I totally agree with you.
After many years, i (we) finally have a PES (or eFootball) that is close to the old PES games from the PS2 era. And I'm not saying this with an exaggeration. Certainly, back then, PES was a fantastic game by its standards.
I feel like I'm playing rational football, especially with the improved midfield play.
Is everything fine? Not at all.
Also, something that would enhance the goal-scoring experience is the nets. They should improve the net physics. They should copy what FIFA has done. It's the best when it comes to net physics.
I really like the ball physics and how it reacts when hitting bodies, but there's room for improvement. However, I can live with it as it is now.
Personally, I'm not a manual player. In my settings, I have basic shooting and level 3 passing. I'd prefer it if they removed the 1 & 2 levels, but I know they won't.
And now FIFA. Because I've played a lot FIFA from 2010 up to last year (which I liked quite a bit, especially FIFA 10 WC & FIFA 11 on consoles), the gameplay these days is absolutely garbage. What keeps people playing FIFA these days is FUT and the community it has built. Since I bought a 1-month EA PLAY subscription to try FC24, I have to say it's one of the worst FIFA games I've played. It hardly resembles football.
Last night I was playing it till 3 am. I hadn't do that since ....I don't even remember.
I really enjoy offline superstar, fully manual games, and I think this version is the best ever.
Of course I would like to see some minor improvemets tha will elevate the experience.
1. More variety to the trajectory of the shots (which are finally very rewarding and have the zip they was missing)
2. Of course net physic and sound (it will elevate the rewarding feeling of scoring)
3. Body collisions are still very obsolete. Bodies are like colliding bottles and then some pre canned animations are triggered.
4. Ball physics in ground passes, how the ball rolls, spins, bounces it's very repetitive and sometime times feel very light, like a ballon
5. Some animations are still clunky, especially in changing direction with slow speed.
6. Grass could be more 3D during gameplay
7. Shadows are unacceptable (In night matches the ball has only one shadow but players have 4)
8. Still some player awareness issues (rare thankfully)
9. Goalkeeper dives are still ridiculous and unnatural.
10. Still the photorealism of PES 2014 is not there.
11. Jostling and body intreaction, especially in standing tackle need work
But in this version I really appreciate some key elements:
1. Responsiveness
2. Finally simple dribbling with R2 (taps and differentions in pressing) is effective and works like a charm.
3. CPU plays almost like a human, with a lot of variety
4. Speed and tempo of the game
5. Shooting with R2 is ...😍😍😍
6. Inertia/momentum is very good (yet not perfect)
7. Nice feel of randomness
8. I don't feel the infamous "rails"
9. Stats DO matter!
10. Tackling in space! Finally!
Also with high graphics mod, I enjoy much better graphics, cloth and hair animation in game finally! (I missed it since PES 2014).
So, if We9le was the 10, ef2024 is a solid 9 gameplay wise.
And all these FOR FREE!
Can't wait for KONAMI to ruin it totally!🥳