Recently started playing this again out of curiosity too, It really isn't as bad as i remembered. Again, You go back to this after PES 2020 and it does become really apparent some of the quality of life mechanics that got lost over the last couple of years.
First thing that jumps out at you, Just like PES 2017; is the responsiveness. Some might interepret this as the game being too fast but i disagree. I feel like an activity such as football is very time sensitive and should be appreciated as such in video game form. Input delay and latency is never something a player wishes for or would believes enhances an experience. By the time you enter a command to respond to a circumstance such as tackling, player switching or a skill move - By the time the action takes place on your screen the situation has changed. This is the bain of 2020 and you'll sooner a dinosaur eat a child before you hear anyone defend something like this in Street Fighter or Call of Duty.
So the idea that as
@Ted321 said, You can create intelligent plays and experiment with movement and dribbling without subconsciously stressing about wrestling with controls is an instant breath of fresh air and what football games should be all about whether it's a five year old game or a 15 year old game.
There's also some nice little animations in here that went AWOL after this and 17 that personifies players a little more such as defenders putting their arms behind their back in the penalty area, Players gesturing and throwing their arms up if you ignore them and of course continuing to fight for the ball when on the ground. Just sad that these moments are gone.
Of course, Better team positioning and creative AI that reached it's peak with 2017 but the foundations were clearly here.
The only things that truly soured me on this game then and came flooding back after spending a week with it was we had poor goalkeeping & ultra lenient referees. Keepers would make respectable to impressive saves 50% of the time but the other 50% we had the issue where the CPU should shoot low and hard into either bottom corner and the keepers would treat the ball like it was lava and reluctantly make and effort for it. They're also bugged in that keepers strictly stick to their goal line which put them at a serious disadvantage when charging down one on ones.
Nonetheless on a positive note, I really liked this goal i scored which bounced through Vardy's legs and into the net.
