Format: Cartridge
Genre: Sports
Developer: Extended Play Productions
Publisher: Electronic Arts

The wonderful isometric football pitch, with its miniature slide-tackling, bicycle-kicking players is back, and as detailed and well-animated as ever! The pitches don't seem to have as much color variation from match-to-match, but are much less dithered in appearance. Tons of new player animations have been added, and the appearance of the game as a whole is more polished, if a bit blurry looking. The user interface is totally overhauled, and eschews the colorful aspect of its predecessor in favor of a more grown up, metallic "material design" philosophy.

Graeme Coleman and Jeff van Dyck paired up to deliver the soundtrack for the original FIFA release, whereas the latter goes it alone for this one, and to good effect; the crowd noises, while nowhere even approaching the magnificence of the Sega CD FIFA release, are much improved over its cartridge predecessor, while van Dyck makes excellent use of EA's custom sound driver to deliver some catchy-yet-ambient melodies, with popping sampled percussion effects.

One of this reviewer's complaints about the 8 and 16-bit football titles is that they don't generally allow for realistic passing movements. Perhaps that overarching criticism should be withdrawn, because FIFA 95's floor passes can be zipped all around with razer-like precision! It's a step in the right direction for sure, but the perspective is a smidge too pulled in to have much pitch visibility. The switch player button could also use some logic to swap to a player in front of the opponent with the ball, versus closest.

That FIFA 95 is the most realistic, best playing simulation-style football game to its point in the industry's history is an understatement; quasi-realistic passing movements can be created, and the goal scoring and keeper behavior in general feels much less "magic spot" scripted, giving proceedings a far more dynamic flavor. What's more, the game even has fully-licensed teams and kits for many of the world's most important leagues! The player names aren't real, but being able to play a 16-bit Serie A season with his beloved Lazio is a treat for this reviewer. It's just a shame that no CD edition of this '95 edition was made!