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Inazuma Eleven Eiyuutachi no Victory Road
Unreleased media
This article is about a piece of media of the Inazuma Eleven universe that has not yet been released. As such, it is a reflection of what is currently known about it, rather than coverage of it as a whole.

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Inazuma Eleven Eiyuutachi no Victory Road (イナズマイレブン 英雄(えいゆう)たちのヴィクトリーロード, Inazuma Irebun Eiyūtachi no Vikutorī Rōdo, lit. Inazuma Eleven Victory Road of Heroes) is the next game in the main Inazuma Eleven series. The game is stated to be released worldwide in 2024.

It was formerly announced under the name of Inazuma Eleven Eiyuutachi no Great Road (イナズマイレブン 英雄(えいゆう)たちのグレートロード, Inazuma Irebun Eiyūtachi no Gurēto Rōdo, lit. Inazuma Eleven: Great Road of Heroes), or simply Inazuma Eleven Great Road, before renaming it to something more suitable for the story.

Info

Level-5 was originally developing the Inazuma Eleven Ares no Tenbin game, but after numerous delays and issues during production, the game was scrapped. In September of 2019, just before the airing of Inazuma Eleven Orion no Kokuin's final episode, Hino announced they decided restarting their game project, instead making a game called Inazuma Eleven Eiyuutachi no Great Road, which would add more story of the characters outside the Inazuma Eleven Ares no Tenbin series, and planned to release it on Spring 2020.

Eiyuutachi no Great Road

On April 1st, 2020[1], Hino announced an upcoming plan for the new game. Instead of following the Ares no Tenbin story as originally planned, the game would have a completely new storyline and would be a remake of the Football Frontier arc from the original Inazuma Eleven, and would feature characters from both the GO series and the Ares no Tenbin series as part of the same timeline. The story will focus on the new protagonist, Sasanami Unmei, a soccer-loving boy with a mental trauma which makes him unable to play soccer, who decided to join Raimon's soccer club as a manager after he met Endou Mamoru. The game was expected to release in 2021.

After a year with no update on the game, on April 2nd, 2021[2], Hino posted an update video[3] on his blog. The video contained some new in-development footage of the game with several major characters from all three series appear in the background. The building and character model were changed from the more realistic scale, seen in the early development of Ares no Tenbin and AC games, to the smaller scale and less detailed, similar to GO games. The game was now delayed to 2023.

Eiyuutachi no Victory Road

On July 15th, 2022[4], Hino announced the former blog for Inazuma Eleven Eiyuutachi no Great Road would be updated on the next week, releasing a piece of artwork depicting Sasanami getting intimidated by a new character.

On July 21st, 2022[5], Hino announced Inazuma Eleven's latest work, redirecting to the new site and, releasing the logo for Victory Road and a new piece of artwork depicting Sasanami holding on to a new character.

The refurbished development blog was updated after a year of absence. Hino announced that the game would be receiving a title change from Great Road to Victory Road to fit better with the new main story of the game. The original plan for the Great Road game was to focus on Sasanami building a team of past characters but was eventually changed to an original story separate from other Inazuma Eleven series.

On August 22nd, 2022[6], Hino quote retweeted an illustration made for Inazuma Eleven's 14th anniversary, mentioning Victory Road news would be nearing. On the same day[7], Hino released a game movement screen and three storyboard roughs, assuring there would be crucial news by the end of the year.

On December 1st, 2022[8], Hino released an image of various character models wearing a new uniform to celebrate the Japanese national team advancing to the knockout stage of the 2022 FIFA World Cup.

On December 23rd, 2022[9], Hino assured the aforementioned crucial news would arrive five days later. On December 28th, 2022[10], Hino announced the promised news, redirecting to the game's website. On the affiliated blog, Hino attached a video[11] detailing how the Match System will work. At the end of the video, more news are stated to come on February, 2023, wherein Level-5 plans to release new information about the overview of the story, game systems, characters, animations, and additional undisclosed information. Lastly, a new artwork[12] depicting Sasanami gazing at a new character was released, with Hino stating he reigns supreme as a soccer player and stated the storyline had a major change to also revolve around him.

On February 4th, 2023[13], Hino released a new artwork of Sasanami, stating the news would come at the end of the month in Level-5's online event. On February 21st, 2023[14], Hino announced the postponing of Level-5's online event to March 9th, 2023.

On March 9th, 2023[15], during Level-5's online event, Hino released Victory Road's trailer, wherein it revealed its set place and the names of previously revealed characters, like Shisendou Garyuu and Endou Haru. It also revealed the game would feature 4500 characters from all Inazuma Eleven series in its Chronicle Mode, detailing how the player would be able to access the Chronicle taisen route, how the new recruitment system would work and showed an unnamed combination shoot hissatsu technique performed by Shinohara Raika and Sakurazaki Jouji. At the end of the event, Hino assured the games presented would be slated for a worldwide release, with Victory Road maintaining its release date for 2023 and more news would come sometime around summer.

