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Tony Meola's Sidekicks Soccer

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Title Screen

Tony Meola's Sidekicks Soccer

Also known as: Ramos Ruy no World Wide Soccer (JP), Super Copa (US/BR), World Soccer (EU?/BR?)
Developer: Sculptured Software
Publishers: Electro Brain (US/EU), Pack-In-Video (JP), American Softworks (US, Super Copa), Playtronic (BR)
Platform: SNES
Released in JP: February 25, 1994
Released in US: November 1993 (Sidekicks Soccer), 1994 (Super Copa)
Released in BR: 1994 (Super Copa)


RegionIcon.png This game has regional differences.


A soccer game running on the same engine as NCAA Basketball, NHL Stanley Cup and the unreleased NFL Football. Also a few regional variants: one meant for the Latin American market that apparently made its way back to the United States, and an unreleased version meant for the European market that may have come out in Brazil as well, amongst them.

Regional Differences

As mentioned, the game has four regional releases. The first of them is Sidekicks Soccer, released in North America in late 1993 and featuring the endorsement of Tony Meola, at the time goalkeeper for the US soccer team. A few months later, in early 1994, Pack-In-Video released a localized version endorsed by Brazilian-born player Ruy Ramos. This was followed by a version made for the Latin American market entitled Super Copa, which was released by Playtronic in Brazil and by American Softworks everywhere else, and features the most amounts of changes.

There also is a fourth version, entitled World Soccer, meant for the European market. It is not known if said version was even released to market, as nobody has been able to find any proof of it existing in a physical form. Strangely, a magazine ad for the Brazilian SNES (by the aforementioned Playtronic) features a box for a Worldwide Soccer (not to be mistaken for the later series of soccer games on the Sega Saturn), which is the same as the Sidekicks Soccer box, barring some minor differences. Whether this was World Soccer or an early version of Super Copa is not known, let alone if said Worldwide Soccer was even released.

Copyright Screen

Tony Meola's Sidekicks Soccer Super Copa World Soccer
Sidekicks legal us.png Sidekicks legal latam.png Sidekicks legal eu.png

With the exception of World Wide Soccer, all versions have separate copyright screens, with the information in them changed accordingly.

Language Selection

Sidekicks lang latam.png

Exclusive to Super Copa is a language selection screen after the copyright notice, which also features the logo of Playtronic.

Publisher Logos

Tony Meola's Sidekicks Soccer/World Soccer Ramos Ruy no World Wide Soccer Super Copa
Sidekicks pub us.png Sidekicks pub jp.png Sidekicks pub latam.png

After the copyright notice (or language selection, in Super Copa's case) is the logo for each version's respective publisher. They all begin the same, with rotation and zoom effects, but they all end differently. Electro Brain's does a zoom towards the logo's head's forehead, Pack-In-Video's does the same (except it zooms into nothingness), and American Softworks' just fades to black. Also, in the latter's case, it's only the giant ASC that rotates and zooms; the rest appears once that effect's done.

Title Screen

Tony Meola's Sidekicks Soccer Ramos Ruy no World Wide Soccer Super Copa World Soccer
Sidekicks title.png Sidekicks title jp.png Sidekicks title latam.png Sidekicks title eu.png

Each version has their respective logo appear in a similar way, with the logo zooming in on-screen after a small animation of a ball going to the other side of the screen. World Soccer has a blue background instead, and World Wide Soccer adds a copyright notice (which zooms alongside the logo) and a digitized picture of Ramos that fades in once the logo stops zooming.

Sidekicks/World Wide Soccer/World Soccer Super Copa (Spanish) Super Copa (Portuguese)

Said title screen also features the sound of a crowd cheering. Super Copa changes that to a small tune that changes depending on the language selected.

Main Menu

Tony Meola's Sidekicks Soccer Ramos Ruy no World Wide Soccer World Soccer
Sidekicks menu us.png Sidekicks menu jp.png Sidekicks menu eu.png
Super Copa (Spanish) Super Copa (Portuguese)
Sidekicks menu latam es.png Sidekicks menu latam pt.png

The menus on each version are pretty much the same, barring the different backgrounds. Super Copa, however, features various differences. The options are all labeled (this also applies to all other menus), the two tournament/cup modes had their icons changed, and, when set to Spanish, this (as well as other menus) feature the logo for Telemundo on the lower right corner on the screen.

Sidekicks Soccer World Wide Soccer/World Soccer Super Copa (Spanish) Super Copa (Portuguese)

Each version has its own menu theme, with World Wide Soccer and World Soccer sharing the same theme (which is also one of the songs that plays in-game). As with the title screen tune, Super Copa has different menu music for each language.

Mode Selection

Sidekicks Soccer/World Wide Soccer Super Copa (Spanish) Super Copa (Portuguese) World Soccer
Sidekicks player us.png Sidekicks player latam es.png Sidekicks player latam pt.png Sidekicks player eu.png

The player(s) on the mode selection screen went from blonde-haired white men on Sidekicks Soccer and World Wide Soccer, to dark-haired black men on World Soccer and Super Copa, with the latter also removing the CPU vs. CPU mode, oddly.

