Super Sidekicks 2+3/Gameplay

Power-Ups

Before you start the game you have the option to select a specific buff, most of these are pretty insignificant with the exception of Speed Up and for some teams, Attack Power Up.

The Following Power-Ups are:

Full Team-Power Up: Buffs your entire team, not substantial enough for it to make a real difference

Attack Power Up: Buffs your shots on the ball, can make shots virtually unblockable on the right teams, the only case scenario where you should pick this might be on teams like South Korea or Sweden where Speed Up isn't very meaningful in the grand scheme of things.

Defense Power Up: Buffs your team’s defense, not substantial enough to make a difference

Speed Up: The most important buff in this game, almost every team in the game needs to pick this to even survive on the pitch. When the name of the game is speed and keeping the touch of the ball, this is too important to not pick.

IMPORTANT: Due to a bug in the games regarding stats, Speed Up on teams with slightly below max makes them incredibly fast (even faster than max speed teams with a speed up buff) this applies to other stats of course but the fact this works with Speed Up is meta defining.

Teamwork Up: Buffs the AI

Technique Up: Increases the chance of random tricks like hopping, It isn't very noticeable and in the case of Super Sidekicks 3, you can just learn how to do the inputs

Captain Up: Buffs the Ace/Captain, can be VERY good if your captain is up front (e.g: Austria, South Africa etc.)

Goalkeeper Up: Buffs the goalkeeper, you might be tempted to pick this due to the overall weakness of goalkeepers in Super Sidekicks 3, but when you pick this butf, and see your goalkeeper have a fucking heart attack on the pitch the moment he sees a ball coming towards him; you’ll understand that this buff, much like all the other buffs, don't do very much.

The Basics Of Football

In football, every team consists of 11 players, 10 players and a goalkeeper. The formation tells you how many players are in each position. Your players in the back, Midfielders and your forwards in that order. For example, 4-4-2 means there are four players in the back, four players midfield and 2 players up front.

The pitch is split symmetrically for both teams, you have the middle of the pitch, and two penalty boxes, your goalkeeper cannot leave that box, the rest of your players can move wherever they want but will eventually go back to their original positions, because of this, it is important to pass frequently so everyone can remain in position. If you shoot the ball outside of the pitch, a throw-in occurs where the team who didn't shoot the ball outside can pass it to someone on their own team. If it happens in the corner a corner kick occurs.

Your objective is to take the ball, get past your opponent's defenses and shoot it into the goal, simple, right?

Kick-Off

Gameplay begins with a kick-off, where two players in the middle of the pitch will pass the ball to each other and once that occurs, every other player can move and the scrambles can begin. Your objective as a player with the ball is to take the ball to the opponent’s side of the pitch and shoot or walk the ball into the opponent’s goal. Every goal will give you one point. You can accidentally get a goal on yourself and this will give a point to the opponent, so be careful about that.

When you have the ball, you are able to move, pass and release the ball.

When you don’t have the ball you move faster and have multiple offensive options like sliding and foul play (you can judo throw and actually just beat the shit out of people, it’s kind of awesome), as well as switch players (you can even switch to your goalkeeper in case you don’t trust the goalkeeper AI to do well, but be careful with this)

Scoring

When you get the ball into the opponent’s box, you can shoot and go for a goal, you can still high pass in the box, you cannot shoot from outside of the box.

If you’re outside of the penalty box, there’s a prompt that says “chance”, this allows you to get a more precise shot into the goal.

Shooter’s Control: First Person Reticle, Aim with the direction and shoot with A

Goalkeeper’s Control: Move left and right with the directions, save with A. (Super Sidekicks 3 has auto-save if ure directly under it, but generally you shouldn’t lose this if you’re the goalkeeper in that game).

In Super Sidekicks 3, There is another chance mini-game where you line up a precise shot, but it’s from a top down view. Controls are the same though, however, pressing B curves the shot and makes this chance mini-game significantly (and I mean SIGNIFICANTLY) harder to counter. Mixing these two up turns this into an incredibly hard guessing game, even if the goalkeepers do have autosave even in this context.

For both, though, if the goalkeeper catches the ball, or it misses entirely, it’s a goal kick. If the ball bounces off the keeper, it’s a corner kick.

Fouling

When you commit a tackle or foul play, there is a random chance that you get a foul that’s given by the referee (if the referee is knocked out, there is no chance that a foul can be given). These fouls can have multiple effects at once.

SUPER SIDEKICKS 2 ONLY: In Super Sidekicks 2, If you get a yellow/red card enough times, the referee stops caring and you can foul an unlimited amount of times. Sure, I guess. I’d give up too. This was replaced by All Psych Up in Super Sidekicks 3.

Buffs/Debuffs:

No Damage (Super Sidekicks 2 Only) - Nothing happens to the player who got tackled.

Psych Up - The player who got injured gets buffed

Super Psych Up (Super Sidekicks 3 Only) - The player who got injured gets buffed even more, you DON’T want this to happen to you if you were the one committing a foul.

All Psych Up (Super Sidekicks 3 Only) - THEIR ENTIRE TEAM GETS BUFFED, YOU DON’T WANT THIS EITHER.

Lights Out / Light Damage - The player who got injured stays on the pitch but is debuffed, you probably want this.

Wounded - The player who got injured is sent off the pitch.

Cards:

No Card (Super Sidekicks 2 Only) - No Card is given.

+ BAD CALL - The Player who got no card gets given a yellow card because the referee had a shit day or something.

Yellow Card - The player who committed the foul is warned

+ BAD CALL - The player who got the yellow card gets given a red card because he didn’t agree with the referee.

Red Card / Ejected - The player who committed the foul is sent off the pitch

When you commit a foul, a special play-off will also occur depending on where the foul happened, the following can happen:

Free Kick (Outside Of The Box) - If you commit a foul outside of your own box (yes, even in their box), the player who got tackled will be able to perform a Free Kick. This gets hilarious when you foul someone behind their own goalkeeper, the goalkeeper might accidentally own-goal.

Free Kick (Near The Box) - Fouls done near your own box will result in the opponent being given a shot to score a goal against you. They have to aim for the goal and hope they can get it in.

Attacker’s Controls: First Person Reticle, aim with directions, shoot with A (same as Chance)

Defender’s Controls: Move Goalkeeper with directions, save with A (same as Chance)

Penalty Kick - Good luck! 1-on-1 guessing game where the goalkeeper has to defend a shot that can go 3 ways. Failure to goal results in a goal kick. This occurs when a foul is done in your own box. So be careful trying to foul someone to defend your box.

Shooter’s Controls: Can shoot left, right and in the middle by pressing A + a direction.

Goalkeeper’s Controls: Can defend left, right and middle by holding a direction.

Corner Kick - "This can happen?" Yep. If your goalkeeper fouls a player, it is automatically a corner kick, rare, though.

Goals

You have 3 options if you draw a game:

Sudden Death: You play until someone gets a goal or the game draws again

Penalty Kicks: You play penalties until someone loses (The game with automatically pick a loser if you draw enough times)

Rematch: You just restart the entire match