34 MB
Neo Geo soccer that invented the arcade kickoff — DRM-free on GOG, online via PlayBound Connect.
Owning Super Sidekicks unlocks the games, editions, and mods below.
DRM-free GOG Windows release for Neo Geo soccer.
SportsArcadeSoccerNeo Geo
That One Thing
The aftertouch on a through-ball still feels like cheating — until your friend does it first.
A Champions Cup match feels like sprinting for space, then bending a shot just enough that the keeper's dive arrives a frame late.
Worth the cost
Free, or regularly available for $15 or less. Good developers deserve to be paid, and optional cosmetics, expansions, and premium extras are welcome. But we won't list games that sell competitive advantages, disguise a trial as free, or charge again to finish the core experience.
Ready to play
Playable and satisfying today. It can be unfinished; it cannot be unfun. We love supporting indie developers, but prototypes, broken releases, and promises of a future game do not make the cut.
Tested by PlayBound
We install it, launch it, and play it ourselves. We've spent hours building definitive editions and making multiplayer work, because a store-page claim is not the same as a game we can confidently put in front of you.
That One Thing
Every game needs that one thing we'd excitedly tell our friends about. It might be the mechanics, story, art, soundtrack, controls, community, or the way it brings people together. If it doesn't have one, it doesn't make the catalog.
Super Sidekicks last verified against the bar on . Read the full standard →
Super Sidekicks is SNK's 1992 Neo Geo soccer game that made national-team arcade football look serious without sanding off the speed. You pick a side, chase the Champions Cup, and live in the space between a clean pass and a wild first-time shot. The pitch reads clearly from above: lanes open, dens fill in, and a mistimed tackle turns a promising attack into a breakaway the other way.
What sticks is how readable the ball is. Dribbles are not sticky magnets; they are possession you can lose. Crossing, one-twos, and speculative long shots all have a tempo that rewards reading the next second rather than mashing shoot. Two-player sessions on the same couch turn into quiet rivalries about who gets the better of a midfield scramble, because every clearance and every rebound is shared information.
On PlayBound this is a commercial DRM-free master from GOG, not a free redistribution. You buy once, install through GOG Galaxy (or the offline installer), and PlayBound detects the folder. Solo play can use the Windows build; online head-to-head with a friend uses PlayBound Connect plus managed RetroArch and the FBNeo core so both clients sync inputs over the virtual LAN. Controllers are first-class — Neo Geo sports games were built for pads — and the launcher does not need to rewrite config files for a basic gamepad.
The honest catches matter. You must own the GOG title; PlayBound never hosts the installer. Neo Geo BIOS (`neogeo.zip`) belongs in RetroArch's system folder when the FBNeo path is used. DotEmu-era packaging quirks do not apply here — this Code Mystics Windows release is the storefront path we wire for detection. If Galaxy is missing, fall back to the store page, buy or reclaim the title, then return to Install so detection can finish.
We keep Super Sidekicks because Neo Geo soccer still teaches spatial football better than a dozen modern menu trees, and because Connect turns a local arcade classic into a private online match without asking anyone to port-forward port 55435 by hand.
We picked Super Sidekicks because it preserves the first Neo Geo soccer that looked like a real pitch and still plays like an arcade argument. A cheap DRM-free GOG master plus PlayBound Connect gives two friends a legal way to settle a Champions Cup online without treating ROM piracy as the onboarding step.
Great if you want
Look elsewhere if
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Minimum
Windows 10 · Intel Pentium 4 1.8 GHz dual-core · 256 MB video RAM · DirectX 9
Recommended
Windows 10 · Dual-core CPU · Dedicated GPU · USB gamepad
No. It is a paid DRM-free title on GOG. PlayBound does not redistribute the installer.
Galaxy is the one-click Install path from PlayBound. You can also use GOG's offline installer; detection still looks under common GOG Games folders.
PlayBound Connect puts both players on a virtual LAN, then RetroArch netplay (FBNeo) syncs inputs. See /guides/retroarch-netplay.
Yes. Neo Geo sports titles expect pads; PlayBound treats this as native gamepad support without rewriting config files.
That is the FBNeo ROM set name PlayBound looks for when launching Connect netplay. Your legal GOG install supplies the game data; we never host ROMs.
More screenshots and trailers live on the official Super Sidekicks site.
$5.99
PlayBound does not sell this game. Once you own it, install the PlayBound edition from the header or the Install tab.
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