First of all to give some context, I, like many, have been a Fifa fan since 08, but before that Winning Eleven (I always got the Japanese version, with John Kabira... I miss him) was my great love. I had high hopes going into the next gen of how great Pro Evo would be, and sadly with its last two efforts, it clearly never reached those heights, leaving Fifa to win me over, despite its well documented problems. With all the buzz this year surrounding the improvements to Pro Evo, my interest was piqued. Enter the demo...
It the past years this has been oft repeated and only marginally true, but in my opinion, Pro Evo is officially back. Is it perfect? No. Does it play an excellent game of football? Yes. Does it put Pro Evo back on a level playing field with Fifa for us Pro Evo converts? I say definitely yes. Having of course not played Fifa 11, I can still say with relative certainty this will be competing for my football gaming time. A lot of what I write will have Fifa as a basis for comparison, as that is what I've been playing for the past 2 years
Big change #1 for me is that the movement has been drastically improved. While not quite matching Fifa's freedom of movement, it's gotten a lot closer. The game feels much more 'organic', much less robotic, like a next gen game (finally). Movement with the ball feels very good, especially when you get the ball to the feet of the right player, which is where individuality shines. Whether it be Iniesta, Messi, D'allesandro etc. you feel you can do much more with them than you can with the likes of Busquets... I learned very quickly not to try to pull off too much with him. The negatives here is that I feel response times with non-elite players are a bit too slow - I found myself running the ball out of bounds when I was trying to change direction on a few occassions. This may be me getting used to the game, but right now I feel a little more can be done here.
Passing feels excellent. The power bar feels great and adds freedom, and the manual pass modifier works great as well. However I did find times where my passes would go to a player I wasn't intending to pass it to, a problem I don't have in Fifa. When it comes to individuality in passing though, again this shines through - you really feel like you can make any pass with Xavi.
Shooting - Long shots feel solid and realistic, some seem to rise too much maybe, but then on others you can really connect. Good variance overall, again very much based on who you're shooting with.
The few right stick dribbling moves I was getting used to, but it is a thousand times better than the confusing system from last year. Fifa fans used to using the right stick for stepovers will feel completely at home as it's the same system. As for all the linking of moves, I need the bloody manual cause this was complicated!
The new jostling system works very well, and makes things look a lot more realistic. I did find that sometimes I wished my player would make more of an effort to get his body between a defender coming diagonally from his backside, a la Tevez to keep the ball.
Defending feels like a skill, and I love it. I still need to improve, and I'm getting used to the new hold X and towards your goal to bide your time, but if you press tackle at the wrong time you will be in trouble! Coming from Fifa this is a big thing for me, as defending required little skill. I also love the fact that if someone tries to press from the back, more times than not they WILL be called for a foul. A problem I saw was sometimes on through balls it took a bit too long to get the defender to react and turn - and player switching is quite erratic. I need to try manual and see if this helps
The goalkeeper problems for me so far have been overstated- I played over 10 games against a friend and no goals were.
First touch, how I missed thee. It's great to again see variance based on the skill in the player of their first touch. Right now I do feel sometimes this is too pronounced, as even skilled players took one too many a bad touch, but again I'm not positive about this yet.
I will miss from FIFA the semi assisted shooting, I wish this was in the game rather than just aim left, center right, to add a bit more user skill.
Ultimately I think, for current Fifa fans who converted from Pro-Evo it will come down to what the player wants more: individuality or a slightly technically superior game. The technical superiority and fluidity of Fifa (along with its online stability) is what kept me with Fifa, but Pro Evo has significantly closed the gap, meaning that for many the technical superiority will no longer be enough to keep them away from the individuality that exists in Pro Evo in all facets of the game. How much a role personality plus plays in the new Fifa will most likely decide which game wins out this year for me.
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