SEGA Worldwide Soccer ’98 (SEGA Saturn)

Sega Worldwide Soccer 98 (セガ ワールドワイドサッカー’９８), often known as Worldwide Soccer ’98 and in PAL regions subtitled Sega Worldwide Soccer 98: Club Edition, is a football game for the Sega Saturn. It was released for the Sega Saturn as a direct sequel to Sega Worldwide Soccer 97

As its European name suggests, Worldwide Soccer 98 adds 60 English, French and Spanish club teams to the roster, and also adds Jack Charlton‘s commentary in addition to Gary Bloom’s, with roughly three times as much recorded dialogue as the previous outing. Two new stadia area also added, bringing the total to five, and enhanced replay features lets goals be watched from any angle.

Much of the AI has been improved from the previous game, primarily in the form of smarter goalkeepers and the computer opting to make more passes.

Teams

As with the previous game, the game lacks an official license from football governing body FIFA or any of the regional authorities such as UEFA, so teams lack official names and branding. For club teams, most players correlate well with their real life counterparts, complete with skin tones, hair colour and abilities. Not all shirt numbers are correct, however.

National teams

For the most part, the national teams in SWWS 98 are the same as SWWS 97, though a small handful have been swapped, so that all the countries who participated in the real life 1998 World Cup are available. The Czech Republic replace Turkey in the Europe 3 group, Ghana replace Liberia, Jamaica replace Honduras and Chile replace Bolivia.

SWWS 98 continues SWWS 97‘s footsteps of using fictional player names for national teams, sometimes incorporating names of developers which worked on the game and writers for the UK’s Sega Saturn Magazine.

Mint Condition. Box with Instruction Manual.