FIFA Soccer '96 Game Boy Developer: Black Pearl Publisher: EA Sports By: GammaBetaAlpha ~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~- Table of Contents -~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~ How To Play [HELP] Donations/Amazon [DONT] Contact Info [CONT] ~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~- How to Play -~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~ [HELP] FIFA '96 is a traditional football/soccer game with the FIFA license. Unlike most other soccer games on the Game Boy, such as Nintendo World Cup or International Superstar Soccer, the FIFA series plays with a diagonal (isometric) view screen and playing field. Another big difference from the other games present on the Game Boy is that the playing fields on FIFA '96 are immense: it can take a great deal of time to move the ball downfield, simply because it stretches for the length of several screens from goal to goal. Further unlike those games, play is considerably less automated, and you will have to take active control of a player on the field at all times if you wish to make any decent headway. Goals are also considerably more difficult to score in the FIFA series present on the Game Boy than for the other, more arcadey-style games. This usually borders on being hideously impossible to score. Other than that, basically all the regular football rules are present in FIFA '96, including having 10 players, penalties, yellow and red cards, and so forth. Fouls and offsides can be toggled on and off in the options menu. The game has the real names and logos of the country and club teams at the time, but does not have the names of the players themselves, instead resulting in generic names. FIFA '96 also makes use of the Super Game Boy, having enhanced graphics including colour when utilised. Controls -------- A - Kick the ball towards the opponent's net (Use left, right on D-Pad to aim) Throw in ball (Throw in) B - Change your active player (when on defense) Pass the Ball (Press and hold the B button, Aim with one or two D-Pad buttons, release the B button) Throw in ball (Throw in) Kick the ball behind you (Press one D-Pad button, then the B button, then release all buttons while pushing the opposite D-Pad button) A + B - Strike an opposing player who is in possession of the ball D-Pad - Move your active player character around Aim kicks and passes Aim where the ball will approximately land on throw-ins Start - Pause, Unpause the Game Passing and Kicking ------------------- In this game, kicking on the opponent's net is controlled by the A button. Even if you are at the opposite end of the field, pressing the A button will see the player possessing the ball kick the ball towards the opposing team's net. When you get in closer to the net, you can exert some control over the general direction of your kick through use of the D-Pad button while holding the A button and before releasing it. This aim is not entirely perfect, but it is relatively passable. The technique for passing is a bit more sloppy. You have to be moving to pass the ball, and while there is some leeway for the direction to pass to another player, sometimes you will get some absurdly slow passes, and at other times it will just completely skip by the player you intend to pass to. There are a couple of nifty things you can do, however: for example, by moving in one direction, then pressing the B button, releasing, and suddenly changing directions on the D-Pad, you can kick the ball behind you. Stealing the Ball ----------------- When a member of the opposite possesses the ball and is dribbling it around, you can steal the ball (and possibly also knock over the opposite player) by moving up to him and pressing both the A + B button at the same time. This will always cause the ball carrier to lose the ball, but instead of successfully stealing it, sometimes it will just dribble out from your grasp and you must go grab it instead. Goalie Kick/Corner Kick Ball/Throw-In Targeting ----------------------------------------------- When making a kick from the corner or as a goalie, or a throw-in, you can move the highlighted box around on the field to direct where you want your kick to land. Note that if you move it too far, your kick will not land here, but it will go in the general direction of where you highlight the cursor. Teams ----- These are the teams present in the game. While each team has a make-up of (generically named) players with unique stats, the teams also have their own stats list represented by bars on the team select team. World Teams ----------- Algeria Egypt Luxembourg Saudi Arabia Argentina England Mexico Scotland Australia Finland Morocco South Africa Austria France Netherlands South Korea Belgium Germany New Zealands Spain Bolivia Greece Nigeria Sweden Brazil Hong Kong N. Ireland Switzerland Bulgaria Hungary Norway Turkey Cameroon India Peru Ukraine Canada Iraq Portugal UAE Chile Israel Poland USA China Italy Qatar Uruguay Columbia Ivory Coast Eire Wales Czech Rep. Japan Romania Denmark Kenya Russia Africa All-Stars Asia All-Stars European All-Stars Middle-East Stars Of the Worlds teams, Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Romania, Spain, Sweden, the African Stars and the European Stars are the strongest overall. Brazil League English League French League ------------- -------------- ------------- Amer-RJ Arsenal Angers Bangu Aston Villa Auxere Botafogo Blackburn Bordeaux Bragan. Chelsea Caen Corin. Coventry Cannes Ferrov. C. Palace Le Havre Flamengo Everton R.C. Lens Fluminense Ipswich Lille Guarani Leeds Lyonnais Inter. Leics. C. Marseille Palmeiras Liverpool Martigues P. Preta Man. City F.C. Metz Portug. Man. United Monaco Santos Newcastle Montpel. Sao Paulo Norwich Nantes V. da Gama Notts. F Paris S.G. Q.P.R. St. Etienne Shef. Weds. Sochaux S'hampton Stras. Tottenham Toulouse West Ham Wimbledon German League Italian League Dutch League ------------- -------------- ------------ B. Munich Atalanta Ajax Cologne Cagliari NAC Breda Dortmund Cremon. Cambuur Dresden Foggia PSV Eind. Duisburg Genoa Feyenoord Frankfurt Juventus GA Eagles Freiburg Lazio Groningen Hamburg Lecce Heeren. Kaisers. AC Milan MVV Karls. Inter Milan Roda JC Leipzig Napoli Sparta Leverk. Parma FC Twente Bor. MG Piacenza FC Utr. Nurnberg Reggiana Vitesse Schalke Roma FC Vol. Stuttgart Sampdoria Venlo Wattens. Torino RKC Waal. W. Bremen Udinese Willem II American League Spanish League --------------- -------------- Atlanta Albacete Boston Barcelona Chicago Bilbao Dallas Celta Denver Deportivo Detroit Gijon Ft. Laud. Lleida Guadal. Logrons L.A. Atl. Madrid Mexico