ISS PRO EVOLUTION 2

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Please note that these instructions merely reflect the author's experiences. Some of these guidelines may be valuable, while other tips may appear to be useless because it's all completely depending on each player's personal preferences and style of playing.

This is what makes ISS PRO EVOLUTION 2 such a fabulous game ! The game is incredibly personal ! Sometimes a less expensive player (e.g. Fonceca, Milosevic) gives you the feeling to be much more skillful than some of the big-price stars (e.g. Batistuta, Rivaldho). Despite their high transferprice and their high points in most of the skills, they don't seem to live up to those standards. At the same time your friend's experience can be the complete opposite. When selecting players for your Master League Team, it really comes down to find the players which give you the feeling that they fit your gaming-style. Therefor it's advisable to save your game just before you buy a new player and test the newcomer. Whenever your new player doesn't seem to live up to your expectations, just reload the game and look for another one.

This method is strongly advised, certainly in ISS PRO EVOLUTION 2. Collecting the ammount of credits which is needed for a decent transfer takes a lot of hard work, because the Master League has become a lot tougher ! You start in second division where, in comparison with ISS PRO EVOLUTION, you only gain half the points. With a 2-0 victory, you only gain 6 points, a draw adds 2 points to your budget. This means you'll have to play quite some matches when you want to save your cash for a big transfer (between 40 and 50 credits needed). And then again, winning every match you play is also no longer evident. First of all, the overall skill of the computer-controlled opponent has increased. Secondly, the overall quality of the team you start with is pretty poor. While in ISS PRO EVOLUTION you could easily complete your season with the initial goalkeepers in your team. One has to admit that Merosi and Colombo both did a good job. Unfortunately this is no longer the case in ISS PRO EVOLUTION 2 !! Ivanov's skills are quite poor and it won't take too long before you'll actually witness this. Consequently you'll be looking for a good goalkeeper rather quickly.
 
 

GETTING STARTED - THE FIRST TRANSFERS

You start the season with 20 credits. Collect as quick as possible 4 extra points and then purchase one of those players which offers great value for money. The more goals you score, the more credits you get when you've won the match. Therefor it's most useful to buy a good attacker first. The computer-controlled opponent doesn't need too many occasions to score, so you'll have to make sure to score some goals in order to gather the necessary credits from here on.

Ivanov surely isn't the world's greatest goalkeeper. Add to this the efficiency of the computer-controlled opponent, and it becomes logic that the next transfer preferably would be a keeper. Here are some of the best money can buy.

In order to score easier it's best to buy a second attacker next. If your first striker is a left-foot, it's preferable to buy a right-foot one. This is one of the very few details of the game where criticism is justified: when buying a player you can't see whether it's a left-foot player or a right-foot one. Unless one has the courage to quickly save his Master League, quit the Master League to go to the "EDIT"-section, and there checks out the player's stats. Not very handy and usually resulting in a transfer where you can only hope that the new player corresponds to your needs when it concerns left- or right-foot.

Good attackers don't necessarily need to be expensive. There are quite some high-skilled strikers available in the category of transerprices between 20 and 30 credits. Fonceca, Mc Carthy, Milasevic, Nuville are some of those attackers which are "great-value-for-money"...

These first 3 transfers should get you going and should allow you to win most of your matches from here on. Although this may sound evident, you'll notice that things are tough nevertheless. Each team has is own strategy and style of playing. AC Milan for example tends to play very offensive football and starts attacking from the moment of the kick-off. When you score a goal against them, you'll feel the pressure increase immediately as they will try to equal the score as quick as possible. So, some of your opponents - especially the offensive teams - won't be that easy to beat. The difference in the strategies used by the teams in your league is quite remarkable. Below you find a short description of the main tactics used by your opponents, as well as the target players for which you have to look out for.

THE FASTEST WAY TO A FULL SQUAD
 
 

With these first transfers you should be able to start a successful season in second division. But you'll soon want to expand your team as fast as possible with your personal favorite players. Well, here's one of the quickest ways to do it.
The main principle is to get to 1st division as quick as possible. Don't waste too much time in 2nd division since you only gain half the points you get in 1st ! Don't worry when losing some matches... Just make sure you finish first, even if you're only 1 point ahead. When promoting to 1st division you can win some extra bonus-points, though the basis on which these are given still remains a mystery to me. Winning the last match of the season seems to determine whether you'll be rewarded a bonus, but the number of points you're ahead of the team that finished 2nd, seems to be irrelevant.

Of course it's nice when you managed to get some distance between you and the team which ended 2nd place, but apart from that there's nothing to gain with it. The most important thing is that you're being rewarded the full 9 points for a 1-0 victory from here on !!! This should allow you to buy a new player every 4 or 5 matches. By the end of your first season in 1st division you'll almost have a squad of 11 players this way. Again you'll be rewarded bonus-points if you manage to become champion in 1st division. But again, it's hard to tell which factors are determinative...
By the end of your 2nd season in 1st division you'll probably have gathered a full team of 22 good players.

Still there's a quicker way... but which requires more skill of course. Work your way through 2nd division as quick as possible and get promoted to 1st. Until now the level has always been "NORMAL". You can increase the amount of credits by switching the level to "HARD". In "HARD"-mode you get double credits for the difference in number of goals when you win a match. For a 1-0 victory you get thus 10 credits. Winning a match with a 4 goal difference is being rewarded with 16 credits. So if you think you're good enough to win on level "HARD", it's certainly worth it. You have to be good though, because you only get the most profit out of this if you manage to score a lot. But if you do, you'll be looking around to buy a new player every 2 matches !!!

Many people will surely be thinking that it's not possible to switch the game-level when playing in Master League-mode ! It's only since a couple of weeks ago that I know how to do it. (Special thanks to Tim for the tip by the way.) Instead of loading your Master League-data, go to "GAME OPTIONS" and choose "MEMORY CARD MANAGER". Then choose "SAVE DATA UTILITY". Here you can change the options of your saved Master League-data and so you can switch from "NORMAL" level to "HARD". With this option you can also change the duration of a match when it concerns saved data from Tournaments or Leagues. The length of the matches in your Master League however cannot be changed.