Recent reviews by k1nJo

I wonder what they smoke at Konami HQ.

So this is a "Season Update" since PES devs are busy making PES 2022 with Unreal Engine 5, which means this game is almost the same with PES 2020.
However, there are a couple of differences, and to be honest, they're not nice changes at all.

Unfortunately, the game has been dumbed down big time.
-Goalkeepers are almost useless, any player can score outside from the box like they're freakin' Batistuta, right in the corner. And top players like van Basten or Rummenigge can even score while they're under huge pressure.
-Also the passing system is a mess. Even while you are facing away from your teammate, you are able to pass the ball with almost 100% accuracy.
The online script can still break these obviously but you know the script interferes and affects many dynamics in the game and it's just another evil.

Anyway, gameplay-wise, these are the two biggest differences I've experienced so far compared to PES 2020.
For the rest, you can read my review about PES 2020 here as they still apply to this day(except the super-cancel bug).

But since the game is cheaper, I'll give a thumb up only to support Konami for the sake of PES 2022, so I hope our support this year isn't for nothing and PES 2022 can rival FIFA in all aspects and not just gameplay.

Edit: Actually, I changed my mind. And I'm changing my review to negative cuz it is ♥♥♥ aids.
-Defending in a football game by pressing 2 buttons shouldn't be praised. It is so bad that if you wanna defend manually it punishes you. It feels like there is no skill gap between players, maybe except top 1%, but for the rest, for 3 consecutive years now it's like I'm playing against the same guy. It is disgusting.
-Also, a football game with a dead dribbling system shouldn't be praised.
-And a game mode (matchday) which forces you to play against someone who's literally 11000 kilometers away shouldn't be praised as well.

This is a garbage game, stay away from it, at least from the online modes if you little care about your mental health.

Edit#2: Thanks for the award, kind stranger. And sorry that I forgot to thank this whole time.

Ahh, where to start...
Oh it doesn't matter, I'll eventually come back to where I start anyway :)

This game is truly wonderful. It was really a joy to play and finish it finally, I enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed the Portal series.

But I've gotta say this, after your first try, if you think this is a weird game that you can't imagine yourself playing, then keep playing. I too wasn't sure if I wanted to keep playing or not for a long time and finally I decided to play and I'm really glad I did so. It was truly, truly a unique experience. Understanding and figuring out things are just what makes this game pure fun, at least for me.

But you know there is also a bad thing about this game, like everything else unfortunately, which is that every journey comes to an end...

Alright, first of all, this is not PES 2020.
"PES 2020 DEMO" was the actual PES 2020. This is rather PES 2019.5.

I think Konami just made it clear that they don't want us to have their best work. Because whatever they did on the demo, it's so obvious that it's been reverted.

This is PES 2019 all over again, and in some cases, it's even worse than PES 2019:

1- Refereeing is the worst ever. They call fouls on easy contacts and ignore actual fouls for some reason.

2- Dribbling is dead. Even tho they introduced finesse dribbling and sh!t, the dribbling is dead. #RIP. Because you can't even use the finesse dribbling, you have literally no time to use it. Just like the previous years, playing with high pressure is the key in this game and when you get the ball or pass it to another player, 1 or 2 or maybe even 3 opponent players will run like horses towards you. Most of the time they will knock you down and get the ball without a foul just like I said earlier. It's like all the opponents you face are the same guy. Unbelievable. Plus you can't even dribble with basic controls anymore. Because I don't know, it won't work. Your opponent's player will stretch his leg and block you somehow. Even if you trick them by changing your direction suddenly, it won't work. Your opponent will get the ball by pressing only 1 ret4rded button. It's a no brainer seriously, defending system has to change.

3- Last year, the script was the worst ever. But hey, it turns out it can be even worse, lol. Get ready to concede 90th+ minute goals while you are leading by 1 goal, get ready to draw after the 76th minute even if you are up 4-0. Yep, you heard it right.

4- Intercepting passes manually is impossible. Even if you read your opponent's movements and take action before them, your players will watch the ball go through most of the time. Utter bullsh!t.

5- Along with defending, also supercancelling is broken atm.

PES 2020 DEMO was miles ahead of this garbage final code.

Other than those above:

1- Commentary is still the same. Although I noticed that they've added some different dialogues, it's still not enough. And those dialogues have diferent tone so it's obvious they're different and kinda annoying.

2- The UI is still garbage. Just as I mentioned last year, in-game menus are like endless. They don't know how to organize stuff properly and effectively in a single screen. After you complete a match, you have to press X like 10 times. It's even more if you play a match in "What's On" Mode. You have to leave the tournament page manually whether you win or lose and if you lose, there is still no RE-ENTER COMPETITION option and you have to come all the way back from the ♥♥♥ main menu.
In addition, new squad list page is garbage, there isn't enough information on players and everything is so big.
Similar to that, trading page is also trash. Again, everything is so big unnecessarily and the listing system is idiotic. Let's say you have 3x Mustafi. Those Mustafis will be listed separately from each other. I mean, why? Just list 1 Mustafi and add a number next to him like x3. But no, they'll list all those mfers so people have to scroll down forever. At least we were able to press right arrow key to skip pages in previous years but we can't even do that anymore.

