Been playing the demo on PS4 since last night, probably played around 20 matches so far mostly on PA1 and superstar (a couple of games on manual and top player as well).
So, first of all:
PA1 is not at all manual and describing it as “borderline manual” must be the words of someone who never played manual. The best way I can describe PA1 is that it is more contextual compared to the last couple of years. The way players pass the ball (animations) is more dependent on the situation, body position etc. and also the ball physics themselves are effected by this. When your player is in a very akward angle and under pressure he can also misplace it, but it's only in extreme situations.
Maybe we aren't supposed to expect the ability to pass it into space with x, afterall we didn’t do that on PS2 PES (rather used ∆ as now), but I just wish they'd make the contextuality of passes and especially players’ stats much more pronounced, so there’d be a risk of passing the ball around your own third of the pitch with low passing stat CBs and midfielders so passes will go slightly to the side of players and sometimes go completely off.
Pace of passes in the demo might be a bit slower than 2018 which make them more realistic but not more manual. Power bar sensitivity is maybe a bit more manual, but there’s also this contextual thing about it where the game sometimes overrides your power input.
Through balls are pretty nice in the sense that they are not at all OP and much more realistic. However they are much too automatic to my liking in the sense that the game will sometimes overwrite direction input and power completely.
A lot of pages back someone said that holding L1 when passing (for passer to run into space) has a tendency to make less precise passes, and I had the same experience. Made a video of it:
I feel like shooting is more responsive - they don't have that waiting time you sometimes felt in 18 from input to action where now it's an instant shot. As of now I prefer how it is in the demo compared to 2018. There's also a bit more variety in pace and trajectory of shots (on PA1(!) basic shooting).
I was actually pleasantly surprised by the AI,
Some good attacking plays with variety and they are pretty aggressive too. Had a decent amount of fouls as well (I play rather slow and dribble a bit at times which might be a factor).
A couple vids for those who don't believe there's aggression and free kick in this demo:
Other random stuff:
As others have said: only 5 minute matches... WHY!!!
Game speed is great and passing speed good as well.
Interestingly there is no player emotion option, maybe it's out this year?
Dribbling is a lot like 2018 which is a plus for me. Sometimes it can look a bit choppy though.
Nice little deflections all around the pitch makes it a bit more random in a good way, also on PA1.
Had this great random deflection that looked nice except for Ter Stegen putting it out in his own area rather than behind the goal:
Menus are swift which will hopefully also be the case for full game.
Actually forgot to check out if you can play the ball just after half time/full time whistle but I see my fellow final-pass-maniac said it couldn't be done

Here's to hoping it'll make a glorious return in 2020
