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The more I play the demo, the more I summarize my experiences in one word:
Joy.
It has taken me some time to get used to it, but now I can safely say that I prefer the PES 17 demo gameplay over any football gameplay since PES 5 and 6.
Maybe I'm still overreacting because it's early days and it's only a demo, but I have been keeping my feelings private for fear of blowing things out of proportion. Nonetheless, here are the areas in which I find PES 17 to be vastly superior to any FIFA offering in the last 5 years. Yes, 5 years.
1. Shooting and Passing | Ball Weight: I love the weight of the ball and when it does hit the woodwork or the keeper or a defender's leg, it looks and feels like it had genuine gravity behind it. FIFA, for years, has made deflections look like they hit steel rather than flesh. PES 17 is not perfect, but it's excellent.
2. Dribbling: Auto-feint is fantastic, thanks Nuno for point out how to do that. Now that I've gotten the hang of it, I feel quite competent in tight spaces with just using auto-feint and the special controls button to stop quickly. I even like the dash button much more than the double-tap of the right stick that's used in FIFA. In fact, overall I don't find this category even close. PES 17 is vastly superior to FIFA's dribbling mechanics.
3. Variety: Every single game I've played feels quite different, or at the very least, there is a sort of recipe book for how things will go based on context. This *may* be subject to change and I'm going to be careful with managing my expectations. By the time January rolled around with FIFA 16, it got to the point where it didn't matter if I was playing Bournemouth in August or Real Madrid in a champions league final, the CPU would do the same monotonous crap over and over and over again. I could basically take a smoke break while the CPU attacked (or run out and buy a pack of cigs since I don't smoke).
4. Build-up: the way an attack is put together both by the CPU and by my AI teammates feels fan-effing-tastic. I feel at times, with practice, that I could make my team play like Liverpool in 2013-2014. Conversely, if I want to play back and counter, it feels like an option. There's a sense of freedom in choices and the CPU makes a moderately good dance partner, reacting to whatever I'm doing accordingly, and vice-versa.
5. Aerial game: there is no argument here. Whether it's long-ball, 50/50 challenges, goal kicks, crosses, the way jockeying and aerial affairs are handled through PES is simply superb. In FIFA, I feel like I might as well just flip a coin and pray.
6. Set pieces: no comparison. When you send in a ball from a set piece in FIFA, it's a beach ball that's lofted with zero threat. If you don't go for goal, you're wasting your time. In PES 17, I love that I can finally whip the ball in and give a target man a chance to put his hat on it.
6. Fouls: I think the refs and fouls are extremely good in the PES 17 demo. I love knowing that I can frustrate the CPU into sticking a leg out when guys like Mezil and Iniesta are on the ball. I'm averaging about 4-5 fouls per game, often in dangerous areas of the pitch, which leads me to...
7. CROSSES! - how could I leave this for last? I FRIGGIN' LOVE crossing the ball in PES *and* I love watching the CPU do it. It looks right! There's pace, zip, movement, and quality on the crosses. It's not cheesed like in FIFA where I feel like all I have to do is wait for the exact moment that the CPU defender will sag and I'm guaranteed to score. You can send crosses into the mixer and if your players have the quality aka. Giroud, you have a good chance to at least get your hat on it even if you're defended. You're still not likely to get it on target, but it just looks and feels right.
FWIW, I'm playing on the lightest assisted settings and Superstar with -2 speed. As I get better, I'll do manual.
Now, here are the areas where I feel like PES 17 still needs some help:
1. Tackling is a bit too easy and the CPU dribbles into tackles too frequently. Yes, even on Superstar.
2. Generally, I think the CPU needs a bit more venom, but I'm not sure I'll ever be satisfied there. That said, PES 17 is orders of magnitude better than FIFA 16 in this regard.
3. All the bells and whistles: it's a damn shame, but I know that I might end up having both games this year because I'll love the big shiny ball that EA puts out with all its licenses, presentation, graphics, UI, etc. I understand that Konami are probably broke, but they should at least spend $10-20K on a proper UI/UX designer for their menus. WTF, there is no excuse for this nonsense in 2016! For shame. Even without licenses, they should at least have a beautiful looking interface. That doesn't require FIFA or FA cooperation.
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