Team Selection

Sidekicks/World Wide Soccer/World Soccer Super Copa
Sidekicks team1 us.png Sidekicks team1 latam.png

All versions have two categories of teams: international themes, and club teams. For some reason, however, Super Copa replaces the second category with one for North and Latin American teams... many of them already being present on the international category, and with the same rosters, making this changed category quite pointless.

Sidekicks Soccer/World Wide Soccer Super Copa (Spanish) Super Copa (Portuguese) World Soccer
Sidekicks team2 us.png Sidekicks team2 latam es.png Sidekicks team2 latam pt.png Sidekicks team2 eu.png

The international category is divided into 8 groups on all versions, although oddly World Soccer removes the "group" from the icons. Super Copa, meanwhile, has 6 groups with less teams, all arranged differently. A giant "SELECT YOUR GROUP" was added to the menu.

Sidekicks Soccer World Wide Soccer/World Soccer Super Copa (Spanish) Super Copa (Portuguese)
Sidekicks team3 us.png Sidekicks team3 jp.png Sidekicks team3 latam es.png Sidekicks team3 latam pt.png

While Sidekicks Soccer labels each team, neither World Wide Soccer nor World Soccer name them. Team names were translated on Super Copa, expectedly.

Sidekicks Soccer World Wide Soccer World Soccer
Sidekicks team4 us.png Sidekicks team4 jp.png Sidekicks team4 eu.png
Super Copa (Spanish) Super Copa (Portuguese)
Sidekicks team4 latam es.png Sidekicks team4 latam pt.png

Club teams have their own categories on each version. Sidekicks Soccer has three American categories and a European one, World Soccer has a lot more European teams as well as a South American category in place of a North American one, World Wide Soccer keeps two of the categories from Sidekicks Soccer but replaces the other two with Japanese teams, and Super Copa, as previously mentioned, replaces the club teams with the North and South American teams.

Match Setup

Sidekicks/World Wide Soccer/World Soccer Super Copa (Spanish) Super Copa (Spanish)
Sidekicks setup1 us.png Sidekicks setup1 latam es.png Sidekicks setup1 latam pt.png

As with other menu options, those on the match setup were labeled on Super Copa. Super Copa also adds the same Playtronic logo from the language selector, regardless of the language chosen. Like the Telemundo logo from before, other menus also have the Playtronic logo.

Tony Meola's Sidekicks Soccer World Wide Soccer/World Soccer/Super Copa
Sidekicks setup2 us.png
Sidekicks setup3 us.png
Sidekicks setup2 jp.png
Sidekicks setup3 jp.png

The corner shot and tactics menus on Sidekicks Soccer feature the name of the selected play. All other versions replace it with a larger version of their respective icon on the previous menu.

Sidekicks Soccer/World Soccer World Wide Soccer/Super Copa
Sidekicks setup4 us.png Sidekicks setup4 jp.png

While the graphics at the top are the same on all versions, the numbers of the players have a different appearance on some of them. Sidekicks Soccer and World Soccer both have some square-ish red numbers, whereas those on World Wide Soccer and Super Copa are a bit more round and are in a slightly dark pink.

Rosters

Sidekicks/World Wide Soccer/World Soccer Super Copa
Sidekicks roster us.png Sidekicks roster latam.png

While both versions don't feature real player names, the ones on Super Copa are clearly much closer to the real ones.

Pre-Match Screen

Sidekicks Soccer World Wide Soccer World Soccer
Sidekicks pregame us.png Sidekicks pregame jp.png Sidekicks pregame eu.png
Super Copa (Spanish) Super Copa (Portuguese)
Sidekicks pregame latam es.png Sidekicks pregame latam pt.png

The pre-match screen has various differences between versions. Sidekicks Soccer and World Wide Soccer have a small frame with "PRE-GAME" on it, while World Soccer and Super Copa replace it with an illustration of two players and a referee preparing to start. Sidekicks, World Wide Soccer and World Soccer all feature the game's logo. Super Copa, when set to Spanish, has a big Telemundo logo instead. Setting it to Portuguese gives you... nothing. Just a big blank space. Oh well.

In-Game

Sidekicks Soccer World Wide Soccer Super Copa World Soccer
Sidekicks ingame us.png Sidekicks ingame jp.png Sidekicks ingame latam.png Sidekicks ingame eu.png

While the actual field itself is the same across all versions, there's some differences, the most obvious one being the billboards. Sidekicks Soccer features billboards for Foot Locker, Adidas, and the American Youth Soccer Organization, or AYSO. World Soccer changes the latter for a billboard with the game's logo on it. World Wide Soccer has new ones, with billboards for Electro Brain and Pack-In-Video, as well as the unknown "JUC" and "KIZU", all clearly done in a few minutes on Deluxe Paint. Super Copa instead has, like American Softworks' other localizations, billboards for PepsiCo/Frito-Lay properties.

Besides the ads, World Wide Soccer has a different crowd as well as changing the font's color from a shaded orange to plain white.

It also has a completely different match BGM, exclusive to this version. Sidekicks Soccer and World Soccer have various tunes, whereas Super Copa doesn't even have that, instead having crowd noise.