J.League Live 64 is essentially FIFA 64 for the Japanese J.League. However, it does have notable differences from the Western version of the game, the most obvious being far fewer teams as it’s just the one league.

However, there are some improvements. The HUD is miles better, showing the score and the name of the current player you control. There is also some team management, so you can change your starting squad and make substitutions. The “GOAL” and similar text is also nice an colourful.

The gameplay, however, feels even more broken than FIFA 64. Passing once again is often wrong, with your player passing behind you or even empty space. This time round, it doesn’t recognise you pressing the button half of the time. To counter this, the opponent AI is pretty terrible, and even set up a few shots for me by doing a lob from near the corner into their own box.

Slowdown is also a worse problem, with the game chugging and then rapidly speeding up, leading to mistakes. This really is a terrible game.

Worst

The speed of the game is infuriatingly slow. Even the advent of a speed-up button does nothing to encourage pacy wing play or break away goals, as a press of the very same button equates to only the tiniest injection of extra leg work.

- Tim Weaver, N64 Magazine #3 (FIFA 64)

Remake or Remaster?

This is an even worse version of FIFA 64, nobody needs reminding of that.

Official ways to get the game.

There is no official way to get J.League Live 64.