{"id":135313,"date":"2025-12-20T13:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-12-20T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/#article-195236"},"modified":"2025-12-20T13:00:00","modified_gmt":"2025-12-20T13:00:00","slug":"review-despelote-switch-an-irresistible-and-appropriately-beautiful-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2025\/12\/20\/review-despelote-switch-an-irresistible-and-appropriately-beautiful-game\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: Despelote (Switch) – An Irresistible And Appropriately Beautiful Game"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a><\/div>\n
\n
\"despelote<\/a>
Captured on Nintendo Switch (Docked)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Editor’s note: This game launched in North America on 11th December, but won’t hit European eShops until 13th January.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

For some, football is something to play; for some, it\u2019s something to watch; for others, it\u2019s something to be scared of in the playground. But in 2001, in Ecuador, football meant just about everything to just about everyone. At least, that\u2019s the story told by Despelote<\/a>, a game that conjures the magic of childhood and football fever and makes it captivatingly relatable.<\/p>\n

The game opens with you playing video soccer on an old console. As it\u2019s gradually revealed that you\u2019re sitting in a family living room, your parents\u2019 chatter creeping into your awareness, you are connected very intimately with the protagonist of the game \u2014 its designer \u2014 Juli\u00e1n, a kid in Ecuador in 2001.<\/p>\n

That year, Ecuador clinched a game against Peru, starting a journey towards first-time World Cup qualification, and everyone\u2019s there for it. Your family are watching football, school kids are playing football at break time, overheard grown-up conversations are about football, and it\u2019s blaring on TVs in bars and shop windows. The sense of optimism brewing around this national event permeates every aspect of life and it\u2019s impossible not to be swept up in it.<\/p>\n

\"despelote<\/a>
Captured on Nintendo Switch (Docked)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This historic moment fixes the story in place and time, creating a little bubble of childhood. The nostalgia is flavoured with small adventures, like skipping school to take in the glorious scenery of Ecuador, aggravating your teacher, and playing out too long in the rain.<\/p>\n

Gameplay-wise, this is all delivered in a variety of ways. That opening moment of playing on the console gives you a top-down, black-and-white football game, controlled with an innovative two-stick arrangement. The game then moves into first person, your \u201creal-world\u201d playtime football-kicking coming to mirror the console game\u2019s controls. From this perspective, you sit in class, check your watch, skip school, talk to your friends, and, yes, kick around a football.<\/p>\n

Much of the time, you’re just an observer, building the sense of being a kid and following whatever is set out for you by the adults in your life. You listen to lessons while you wait for the bell; you ride in the back seat and hear conversations happening in the front. Among the passive moments are a variety of first-person interactions, almost always involving or adjacent to football.<\/p>\n

\"despelote<\/a>
Captured on Nintendo Switch (Docked)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Despelote doesn\u2019t try to riff on a central mechanic. In place of that, it develops themes of memory and childhood through a range of gameplay approaches. This keeps the experience light while making the excitement about the football feel totally irresistible. However you look at it, however you interact with it, everything is football. From Juli\u00e1n Cordero\u2019s perspective, everything orbits around football, but other key moments in Ecuador\u2019s history play out, too, from dollarisation to the country\u2019s first showing at the Venice Film Festival.<\/p>\n

This gameplay-light approach does mean Despelote asks for a certain mindset. This isn\u2019t a game driven by challenge, mastery, or meaningful choice, and there are long stretches where your role is simply to exist in the moment it presents. Progress is gentle, more like turning a page of a book than developing gameplay, and the designer is happier letting scenes wash over you than pushing you forward. If you\u2019re willing to meet it on those terms, the restraint feels purposeful; if not, this gentle vignette may feel too far from a traditional game.<\/p>\n

\"despelote<\/a>
Captured on Nintendo Switch (Handheld\/Undocked)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Visually, the game could hardly be more distinctive. The art, by Sebasti\u00e1n Valbuena, sees figures drawn by hand in black outlines on white backgrounds making up the cast of the game. They sit on top of hazily dithered two-tone scenes. This effect layered on top of the 3D environment completely disguises the level of detail in the world, its lighting and textures \u2013 almost anything that might normally contribute to overall visual impressions.<\/p>\n

The graphics are therefore, in a sense, flawless. The art direction is expressed to its full, love it or hate it. In motion, it comes to life in a way screenshots can\u2019t convey, and once you’re immersed, the world is living and breathing. This is helped by the voicing of all dialogue and the inclusion of real video of football matches, displayed through the same vibrant filter.<\/p>\n

All the spoken language is Spanish, with English speech bubbles written out onscreen. This adds beautifully to the sense of place and authenticity; I was transported to Ecuador and my imagination ran with it. Meanwhile, active sound effects and incidental sounds lift the realism of the world. Music is relatively sparse and often diegetic, with key moments of wistful guitar \u2013 but this contributes to a matter-of-fact tone that doesn\u2019t overegg the emotional heart of the story. And an emotional response is what the game is all about. Yes, football provides a pitch for it to play on, but this is a relatable story even to someone with no interest in the sport.<\/p>\n

\"despelote<\/a>
Captured on Nintendo Switch (Docked)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A slightly dry tone also makes room for some light humour. With Despelote, Cordero doesn\u2019t take himself too seriously. A lack of self-importance places the protagonist as just one thread in the tapestry, which again builds a sense of a moment in history. A remembered story is always one you can\u2019t alter, so drifting through this autobiographical account makes total sense. That said, if you\u2019re looking for greater agency or action, maybe this won\u2019t quite be for you.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s to Cordero\u2019s credit that they also knew when to stop. The game tells its story without padding, then ties it in a bow and bids farewell after just a couple of hours. It lands as a complete work and can\u2019t be criticised for being short \u2013 but bear in mind that this is not some open-ended adventure.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Conclusion<\/h2>\n

With its distinctive presentation and light-touch mechanics, Despelote builds a mesmerising feeling of a community brought together by a fleeting football obsession. The historic moment of Ecuador\u2019s journey towards World Cup qualification grounds the story in time and place, perfectly capturing the author\u2019s salad days. Whether you play, watch, or avoid football, this is a beautifully-told story you can enjoy.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Captured on Nintendo Switch (Docked) Editor’s note: This game launched in North America on 11th December, but won’t hit European eShops until 13th January. For some, football is something to play; for some, it\u2019s something to watch; for others, it\u2019s something to be scared of in the playground. But in 2001, in Ecuador, football meant […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-135313","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nintendo-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135313","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=135313"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135313\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=135313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=135313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}