FIFA 21 Review - Presentation and Career Mode Improvements Held Back By Gameplay

[ChaseB]

Continuing on from last year, EA gave us a sneak peak of what changes were made...

Written By: Kevin Groves

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[jrnlgrn]

Re: FIFA 21 Review - Presentation and Career Mode Improvements Held Back By Gameplay

Spot on review.

The CM stuff is good. It will definitely add longevity to the mode. Especially with the strict transfers and such. Might be a bit to strict but I'll just take that as an adding challenge. I didn't test it myself but I believe no transaction can take place between rival clubs.

Volta story once again blah I played about 5 minutes of the story and decided I'm good. It does play better but something about the mode doesn't grab me. Still not sure why they don't give your avatar voice option. FIFA *clap* I *clap* AM *clap* NOT *clap* BRITISH!

Agile dribbling it would be cool if only the very best technical players could use it but like you said if everyone can do it what's the point.

Both FIFA and PES just need a foul/ref strictness slider. Why they don't is beyond me.

Ball Physics EA just need to watch how the ball bounces and moves into open space in PES. EA is to reliant on animations much like Madden. Again PES has a good blend of physics and animation based movement.

FIFA is very frustrating as it's always so close to being really good. Either through outright lying or broken gameplay they burn up any good will they earn. Hey we fixed CM, but our FUT guys complained about skill gap so gameplay sucks for offline. Hey Bundesliga package is even better please ignore that we lost 2 leagues and the second division in Italy.

[RoyceDa59]

Re: FIFA 21 Review - Presentation and Career Mode Improvements Held Back By Gameplay

Yeah its sad that we just had to get a year where the finally get the Career mode right to have gameplay suffer this badly, not fair man.

[ReturnoftheTmac]

Re: FIFA 21 Review - Presentation and Career Mode Improvements Held Back By Gameplay

Couldn't agree more. I mostly play competitive clubs and this year just seems like a drag with all the gameplay flaws you mentioned and shocker more bugs on Pro Clubs to go along with all the previous ones. Intrigued by the new career mode changes, but as a previous poster said. Kinda hard to get into with the very subpar gameplay.

[opius]

Re: FIFA 21 Review - Presentation and Career Mode Improvements Held Back By Gameplay

Volta story once again blah I played about 5 minutes of the story and decided I'm good. It does play better but something about the mode doesn't grab me. Still not sure why they don't give your avatar voice option. FIFA *clap* I *clap* AM *clap* NOT *clap* BRITISH!

They have a hidden way of doing this. It wasn't well advertised so not many people know. You simply put subtitles on and your TV on mute and read the words aloud.

As for this review, it is 100% spot on. FIFA doesnt go for realism though or some of these things would've changed in the last 10 years. The lack of marking from midfield is probably the worst aspect of this game. It has improved in a few ways though but idle players (ones not within 10 yards) is still occuring after it plagued FIFA 20 all year. The ball is even more stuck to defenders feet as well and this needs to change as dribblers often keep this ball after somehow surviving a tackle.

[Chrisx]

Re: FIFA 21 Review - Presentation and Career Mode Improvements Held Back By Gameplay

Spot on. To me it's amazing that fifa required more skill and was a more competitive game before the e-sports craze. Roll a dice and play any fifa prior to 18. It's a much better game.

I have no idea what's their thinking behind all the new options. There are dozens of options. You can turn off timed finishing, agile dribbling and many other things (and that's great).

You can even turn competitor mode on/off. Who wants to play against a fifa pro? lol

If you could turn off 1v1s and teams defended as teams this would also be as close to football as it could possibly get. And the new defensive awareness stat? Sorry but it should also be an option or a new slider so that we could have AI with a brain. But no.

I don't think this is by accident, this lack of defending defines the experience and overshadows everything else, good or bad. Maybe they just want everyone to be conditioned to how fut plays so they can feel at home there. I don't know. But with the way the game is (not) balanced, FUT and people who like a football game shall never cross paths anytime soon.

This game needs AI/tactics that's closer to football, if they can make competitor mode, they can make a sim mode, there are no excuses. Personally not even contemplating buying the full game for the second year in a row, it has nothing to do with a team sport, it's something like fortnite. The only difference is that competitive fifa is a joke & no one even cares to watch it so I don't know why they are so obsessed with it.

[PAPERNUT]

Re: FIFA 21 Review - Presentation and Career Mode Improvements Held Back By Gameplay

Excellent review as usual. I am stunned at the setback this game has seen for 21. The only hope we have for this and other EA sports titles is for litigation that destroys Ultimate team. Till then, they will only focus on arcade online $$$.

[Wavebird99]

It sounds like, based on this review and others I've seen on, that the gameplay is largely unchanged from last year. I'm glad headers work properly again, but defensive midfielders not tracking  back was a major issue last season too. Sad to see its not been addressed- thankfully offline sliders were a major help in 20 (loved the community sliders and what they were able to accomplish.) 

