I think as a Pes fan like us all the PS1/PS2 era was realistically the first footy games that didn’t feel like an arcade ping pong fest. Obvious mentions to Sensi and Kick off but Pes or ISS before we’re side scrolling football games that actually felt real. Konami stumbled upon this format due to the hybrid versions of ISS64 etc and the extra bit of power a PS1 then PS2 had and only evolved the game marginally but it worked out for the better but fast forward 12 years and we have a games company struggling to compete with its competitor not only financially be also feature set.
Pes this year even though it’s playable and mostly enjoyable is almost mobile game in development. It’s becoming glaringly obvious that unless this ‘3 year plan’ is life changing for ML the game is declining in Europe at least. Sad state of affairs but nobody can put up with the poor commentators, game modes or lack of ML innovation anymore. Why waste time on option files when Fifa has it out of the box?
Us hardcore want that Pes feeling back and I think for the large part it feels better this year but I’m scratching around the game modes trying to justify how I am going to spend a full year playing it when none of my friends have it. Online, maybe division but myclub is just a frustrating mess of super teams (my own included). Totally ridiculous mode.
It should be you start with Castollo,Minanda etc and only earn when you play games and the Chances of Ronaldo etc are nigh on impossible. I had a super team without even playing a game. What is the point in that at all?
Personally I think the problem lies in the lack of the main thing that made us fall in love in Pes - unpredictability.
Thats why we played and loved this game at the start. Every match was different, full of random things happening all the time. Passes, shots, first touches - everything felt free.
Now we have PES19, which is TRYING to give us this feeling back. There is a lot of physical fight on the pitch, players bounce of each other, slip and fall. Ball is bouncing around and its trajectories are beautifully random. So whats missing? Why we still have to try really hard to get this PES feeling back?
Well, first of all - developers crippled the freedom making PES more accessible and arcade to please casual players and people who grew up on FIFA.
Second of all - AI is limited to just few patterns, which they rinse repeat all the time. Matches dont feel different, coz after a while you know exactly whats gonna happen next.
This is fixable. But patch has to come fast, before people will get tired and bored of it.
As for freedom on the pitch - the only way to achieve it is to switch to manual, which Im in the middle of. Its a long, tough and frustrating process. And not many people will have patience to stick to it until they start seeing results.
We are all trying very hard to enjoy this game and make it more unpredictable, switching to manual, testing different tactics, shooting, passes, game speed, difficulty... problem is - back in the day we didnt have to do any of that. All we had to do is to switch the TV on..