C. R. Madrid Montreal Osasuna New York Oviedo Phoenix Santander Portland Sevilla St. Louis Sociedad San Diego Tenerife San Jose Valencia Seattle Valladolid Tampa Bay Vallecano Toronto Zaragoza Vancouver Wash. DC --------- MAIN MENU --------- Here are the numerous options of gameplay and other odds and ends to go over when entering the menu upon starting up your game. Friendly -------- Play a single match between two teams of your choice, with the team you play as on the left side of the selection screen. Tournament ---------- Not entirely sure what Tournament does, but you play a randomly selected team from the league of the team you choose to play as. Playoffs -------- Playoffs does a bracket of either 8 or 16 teams playing for a championship trophy, with the number of teams depending on which League you are playing for (ie. the Brazilian league, which has fewer teams, only does 3 rounds, while the U.K., with more teams, does 4 rounds with 16 teams). Options ------- Options gives you nine things you can change in your games. You can toggle the language setting between English, German, French and Spanish. Change the Game Type between action and simulation, with Action being the default. In Simulation, as the game drags on, players purportedly get tired and move faster to simulate fatigue in real-life, but this does not occur in Action. You can toggle Fouls, and with them, Penalty Kicks, Yellow Cards and Red Cards on and off. They are by default off. You can toggle Injuries on and off. They are by default off. You can toggle Offsides on and off. They are by default off. Toggle the Weather Type between Dry, Damp, Drenched or Hot. Drier conditions are conducive to the ball moving more quickly and having higher bounce. Hot presumably only affects you during Simulation Game Type mode. You can change between a grass pitch and an artificial pitch. Game play moves faster on an artificial pitch. The clock during game play can be changed between always running or stopping during out of play events. You can change the lengths of game halfs to be 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 15, 20, 30 or 45 minutes each. ------------------ PRE-GAME/GAME MENU ------------------ Prior to the start of a game, or during a game and entering the menu by pressing the Start button, you can go through a few more options. Controller ---------- This option allows you to change which team you are controlling. You can also place the Gameboy icon in between the two teams to have a completely automatic game with no control over the players. In this menu, by pressing the B button, you can also toggle how your D- Pad moves your characters and aim. When the arrow on the screen of the Game Boy is pointing up, you have to press left and down or right and up to move along the field. If you toggle the arrow to point to the upper right, it changes your control perspective so just pressing the up button makes you move up AND right along the isometric perspective of the field (and down goes down and left). Team Coverage ------------- This allows you to toggle the length of the field that will be covered by your defence, your midfielders, and your attackers when the ball is within the zone. Team Strategy ------------- Team Strategy lets you change the behaviour of the A.I. of your teammates. Automatic is the regular all-around A.I., Longball I _believe_ is concerned about getting the ball upfield constantly, Defend is self-explanatory, All-out Defend focuses your players tightly around your own net, Attack is self -explanatory, and All-out Attack focuses your players tightly around the opponent's net. Team Formation -------------- Here, you can move between a 3-5-2, 4-4-2, 4-2-4, 4-3-3, and a Sweeper formation (5-3-2). Player Selection ---------------- Here, you can select new players to replace those already assigned to play. Roster players are on the top list with the eleven players (Goalie included). To select a new player, scroll down to the roster reserve list at the bottom, press A to pick him, then scroll up and select the player you want to replace with the A button again. Game Stats ---------- Give some in-depth stats on shots, saves, etc., and time of possession of the ball. Score Summary ------------- A more detailed version of Score where the scoring player and time score are also listed. Foul Summary ------------ Lists all the yellow and red cards assigned to players on both team, if any, during the game. ~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~- Donations/Amazon -~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~ [DONT] I don't really care too much about donations, but if you are feeling generous, feel free to send one via PayPal to gammabetaalphafaqs AT gmail DOT com Alternatively, if you ever order any items from Amazon.com, go to the link below. You do not have to buy anything right away, but (if you do not clear browser cookies often) any items you buy within the next 90 days will count as a 'referral order' to me, meaning I get anywhere from 4-6% as a referral/affiliate payment of what you ordered (ie. order $100 worth of stuff, I get $4-6 from Amazon.com) www.amazon.com/?&camp=212361&linkCode=wsw&tag=raofavigafa-20&creative=391881 Other than that, considering this FAQ is for an obscure old game, if you have any other obscure old games that you do not play anymore, consider sending them to me (I will even pay the shipping cost!). I write FAQs for plenty of obscure old games with no FAQs, and having a physical copy of the game (and even better, a manual) is superior to not. You can email me if interested at gammabetaalphafaqs AT gmail DOT com ~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~- Contact Info -~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~ [CONT] Although I believe I have found everything there is to find in this game, there is occasionally the possibility of some super secret level in an obscure game that was never found because it was too obscure, or the like. If you have anything that you feel needs to be includes, feel free to email me at gammabetaalphafaqs AT gmail DOT com If you have any other information to contribute or notice any errors, again, shoot me a notice at gammabetaalphafaqs AT gmail DOT com If you wish to host this guide, or use information from it, consider the FAQ semi-public domain: you can host it without asking and derive information from it word-for-word if you wish, but keep the document unchanged if hosting it and give credit where due if using information ________________________________________________________________________________ ©2013 GammaBetaAlpha FAQs