend on PCSX2 is in Graphics Settings, Half-Pixel Offset : Normal (Vertex).
World Fantasista feels like an unfinished game, it only has National Teams. Game modes are "Exhibition Match" and "World Cup Mode". All teams are fully licensed, however since game only released in Japan, it only has Japanese language. Options are very limited, cannot change the button layout, cannot even see the button layout. Cannot change the gameplay camera. Cannot change the HUD and it doesn't have a power bar. Game lacks a "pressure" or "contain" button for marking.
World Fantasista has some unique animations you probably didn't ever see in other football games. While most of the animations are nice to watch, josting animations are heavily exaggerated. To think about it, PES was going great until PES 2014 and I blame jostling mechanic for downfall of the PES. Especially because it caused catch-up bug, it was so frustrating in PES 2014. However in World Fantasista, jostling doesn't really feel artificial since it has other similar animations. Most of that animations are making the game unresponsive. Defenders tend to stand in goal like they are goalkeepers without hands, they do it too often. Sometimes they recieve hard blows from the ball and try to catch their breath by sitting down, it would be a nice touch if it wasn't too often. It does not have an free kick camera and can't really understand how to aim. Sometimes CPU (AI) decides to score an unstoppable goal. Finesse shots doesn't require an extra input, you do it by normally shooting the ball, and they don't really go in. Goalkeepers are rushing and missing the ball too often. Overall, I didn't enjoy the game.
For an 2002 game, it looks ambitious. I played on emulator with visual enhancements. I gotta say rainy weather impressed me. Player faces are obviously not accurate. For those who want to play the game, I want to share button layout.
X: Pass / Sliding Tackle
Square: Body Feint / GK Rush
Triangle: Lob
Circle: Shoot
R1: Sprint
R2: Change Player
Right Analog Stick: Change Player
L1: Modifier
L1+X: Through Pass (Extremely powerful)
L1+Circle: Chip Shot
L1+Triangle: Lob to forward
Square: Body Feint / GK Rush
Triangle: Lob
Circle: Shoot
R1: Sprint
R2: Change Player
Right Analog Stick: Change Player
L1: Modifier
L1+X: Through Pass (Extremely powerful)
L1+Circle: Chip Shot
L1+Triangle: Lob to forward
Don't worry about Japanese only menu texts, I also recommend smartphone camera translate apps like Google Translate to translate menu text, like this.
