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The world has a history of mighty sporting nations. The Greeks, founders of the renowned Olympic Games, the Romans, the Spartans, and Eddie "the Eagle" Edwards. But all of these pale into insignificance when compared to the mightiest sporting nation of all - Japan. Yes, Japan - winner of no gold medals. Japan, not very good at cricket and indeed, can't even qualify for the World Cup. All this makes it surprising that the country even has a football league, let alone one popular enough to produce a game using the licence.

Maybe it's revenge fantasies of the impotent, but it would appear that Japanese programmers have something of a fixation with soccer games. Sadly though, their on-screen performances have so far matched up to their on-field ineptitude, with only the good old British Super Kick Off being any good (because, of course, we won the World Cup in 1966). And now Sega return to the fray with another title of their own based around the antics of some of the sports finest competitors (Snigger), the Japanese Football League. The viewpoint in the game is the time-honoured three-quarters overhead isometric special, and as always, the objective of the game is to score more goals than your opponents, thereby winning the match.

Official console game of the Japanese football league.

Score more goals than the opposition and - hey presto - victory is yours!

Those footballing gents are quite adept when it comes to ball-kicking-type skills. By using the joypad, the player is able to make members of his team perform some classic feats of soccer action. There are two different kinds of passing play, short pass or long pass, allowing you to control which player you wish to receive the ball.

Shots at goal are undertaken with a different button which produces a huge splendid big long powerful kick. Not only this, but there's also an aftertouch option which lets you bend your ball in super banana-shot shows of curly fruit standard.

J League Football is the first game to utilise the all-new Megadrive four-way tap. This means if you've got enough joypads (and friends!) you can have up to four people participating in the same game at the same time. In J League terms, this means you can have one player against the computer, two players against each other, one player against two other humans or a mighty two-on-two battle. Each player is able to control a player on screen by pressing the C button when not in possession of the ball, whereupon the closest man to the action is selected, with a numbered arrow above his head indicating the player in control.

If this isn't enough, before each half you also have the option to choose your formation from a lengthy list.

On the right of the screen is a big radar screen. The position of each players is detailed here, as well as the whereabouts of the ball. This makes it somewhat easier to tell where to post the ball when you want to execute a long-range pass and also provides an early warning of any defenders heading in from locations off the screen.

All the teams in J League have a real-life counterpart. The teams include the mighty Grampus from Nagoya, now home of Gary Lineker, who are probably the best team in the country. That said, they could just field Lineker and he'd still probably beat all the other teams at once.

The other teams on offer are the Kashima Antlers, Jef United from Ichihara, the Urama Red Diamonds, Kawasaki Verdi (not a green motorbike at all!), Yokohama Marino, the Yokohama As Flugels, S-Pulse of Shimizy, Osaka Camba and San Freece, the team that doesn't need floodlights, from Hiroshima.

Each team has its own cute cartoon mascot and a big money sponsor such as Nissan or God.

To people who've only played this game a couple of times, it seems like a load of old tosh. It's very slow indeed - slower than any other console footie game, and the sound is atrocious.

However, the game's initial hook is the four-player mode. With all your pals playing, it's a unique Megadrive experience. With one player, it does seem a bit cack. However, keep playing for some length of time and the game's qualities surface. You realise that is is actually slow for a reason! The control method is amazing, enabling you to pull off all sorts of footie shots.

I reckon it's actually a lot more realistic than Super Kick Off! It honestly is amazing - when you've played it for a while you can amaze your friends by beating them hands down 11-0! As Jaz says, just about everything in real soccer has made its way into this game and I reckon it's just as good as Super Kick Off - the four-player mode making it slightly better!

However, Sega's ultimate soccer is released in a couple of months, and this boasts *eight-player action*! Yes, eight, using two taps! It looks stunning, so I'd wait for that before making any soccer-related Megadrive purchase.

After playing the game solidly all weekend (on my own and with two, three and even four players) I've come to the opinion that this is brill.

Once you get used to the controls they really are excellent with loads of moves available. You can even chest the ball down and do perfectly-timed slide tackles! There's a real feeling of solidity about the game - the ball spangs off players and you can charge down shots or barge over opponents - as long as they don't send you clattering to the ground first!

The players are reasonably intelligent and actually attempt to find space, resulting in a flowing game of soccer where you feel that you're controlling a team, not a group of individuals.

The graphics are excellent and there's real attention to detail - players flagging the referee for throw-ins, players rolling around the floor in agony after tackles... all this gives a real feeling of involvement in the action.

The computer opponent gives a fairly decent game on its hardest setting, but obviously where this really comes into its own is with multi-player mode - the four-player games I played with my mates were the best fun I've had on the Megadrive for yonks. Best football game? Definitely with four players, but on your own Super Kick Off just beats it. Just...

Presentation 87%
P. Lots of options and presentation bits, the only problem being that...
N. ...All of the text is in Japanese, making for a lot of experimental work when you first buy it.

Graphics 75%
P. The cut screens are of a good quality, and the pitch itself is quite smart. The player sprites convey the action really well.

Sound 30%
P. Arrghhhh! A constant air horn drone and some fuzzy, lame speech contribute to one of the worst Megadrive soundtracks we've ever heard.

Playability 92%
P. Once mastered, the controls make for some superb, realistic soccer play. The four-player mode is simply amazing!
N. The initial slowness of the game might put solo players off.

Lastability 93%
P. It's very hard to top the league, and there's the cup to beat too. The four-player mode will make this one to come back to again and again.
N. Not likely to hold your solo-player interest forever though.

Overall 91%
Although initially off-putting, this soccer simulation turns out to be one of the greatest video game renderings of the national sport ever produced. A great first game for the four-player tap and well worth getting hold of.