Let’s get this straight Eyeshield 21: Field Saikyou no Senshi Tachi is not Madden nor does it try to be a “professional” American football game. Eyeshield 21 Wii is something else entirely, it’s more like a party game with a football theme or an adventure game with football-like motion control. If you go in expecting realistic passing control or lots of plays Eyeshield 21 isn’t going to be your cup of tea. What you get instead is a deeper single player mode where you guide the Devil Bats through different matches. The scenario mode begins in a locker room where you play as Sena and you can walk up to objects to begin stories. The first mission is a tutorial that shows you the controls. After that you’re facing the Amino Cyborgs in a championship match.
The scenario mode is a little awkward at first because you don’t play a full game of football with four quarters, actually you barely play a full game. What often happens is you’re placed in “situations” instead of having a variety of choices. In the first match against the Amino Cyborg’s you’re restricted to only using the struggle defense where you waggle the remote to push the other team’s offensive line back. When you’re facing off the Chameleons you’re limited to passing. In the match against Yuuhi Guts you have more options on how to play, but after scoring a touchdown and prevent the Guts from scoring the match skips to mid game where the score is tied. It puts the pressure on so you can’t have ridiculous leads, but Eyeshield 21 Wii is so easy without these situations you shouldn’t have any problems moving through the game.
There are four options of gaining yards when you’re running towards the endzone. You can choose run by pressing up on the D pad during the huddle. When you do this you can pick one of two runners to bring the ball up, but you don’t actually “run”. Instead whoever you choose runs on their own until an automatically controlled opponent appears to block them. When you’re about to be tackled the camera switches to first person view and you can pick one of four directions to run to by waving the Wii remote up, down, left, or right. The faster you do this the more time you keep on the green time meter and the more time you have to run. However, if you and your opponent pick the same direction they will grab you and you’ll lose some time on your running clock. Once the clock runs out your runner is brought to the ground and you move on to the next play. You can attempt a field goal by pressing down on the D pad. When you select this a meter appears on the left hand side and you need to shake the remote when the bar moving up and down is in the green part of the meter. The green meter’s area increases as you get closer to the goal, but it’s still possible to kick field goals from the 40 or so yards away once you get the timing down.
While you could kick or run, passing is the best option when playing against the computer. When you choose pass you point to the player you want to throw at and a little meter appears with a green bar and a small yellow meter in the center. You want to shake the remote when the cursor appears in the green or better yet the yellow area. If you successfully shake the remote Hiruma will throw the ball and the camera will shift to the ball flying towards the screen. To catch the pass you need to point the remote at the ball and press A to complete it. You can easily get nine to ten yards by throwing short passes compared to only gaining four to five per run. There is a bonus to passing, if you shake the remote while the cursor is in the tiny yellow space you’ll throw an excellent pass and if you catch this you gain yards from passing plus you get to run with the ball. Passing the ball is perfect when you’re against the computer, but when you are playing against a person it’s not as useful. While you’re selecting a target to pass the other player can shake their remote to reduce the time you have to search for a target and throw the ball. It only takes a few seconds of shaking to stop a pass and sack Hiruma, which makes passing more risky in two player games.
The easiest way to get the extra point after scoring a touchdown is breaking through the line by pressing right on the D pad during the huddle. When you do choose this you get into a line struggle between your team and the other player’s. After a three second count both players need to shake their remotes as quickly as possible to push the other line back. Whoever pushes the line back more wins that round and if you win two out of three rounds you break through the line. Since you don’t need to cover much distance for the extra point breaking through the line is the perfect choice. Eyeshield 21 is as basic as you can get since there are only four plays to choose from. You can change gameplay a little by holding “B” down and activating special abilities, but all these do is increase the success rate of running or blocking.
The whole system is probably best explained with some video so watch all four tactics in action below.
