eFootball Pro Evolution Soccer 2020 Review

The wait is over and, football fans can enjoy PES 2020 or, instead, eFootball PES 2020. Konami football simulator comes with a longer name and, probably, its best proposal to date. Yet, with the same lack of variety in offline game modes, just like previous installments.

Rest assured, Pes 2020 is the best simulator football of this generation … at least on the field.

Totally Real Soccer

After playing for many days, hours and matches in PES 2020 we can say that we are, on the pitch, before our favourite PES to date, enjoying the games and all the game actions that are very true to reality and will make you think, that you are watching/playing a real football match .

One of the first details that we have noticed this year is the importance of the position of the player when he is going to make a shot or a pass, especially when we are with less skilled players who, for example, will fail sly if they must force their position to pass a partner who is behind his back or in a position where they have to make some unnatural movement to send the ball.

In fact, in PES 2020, it will be essential in many occasions to control and orient our player where we want to direct the ball, leaving the game at the first touch only available to players with better statistics on the pitch.

Speaking of control , we have also noticed specific improvements of the players when receiving the ball , adapting their position intelligently before the arrival of the ball and also having new skills such as touchless control that will allow us to run next to the ball without touching it, waiting, for example, for a rival defender to snatch it to give a small touch and gain a distinct advantage in the game.

All this, obviously, would not matter if the physics of the ball were not, once again, brilliant, both when shot from the feet and when bouncing on the grass, hit an opponent, jumps with any of the goalposts, we made a game change and another good handful of actions with which we will enjoy greatly especially when we dominate this delivery, and we are able to braid great plays.

The pace of the game is also very satisfactory, and although we believe that a small point has been raised since the demo, it is slower than that of PES 2019 and even much more realistic than in previous editions.

Of course, at the level of playability when we face the “machine”, AI, CPU or as you prefer to call it , we have again noticed the typical “Konami” in the Legend difficulty , in which even the most modest teams will defend, and they will attack too precisely for their level and in which if we make a foul near our area it will mean, too many times, a goal against. An unrealistic punishment that will sometimes take us out of a great gaming experience.

New dribbles, skills and faults easier to score

PES 2020 has included unique dribbles in which is the subtle dribbling system that allows us to break a player with a small movement of ours in a small space, anticipating his movement to “tackle/steal the ball”

We also have new skills available in the game, one of the most prominent being the “Pass in Depth” that will greatly improve the players who have it when performing this action.

In addition, some of what we have also noticed is that this year the launch of faults is more natural to execute and, in fact, marking a foul in this PES 2020 is relatively easy, perhaps too much when we take the peace of mind to launch direct free kick.

Defences, tactics and referees

Turning to the defence, we find more realistic executions in the defensive movements thanks to a higher number of animations that make us cut a competitive play easier on our part noticing how the players load or brace efficiently to hinder the movements of the attacker.

We have also noticed that, in general, the defences throw off the playing fields better, behaving more intelligently when executing them without any defender getting caught. Of course, with specific tactical systems and at certain moments of the matches, the back of the defences is too vulnerable to well-executed deep passes.

We have also found some somewhat strange behaviour of the players in balls that arrive very rainy s or after some unusual pot of the ball.

If we look at the tactical section, during the matches we will clearly notice both the different formations of our players and all the tactics that we introduce to the flight and that will charge a great weight during the match, obediently executing our pressure tactics being a joy for all those who like to make a great tactical approach.

Finally, in this section, we want to talk about the referees, who sin, sometimes, to make too many fouls needing some adjustment in this regard. Of course, we also believe that they are quite fair when it comes to showing both yellow and red cards.

Goalkeepers

We can say without fear that the goalkeepers that we are in PES 2020 are the best that the series has had to date, behaving with agility both in shots from outside the area and in plain, placed and lighter balls (something that failed in previous years) and even with stops of exceptional merit in second plays.

Of course, the less skilled goalkeepers’ sin of leaving little, very little to the crossed balls (something that does not happen with some top goalkeepers like Neuer) and their decisions when it comes to blocking or clearing a center, sometimes, they are not the best of the world.

