FIFA Soccer 64 was one of those games that made you feel like you were actually playing soccer—well, as much as an N64 could pull off in 1997. The graphics were solid for the time, with players who didn’t just look like blocky messes (most of the time) and animations that actually made sense when you passed or shot. The weather effects? Yeah, rain actually made the ball slide weirdly, which was both annoying and kind of cool.

Picking teams was half the fun—I always went for Brazil because, well, Ronaldo—but the real challenge was figuring out how to actually score. The controls took a minute to get used to, especially if you were coming from the SNES versions. Once it clicked though, you could pull off some surprisingly smooth plays. Not perfect, but way better than it had any right to be back then.

Still holds up if you’re into retro sports games, just don’t expect FIFA 23.