On August 22nd, 2023[16], on Inazuma Eleven's 15th anniversary, Hino released a blog post in which he details the updated match system, as it didn't meet other current game's mechanics, the V Plan, wherein Level-5 intends to introduce multiple mechanisms for online play and make the game be playable for a long time, the auditions for Sasanami and Haru's respective seiyuu, and a new character said to have a deep connection with someone from the past. Hino later informed the next news would come out 9 days later and that fans can play the new match system during the September TGS.

On August 31st, 2023[17], Hino released a blog post wherein he shared a promotional video for Victory Road, showcasing the ins and outs of its new gameplay system, detailing how he and Level-5 felt about the changes implemented. At the end of the promotional video, news about Victory Road's Story Mode are slated to be released on September 16th.

On September 16th, as promised, a promotional video was released, revealing various plot points and new characters like Tsukikage Ren. On the accompanying blog post[18], Hino discerns the difficulty on writing the theme song of the game, reassuring fans on the information unveiled of previous news, and informing Victory Road might have to be delayed.

On September 20th, a video was released detailing the controls and gameplay for the demo version of the game that would be playable at TGS. It also provided new information the the Zone mechanic, where the defending team is able to move their goalkeeper and defenders to guard areas and block shoot courses. It was revealed that characters can have up to 6 hissatsu techniques, with them being in sets of 2 that can be unlocked via training or story events. The last detail was about a new mechanic, the Keeper Gauge. There was also an accompanying blog post[19], giving Hino's comments on the video.

On September 23rd, there was a live Inazuma Walker at TGS. It played the Chronicle Mode before introducing several voice actors for the main cast, with the voices of Sasanami and Haru on stage. More details about the game were also revealed, such as the ability to recruit all the players in the game in a save file. The character rarity system teased in earlier videos was officially shown and explained, with characters able to become all rarities through training. It was stated that despite being able to recruit multiple versions of a character, the game will not feature gacha mechanics. Strategies about team composition were also discussed, with characters all having skills that aid other teammates and how certain groups of player's skills synergise well with each other.

On September 24th, another live presentation was held, showcasing gameplay of the Story Mode. It consisted of Sasanami walking around Nagasaki and Nagumohara's school grounds. This showed minor details like character names, tasks, icons above NPCs, and items able to be picked up off the ground as sparkles.

On November 29th, the promotional video was revealed on the Level-5 Vision 2023 presentation, confirming the game would release simultaneously worldwide. It featured gameplay of characters voicing their hissatsu techniques for the first time and the return of past features like Shoot Chains, Shoot Blocks, Long Shoots, and hissatsu tactics. The gameplay also showed off the new Attack and Defense Values for player interactions and hissatsu techniques, mechanics like the ability to gain items through Focus duels as well as updated interfaces. Voiced cutscenes were also shown, with a tease of a new "Focus Battle" mechanic.

The promotional video ended with the reveal of a worldwide beta test for the game, releasing in March 2024. This beta test will be free to play and will include single player matches, online PVP, and the first chapter of Story Mode, which will have continuous updates. The beta is planned to continue running until the full game is released. Whilst the beta runs, they will also provide Inazuma Post as a service where the player can provide feedback for the game. Alongside the promotional video, a cutscene that would appear in the game was also shown off. This cutscene showed an in-depth discussion between Sasanami and Haru about tactics for an upcoming match and goes over various strategies and mechanics used in the game.

On December 4th, the game's supported platforms was updated to provide a Steam release for the game.

On January 26th, a video detailing the characters available the the game's beta was revealed. The characters present where announced as 3 teams, Inazuma All Stars, Japan Dreams, and Aliea Masters.

Features

The game's theme song is Egao ga Goal!, but during the game's demo, Sekai ni Kizame! Inazuma Mark takes its place.

The game is said to be divided into three modes: Story Mode (ストーリーモード, Sutōrī Mōdo), Chronicle Mode (クロニクルモード, Kuronikuru Mōdo), and Victory Road (ヴィクトリーロード, Vikutorī Rōdo).

Story Mode

The Story Mode is said to be focused on Sasanami's story, a boy who can't play soccer, but instead scouts other players and creates his own football team with him as their commander. He and his friends will build their own 'victory road' as the characters are stated to not be as strong as players but they face their problems, work and train hard to overcome them to find a way to win, eventually facing Raimon in the finals.

The story will be set 25 years after the Inazuma Eleven game, with no past characters appearing, in a new school called Nagumohara located in Nagasaki, Kyuushuu.

Hino mentions the process to creating a full team of players will be a lot longer than past Inazuma Eleven games and that the soccer battle events that take place before actual matches will be made more fun and strategic to liven up the mood before a full scale match.

Chronicle Mode

The Chronicle Mode is said to be where the player will collect, battle, and build teams with previous characters from the Inazuma Eleven franchise, even being able to face the worst, strongest, and most fearsome of enemy teams. Although Hino is uncertain of when it should be unlocked, he declared it would be either midway through or after the game is cleared.

