Recent reviews by Die Ofynnfrische

The best PES in recent years!

Gameplay - unmatched details in ball handling- animation (though some look robotic), consistent physics engine, no playstyle is overpowered, enough details to customize your own strategy, passing-system is unrivaled, shooting feels heavy and powerful, deadly passes are nicely balanced at least imo

Graphics - Beautiful (except supporters, they still look like cardboard)

Sound - Still garbage

Online - Who even plays PES online

Offline - Mostly consistent A.I. with a few exceptions (wrong loose ball pathing or behave strangely in 1v1 situations, especially when physical contact is involved)

Mod support - for beginners there is the option to simply add teams, kits, etc. via the document folder of PES, for more advanced improvements like adding a scoreboard- or stadium server additional knowledge is required to setup these mods.

Licenses - Let's not talk about that

Rating - 91/100

infinite replay value = unlimited fun and experiences.

I eventually decided to give my opinion on the current version of PES because I deleted it after about 50 hours of gameplay.
Why you may ask?

1. The gameplay itself

This year comes with a few changes to the modern feeling of the PES gameplay that we all love or hate, it all depends on your preferences like realistic/arcade pace, wide pitches/moderate pitches, details of player models,etc.
Like previous entries PES 2019 takes the approach of trying to make the game look (!) as realistic as it can get. But that's exactly the point why this years' PES is falling short to its competitor. Making your game look beautiful like a presentation of a football game on TV won't translate to the accessability of the controls and the feeling in general when you are not aware of that right at the beginning of the developement. Controlling players feels odd, defense is nearly unplayable, the passing system isn't as intuitive as last year and the AI in this game can change from Easy-Mode to Insanity-Football God-Mode in a matter of seconds when you play on the higher difficulty settings. Talking about AI... Your team on the other hand consists of 8 morons and 3 players that actually do something: The goalkeeper, you, the guy running right next to you. This phenomenon can be seen not only on offense but on defense as well. Players on defense will stick to their preset opponent all game long but when there is an attack starting from the enemy team suddenly the center backs decide to slow down and watch the strikers run past them. And this is not a thing that happened to me once. About 80% of the goals I concede are either these or headers from the weirdest angles. The other 20% are the goals where one of my players deflects the ball right to an enemy strikers' foot.
So because I mentioned one of the problems on defense let's just take a look at this abomination of a gameplay element.
Not only center backs act like garbage cans in situations of pressure but actually the entire team (besides the aforementioned exceptions to the rule) will be trying to make it as easy as possible for the attackers to seek a way through the midfield, especially on counter plays. Taking one of the CM's will cover up the center of the pitch but then you left open the wings and the OP-wide throughballs catch you off guard because you decided to choose the CM. It's really a never ending circle of frustration because all of your decisions cause bad things eventually.
No critizism towards the goalkeepers, they do their job appropriately.


2. The sounds

This years' soundtrack is actually OK when you compare it to the recent games but that is the only good thing you can tell about this games' sound-design.
Crowds sing the same songs all over again, only the Camp Nou has a special anthem that the supporters sing, there are random changes of the volume of the crowd (it feels like they are randomly choosing to shout and stop) and sometimes when the home team scores a goal they won't even recognize it I guess because they are too busy figuring out their volume for the next two minutes.
Sound feedback on the pitch is barely noticeable for example the passing sounds or hitting the crossbar with a powerful shot. Not espcially a bad thing but a bit more feedback would have been nice.


3. The graphics

The Fox engine fits the game perfectly and creates a realistic atmosphere ON(!) the pitch with accurate player faces, nice shadows and lighting, detailed grass and some effects like dirt on faces and kits after tackles and fouls.
But off the pitch the game only looks good from far away (outside cam, where you can see the entire stadium). The supporters again just look ugly and the animations are terrible and repetitive as well.
The animations of the players also often don't look that fluently when you take a closer look. They seem more like a rough succession of puzzle pieces put together than smooth interlocked animations.

Overall I can't recommend this game just looking at its core elements. I won't dig any deeper into the gamemodes, etc. because they just fulfill their purpose and are not worth mentioning when talking about the core gameplay experience.