International Superstar Soccer 98 - On this day

Most fans of Konami's football series Pro Evolution Soccer remember it from the very beginning as a football simulation. However, the roots of PES are arcade and go back to International Superstar Soccer (ISS) which was played back on the Super Nintendo console. It was only with the advent of the first PlayStation console that Konami began developing a realistic version of the ISS, called the ISS Pro. However, in parallel with ISS Pro / Winning Eleven, the arcade series ISS / Jikkyou World Soccer also lived.

In the 1990s, the arcade ISS was reserved for the Nintendo 64, and one of the best games of that series in Japan came out on this day exactly 23 years ago. International Superstar Soccer 98 was launched at the same time as the ISS Pro 98 for the PlayStation but was a separate game of different gameplay. On the Nintendo, the ISS was played quickly and attractively, while on the PlayStation the ISS Pro was slower, the terrain was larger, and the physics of the ball was more advanced.

ISS 98 in Japan was the official game of the then World Cup in France and had licensed teams. The European version was not that lucky, but it was still possible to play with 52 national teams. There was a mode in which a player had to fight for qualification for the 1998 World Cup. In addition to this mode, ISS 98 had a "world league" with 48 national teams and a 16-scenario mode that threw the player into the match giving him the task to turn it over or save it. victory. 

The game received excellent marks after its release and was considered the highlight of the ISS series. He lived until 2003 and won four more games, but eventually gave up his place to the far more popular Pro Evolution Soccer. Unfortunately for users of Nintendo consoles, PES, unlike ISS, leaned towards PlayStation, so after ISS 2000, only a few of Konami's football simulations ended up on Nintendo consoles.