I wrote an essay on this for
@fernadez the other day after he asked me a simple question via PM - abridged version below:
With the coronavirus situation (and going insane), I've taken the opportunity to install every PES and FIFA I've ever had (for the umpteenth time in the last few years), which is a mental illness in itself...
A week or two ago, I was re-reading the FIFA 16 to 20 threads from when each demo was released, to see A) how I felt about them at release (to see if my opinion had changed), and B) what everyone else thought at the time, in order to try the "best bits" of FIFA.
Reading those old posts of mine, I was amazed. From the start I liked 16 and 17, didn't like 18, LOVED 19 until a patch sped it up, and 20 I've pretty much hated from the start. I give up with 20 now - I've been using the Frosty editor to rebuild the physics and make the game more tactical, and after 2-3 weeks of trying to make the ball less tennis-ball-like and make it more difficult to rely on the exact same moves over and over... I give up.
20 is a big problem. You can't fix the fact that they've so clearly moved the game towards "arcade" than ever - speeding everything up and turning defenders into a foosball-table perfect line of static morons, for online players to have to constantly micro-manage. It's honestly the worst FIFA of the decade IMO.
But to go back to the start...
FIFA 16 is very good, but I just can't love it. I don't like how the AI only plays one way, it's a bit stiff, and I don't love the physics (I know they're good, but they're not as free or expansive as the modern games, in my opinion). Honestly, I just find it a bit dull.
FIFA 17's gameplay was a tiny bit better, in my (unpopular) opinion, even though it was Frostbite. It was pretty buggy - and the AI was even more basic. Going back to it, there's a lack of responsiveness in certain circumstances too. But, the ball felt more free, headers were allowed, and tiki-taka wasn't as mad.
FIFA 18 is weird. It's the start of the engine getting more erratic, in my opinion. I was enjoying the World Cup add-on, even though almost every group game was a grind, 0-0s and 1-0s (which I prefer to silly scores). Then, I was up against Germany, and it was horrendous. Gameplay was 100% faster, the AI resorted to tiki-taka, and I just turned it off at half time.
FIFA 19, though... It turns out that if I go back to those old forum posts, I still feel the same. My feelings haven't changed at all. Which tells me that the games are actually getting worse, rather than my tastes are changing...
In September-time, I made some posts (and
@fernadez too) talking about the dribbling, and how on normal speed (in the demo) the animation felt odd because there were so many corrective touches on the ball - but on slow speed in the release version it felt natural, because you could see each touch and it was (at the time) mind-blowing to dribble so fluently with the left stick alone.
But then patch after patch started ruining different things in order to try and fix FUT/eSports moaners. The original release is better, BUT unfortunately it's got some career-ruining bugs and really, you need the patches.
Honestly, I still really like it with the patches - but you also have to accept the worst bits:
- The league table is always silly (the league winners draw half their games).
- Your opponents play a severely weakened team against you way too often.
- There are barely any fouls.
- The biggie - most find the game much too easy versus the AI.
The good news? Paulv2k4's patches on PC (the career one, and the gameplay one) fix all of that.
It is UNBELIEVABLE to me how much better it feels than 20 (primarily because of its braindead defenders). So it's 19 for me, for the time being.