‘Rematch’ Is Exactly the Good Time the Whole Crew Thought It Would Be (Review)

I’ve been anticipating Rematch from the moment it was announced. I’ve been very open about my desire to see arcade-style sports games make a comeback. Sloclap has come through with this one. You would be forgiven for being confused that the studio that gave us the excellent Sifu is the same one dropping a multiplayer arcade soccer game on our heads, but that is exactly what they did. And despite some early hiccups, it’s incredible.

Slowing down the rematch

Let’s get the rough patches out of the way now. Some of my early time with the game was hit with some network issues and lag. I had some rough games where I clearly hit the ball, and yet when I moved forward, the ball was nowhere to be found. Well, I should say it was with my opponent heading in the other direction. I had a game I played with Shaun (who is an excellent goalie and may or may not be known as Goldberg from this day forth), where he made a great diving stop only to see the ball warp through his chest for a goal.

To Sloclap’s credit, they have been upfront about these issues and their efforts to fix them. As Matt noted, they’ve released a patch recently as part of that effort. And I have to note that a good number of my games went off without any massive hitches.

but, man, this game is awesome

Now that we got the veggies out of the way, here’s the dessert. Rematch is exactly what I need out of an arcade sports title. The controls are very simple, but some of the techniques take time to truly nail down and master. You can pull off moves like rainbow kicks with little to no effort. But they’re also very easy to defend. You just have to learn when and how to be aggressive on defense. The team at Sloclap, masters of fighting games, found a way to insert that constant counter cat-and-mouse to a soccer game.

Movement is similarly easy to understand. You have a stamina bar that drains as you hold down the sprint button and an “extra effort” boost that you can use by double-tapping the sprint button. Once you use up the extra effort, though, you have to let it recharge. That boost will give you a serious advantage in the open field, but the ball is also harder to control when moving fast with it.

In Rematch, these are countermeasures put in place to ensure teamwork in-game. You are not gonna dominate a match by yourself. Well, unless you’re playing people who just have absolutely no clue how to play the game. Using your teammates is key, passing and spacing matter. You can move down the field with ease and set up incredible goals if you play as a unit. One game I played with Shaun had me getting an amazing acrobatic goal after getting a pass that bounced off the top of the goal by our teammate. You can see in the video Shaun captured — that pass was what set me up because the goalie panicked.

‘REMATCH’ just needS crossplay AND BOTS TO PRACTICE AGAINST

Rematch didn’t launch with crossplay. While that’s disappointing, Sloclap has said they made the effort to get it in at launch.

“We did our utmost to include crossplay at launch, but Rematch is the studio’s first crossplay title, and we faced unforeseen technical complexities which prevented us from having this feature ready in time. We should have communicated as soon as it became apparent that crossplay wouldn’t be available at launch, and we’re sorry for the inconvenience and frustration it caused to some of our players.”

They went on to mention that:

“Crossplay is our absolute highest priority, we’re committed to delivering this feature swiftly, and we’ll share a more precise deadline as soon as possible.”

Sloclap could have delayed Rematch to get it in, and I don’t think anyone would be hurt. But they opted to give us the game without it and avoid delaying putting it into our hands. And what they delivered is an excellent experience. Hopefully, they’ll add some single-player-related modes down the road, but for now? I’m good. I haven’t enjoyed a purely multiplayer game like this in a while. And once the crew can get on all at once, I’m looking forward to us taking over the pitch.

Verdict: Highly Recommended

Rematch is available now on PC, Xbox Series X/S, and PS5. A code was provided by the publisher for review.