Inazuma Eleven: Victory Road was a fascinating demo that told me absolutely nothing about it as an RPG
At the best of times, previewing a game at a trade show can be challenging - and very rarely does a game show its true merits within the confines of a 15 to 20 minute demo, which itself has to teach the player how to engage with it under those same strict timing constraints. At the worst of times, you get a game like Inazuma Eleven: Victory Road - not a bad game by any stretch, but it feels impossible to talk about it to any degree as an RPG or even the story, when the demo was a prolonged tutorial in order to explain how to play what is very clearly a very deep Football Simulation game.
What I can speak to regarding RPG mechanics are only the very, very bare minimum - stuff like how your characters have their own offensive and defensive stats, how your different skills play into them, and how successful you may be in a match is just as dependent on those stats than your actual mechanical skill in coordinating your units. This is something the tutorial makes very clear by way of framing your team against a vastly stronger one; no matter how good you might do, there was a very real barrier where the team I was given's stats just weren't enough to overcome that handicap.
It goes without saying that leveling up your characters, to improve their stats and learn skills, will be possibly the most important piece of the puzzle, and upon knowing your team's strengths and weaknesses engaging with all of the game's systems will click. I enjoyed what I played of the demo, and I thought all the systems regarding breaking through an opposing player's defense, making a path to safely pass the ball to another member of your team, and even aiming your shot at the goal once you reach the Zone were engaging. Or, setting up a proper defense for all of the above if you're on the receiving end, of course. Even when lacking that crucial context for the progression system - the glue that will hold everything together - the core gameplay on the court feels really, really good. I just wish I had a couple of hours to even begin to get a better feel for how everything will come together as a full package.
As for the visuals, we had the chance to test out the game on Switch 2. Unsurprisingly, considering Level 5's previous release on the system in Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time, the game ran and looked great. According to Level 5 themselves, the game supposedly targets 4k60 while docked on the platform - I don't know if I trust those exact numbers, but going by the game's recommended specs on PC, and the image quality of the game itself on Switch 2, I doubt there's much room to complain about the end result. Visually it looked great while docked, and performance never noticeably skipped a beat.
On a similar note, the game's localization seems to be proceeding apace. The reason given for the game's last delay was the need for more time to accommodate the localizations for the game's many supported languages - and while only Japanese and English will be the only supported audio tracks, that's doubtlessly a lot of work, considering the game's described scope. Interestingly enough, when I selected my desired language with which to play the demo, there's an option to revert to the original Japanese names for characters - which unfortunately isn't accounted for with the dub, which resorts to the localized names. I'm sure it won't be a problem when using the Japanese language audio track - in-fact, I'm sure that's the whole reason this option exists in the first place - but nonetheless it's something I felt was probably worth noting.
Hopefully with both the technical state of the game feeling rock solid, the game will finally release next month, as currently scheduled. While I noted as much that Level 5 had stuck to the release date they were sharing at Tokyo Game Show 2025, I've admittedly become so accustomed to their last-minute delays that I hadn't even clocked when Professor Layton's newly listed 2026 release window was a change. With any luck, perhaps that will be the last of Level 5's streak of delays - assuming Inazuma Eleven: Victory Road does launch this go around. Stay tuned for our full review later this year.