Tony Meola's Sidekicks Soccer

A soccer game running on the same engine as NCAA Basketball, NHL Stanley Cup and the unreleased NFL Football. Also a few regional variants: one meant for the Latin American market that apparently made its way back to the United States, and an unreleased version meant for the European market that may have come out in Brazil as well, amongst them.

Regional Differences#

As mentioned, the game has four regional releases. The first of them is Sidekicks Soccer, released in North America in late 1993 and featuring the endorsement of Tony Meola, at the time goalkeeper for the US soccer team. A few months later, in early 1994, Pack-In-Video released a localized version endorsed by Brazilian-born player Ruy Ramos. This was followed by a version made for the Latin American market entitled Super Copa, which was released by Playtronic in Brazil and by American Softworks everywhere else, and features the most amounts of changes.

There also is a fourth version, entitled World Soccer, meant for the European market. It is not known if said version was even released to market, as nobody has been able to find any proof of it existing in a physical form, this release was likely cancelled, despite being previewed. Curiously, in Brazil, a game advertised as "Worldwide Soccer", which had an identical boxart to the American release, barring minor differences. It is currently not known if this earlier release is "World Soccer" or merely Tony Meola's Sidekicks Soccer under a different name.

Copyright Screen#

Tony Meola's Sidekicks Soccer	Super Copa	World Soccer

With the exception of World Wide Soccer, all versions have separate copyright screens, with the information in them changed accordingly.

Language Selection#

Exclusive to Super Copa is a language selection screen after the copyright notice, which also features the logo of Playtronic.

Publisher Logos#

Tony Meola's Sidekicks Soccer/World Soccer	Ramos Ruy no World Wide Soccer	Super Copa

After the copyright notice (or language selection, in Super Copa's case) is the logo for each version's respective publisher. They all begin the same, with rotation and zoom effects, but they all end differently. Electro Brain's does a zoom towards the logo's head's forehead, Pack-In-Video's does the same (except it zooms into nothingness), and American Softworks' just fades to black. Also, in the latter's case, it's only the giant ASC that rotates and zooms; the rest appears once that effect's done.

Title Screen#

Tony Meola's Sidekicks Soccer	Ramos Ruy no World Wide Soccer	Super Copa	World Soccer

Each version has their respective logo appear in a similar way, with the logo zooming in on-screen after a small animation of a ball going to the other side of the screen. World Soccer has a blue background instead, and World Wide Soccer adds a copyright notice (which zooms alongside the logo) and a digitized picture of Ramos that fades in once the logo stops zooming.

Said title screen also features the sound of a crowd cheering. Super Copa changes that to a small tune that changes depending on the language selected.

Main Menu#

Tony Meola's Sidekicks Soccer	Ramos Ruy no World Wide Soccer	World Soccer

Super Copa (Spanish)	Super Copa (Portuguese)

The menus on each version are pretty much the same, barring the different backgrounds. Super Copa, however, features various differences. The options are all labeled (this also applies to all other menus), the two tournament/cup modes had their icons changed, and, when set to Spanish, this (as well as other menus) feature the logo for Telemundo on the lower right corner on the screen.

Each version has its own menu theme, with World Wide Soccer and World Soccer sharing the same theme (which is also one of the songs that plays in-game). As with the title screen tune, Super Copa has different menu music for each language.

Mode Selection#

Sidekicks Soccer/World Wide Soccer	Super Copa (Spanish)	Super Copa (Portuguese)	World Soccer

The player(s) on the mode selection screen went from blonde-haired white men on Sidekicks Soccer and World Wide Soccer, to dark-haired black men on World Soccer and Super Copa, with the latter also removing the CPU vs. CPU mode, oddly.

Team Selection#

Sidekicks/World Wide Soccer/World Soccer	Super Copa

All versions have two categories of teams: international themes, and club teams. For some reason, however, Super Copa replaces the second category with one for North and Latin American teams... many of them already being present on the international category, and with the same rosters, making this changed category quite pointless.

Sidekicks Soccer/World Wide Soccer	Super Copa (Spanish)	Super Copa (Portuguese)	World Soccer

The international category is divided into 8 groups on all versions, although oddly World Soccer removes the "group" from the icons. Super Copa, meanwhile, has 6 groups with less teams, all arranged differently. A giant "SELECT YOUR GROUP" was added to the menu.

Sidekicks Soccer	World Wide Soccer/World Soccer	Super Copa (Spanish)	Super Copa (Portuguese)

While Sidekicks Soccer labels each team, neither World Wide Soccer nor World Soccer name them. Team names were translated on Super Copa, expectedly.

Sidekicks Soccer	World Wide Soccer	World Soccer

Super Copa (Spanish)	Super Copa (Portuguese)

Club teams have their own categories on each version. Sidekicks Soccer has three American categories and a European one, World Soccer has a lot more European teams as well as a South American category in place of a North American one, World Wide Soccer keeps two of the categories from Sidekicks Soccer but replaces the other two with Japanese teams, and Super Copa, as previously mentioned, replaces the club teams with the North and South American teams.

Match Setup#

Sidekicks/World Wide Soccer/World Soccer	Super Copa (Spanish)	Super Copa (Spanish)

As with other menu options, those on the match setup were labeled on Super Copa. Super Copa also adds the same Playtronic logo from the language selector, regardless of the language chosen. Like the Telemundo logo from before, other menus also have the Playtronic logo.

The corner shot and tactics menus on Sidekicks Soccer feature the name of the selected play. All other versions replace it with a larger version of their respective icon on the previous menu.

Sidekicks Soccer/World Soccer	World Wide Soccer/Super Copa

While the graphics at the top are the same on all versions, the numbers of the players have a different appearance on some of them. Sidekicks Soccer and World Soccer both have some square-ish red numbers, whereas those on World Wide Soccer and Super Copa are a bit more round and are in a slightly dark pink.

Rosters#

Sidekicks/World Wide Soccer/World Soccer	Super Copa

While both versions don't feature real player names, the ones on Super Copa are clearly much closer to the real ones.

Pre-Match Screen#

Sidekicks Soccer	World Wide Soccer	World Soccer

Super Copa (Spanish)	Super Copa (Portuguese)

The pre-match screen has various differences between versions. Sidekicks Soccer and World Wide Soccer have a small frame with "PRE-GAME" on it, while World Soccer and Super Copa replace it with an illustration of two players and a referee preparing to start. Sidekicks, World Wide Soccer and World Soccer all feature the game's logo. Super Copa, when set to Spanish, has a big Telemundo logo instead. Setting it to Portuguese gives you... nothing. Just a big blank space. Oh well.

In-Game#

Sidekicks Soccer	World Wide Soccer	Super Copa	World Soccer

While the actual field itself is the same across all versions, there's some differences, the most obvious one being the billboards. Sidekicks Soccer features billboards for Foot Locker, Adidas, and the American Youth Soccer Organization, or AYSO. World Soccer changes the latter for a billboard with the game's logo on it. World Wide Soccer has new ones, with billboards for Electro Brain and Pack-In-Video, as well as the unknown "JUC" and "KIZU", all clearly done in a few minutes on Deluxe Paint. Super Copa instead has, like American Softworks' other localizations, billboards for PepsiCo/Frito-Lay properties.

Besides the ads, World Wide Soccer has a different crowd as well as changing the font's color from a shaded orange to plain white.

It also has a completely different match BGM, exclusive to this version. Sidekicks Soccer and World Soccer have various tunes, whereas Super Copa doesn't even have that, instead having crowd noise.

References#