Online play has been bad for years now. Its too fast and arcadey, although I understand that appeals to people to some degree. Regardless, I never play online. 

I'm looking forward to career mode's improvements + hoping that some slider tweaks will make the gameplay better. Maybe a couple of game updates will help. 

Great review- the videos in particular were a really nice addition. Definitely one of the best I've seen from the site! 

[PhillyPhanatic14]

Re: FIFA 21 Review - Presentation and Career Mode Improvements Held Back By Gameplay

Interesting review. I have enjoyed the gameplay more than 20 so far. I've only had the 10 ea access hours, but it played great during that time. We'll see tomorrow when I transport to New Zealand and get my hands on the game for more time, but I thought those impressions were a bit harsh.

I do have to wonder though... who is playing Volta? Who asked for there to be another story? Why can't that mode be an option in kickoff and they leave it at that and invest those resources into a mode people actually play like be a pro? Very strange.

[kasa]

I agree on mostly everything except the presentation and career mode. The Presentation  is great but the same as FIFA 20. No changes/improvements at all actually..
the career mode changes are also more tweaks then big improvements. Nothing special.

[ChrisSwift]

Re: FIFA 21 Review - Presentation and Career Mode Improvements Held Back By Gameplay

I was really disappointed when I played the free trial,the game has changed so much from the closed beta,which I thought was the best fifa gameplay ever.

[PhillyPhanatic14]

Re: FIFA 21 Review - Presentation and Career Mode Improvements Held Back By Gameplay

I was really disappointed when I played the free trial,the game has changed so much from the closed beta,which I thought was the best fifa gameplay ever.

That's interesting. I thought the beta gameplay was rough. Sprint touches were a guaranteed way to get behind the defense. CB's couldn't cover anything like FIFA20. Pace of place was way too fast. All of that has been fixed and it seems much more balanced.


I know that I can get a totally different offensive experience in past games based on my formation and tactics so that could be why we're seeing different things... The diamond 4-4-2 always seems to expose AI CBs. That's what i used in the beta but I'm using a different formation now so that could be why I'm seeing better gameplay.

[Qb]

Re: FIFA 21 Review - Presentation and Career Mode Improvements Held Back By Gameplay

I know that I can get a totally different offensive experience in past games based on my formation and tactics so that could be why we're seeing different things...

That's a great point and part of what makes it so hard to analyze gameplay and tune sliders (if that's your thing, I enjoy it). The formations, tactics, instructions, and matchups really do matter. Now it might not be in 100% realistic way in all scenarios, but they cause a lot of variation in play regardless.

[manolo14]

Re: FIFA 21 Review - Presentation and Career Mode Improvements Held Back By Gameplay

Do you recommend to stay in fifa20 at the moment?

[KG]

Re: FIFA 21 Review - Presentation and Career Mode Improvements Held Back By Gameplay

I know that I can get a totally different offensive experience in past games based on my formation and tactics so that could be why we're seeing different things... The diamond 4-4-2 always seems to expose AI CBs. That's what i used in the beta but I'm using a different formation now so that could be why I'm seeing better gameplay.

That's a great point and part of what makes it so hard to analyze gameplay and tune sliders (if that's your thing, I enjoy it). The formations, tactics, instructions, and matchups really do matter. Now it might not be in 100% realistic way in all scenarios, but they cause a lot of variation in play regardless.

You're both absolutely right that you'll see variation when you change up your formations and tactics/instructions. What I tried to hammer home in the review was really focused on what happens when the fundamentals (positioning) mixes with bad AI (midfielders not tracking runs and/or who to mark). Attacking AI overall is pretty damn good but OP'd IMO.

Here's an example of what I mean. Sorry for the crappy quality lol.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/oqS6-O5ZVOE" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

A clearance by me leads to a 50-50 ball which I win nearly the circle. 2 CPU CBs in the halfway circle too tight to each other. The CB closer to the halfway line sees the threat and points out to the other CB to pass off Vinicius Jr (cool feature btw) but instead of staying with the closer attacker (Benzema) he jockeys and only takes a step forward basically inviting me to play a through ball to Benz forcing other CB to run across his zone which leaves him yards off the pace. Benz isn't even that fast anymore but it's still an easy footrace to a 1v1 vs the keeper which I miss but is followed up by Vinicius Jr who does a great job of staying with his run.

Because FIFA is generally wide open you'll get in so many 2v2 / 2v1 situations where the square ball tap-in is on. FB's on default line settings get pulled way too far midfield with the CBs bunched up leaving entire wings open.

Sure you can mess with some sliders and edit formations/player instructions but I played FIFA 20 up until the day I got FIFA 21 early and even at it's worst, FIFA 20 wasn't this bad when it comes to defending.