Someone left this review on Amazon and it's amazing...
Dear reader, I stress that this is not a genuine interview. These are all my own words. This is simply the best way in which I can review/critique this game. Also, a disclaimer- this 'review' is based solely on Pes 18, PS4, offline vs AI on Superstar and Legend. I do not play online.
If I had a sit down interview with a rebel developer from Konami who is disenfranchised with the direction the game has been going in since moving to next-gen consoles, it would go something like this.
'Hello, Mr Pes developer.'
'Hello, loyal Pes player.'
'Thank you for taking the time to talk to me about Pes 18.'
'You're welcome.'
'Okay. Let's start at the top. You have said in the run up to this game that you have spent the past three years developing this iteration and that it was a much slower, more measured approach.'
'That is true.'
'Right. So why is the final version so different to the demo? The demo was indeed slower and more measured, but the final version is as frantic as ever. Why so?'
'People complained about the demo, so we ramped up the pace for the final version. '
'Oh. Okay. So the three year development cycle went straight out the window?'
'Yes, that is correct.'
'Moving on, could you tell me about the new difficulty settings, please?'
'Again, people complained that Pes 17 was too easy, so we decided to punish them by making Superstar and Legend mode on Pes 18 completely impossible.'
'Interesting approach. How did you go about that?'
'It's simple really. We just make the AI players much stronger and much faster than the players you control, so the AI physically dominates you, no matter what. They are relentless and they never fatigue.'
'So you can't overcome that with tactics or skill or strategy or intelligence?'
'Absolutely not. The computer can score when it wants and it will stop you when it wants. There's nothing you can do.'
'What if I play as Real Madrid vs say, a one star rated team from the Spanish second division?'
'It doesn't matter. Stats and individual player ratings mean nothing. The AI are all robots. They are faster and stronger than you and will destroy you.'
'Wow! That sounds tough to overcome.'
The Konami developer shakes his head. 'It's not hard to overcome. It's designed to be impossible. I told you it's punishment for saying it was too easy.'
'What if I practise. Can I get better and eventually defeat the AI on a regular basis?'
'No. There is no let up.'
'One other small thing regarding the difficulty setting. Why have so many alternate settings? Why not just have fewer options, but make the easiest setting a little more difficult and then advance from there?'
'That would make more sense. Maybe we'll do that in the future.'
'Great. Now, a question regarding vernacular.'
'Sure, fire away.'
'In Japan, is the word 'Legend' a synonym for scripted?'
'Not as far as I know.'
'Thanks for clearing that up.'
'That's ok.'
'On a lighter note, Konami always talk about simulation. The crux of Pes is its realism, right?'
'That is true.'
'So why is Usain Bolt in the game? He's a great athlete, but he has nothing to do with football.'
'That decision was not down to me. I agree he's a great athlete, but personally I would not have him in the game. It makes no sense. Unless...'
'What?'
'Nothing.'
'No, come on, you were going to say something.'
Konami developer leans forward and speaks softly. 'Unless, they're just trying to make money.'
'Ah, I understand. Are there any plans for other athletes or celebs to be in Pes 19? Could we see Valentino Rossi, or Roger Federer, Matt Damon, maybe?'
'It's possible.'
'You could make Valentino a winger and put him on his bike and he could be even faster than Bolt.'
'True. He would be faster than Bolt.'
'Sorry, I digress, Back to matters at hand. There is so much running in this game and so little passing. It's very end-to-end. Much more like basketball.'
'This is a very complicated issue. I'll be frank with you. The engine that we use is not designed to be used in a football game. It just isn't. In retrospect we made a grave error. We haven't produced a good Pes game since we moved to the next-gen consoles. We can't do much until we change the engine and design it from the ground up and cater it toward a football game.'
'Is there any chance that could happen soon?'
'Sorry, this decision is out of my hands.'
'Thank you. I appreciate your honesty. It's just that all that seems to happen since Pes changed engine is that everything operates on a grid. When you attack, players just run forward mindlessly in a straight line, and when you defend they just aimlessly run backwards in a straight line.'
'It's the best we can do for now.'
'It used to be so much better on PS2 and PS3.'
'Tell me about it'
'Make the ball do the work right?'
'Not any more. We make the super strong, super fast robots do the work.'
'The subtlety has gone.'
'Yes, it has.'
'Are goalkeepers really better than they used to be?'
'No. A lot of people think they are. But they're not at all.'
'Oh?'
'Yeah, we just made the shooting rubbish.'
'Oh.'
'Every shot either goes straight at the keeper or wide. Did you notice that on the higher difficult settings?'
'I did. Straight at the keeper or wide of the post.'
'Precisely. On the higher difficulty settings, we don't reward good play. We don't like goals.'
'That explains a lot. So whether I have a great striker or a bad defender shooting?'
Konami developer cuts across me, wagging his finger. 'It doesn't matter. Stats are irrelevant. Shooting is just inaccurate.'
'I tell you, I did notice that shots always have the same power, and they never curl or swerve or dip. They are just blasted at the keeper or wide at exactly the same trajectory with a weird toe-punt technique.'
'We made a conscious effort to make shooting worse after people complained that goalkeepers were bad in Pes 16. Again, we couldn't make goalkeepers better with this engine, so we just made shooting worse.'
'It makes for a pretty unintuitive and frustrating experience.'
'I'm sorry you feel that way.'
'Going back to the simulation element, if I may. How on earth do you spend three years developing a football game and forget to put fouls and penalties in the game?'
'Honestly, that is not my department. But this omission is truly beyond me.'
'It's staggering, isn't it?'
'Yes.'
'Do you have any last thoughts?'
'Look, gaming has changed a lot over the past five years. In the past, the Pes team could work solely on gameplay. And when I say gameplay, I mean MAN vs AI. Things are different now. People want to play online. The root philosophy of MAN vs MAN is very different to MAN vs AI. The reality is that the market online is bigger now, much bigger, so we have opted to totally neglect the evolution of the AI from a technical and intuitive standpoint. To make up for intelligence we just add ridiculously overpowered physical attributes. The end result is that the Master League community has been left behind and we are now only interested in catering toward the online community.'
'That figures. It's a shame though.'
'That's the way the cookie crumbles. Isn't that what you say?'
'That's more of an American idiom, but you said it correctly. All that I have left to do is to thank you for your time. You have been most forthright.'
'Thank you, sir. I'm sorry you don't like Pes anymore, but please whatever you do, don't play F**A.'
'Don't worry, I won't'
'You promise.'
'I promise.'