Inazuma Eleven is one of those weird, awesome DS games that somehow makes soccer feel like an anime battle. You start off as this scrappy kid trying to rebuild your school’s failing soccer team, and before long you’re recruiting random students (some of them have actual superpowers) and pulling off ridiculous special moves like flaming dragon shots. The matches play out in real-time but with this weird tactical layer where you’re constantly picking moves and trying to outguess the other team—it’s chaotic but weirdly satisfying when you pull off a last-second combo.

Half the fun is just wandering the school grounds between matches, talking to NPCs who might join your team if you say the right thing. I wasted way too much time trying to recruit this one guy who turned out to be terrible at soccer, but hey, that’s part of the charm. The story’s cheesy in the best way, full of rival teams with gimmicks like "all members wear blindfolds" or whatever. If you ever wanted a JRPG where the boss fights are just soccer games with increasingly absurd rules, this is it.

Also, the music slaps. That’s non-negotiable.