Pro Evolution Soccer 2023 feels more like a classic soccer game than its main rival, FIFA 18. There is no flashy story mode chock-full of celebrity appearances. The presentation seems more like a submission to fans complaining in regards to a insufficient presentation rather than a passionate desire to replicate the thrill and entertainment of soccer. The way the Fox Engine renders its characters and also the clownish, over-the-top mo-cap of player celebrations is not as much a selling point because the “awe-inspiring” Frostbite Engine. PES 2023's focus is much more about solidifying its gameplay and providing a high-wire intensity to every pass, cross, and tackle.
There are great and bad things about focusing more on the gameplay compared to presentation-like the aforementioned distractingly, extravagantly acted motion-capture moments. Another negative is this seemingly disinterested attitude toward presentation leaves you with about twelve songs in its soundtrack, almost all of which were impossible that i can stomach after the first hour. In addition, the boring commentary and general insufficient pomp and circumstance reminds you that you're playing a relevant video game with a fraction from the licensing deals that the other guy owns. Not to mention that picking a teams seems slim in contrast to FIFA 18, official licensing or otherwise.
On another hand, this lack of presentation implies that, for instance, when you are managing a team in Master League and renegotiating an agreement or a transfer, you aren't removed from the sport having a pointless cut-scene featuring the player and his nondescript agent together with your manager avatar sitting over the desk fighting to create a recognizable human expression. The type of excessive propensity for razzling and dazzling with its fancy engine by introducing an inordinate amount of voiceless cut-scenes that FIFA 18 appears to favor pops up grudgingly in some places in PES 2023, but it is clear-almost more like a function of personal identity more than because of the fact that Pro Evolution Soccer probably gets a fraction of the budget in the FIFA series-that PES 2023 is much more deeply in love with the sport of soccer and just how it translates into a video game than it is with the pastiche of soccer as a form of passive entertainment.
PES 2023's steps forward in terms of gameplay aren't as dramatic as PES 2023, however i would count that as a tick in the positive column. One element that Konami has introduced is full body touch that seems to capture very well how players receive and control the ball, now throwing all of their bodies into the reception, which not just enables you to consider whether you will find open lanes by which you can send a pass, but also how quickly the receiver will be able to fully possess an ambitious lofted through pass according to their positioning and proximity to the rival player. While PES 2023 has slightly improved the actual Touch dribbling mechanic the series introduced last year, stick control is (thankfully) not the star of the show, but rather strategy, quick decision-making, physicality, and deft passing are all the key components for achievement in PES 2023.
I still can't choose how I feel about PES 2023's gameplay as a whole, though, especially compared to the recent direction from the FIFA franchise. As i appreciate that PES 2023's passing is much more of a risk with a chance for higher rewards, it's frustrating after i seem like a pass goes somewhere other than where I needed it to visit, or how slowly the ball leaves one player and reaches the other, or after i decide that I wish to pass to a person else as my character is winding up for any pass and I wind up giving the ball away because, unlike in FIFA, I can't change my mind in the middle of a pass. At the same time, though, I love how difficult passing is compared to FIFA 18, where it feels like defenses, speaking from each side from the ball, are almost entirely defenseless against the simplest passing.
Likewise, defense is really as fun to experience as ever, because the improved physicality results in more thrilling tackle attempts, and full touch elements mean that a quick-thinking defender can more easily take advantage of a less-than-perfect pass that comes off a receiver. Proper positioning and timely challenges seem more effective and feasible compared to that other soccer game, and matches seem less about taking shots and saving shots and more about the full field experience, where a thoughtful strategy can give you the benefit. Simply sprinting the ball up the field is really a much less effective offensive strategy of computer often is in FIFA 18, and I think PES 2023 is better off when it comes to raw gameplay for that.
That being said, there are still some annoyances in PES 2023. While running the ball up the field completely solo may not be viable, crossing certainly appears to work far more of computer probably should, especially with insane headers and scissor kicks by adept strikers. While these plays are exciting to pull off, they work far too frequently and seem unstoppable, especially against teams like Real Madrid.
