Pro Evolution Soccer 2019 is a game of two halves. Much like last year and the year before that the game excels on the pitch. Konami have put together nothing short of a footballing masterpiece that as of this writing (before FIFA 19) stands as the best gameplay ever seen in a football game.
As you would expect given the universal praise last year Konami haven’t set out to reinvent the wheel with this latest iteration, instead deciding to refine what they already had. As such we are treated to even more passing and shooting animations which add to the immersion even more. Fouls have also finally been fixed and you now regularly get brought down by the CPU. Goalkeepers seem largely unchanged aside from a new direct and incisive long throw which is fine with me as I thought they did a great job with the goalkeepers in PES 2018.
Ball physics have been re-worked again this year and as a result the ball has more freedom than ever. FIFA is often accused of having the ball assigned to one player at all times and while I think PES managed to break away from those constraints last year it has managed to distance itself even further in PES 2019. Passing feels better than ever and you now have to be more precise with both aim and power which is a positive and adds to the realism.
When Konami first started talking about ‘visible fatigue’ I thought it would just be a throwaway feature but having seen it in action it adds a lot to the game. PES for a while now has tried to discourage you from holding down sprint by rewarding players using a burst of pace at the right time in a similar way to a well timed skill move. Visible fatigue takes this one step further and if you don’t manage your team accordingly throughout the game you’ll be left wishing you were allowed ten substitutions. The fatigue animations are great and fit naturally with the rest of the incredibly lifelike player movement.
So while PES 2019 is (for me) a run away success on the pitch, unfortunately the same cannot be said for what is going on off it. Across all game modes we see minimal improvement. Konami assured us that a plan was in place that started with perfecting the gameplay and then moving on to other areas and it felt like this was the year to deliver on that. Instead many PES die hard fans are left scratching their heads.
Let’s start with Master League, my personal favourite and the mode I spend 99% of my time with. In terms of additions we have a re-worked transfer system that finally allows you to change your bid offer, wage offer, insert a few add-ons and add a future fee to a loan deal. While this is a great addition and adds to the game it’s crazy to think that it has taken until 2018 for this to be a thing. On the down side some nagging legacy problems with the system are still in place like only having five negotiation slots.
Outwith the transfer system you will get a very familiar feeling from Master League in PES 2019. There is the ability to manage some of the money coming in to the club. Ticket sale bonuses, merchandise sales bonuses, owner bonuses and others can now either be put into your salary or transfer budget. Again this is a nice addition, but the fact that you still can’t just manually adjust each budget is crazy. In previous games I have sometimes been sitting with a £30m transfer budget yet unable to sign some dinosaur from the French second division due to wage constraints and that looks set to continue for another year (at least).
Master League does however, despite it’s obvious flaws remain an excellent mode and well worth playing. The team chemistry mechanic is still as glorious as ever and rewards you for building a team and formation that suits all parties and then working through the first few months of the season to make them gel. At first you will notice your players misplacing more passes, taking an extra touch and not making the best forward runs. As the team chemistry starts to climb the players begin to improve in these areas and by the time you have it in the 80’s you start to pull off some spectacular football.
The main focus of this years mode upgrades has went to myClub where they have decided to make the mode closer resemble it’s FIFA counterpart Ultimate Team. Featured players of the week are now introduced which will be a welcome addition to fans of the mode. I personally struggle to get into it, along with any other of the online modes. The bulk of gamers buy their sports titles these days to play online but I prefer to look for realism and inevitably the hyper competitive online gamers find a way to break the game and give themselves an advantage that just takes the fun out of it (usually running down the line, cutting the ball back to a late runner and slamming it in the net first time).
I also play PES on a very specific camera angle, which many viewers on streams have enquired about because it looks so good, and for some reason the game doesn’t let you use said camera angle online, which again removes a lot of the enjoyment for me. Should you wish to try the camera out yourself it is ‘Field Side’ with the sliders set to Zoom – 1, Height – 0, Angle – 6.
The graphics this year are a big step up from what I already considered a gorgeous game last year. Konami have finally dropped the last gen iteration which has allowed them to go all out and this results in a really polished experience. Scanned faces look picture perfect and again Konami have done an excellent job of not just focusing on the biggest stars and the best teams. You’ll find face scans in hot prospects at smaller clubs like Malang Sarr at Nice. Unfortunately players who previously had scanned faces that weren’t in the game at launch but added via the live update have been left with generic faces at this moment (Naby Keita, Divock Origi etc)
Commentary is unfortunately as drab as ever. It almost feels like a bad joke at this point. One year, hopefully soon, Konami are going to have to cut Beglin and Drury and take the plunge with a new team. Sure, it will take a few years for them to build up a sound bank that will be varied enough to satisfy the public, but at least if fans see strides being made I think they would be more forgiving. In more positive news there have been tweaks to the crowd noises, especially for goal celebrations. The roar from the crowd when the home team scores is brilliant and really adds to the experience.
Team licenses are always a hot topic in PES but they aren’t something I feel is worth going into large detail on in a review. EA Sports have most of the big leagues tied up to exclusive deals which puts Konami in a bit of a predicament. To counteract this they created a robust editing mode that let’s you import kits, emblems and more. There are dedicated sites where you can download everything you need to make the game as authentic as possible such as PES Universe and PES Patch which deals more with the PC version of the game.
Speaking of the PC version, should you want to take your editing further than just strips, team badges and manager pictures the PC version is where it’s at. The talented community churn out scanned player faces, tattoos, custom intros, stadiums, balls, boots and TV overlays all year round to customise your experience in whatever way you want.
Trophies follow a very similar model to previous years except with the addition of some more generic trophies like ‘Win 50 matches’ and ‘Score a total of 100 goals’. It’s a list that asks you to play through all the different game modes available. I would personally gauge the difficulty at around 4/10 and guess that it would set you back around 30 hours, depending on skill.
Overall Pro Evolution Soccer 2019 is the most accurate representation of the beautiful game ever made… on the pitch. I have played football on a daily basis since I was four years old and I can tell you that nothing has ever came close to this level of realism. However, off the pitch the game modes are held together with twigs. Konami have promised significant updates to game modes and commentary for a couple of years now and again this year we have seen very little sign of progress. I would honestly be happy if next year the gameplay was completely untouched and they spent the full cycle overhauling the various modes, especially Master League.
-VDZE
Reviewed on PS4. Also available on PC and Xbox One. Review code provided by the publisher.
* It is also worth noting that many people have been experiencing issues with AI goalkeepers stay on their line instead of coming out to meet one on one’s, attacking AI constantly looking for low crosses into the box instead of varying their attacks and also refusing to shoot outside the box. I have played almost 50 hours of the game so far and while I can confirm it is an issue as I have seen users posting videos, I have not personally encountered these issues yet.
