Win the Master League!
- JP release: 30th January 2003
- EU release: N/A
- NA release: N/A
- Developer: Konami
- Publisher: Konami
- NGC Magazine: N/A
- Mods Used: Widescreen Hack
Konami were pretty absurd when it came to football games on the GameCube, as each region had their own football game. In Europe there was International Superstar Soccer, North America had MLS ExtraTime and Japan had Winning Eleven. And that doesn’t even include Konami’s turn-based football game, Captain Tsubasa.
That said, Winning Eleven wasn’t entirely exclusive to Japan. On the PS2 in Europe, Winning Eleven 6 was known under a rather popular name: Pro Evolution Soccer 2. This “final evolution” version is an enhanced version of that game.
In terms of how Pro Evo 2 and ISS 2 stack up, the general consensus seems to be that Pro Evolution is the much better game, although ISS isn’t bad. Winning Eleven definitely felt different, with far smoother movement but less focus on passing. As I just crave the simplicity of FIFA 98, I can’t really tell the intricacies of these football systems, but it’s still a lot of fun.
Fun
Winning Eleven 6 Final Evolution is an stunning soccer game and an incredible improvement over WE6 and PES2 on which this is based. The finely-honed gameplay is the best it’s ever been. The improvements are small, but they are exactly the kind of ones that have required hundreds of hours worth of testing and feedback. Compare this to PES2 and you will be amazed at the many improvements. There’s very few niggles, but for experienced players, the game is a bit too easy in it’s Master League mode and in general, even at the highest difficulty setting. Still, great stuff from the development team.
Thomas, IGN
Remake or remaster?
Konami need to look back at this era of their football games.
Official Ways to get the game
There is no official way to get Winning Eleven 6.
Europe
Japan
North America
GameCube Games by Date
2002: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec
2003: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec
2004: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec
2005: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec
2006: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec
This is probably the most infuriatingly stupid regional exclusive of the entire generation (including its own numerous sequels). Absolute madness that the GameCube actually somehow managed to score exclusive Pro Evo games… but all of them remained Japan exclusive!!
What was easily in the top 3 biggest franchises of the entire generation in Europe… somehow managed to stay completely Japan exclusive on GameCube! The absolute abject failure to capitalise on surefire success here is mind boggling! A perfect encapsulation of the raw stupidity that would go on to destroy the 3rd party market on Wii a few years later.
The only reasonable explanation I can come up with is that Sony must’ve bought exclusive rights to the Winning Eleven series outside of Japan throughout that generation; blocking Konami or Nintendo from localising the GCN versions. We’ll probably never truly know the answer, but that’s the only way I could possibly imagine any sort of logical decision making process here!
Needless to say, this was a very popular import back in the day (I personally knew two people who imported it for their Cubes back then), and I used to see it absolutely litter the London import shops of the early 2000s. Clearly there was a huge untapped market for this game. A massive shame.
I was playing it again a bit last year and it’s still great fun. Even with having stuff like Google Lens handy, though, the lack of English makes it more painful than it ever needed to be 🥲
This was easily one of the greatest football games ever made and I’m still a bit gutted it never made it here properly!