This is doubly problematic because goalkeepers still seem inconsistent, despite getting new animations. Sometimes they'll simply miss easy saves and wind up appearing like Daria on the volleyball court (na-na-naaa-na-na). They're also still pretty bad at possessing balls they probably could have caught, that is doubly frustrating since friendly AI seems suspiciously slow to react with regards to loose balls. That isn't to state the AI is completely without the intelligence department, since it is still pretty good at reading a play and adjusting its strategy in a manner that sets you up for success, however it does seem inconsistent. Sometimes it's like the AI knows precisely what you're trying to do, along with other times you may as well be playing one versus eleven. PES 2023 is definitely an incredibly fun soccer game, also it jogs my memory around anything today can of the glory times of soccer games from generations ago, but with far more polish and freedom. But it is still not without its pimples.
PES 2023 has additionally made some small but significant changes from the pitch. Be A Legend mode-in which you control either a pre-existing or player-created character and navigate them through their career-returns with one major improvement over this past year. Namely that, if you're benched, you are able to fast-forward with the match rapidly. On top of that, when I joined a team, I had been put on the starting 11, meaning I didn't have to wait to become subbed in. While maybe not as realistic as this past year, because you get to immediately prove yourself on the field is more engaging and immediately invests you inside your team's success.
Master League remains one of the more engaging franchise modes in sporting activities, where one can practically customize every aspect of the team's strategy, as a result of each player's specific on-field characteristics. Moreover already excellent foundation, PES 2023 adds Challenge Mode being an option in Master League, which is basically a “hard mode” that adds more technique to actual negotiations and all around makes your job at work harder than ever before. It's actually engaging and lends even more weight towards the action on the pitch.
The biggest addition to PES 2023 is really an old mode that's back thanks to high demand in the fans, and it is possibly the smartest thing about PES 2023, specifically for more casual soccer fans. Random Selection Match (let's be honest: Pro Evo isn't the best at naming its modes) tasks you with setting parameters for which type of players you would like, based on which team or league they play for or what their nationality is. The game will assign random players to both teams for that match. However, before you take towards the pitch, players can type in a kind of trading mini-game in which you can select players you would like in the other team while locking players you think your attacker goes after. If you choose a player your attacker didn't lock, then he's yours, however the same also goes for your attacker. It's a great mode, particularly when playing it locally with a friend when you each set the other player's parameters.
Unfortunately, Random Selection Match is not available online, but it probably doesn't matter because on the internet is easily PES 2023's weakest point. The quantity of players online-at least for that Xbox One version-seemed staggeringly low, also it was pretty hard to find a match. Once I was playing, the match ran smoothly enough for the most part, though there were definitely some extended frustrations with a few connection stutter. The game recovered rapidly, but one demonstration of slow-down actually require me to pay an objective, and I'm not only crying “lag.” This is a shame, because PES 2023 has finally caught up to the times and added online co-op, meaning now you can finally have fun with some buddies, whether they're across the country or sitting next to yourself on the couch, against another team of more than one player. This isn't a new feature for normal sports game players, but it is good that PES has finally taken that advance, even when getting a match remained difficult sometimes for me personally.
And while PES's version of Ultimate Team, MyClub, certainly returns, it remains a small sector from the Pro Evolution formula. That said, it's time for Konami to begin asking itself where Pro Evolution Soccer can go from here. If it focuses its energy on introducing new modes like Random Selection Match while tightening up the gameplay each year, PES will probably be who is fit. But if it decides to turn it into another card-buying cash grab like pretty much every other sports game available on the market, we might need to throw out the red card with that one.
All in all, PES 2023 is constantly on the excel at how it is best at: as being a soccer game that's not FIFA. Especially taking into consideration the recent, flashier direction that FIFA went in, in relation to presentation and gameplay, PES 2023 almost feels like an oasis for older soccer game players like myself. If you aren't feeling the direction that EA has had with FIFA 18, PES 2023 is going to be precisely what you are looking for.
