PES 2017 is best entry of Pro Evolution Soccer on Current Gen Consoles. As you play the game more and more, you keep improving and getting better. PES 2017 gameplay is smooth and so connected with player inputs, there is no delay in thought and action.
Players on the field somehow already know what I am trying to achieve and when you achieve it, that feeling is exciting. There is added depth and tactical innovations which adds to the authentic football feeling.
There are various innovations in PES 2017 like playerID, various player animations improvements along with first touch and deals with many major clubs to have real authentic players and teams in the game.
Scoring a goal in PES 2017 is tough, it somewhat feels like an achievement against good teams. Similarly maintaining the goal difference is equally tough, but at the end of each game you feel a sense of accomplishment which other football games from the past fail to provide. Each goal you score, each successful pass you do, every cross that results in a goal and every tackle which results in gaining possession, you will feel connected to the game and the players. Players coming from FIFA will have to face slight learning curve. It’s just that PES has slightly simpler controls to create a beautiful football experience.
The variety of ways that an attack can result in a goal is amazing. Every team has different strengths and their approach is different too. With advance strategy options in place you can apply various tactics to score a goal.
Since this is the first year all these options have been added, they lack depth, you will soon feel running out of variety. Hopefully in future iterations players will be able to craft their own strategies and tactics, just like a real manager.
With the licenses of teams like Barcelona and Liverpool, the teams play like their real life counterparts. There are only handful of licensed teams which results in lack of realism. Konami has countered this by providing an option to the players to download Kits and player names from PESWorld, which contains kits created by hard working PES community.
All modes from last year make a return with cleaner UI with everything else remaining more or less same.
Master League features a change in transfer deadline with players able to make incoming and outgoing decisions every two hours. Its slightly hard to get hang of it initially but it does focus more to keep players on their feet regarding the deadlines.
The online part of PES 2017 is the weakest. With long wait time to get matches, lag, random disconnections and input delay makes online part of PES underwhelming. It’s still better than last year but still not good enough.
It’s such a shame the online part brings the whole game down especially when the actual football part of PES is excellent.