A new and better Master League

Moving from what happens within the field to what happens outside it is time to talk about offline game modes , in which we can enjoy the typical friendly, cups, leagues, games with teams with random players, the versus mode that keeps a record of our confrontations in local mode against other players for those eternal afternoons of vice in the company in front of the screen or the Being A Legend mode in which we can become a player and forge our career as a footballer with an edition without just changes that remain as drowsy as until now.

Beyond these game modes, the king of offline in PES 2020 is, as always, the Master League in which we can start a career as a Sports Director and create the team of our dreams or go leading to better clubs making signings, managing their tactics and, obviously, playing each and every game we want.

Something inexplicable in this year’s edition and, in our view, lacking in mind is that this time we will not be able to create a manager to our liking with our appearance or the physical characteristics we want. Instead, we will have to choose from a total of 18 technical directors among which we will find legends such as Roberto Carlos, Cruyff, Maradona, Zico and many others, being able to modify, simply, their name, nationality, and if on the pitch they will dress in shirt, suit or tracksuit.

Beyond this, there are two main changes in the Master League for this year, the new kinematics and an obvious improvement in the transfer market and in the evolution of the players that increase the attractiveness of this game mode.

If we talk about the kinematics, we find videos that will put some context to our career as technical directors, sometimes choosing the answers to the club president or the press to forge our legend as coaches.

The problem is that the kinematics are repeated too many times, and they are not going any more and the answers, in many cases, are too similar and do not affect the game itself beyond the answer we will have to give at the beginning of the season to Choose the objectives of our team and if you have a strong condition when developing our work throughout the season.

Better luck is the market system and the evolution of the players in whom we do find a clear and evident improvement that makes the Master League more attractive than years ago.

The transfer system seems now more realistic, balanced and customizable, having to use our coconut well and analyzing data and statistics of the players to make the appropriate signing at the right time having to take into account both our budget to sign and the salary limit of our team. Besides, scouts will give us much better recommendations than in previous editions.

As for the evolution of the players, we believe that this time it is much more realistic, with a constant progression in its characteristics and less wild in the young stars that will need many more games than before to be able to stand out in a great team.

At the visual level in the main menus of the Master League we also find some changes that make them something more attractive to the eye, but, despite this, in our view, it could be further improved in this aspect.

In short, the Master League comes with some improvements that will make it more interesting than, on previous occasions, especially for lovers of signings and template management, but it still needs more changes to be a much more dynamic and attractive way for players. In addition, PES 2020 still needs new game modes for a player that gives a fresh air to the title and allows him to take that necessary leap out of the virtual playing field to fight, in this sense, with his maximum rival.

A very polished online without major failures

One of the critical points in most sports games today are multiplayer modes that allow us to face players from all over the world to play games with our favourite teams or with those we have created in myClub mode, a classic already within the PES series.

We will start talking about the performance of online modes in general, which we have noticed polished and without failures, with most of the games we have played without any problem of lag or slowdowns, although, as always, we have also found with some game with small pulls, although they have been very, very few.

A detail that we liked a lot is that in competitive modes or with ranks such as divisions or ranked matches, before starting the game, we can see the quality of our rival’s internet signal to decide whether or not we want to, face him based on his internet connection.

MyClub

Within the online modes, the main claim will once again be MyClub, a way that allows us to form, little by little, our dream team collecting different players and signing coaches to end up making our favourite tactic and template.

As it is a recurring way already in the saga we are not going to go too much into the details of the mode, beyond telling you that certain adjustments have been made so that the start with our team is much more acceptable , allowing us to have a reasonably decent team in a few games thanks to the initial transfer, a first golden representative and the initial championships that give us a total of 50,000 GP (one of the coins of the game) that will allow us to acquire a pair of representatives that will provide us with a total of six players.

We also believe that it is a somewhat fairer way of renewing our players in the squad, allowing us to make a more stable team to grow gradually in this particular way without spending money on the payment currency that remains the same and maintaining the prices of previous editions.

As for the games that we can play in myClub, we will find drinks with great prizes to improve our team, ranking matches, simulation games, cooperative or friendly matches that give enough variety to the way it is, by far, the most fun of the title and who knows how to keep us playing games without stopping.

