I've finally got around to playing some PS2 Winning Eleven after not doing so for quite a few years now, I barely remembered how it felt to play and had a lot of trouble getting back into it at first, as the only time I really sunk a lot of hours into it was over a decade ago when I still had my PS2, since then I've played PS3, PS4 and even went back to PS1 through emulation... well, I've tried emulating PS2 and it just wouldn't run well on my laptop or my old smartphone that I've turned into a handheld thanks to my latest acquisition, a MOCUTE060 controller, anyways I sort of expected this, both of these machines are not so new anymore and have about 4GB of RAM... PSP did run well on both though, and from what I can tell the PSP Winning Eleven installments are just like the PS2 ones, but with stuff taken out to make it work on a weaker machine with less space on its media, the file sizes are much smaller, and it's been a good time.
At first it wasn't so easy to choose which PES I was going to play, as Konami kept pumping out these PS2/PSP PES versions all the way to PES2014, so my choices were plenty, anyways I went with PES2011 at first, because I figured they'd all be similar, so I made my choice based on OST and HUD/UI, also how much I cared about that particular season in football. I did make the switch to PES2012 though, as I had it for my PS3 and was familiar with the squads of so many clubs and national teams from it, and it worked just as well. What impressed me the most so far is how it plays, obviously, but I wasn't so impressed at first, I suppose playing so much PS3/PS4 PES has got me used to everything being super responsive and smooth, I also missed things like manual passing and how good it felt to pass the ball around through the ground and through the air, the players also felt a bit too light for my liking, though it doesn't break it.
Well, now for the good... I'm getting fouled so much more often here, I even get penalties, even if rarely, and it all feels natural, they're not forced fouls which are there just to increase a statistic, they happen because there's more physicality between players... like in real football! Also, whenever I play with weaker teams nowadays, it doesn't feel like it much, I can sort of feel the difference, but it's subtle, while here the lower rated players do things that genuinely leave me speechless, and the increase in error makes things feel more random, I don't know what'll happen next... like in real football! I now get why people seem to love using the word "organic" when describing PS2 PES, the way it plays, with fouls and player error depending on stats, and randomness that keeps you on the edge of your seat, everything's just... LIKE IN REAL FOOTBALL! What happened between then and now? How did we just lose all of these things?