Playing Fifa 16,17,18 one after the other for many days now, I think that 17 maybe is the best. Fifa 16 is way to stiff, the collisions are not physical, and animations are jittering. In terms of animation smoothness 18 is the best, but lacks nerve is more "butter" feeling which is more exaggerated in FIFA 19,20,21,22 etc...
17 for me has the best lighting/graphics, amazing ball physics especially on wear turf, nerve, and unpredictability. Searching the web many consider FIFA 17 the best FIFA.
Fifa 16 for me is like an ex gen FIFA 17. The only think I prefer is maybe the pace and the ball size (as the ball in FIFA 17 and FIFA 18 is somewhat small).
To keep this post on topic, again, PES and FIFA tend to be more "smooth and realistic" but they do not manage to do it properly, ending up in unreallistic "butter smooth" animations (FIFA 22/23 players sliding to an extreme extend) and more boring, linear and floaty feeling. Ball physics in eFootball is unacceptable for me. It is extremely floaty and repetitive in terms of behavior (low passes have always the same height/arc depending on the distance, no curve on shoots, etc).
I d dare to say that its more "online competitive" games, leaving less to unpredictability and randomness, killing the whole joy of gaming.