Across the world, billions of people have soccer (or football) fever as the World Cup — the world’s most popular sporting event — approaches. So it’s no surprise that we’re seeing a flood of soccer games. Today’s title is developer Gamevil’s newest addition to the Superstar franchise, Soccer Superstars, on the iPhone.

When we last checked in with the Korean game maker, they had just released one of the most addictive and in-depth sports titles we’ve played on the iPhone platform: Baseball Superstars 2010. Both games offer a mix of role-playing, customization, and sports action, and Soccer Superstars holds up in most of these areas — except for its social elements, which we’ll have more to say about below.

When players start up this new $5 application, truthfully, it is a bit overwhelming in that there is about a metric ton of things you are capable of doing. Players will be given the option to be taken to a tutorial right away. Unfortunately, it’s mostly a jumble of words and rather painful to sit through. But those who forge ahead will find that the controls are still fairly simple.

A major aspect of the game is actual soccer matches, in which the user can control whatever player is nearest the ball, moving towards it if on defense, or towards the goal if on offense. From here, users can use a touch-based “joystick” of sorts to manually steer the highlighted player and allow them to dash — though this does fatigue them, leading to weaker performance later on. Thankfully, Gamevil is aware of the lack of tactile feed back from a mere image of a joystick, so being anywhere close to it with your thumb still affects the selected player. Passing and shooting are also done with the touch of a “button,” and the power is determined by a meter beneath the character that charges as you hold it down.

There is another mechanic that might be familiar to Superstar fans: the concept of limited super shots (controlled the same as passing or regular shooting, but with a different button). Similar to how Baseball Superstars 2010 had any number of wacky pitches and characters, Soccer Superstars comes complete with a robot, a commando girl, a ninja, and a maid. As might be expected, each comes with a nearly unstoppable shot of over-the-top, anime proportions and includes everything from flaming, rocket-powered soccer balls to ninja stars. Only four unique, anime-like characters appear to be available at this time.

That isn’t to say that players can’t make new wacky characters. Actually, that is half the fun. In two of the many game modes, Season Mode and My League, players can actually manage their very own team or individual player. This is where role-playing comes into play, as users must not only play and win matches but train their team/player to increase their stats, manage line-ups and substitutions (in all modes), take them to public appearances to improve morale, and even dress them up in odd outfits.

It wouldn’t be a Superstar game at all without bizarre costumes — although these really just boil down to equipment to bolster your player’s stats and consist of basic soccer shoes, uniforms, and Darth Vader helmets in the My League mode. In the Season Mode players can access big screen televisions and team managers

Additionally, while all of this is purchased by an annual income, garnered periodically during the modes, special items that provide temporary boosts can be purchased using a second currency dubbed G Points. At the moment, these are earned by completing matches, competing in the tournament based Cup Mode, or playing Dramatic Mode, but they also look like an avenue to saleable virtual currency in the future.

As a side note, the Dramatic Mode stands out as it is more like a compilation of mini-games where users finish out the “dramatic endings” of various “historic” soccer games. Thus far, they don’t appear to be full games, but are similar to, say, penalty kicks for the winning goal.

Visually speaking, Soccer Superstars looks alright, but a lot of the zaniness found in the characters becomes difficult to see when they are so small. That’s made up for in some short cut scenes or interfaces where you see a portrait, or when they make a super shot, but the tiny screen size and isometric view doesn’t do it justice. Nevertheless, this qualm is minor compared to the disappointing removal of expected social features.

Back in October of last year, one of the coolest parts of Baseball Superstars was the asynchronous multiplayer. It was awesome to be able to go online and play against another player’s team. You didn’t play them, per se, but their stats and overall set up. It was like a virtual them, and it was a really nice addition to competitive, social play. Try as we might, we couldn’t find any multiplayer modes in Soccer Superstars, but here’s hoping it will be around in a future update.

Of course, it’s worth noting that, according to the developers, Baseball Superstars had been in development since around 2002, so every year, new features were added. Soccer Superstars is the result of one year’s development, and Gamevil does say that a ton of features hit the cutting room floor. Nevertheless, the do hope to add more content via updates and sequels, as we assumed.

After the multiplayer loss, other complaints felt minor. Nonetheless, the controls are a little awkward at first. The most obnoxious is that the game switches manual control from player to player based on proximity. Users have no control over this, and it would be nice to be able to manually switch control to, for example, a defender the other team’s forward is running towards, rather than vainly try to catch him with the closer player that automatically runs behind. Beyond this, defense is a bit annoying in that the only clear way to get the ball back (unless one of your players happens to be in the way during a bad pass), is via a slide tackle. Unfortunately, more often than not, you have to be extraordinarily precise not to get a penalty and grant the other team a free kick, if not earn yourself a yellow card.

In the end, Soccer Superstars is still a very strong iPhone title that is going to appeal to a very wide variety of players. It has all the style and fun, anime elements that previous Superstar apps have had, and the role-playing and actual sports mechanics are enough to keep users playing for hours. Sadly, there are a few kinks that still need to be ironed out in the form of control, and the removal of Baseball Superstars’ asynchronous multiplayer is a huge disappointment. But it’s certainly still a game worth trying out, and in an update or two one that will be even better.