The Elusive Football Simulation in Despelote

What’s even the key moment in Despelote? Filling the quiz? One of the parties? Mom getting angry at you, even though you did nothing wrong? That prolonged sequence in the park? When there are so many candidates, it’s telling by itself.

It’s Ecuador vs. Colombia, of course. But not on the TV screen, not in the radio commentary, not in the fan chants and screams. It’s the partially hidden menu option that lets you replay the in-game football simulation once you complete the story. It feels perfectly pick-up-and-play, the kind of simple fun that evaporated in the genre space since it’s become more about the microtransaction meta rather than the actual football game.

The slow revelation that the same mechanics for ball control are used in the 1st-person and top-down views (yes, it’s mostly just the camera that is different!) comes along with the narrative one. It’s not the kid playing the game, as in the story, it’s the adults, worrying about the kid. And as in most cases, they worried for a good reason, but ultimately for nothing. After all, that kid grew up to make this excellent game.