Parent's Guide: Inazuma Eleven 3: Lightning Bolt - Age rating, mature content and difficulty

Inazuma Eleven 3: Lightning Bolt is a football role playing game (RPG) from Level 5, the makers of the Professor Layton series. Based on the popular cartoon, the game follows young football star Mark Evans and his team of friends and rivals as they strive to compete in the Inazuma National championships - however, as you'd probably expect, all is not as simple as it seems, and so begins a winding, twisting plot that'll take you all the way to the championships themselves.

Most of your child's time with the game will be split between two rather different styles of play. For the most part, the game is similar to other handheld RPGs in that you'll be able to move your character around various locales, collect items, talk with other characters and reveal more about the plot as you go. At other times, you'll be drawn into a quick football match against an opposing team, which are effectively the game's equivalent of battles in things like the Pokémon series. It's here that you can "level up" your team members' abilities, and even recruit opposing players to your squad. The random matches (they occur as you wander around) are simple enough to control, as you draw lines for your players to follow using the stylus, or tap to pass/shoot, but they move at a heck of a pace - a pace that's possibly a tad too fast for younger players to handle.

Outside of the matches, things take on a much slower, as you explore the halls and towns, chatting to people as you go, although with a good deal of text, only some of which is voiced, your child will have to be a pretty confident reader to progress. Tutorials are offered when new gameplay mechanics are introduced, but these are displayed as slides rather than animated demonstrations. Although it uses a mixture of buttons and touch screen controls, it's usually well indicated when you need to switch to the stylus, which is a welcome inclusion.

While younger ones may need assistance from older siblings or parents in understanding the game or reading the text, there's little that may stump older children that are confident readers. As a great introduction to the RPG genre, if you've got a child that's football mad and a fan of Pokemon, this could be a good match.

There's nothing here to worry about too much, given the age range the game is suggested for. The odd bit of dialogue sits a little uneasily ('What we doin' all the bleedin' way up 'ere?' for example) but this is usually a result of the broad accents used by the characters. There's no violence or gore either, the game is squarely aimed at a young audience and is similar in tone to the Saturday morning cartoon.

Age Ratings

Format Reviewed: Nintendo 3DS