Well I lied. I decided to play it tonight since why not eh?
First off I played some matches against the AI in authentic match. As some of you know, I only play fixed cursor so it took a little getting used to controlling the whole team again. Played, and lost, to Barcelona a few times on regular. I'm man enough to admit that. After a few matches I decided to give superstar a try this time against Bayern. Lost that one too.
The intro cutscenes are so well done. They've captured the feel of a proper tele broadcast. But by the third or fourth time going through them, it got old and I wish menu to match was a little bit faster.
First impressions playing the AI. First off the overall tempo of the game is slower than what I am used to (been playing most 2021 and some 2017 recently). I think it's a good thing. I prefer a slower, more true to life, tempo game. Player positioning looked relatively good at times, but there was one noticeable moment when both my CBs were out on the left wing leaving either Dalot, my RB, or Antony, my RW, (can't remember who) to defend Lewandowski on a cross. Which went as well as you can imagine.
I really like defending. It requires more intelligence and allows for more varied outcomes which is great.
Dribbling feels....different. Different isn't good or bad. I'm just curious why Konami have made so many changes to basic movement on the ball year after year. I don't hate it. For instance I enjoyed a run down the wing where I beat 3 players with Rashford. But there were times I didn't feel like I was entirely in control when moving on the ball. Ended up being a lot of the time actually. Which actually brings me to my main criticism of the game.
My usually settings are manual passing and advanced shooting (since I played fixed cursor with player cam, manual shooting is difficult). There's no advanced shooting in the game which is surprising. And in my honest opinion, manual passing doesn't feel like manual passing. It still feels like the game has a bit of influence over the passing direction which was frustrating. But not as frustrating as the player switching.
The player switching is honestly horrendous. I don't get it. Constantly the game just refused to switch the player closest to the ball. I like to pass the ball into space as much as I like to pass the ball to feet. But routinely, I would pass the ball to space intending for that pass to go the player closest to that space, only for the game to decide to switch to someone much farther away. It almost made me stop playing then and there. I couldn't always pass where I wanted to and I couldn't always pass to who I wanted to. And that objectively sucks.
Another thing I noticed was how floaty the ball was occasionally. Especially on longer normal passes.
After getting my brains beat in by the AI, I figured I'd do something I haven't done in something like 7 years. Play a match online. I decided on quick match cuz don't really care for divisions or rankings. Finding a match was hard. Find a match with a stable connection was even harder. This was my dream team quick match experience in a nutshell:
Even if I did get a match, I'd lost connection and then get told that I lost lol. I got tired of waiting around for another disconnection so I headed over to divisions or whatever the ranked matches are called. To my confusion, my first match was against AI. Kind of a pointless waste of time, but after a 6-0 win I was finally able to get a match against another human being that didn't disconnect at half time. I'd say it went well:
eFootball has potential. But the community completely ruins it for me. I played 4 matches (well 4 halves) in quick match and one match in ranked. My opponents all played the exact same; constant and reckless high press, constantly slide tackling, one touch counter attacks. The way people have played online since the beginning of time. Perfect. Because I know how to beat that. In FIFA and PES/eFoot, I realized early on it's much easier for me to win by playing slow and methodical. I don't have to create chances. They'll make them for me by constantly sprinting at me.
I think the way a lot of people online is an insult to football. So this is how I treat such people:
In all seriousness, I give Konami some credit because there's a decent foundation here. There's, most of the time, decent shape and positioning which was one of PES's biggest weaknesses. There's fouls. There's interceptions. There's a good overall tempo. There genuinely could be something here. But only if they fix the horrendous player switching on passes, tweak some of the ball physics, and the occasional lack of responsiveness I felt. The match build up presentation is wonderful. All it needs now are some modes that I actually care about lol. Online simply isn't for me. Not while people are playing like that.
First off I played some matches against the AI in authentic match. As some of you know, I only play fixed cursor so it took a little getting used to controlling the whole team again. Played, and lost, to Barcelona a few times on regular. I'm man enough to admit that. After a few matches I decided to give superstar a try this time against Bayern. Lost that one too.
The intro cutscenes are so well done. They've captured the feel of a proper tele broadcast. But by the third or fourth time going through them, it got old and I wish menu to match was a little bit faster.
First impressions playing the AI. First off the overall tempo of the game is slower than what I am used to (been playing most 2021 and some 2017 recently). I think it's a good thing. I prefer a slower, more true to life, tempo game. Player positioning looked relatively good at times, but there was one noticeable moment when both my CBs were out on the left wing leaving either Dalot, my RB, or Antony, my RW, (can't remember who) to defend Lewandowski on a cross. Which went as well as you can imagine.
I really like defending. It requires more intelligence and allows for more varied outcomes which is great.
Dribbling feels....different. Different isn't good or bad. I'm just curious why Konami have made so many changes to basic movement on the ball year after year. I don't hate it. For instance I enjoyed a run down the wing where I beat 3 players with Rashford. But there were times I didn't feel like I was entirely in control when moving on the ball. Ended up being a lot of the time actually. Which actually brings me to my main criticism of the game.
My usually settings are manual passing and advanced shooting (since I played fixed cursor with player cam, manual shooting is difficult). There's no advanced shooting in the game which is surprising. And in my honest opinion, manual passing doesn't feel like manual passing. It still feels like the game has a bit of influence over the passing direction which was frustrating. But not as frustrating as the player switching.
The player switching is honestly horrendous. I don't get it. Constantly the game just refused to switch the player closest to the ball. I like to pass the ball into space as much as I like to pass the ball to feet. But routinely, I would pass the ball to space intending for that pass to go the player closest to that space, only for the game to decide to switch to someone much farther away. It almost made me stop playing then and there. I couldn't always pass where I wanted to and I couldn't always pass to who I wanted to. And that objectively sucks.
Another thing I noticed was how floaty the ball was occasionally. Especially on longer normal passes.
After getting my brains beat in by the AI, I figured I'd do something I haven't done in something like 7 years. Play a match online. I decided on quick match cuz don't really care for divisions or rankings. Finding a match was hard. Find a match with a stable connection was even harder. This was my dream team quick match experience in a nutshell:
Even if I did get a match, I'd lost connection and then get told that I lost lol. I got tired of waiting around for another disconnection so I headed over to divisions or whatever the ranked matches are called. To my confusion, my first match was against AI. Kind of a pointless waste of time, but after a 6-0 win I was finally able to get a match against another human being that didn't disconnect at half time. I'd say it went well:
eFootball has potential. But the community completely ruins it for me. I played 4 matches (well 4 halves) in quick match and one match in ranked. My opponents all played the exact same; constant and reckless high press, constantly slide tackling, one touch counter attacks. The way people have played online since the beginning of time. Perfect. Because I know how to beat that. In FIFA and PES/eFoot, I realized early on it's much easier for me to win by playing slow and methodical. I don't have to create chances. They'll make them for me by constantly sprinting at me.
I think the way a lot of people online is an insult to football. So this is how I treat such people:
In all seriousness, I give Konami some credit because there's a decent foundation here. There's, most of the time, decent shape and positioning which was one of PES's biggest weaknesses. There's fouls. There's interceptions. There's a good overall tempo. There genuinely could be something here. But only if they fix the horrendous player switching on passes, tweak some of the ball physics, and the occasional lack of responsiveness I felt. The match build up presentation is wonderful. All it needs now are some modes that I actually care about lol. Online simply isn't for me. Not while people are playing like that.
![[-Slayer-]](https://evowebcdn.ams3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/data/avatars/m/74/74666.jpg?1531356408){kind=avatar}
