(Another year of following the discussions on Evo-Web without posting anything... beware the wall of text!)
tl;dr: Today I bought PES 2018 after not playing (modern) PES for a year and I sort of liked it.
Last year was kind of unusual for me when it comes to PES. For the first time ever I didn't really follow any news about the next installment, when the demo came out I think I might have played a match or two and then forgot about it, while in the meantime I occasionally played FIFA 17 and PES 6. To compare, when PES 2017 was coming out I followed the news all the time and bought the game on day one, and after 2 weeks of editing on my own (later lost due to Konami updated and my stupidity) had a blast playing it, though later it sort of dwindled out, especially when after few patches I could not recognize the game, and concluded that I in recent years the most fun I had was with PES 2016, despite a number of obvious flaws that plagued it (starting with AI's low-shots). So the last time I played a contemporary PES game was almost exactly a year ago, and I had no intention of seriously trying out the new game.
And yet, today I felt an impulse and bought a copy of PES 2018 on a whim, although just yesterday I was playing PES 6 (lots of fun, even though it was exhibition) while planning to try a little experiment with FIFA 18 (which I also recently got, lured by a discount on Xbox Live) - tweaking the sliders in order to bring the gameplay as close as possible to PES 6 while maintaining a believable, close to real-life match stats (which PES 6 on its own does quite well, except the fouls...). You can tell I am not satisfied with base gameplay in FIFA if I was willing to spend a lot of time just trying to tweak it. While I consider the latest FIFA games as good overall, there is still a lot to be desired, especially when you play against the AI exclusively (FUT might be fun, but in the long run it feels, well, FUTile). Anyway, this morning, while browsing Evo forums, I decided to give PES 2018 a chance, even though a lot of voices here seem to paint a bleak picture, but then again isn't this business as usual the last couple of years?
I have no idea how was the demo, how the game felt on day one or how the subsequent patches changed it. FIFA 18 and PES 6 are fresh in my mind so these work for me as natural benchmarks (funny how a 12 year old game still remains strong). I only played 4 games so far (Top Player, 10 min, just exhibition so no ML scripting and such), but I have some impressions already:
-It feels a lot like 2017, I actually wonder what was presented as the new, exciting features this year. The main menu is a complete deja vu, I actually had to double check that this indeed is 2018.
-For the first time since the Game Speed setting was (re)introduced, I felt it's too sluggish at 0. +1 feels better, though there's a side effect of some shots feeling slightly too powerful.
-I expected very end-to-end matches but actually so far I got a lot of wrestling in the midfield, and setting up a good shot actually required some effort. On first glance the flow of the game feels all right.
-I remembered how I always miss the PES style camera in FIFA games. You know how in FIFA the camera never moves vertically above a certain point and the players on the far side look like ants? I always prefered how in PES the camera would actually follow the ball more closely all over the pitch, it may limit the field view sometimes but it always felt better. Also, the essential camera swing setting. I know it's nothing new but I every year I hope to see that in FIFA but I guess it will never happen.
-Glad to see dribbling is still like in the old days - you can actually dribble effectively just with the left stick, wrongfooting defenders and creating space. Compare to FIFA where players move like they are stuck in the mud, and the AI defenders are clairvoyant unless you exploit the fake shot.
-All games ended with a 1-0 score, either for me or CPU, so no goalfests are happening immediately, good sign.
-Lack of fouls is often mentioned here on the forums. The first matches showed me it's not that bad, I got at least 2 fouls in each game, and the AI actually got booked more times than me (3 yellows against 2 for my players in 4 games). This is still a miniscule amount of fouls per game, but I'd say it's acceptable, and yesterday I was reminded that PES 6 wasn't much better in this regard although I never really noticed it. I need to play more obviously but it already feels better than FIFA this year, at least in my case.
-Good to see Japan licensed again. Not good to see the lazy names for unlicensed teams (stuff like PM White Blue - really?) or having unlicensed Slovakian (example) players named like native Brits. And since I switched from PS4 to XO last year I am on my own with editing - but no way I am going to spend weeks in Edit mode like last year, I swore to myself this is never going to happen again (I'll only touch the fake names and stadium assigns and call it a day)
-The shooting and goalkeepers feel... weird. Unfortunately the shooting (basic) still feels somehow stiff, limited and predictable - if there is one thing FIFA does better on the pitch it's definitely the shooting (even if what precedes it can be quite ugly sometimes), though I recognised an improvement in this area in 2017 and it definitely carries over here. But what I find weird is that so far the keepers, specifically their animations, behave like they are in sync with the power of the shot. I'll explain - if a shot is powerful and fast, you will see a rather prompt reaction from the keeper (whether he makes a save or not is a different matter) but it looks rather natual. On the other hand, when the shot is weak and the ball travels at turtle's pace, the keeper will suddenly move like he fell into a tank of water, and when he finally reaches the ball, instead of catching it (as you would expect in a slow paced situation like that) he will deflect it like a five year old junior. It almost looks like the keeper is making an ironically dramatic save, as if he was mocking the opponent for such a weak attempt at scoring a goal and making it look ridiculous by fumbling the ball. And the funny thing is that when you see a replay of it in the highlights, it somehow looks okay and completely natural, while during the match it felt like the game briefly switched to slow-motion. Is it just me? I saw this at least once in every match and it really stood out, reminds me of PES 2014 keepers on launch day but less ridiculous (no funny goals conceded). The keepers in general make good saves, but their animations and reactions often feel stiff, slow and belated. I have to say that since PES 2008 I am not satisfied with how the keepers move even though much was done in this aspect.
But overall, I had a good time, and I hope the honeymoon will not be over soon. I'd say it took about a week of playing FIFA 18 before I concluded I have to take a rest and consider the whole slider thing just out of curiosity. PES, despite its flaws, still has that "something", something ephemeral rooted deep inside it since the golden era that is still there, which allows me to keep calling PES my "home" when it comes to virtual football, despite FIFA's best efforts.
On related note, I always felt that even though PES and FIFA today are very different games than 10-15 years ago, made by different people, you can still feel the shadows of the past installments in the most recent games - you could say that at least some parts of design principles and approach to certain aspect of football have remained unchanged at both Konami and EA, even though in recent years they tried to copy each other in various aspects. That's why, for example, when playing PES you (or at least I) can feel as if the pitch is bigger and there is much more space to do stuff, while FIFA still somehow feels more cramped. Game flow, tactics, cameras, cut-scenes, menus, what have you - funny how you can look at some of that stuff and point out that it's still almost the same as FIFA 06 (or PES 5). As long as it holds true to PES, and that identity remains, I guess I will still support the series despite some glaring flaws or questionable design decisions. And I believe this also applies to a lot of you guys, that's why we are still here, discussing and playing PES, sometimes even enjoying it, while not giving up hope.
(If you made it here -
)
; the game isn't perfect, there are still a number of things that will annoy you but the game is at least enjoyable in a way that I haven't felt since the days gathering some friends IRL and kill them with inch- perfect passes from Riquelme still playing for Villarreal...