It will be accessible through the Inazuma V Caravan (イナズマ(ヴィクトリー)キャラバン, Inazuma Vikutorī Kyaraban) and the number of characters that can join and the number of teams faced is stated to increase as the player completes certain in-game achievements and through future game updates.

Hino details how challenging the addition of 4500 characters to the game was, explaining the data from the Nintendo DS titles couldn't be used in its state, which enabled Level-5's programmers to instruct an AI program to create high-quality polygon data from character illustrations and previous data.

All teams will have varying difficulties in both the Story Mode and Chronicle Mode, having 4 levels in total and rewards being better at higher difficulties. Several of these items were also shown, called Hero Tokens, which would serve as currency to buy items like equipment.

Victory Road

Victory Road is said to be the game's designated online mode, where the player will be able to play with other players online, as well as compete in a Football Frontier with other players.

In this Football Frontier, the qualifiers are open to everyone, determined by their play evalutions (プレイ評価(ひょうか), Purei Hyōka), which function as points, and participants are encouraged to compete in order to earn them. The qualifying rounds will have players face AI controlled versions of other players' teams before facing them directly. The top final matchups will have a set time and it will be held in seasons, each with their own theme and ruleset, with one season lasting from two to three months.

Seasonal and Eternal Players

In this Football Frontier, a team must contain six Seasonal Players (シーズナル選手(せんしゅ), Shīzunaru Senju) and five Eternal Players (エターナル選手(せんしゅ), Etānaru Senju).

Seasonal Players are players who can only be exclusively acquired in their designated season and can be used for 3 whole seasons. It is also said it will prominently feature scout characters and occasionally main characters.

Eternal Players are players who are acquired through other modes and can be used indefinitely. A Seasonal Player can become an Eternal Player once the 3 season quota has ended.

Free Soccer Interface

It was detailed the struggle of finding a good control scheme for the Victory Road game as Level-5 were trying to achieve the touch screen controls of the previous Inazuma Eleven main line games without touching the screen. There was also the attempt at using traditional football game controls, but they were too standard and not very beginner-friendly.

After a lot of trial and error, they settled on the Free Soccer Interface (フリーサッカーインタフェース, Furī Sakkā Intafēsu), a customizable gameplay style allowing the player to switch between the traditional style of drawing arrows on their characters to move or using a controller and buttons for those inputs. Hino also discussed the possibility of launching a dedicated stylus alongside the game.

The camera positions during matches can also be changed. Using a Nintendo Switch undocked allows the player to rotate their screen vertically or horizontally to view the pitch and play the game. The player can also switch the camera of the gameplay from viewing the pitch from left to right or top to bottom, alternating between a traditional handheld Inazuma Eleven game view or a Strikers style view. However, Hino also states Level-5 are considering adjustments to this customizable gameplay when playing against another player.

Hino also detailed past mechanics would be featured, but only up to Keshin, and later mechanics like Mixi Max and Keshin Armed would eventually be featured after releasing the game.

Gameplay

  • Focus (フォーカス, Fōkasu): A mechanic made for players to act quickly during command battles.
  • Zone (ゾーン, Zōn): A mechanic made for when the player is in front of the goal. Time slows down, letting them decide whether to shoot or pass to other players. Goalkeepers can also move and command defenders to move and block shoot courses.
  • Scramble (スクランブル, Sukuranburu): A mechanic made for the player to either keep the ball or make a direct heading when emerging successful from a command battle.
  • Tension Gauge (テンションゲージ, Tenshon Gēji): A mechanic made to replace the old TP system which will be used by all team members, requiring the player to accumulate Focus points.
  • Keeper Gauge (キーパーゲージ, Kīpā Gēji): A mechanic similar to Shibire Gauge. With each save performed by a goalkeeper, the Keeper Gauges depletes and eventually allows any player to score when they lower it enough. It recharges when the opposing player's team scores a goal.
  • Shoot Chain (シュートチェーン, Shūto Chēn): A mechanic where the player can use a shoot hissatsu technique to pass the ball to another player, where they can use their own shoot technique on top of another teammate's shoot hissatsu technique, boosting the power of the shoot.
  • Shoot Block (シュートブロック, Shūto Burokku): A mechanic where the player is able to stop or weaken shoots using defensive hissatsu techniques.
  • Long Shoot (ロングシュート, Rongu Shūto): A mechanic where the player can shoot from their own half, which can also be activated during Zones.
  • Hissatsu Tactics (必殺タクティクス, Hissatsu Takutikusu): A mechanic where glyphs appear on areas of the field, giving special effects for strategic advantages.

Trailers

Trivia

  • The game has a motif of clouds, being present in its logo, in the new school name and in the main character's name. Hino has stated that this is to signify the sky and clouds before lightning (Inazuma), which metaphorizes the troubled characters as 'smouldering clouds' who may turn into tempestuous lightning in the future.

References


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