The bumpy start of a great idea: eFootball
In short, the new Konami title that promised to wash the face of soccer simulators and be a sea of innovation where Pro Evolution Soccer did not end up convincing started with the wrong foot in the market, delays, poor performance, bugs everywhere and a feeling that we are seeing an inferior version to what was being done for years with PES and its poor but constant improvements, eFootball may not be the goose that lays the golden eggs for Konami, it is more, it feels as if the company itself has taken out of the market the only one that could face the EA machinery with its FIFA, among all the restructuring that has been done for this supposed PES 22 are several interesting ideas in between, this post will be somewhat different because I will not talk about the whole game but specific ideas that I found interesting to focus more especially in a genre that has seen a drop by drop development product of annual deliveries, we analyze what Konami has done well (and bad) with its new proposal.
The first thing that comes through the eyes of the new Konami title is its price, over the years the price of each new annual release of both PES and its rival FIFA has been in an eternal debate about whether each installment had enough improvements to be sold at the price of a full game, and Konami has blown the door off by announcing that its flagship sports title would now be free and have a much more "game-as-a-service" approach with all the game modes and competitions that the original game boasted as well as a new control system that promised to turn some heads, from Konami itself this game was promoted as a rebirth of the soccer saga with a much friendlier approach to those who could not spend the money of a full game in a simple adjustment of templates, now these were updated for free in the form of seasons in the purest style of games like Fortnite or Overwatch, in short a lot of content without spending a euro but with limited margin in terms of budget, something that could have greatly influenced the game in its development stage.
But let's talk about mechanics especially its gameplay and is that eFootball had the premise of reforming the classic controls of PES games and give them a twist, being clear that the premise "give total control to the player" enters the scene in each match, but it has not seemed to me a revolution or something similar but a small change that I trust can be developed further as the title is taking hold and receive feedback from their players, to give you some context on the "total control" Konami has made a great effort to give players controls that will satisfy both those who are learning to kick the ball as the most experienced of the genre, for this implements different levels where previous controls are simplified to make the experience much more affordable, the playing field becomes much more physical having a command for physical actions in both defense and attack as well as another to vary between numerous types of passes, ball controls and shots. eFootball makes itself understood among novices but also allows to make the game much more complex and play with the controls, it is an advance in this innovative mechanics that this new saga wants to have but far from that revolutionary control that eFootball needed.
Another mechanic that has impressed me a lot is the importance that eFootball now gives to tactics and formations, what might seem a waste of time in previous titles or in the same FIFA takes on a new meaning thanks to artificial intelligence, capable of both running plays in attack and effectively retreat in defense, something that I have found quite differentiating from match to match especially when we are going to counterattack, if we define a strategy before the match, we have enough quality players to execute it and they are also committed (which is another interesting mechanic) we can perform and even create quite a few interesting situations with the ball.
I think that today there can not be a title that excites me more like this, Konami is risking a lot by getting out of the competition they had with FIFA to throw themselves fully into a business model that until now had been unthinkable to apply in games of this genre, my position I think is clear, despite the recent lousy launch that eFootball has had I think that if Konami can get together, fix their strategies and improve the quality of their product we can be seeing a competitor close to the empire that has created FIFA, EA and its Online, everything remains to be seen and I could not be more excited to see what comes out of all this.