Managed a couple of games before I had to come back (late) from my lunch hour. Both as Palmerias against Corinthians.
They've clearly spent a lot of time on presentation this year. I do actually like the new menus, and the different camera angles when you enter the pitch are really good. The crowd bouncing up and down at the Allianz Arena... That looks incredible. I mean, unbelievable. (Right up until you see the generic faces of the players, which are hilarious.)
The lighting is just brilliant. It adds so much to the photo-realism. Also, when the away team scores, the away fans cheer! So we don't have to worry about that.
But the stadium camera (although it's great) hides a lot of evils, IMO.
When I switched to a standard sideline camera, you see how straight-forwards AI passes are (no build-up), and how the dribbling movements from the AI (yes, even the poorer teams dribble) are zig-zags on tramlines, including 180-degree turns because they shot off in the wrong direction for no reason, which looks really bad (and feels bad to defend against).
They run like fat kids on LSD hallucinating and seeing chocolate bars everywhere.
The most interesting thing to me was that defending is no longer "hold X and you win the ball in every situation where you're 1-on-1". Defending seems much more difficult. Which I like a lot.
First touch error etc... When I've seen a bad trap, or a bad first touch, it's felt weird.
A) The way the player is still "locked on" to the ball and you can't wrestle him out of the animation to regain possession, and B) I've not felt that it was contextual - more just "ERROR TIME!"
AI passes still seem perfect, on Top Player and on Superstar - although Top Player seems much easier than 2019 so far (the AI scored every shot on target they had - UH OH!! - but their build up was just, smash the ball forward, no build up play - UH OH!!! - and I ended up regaining possession when they'd try to dribble way too much).
Need more time to assess how games move tactically, and if the difficulty levels provide a challenge when I change from playing against an "equal" star team to a "giant" star team.
EDIT: Oh, also. Very few fouls and they're not really fouls anyway.
The AI fouled me in the first five minutes, but it was one of those "they ran into me and a foul was given which wasn't really a foul" fouls. That was the only one.
I conceded a penalty to one of these non-fouls minutes after that.
When I was trying to save it, the goalkeeper dived just as the ball was hit (if not before), and ... was still floating as the ball hit the back of the net.