In addition, in this edition (beyond the usual, friendly Online Divisions and the typical online games that this year are included in eFootball) we have a new game mode called MatchDay , a cup in which we have to choose a side and Earn points for it by defeating the players on the opposite side in games.

After a while, the results of all the matches are added, and the winning side will have an advantage of goals for a grand final that will be played by a player who will choose the rest of the members of the team.

It is a very particular way that, in addition, is linked to myClub since it offers us certain rewards as scouts or coins that we can redeem in the star mode of the PES 2020 online.

The new camera

One of the novelties of PES 2020 that has been most talked about since the launch of its demo is its new camera for the games, baptized with the name of the camera of the Stadium.

It is true that during the first games we can take a while to get used to this new camera and that the actions carried out by the band farthest from it, sometimes, they look a bit small but, in general, we believe that it is a handy and perfect camera that will allow us to deploy our best game, being able to see more clearly than ever everything that happens in the field, the position of the rival defence or the unchecking of our players, allowing us to spin plays of a way much more straightforward.

In the course of our matches, we have detected that on particular occasions the camera sometimes takes a while to react and we lose sight of our player for a few moments. They have been a couple of punctual failures, both after a corner kick, which generally does not spoil our satisfaction with the camera but must be corrected for the future.

In addition, it should be pointed out that, in online game modes, PES 2020 has the usual camera that the soccer simulator deliveries have had to date, so you should not worry in this regard (in addition, even if it was not so you can always return to the old camera from the camera menus, so there is not much problem either).

Beyond the camera, this edition of PES 2020 has some graphic improvements that we will notice, above all, in the quality of lighting and in the grass, which at least before our eyes are more realistic than in PES 2019. They are not a big jump, nor will they revolutionize football games, but, of course, some improvement is noticeable.

Also, to say that we have enjoyed the game in the PS4 Pro version being able to have 4K resolution at 60 fps without any fall or performance problem that seems to be very well optimized at least in the Sony console.

If we turn to the sound the music offered by the game, despite not having too many pieces, accompanies very well at all times and is quite good, while the sound of the effects of the ball, the hobbies in the field, the blows with The post and others are excellent.

Of course, once again the comments for Spain are somewhat bland and have very little work and, at least we have barely detected new lines following a tonic too common in the saga that leaves us, as always, cold.

Significant investment for licenses

Before putting an end to the analysis of PES 2020, we did not want to stop talking about the licenses of the game, a point that always runs rivers of ink and must be included in the analysis of the game.

Konami, little by little, seems to be regaining ground on the issue of licensing, investing more and more money in this regard and even getting some very popular licenses such as Juventus or Eurocopa 2020, exclusive to the football simulator from Konami.

In addition, Konami has placed particular emphasis on seizing the rights of some of the most influential teams and competitions in Latin America or Asia, two territories in which PES is very popular and in which the license obtains its best sales results.

At a particular level in Spain, we have the unlicensed Santander League, except for the Football Club Barcelona, and with our Second Division, also without licenses. Of course, correcting the names of the teams, shirts, shields and competitions is very easy thanks to the Option Files, mods of the community compatible with PS4 and PC that can be installed in about five minutes and so Very simple as we explain in this tutorial.

Also, clarify again that although the names of the teams or their shirts are not real, the players do have both their name and their authentic appearance, so, although Real Madrid is the Madrid Chamartín, its players as Sergio Ramos, Marcelo or Hazard are authentic.

Final Thoughts

eFootball PES 2020 is, without a doubt, the best football simulator we have seen in this generation of consoles, at least while the ball rolls through the grass from foot to foot, from player to player, from goal to goal.

Yes, it is true that the game modes continue to incorporate few improvements and that more work is needed in this regard to satisfy the players even more and that Konami must put effort and work more intensively throughout this game plot that, despite the changes, it remains somewhat short.

However, all the deficiencies of PES 2020 are covered when we start each game, when we braid one and the other play, we make game changes, deep passes, anticipations, shots or we reach the goal orgasm since, despite these modes of game, despite some small failures this PES hooks like no other and pushes you again to take over, start another game and win and win and win and win back.

We have performed this review testing the game on PS4 Pro with a digital code provided by Konami.

Below is a 1 of  3   US region PS4 code for Pes 2020 thanks to Konami

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