3- Replay system is a failure for years. They either don't know or dont want to develop stuff. Did you score a fantastic goal in late? Well my dude go press X 50 times so you can see it and save it.

4- Speaking of the replay system, we still can't save the matches we play. Why?

5- Lag-cheating obviously still exists since the matchmaking is still p2p. Well, let's be honest here, it will exist forever, right... Unless Elon Musk's global internet provides incredibly fast connections to everywhere on the planet, maybe then Konami would think about building actual servers, lol.

The only thing good in this game is probably the Master League. If you gonna play offline, go buy it.
As for online, long story short, this game is garbage, a heavy scripted game where horses play tennis.
Hence we can simply call this horsesh!t game as "eTennis, Pro Evolution Script".

p.s. don't let my playtime fool you tho, I mostly simulate matches in MyClub to farm GP while I'm playing something else (mostly WoW Classic nowadays but hell I even forget about it often and it just stays idle lol) so I can get some of my favourite players and use them in co-op which I play rarely with a friend.

Actually I wasn't gonna write a review about this but I thought I should, since I play PES for 15 years and online for 4 years.
I even deleted this game once but re-installed to give a try to some Master League.

The offline gameplay is better than online, that's for sure. It's pretty much the same with the previous years but more fun since some shoots and passes go horribly wrong like in real life. It's really cool. That's all I'm gonna say about offline since people aren't interested in offline as much as in online.

As for online, I'm not kidding, it's probably the worst PES ever. All you need to do is playing with high pressure because the player who recieves the ball literally can't respond for 3 seconds, like a moron. There is like no difference between Messi's ball control and Lukaku's, it's horrible for all players and it's literally killing the game. You can't dribble as well with skills/tricks/special moves whatever you call, because animations are too slow, your opponent can draw a circle around you meanwhile, that's how slow they are. Even if you successfully dribble once, it's still no problem for your opponent because you know they play with high pressure, 2 more opponents will run like horses towards you and get the ball without a foul. After you lose the ball, now you gonna press your opponent and get the ball back. The online gameplay is pretty much it. In previous years, sometimes it was like a tennis game depending on people's playstyles, now it's a constant table-tennis game regardless of the playstyles I swear.
The script is also more real than ever. In previous years it was pretty much based on teams' strength, now it's based on both teams' strength and users' ratings. Doesn't matter how good your players are, they'll suddenly start playing like 60-rated players if the game itself really wants you to concede. Your players' response time will go up to like 4-5 seconds. It's full of bs.
The AI is still a disaster. In the box, your defenders still act like morons compared to your opponent's attackers and vice versa. Also switching players is still impossible in some cases.

Other than that, lag-cheating still exists because we have no actual servers, matchmaking is still p2p.
Button delay still exists.
Commentary is still the same.
The UI is still terrible. For example, when you play Challenge Cup on MyClub and if you lose, you have to leave the Cup screen manually and it will redirect you to the main screen and obviously you have to go aaaallll the way back to the Challenge Cup like you are doing it for the first time by pressing on stupid menus 30 times again because they're too stupid to add a "RE-ENTER COMPETITION" option afterwards. Actually I'm not sure if they play their own game, I think they play FIFA instead. Yet they are so bad at stealing ideas. I mean look at the highlight system after a match, you wanna see a goal you scored in late? Well, press X 50 times so you can finally see it lmao.

I'm just glad that I didn't have to spend any money on this bs game since I got it via a giveaway.
The sad part is, it actually could've been easily the best football game ever but apparently Konami didn't wanna make it so, as they have to sell the game every year. You know they didn't patch the grass last year, it was like a cartoon game and everyone made fun of it since the 1st day of the release of PES2018, yet Konami decided to play the three wise monkeys whole year. Because they needed to fix it this year to sell PES2019. And it's just pathetic.
Next year, they'll fix those players' response/animation time but come up with some another bs. Cuz this is how it is.

Even if it's not near the same level as Portal series, The Turing Test is a great game for sure.

However, the audio logs that we find along the path don't seem to have subtitles, which is pretty dumb in my opinion, especially since I found out that was intended.
(Here you can see their response: http://steamoss.com/app/499520/discussions/1/343785380898278278 )

It's definitely not a problem for native English speakers for sure. But what about the others, those who have issues understanding English through listening or even deaf/hearing impaired people? Those audio logs are part of the game and they are punishing and ignoring these people in a quite stupid way.

I mean if you want the audio logs to be "challenging and hard to understand", then add a separate option and state your opinion on the matter but in the end let the players decide. Is it too hard?

EDIT: For some reason I just read my review again after almost 1 year and I guess it wasn't really fair to give a thumb down based on one topic which doesn't even affect the game in any way. It was a cool game so I'm changing it to a positive.