Despelote Review – A Nostalgic Football Journey Through Childhood, Ecuador & Dreams of the World Cup

Despelote is a heartfelt narrative football game set in 2001 Quito, Ecuador. Follow young Julián as he kicks, explores, and grows during his country’s historic rise toward World Cup qualification.

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• Game: Despelote

• Studio: Julián Cordero, Sebastian Valbuena

• Publisher: Panic

• Platforms: Steam

• Completion Time: 2 Hours

• Price: $13.99

• Genre: Football, Narrative, Emotional

• ✅ Steam Deck Verified

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Hello everyone and welcome to the Good Game Lobby review of Despelote, a story of childhood that takes place during the world's biggest game of football. Let’s lace up our football boots and hit the pitch in my review.

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Childhood In Quito

Despelote is an emotional, narrative football game by Julián Cordero and Sebastian Valbuena and is loosely based on the life of Julián growing up in Quito, Ecuador. Last year, Panic published two of my favorite games, Thank Goodness You’re Here and ARCO, both of which ended up on my top games of 2024. That’s why I’m very excited to finally play Despelote. They have a way with selecting games that will not only entertain you but make you feel like you are a part of something bigger than yourself.

The story follows an eight-year-old boy named Julián who loves to play a football video game and hang out with friends kicking around a soccer ball. Dribble, pass, and shoot your soccer ball around town. Meet up with friends, play video games, and take care of your younger sister. Feel the city and Julián change as Ecuador comes closer than ever to qualifying for the World Cup.

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Gameplay

Let’s get into the gameplay, but before we do, I just want to touch on how it all starts.

Despelote has one of my favorite intros to a game this year. You begin by playing an NES-quality football game, and if you are an achievement hunter, make sure to score an own goal while playing.

The intro is cinematic in the way you slowly zoom out of the game and realize it's the TV in the living room of Julián’s home. His parents are speaking about Ecuador and their match, which results in his father turning off the TV without regard for Julián’s game-winning play session—something all gamers are familiar with growing up. They put on the game, and you can follow their dialogue on what’s happening as the game slowly zooms back into the TV, fully immersing you into both worlds we will follow during Despelote. (Best seen in the video review above)

Okay, aside from the NES game you will play throughout, the main controls are first-person. Playing with toys in his room, sharing a meal with your family, or kicking the football around with friends. The dribbling and kicking mechanic feels fantastic. As long as you navigate with the left thumbstick, you will have full control of the ball. It’s when you pull back on the right thumbstick and flick it forward that you kick the ball. You can lightly pull back and flick to pass to friends or really charge up the kick to annoy your teachers during free time in school.

You will find that throughout the game, you are fed information about the games Ecuador plays leading up to—spoiler alert here—their qualifying for the World Cup. Between each game, we hear directly from Julián himself, describing bits of Ecuador’s history or his own deep personal connections to Quito growing up there, and how true to real life the game is. He is baring it all for you to experience his life, and it’s truly gripping to hear it come directly from him.

Not only was Julián growing into a teenager or Ecuador reaching new heights in football, but the country was changing economically and politically. We are given insights into those historic changes in bite sizes, like clips of actual footage from games and newspapers. Something about growing up during that time myself truly speaks to me. No smartphones or social media feels like it would make us lose our minds, but being in Quito, Ecuador without them for the two hours I played Despelote was refreshing.

Each chapter is separated by the following of the five games leading up to qualification, and within each one, you have an opportunity to run up to a TV that will have archival footage of the games and watch along. You can technically just watch the games, but it’s meant for you to truly experience being a kid exploring and checking in on the game with locals or family.

I only have one gripe in the game, and it's a section where you lose your sister playing hide and seek. I, for the life of me, could not find her anywhere, and it became very frustrating because the game shifts to night time and it becomes harder to see. I eventually found her, and I think that is the point—they gamify it a bit more—but the visuals were so dark it was impossible to see where she was. Small thing, just wanted to share.

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Dithered Dreams

The visuals are a standout for Despelote. The characters and interactable objects are simplistic, hand-drawn, and black-and-white, while the world itself looks like it has been scanned with a LiDAR sensor. The screen recording for my video review won’t do this game the justice it deserves, and YouTube’s algorithm will compress the video even more, so I highly recommend playing it first-hand to experience the game’s true artistic quality. It’s honestly nothing I have seen before, and you can truly appreciate the color palette and how it’s limited to two colors. The dithering effect I mentioned gives it such a unique quality. It almost feels retro in nature, fitting for what it’s trying to evoke—a period of time in the past.

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Sound Design / Soundtrack

Kicking the ball sounds great and makes the kicks feel that much better. At one point, you are dreaming of kicking balls over and over, and it's a place you can spend so much time in because it feels so great to run and kick with reckless abandon.

The soundtrack has a few great hits you will hear on radios around the town or in your house. Each radio has spatial audio to feel more realistic, so if you leave the room the music will slowly fade out. We have a great selection of songs I was jamming to. Enjoy!

Despelote - End Song (Original Soundtrack)

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A Must Play!

Later in the game, Julián shares a memory of how the park where he lived was too far for his parents to bring him or for him to go alone, and you get a chance to play in the park. He then mentions how the development of the game and going to record audio of the park gave him the chance to visit the park when he wanted. It’s a nice full-circle moment that ties the game up neatly.

Despelote took me 2 hours to complete. For $13.99 I feel like this is a solid game with a short and sweet story that reminds us why being a kid is such a wonderful experience to go through. Think of it as playing along to a movie that plays out over two hours. The gameplay is inventive and fun with every kick of the ball. Julián sharing this small part of his life is raw and emotional and connects you deeper to the experience. Using football as a way to bridge together games and real-world impact is fitting. We have so many struggles at the end of the day, and our personal experiences help us get through them, and sometimes these world events—like a World Cup—help us take a step back and kick it together. Despelote is a great experience and one of my must-plays of 2025! I kind of wish I could also just play that retro football game solo on the side. It really was a fun mini-game.

So what do you think? Will you check it out, or have you played any of the other Panic-published games? Let’s chat in the comments about it.

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