Tiki Taka Soccer - An almost beautiful game

In the meteoric rise of franchises like FIFA and Championship Manager, football lost something.

It lost the simple joy of stringing together a few passes and a shot, buried under an avalanche of stats and options. Tiki Taka Soccer wants to get us back to basics.

You might have thought that touchscreen control was a bad way to control a top-down football game. Developer Panic Barn thought about it too, and came up with a clever solution.

If you've got the ball, you tap on another player to pass, or swipe to shoot. If you haven't, you tap on another player to take it off them and swipe for a sliding tackle. That's it. A child could play it.

Except they couldn't. Because there's an amazing amount of skill hidden beneath the gentle green pixels of that simulated soccer pitch.

Playing effectively means having an eagle-eye view of where everyone is at all times. When you've got the ball, you might only have a moment before it's taken from you. You'll need to know where you want to pass it before you've even got it.

It takes practice and timing to get right. And when you do, it's glorious. You can pull together fluid moves and a quick chip into goal or hoof the ball around followed by a long-range strike with equal ease.

The opposition will do their best to thwart you, though. It's easy to concede a goal if you take your eye off the ball.

Players learn this the hard way. After a series of straightforward practice matches, the game drops you into career mode.

Starting in the football conference you've got to work your way up the leagues to stardom. But even the lowly conference is full of teams that can stuff your starting eleven with ease.

If this were a premium game, you might give it the benefit of the doubt. You might put this sudden difficulty spike down to a genuine desire to put some old-school challenge back into mobile gaming.

Trouble is, Tiki Taka Soccer is a free to play title. It's a free to play title which exhibits FIFA-like levels of greed, and attempts to charge you for every single thing in can.

Playing matches runs down the energy of your team, which makes them slow, and more prone to injury. Want more? Buy energy drinks or pills.

Your players start with poor skills. Want to improve? Buy coaches or new players. You can't even get money back by selling the old ones. The only way to make in-game currency is to play matches or spend real-world cash.

In theory the game gives you enough money, even after a loss, to just about stay in touch. You can top up your team's energy and if you scrimp and save what's left you might eventually be able to save up for a coach or new player. Better hope none of your existing bunch retire in the meantime.

In fairness, you don't have to spend much to get enough of a kitty to get you started. And if you're happy to do that, Tiki Taka Soccer turns out to be a fun and satisfying game. It's never easy, but the challenge is something to savour, something almost addictive.

There's a lot of pleasure to be had in watching your team slowly climb the echelons of football. In finally hiring a star player and seeing the palpable difference his skills make to the team. In building up the experience level of your manager and seeing the little bonuses pile up.

Eventually, the free to play will come round and tackle you hard in the shins. Players get worse as they age and eventually retire.

Injury takes its toll even if you keep your energy up. Whatever happens, you'll need more quality players than you can afford. Then it's time to pay, to grind, or to quietly retire.

It's tragic that Tiki Taka Soccer got built like this. Most free to play churn titles are weak games made to profit from a few whales. This, by contrast, is a clever design that's lots of fun to play.

With the single entry fee of a premium app, or even an initial outlay of IAP, it could have been amazing. As it stands, it's something you need to think hard about before investing time and money that could go on forever.