"eFootball PES 2020" Review

For the past decade, Konami has exercised as much of a stranglehold on soccer superiority as Virtual Concepts has with its "NBA 2K" series. Although "PES" has always trailed in team licenses and player likenesses, its on-field action has managed to maintain its lead without being content to park the bus and wait for EA to catch up.

With such impressive advancements in areas such as its career and franchise mode in recent editions, the main challenge for "PES" was to evolve its public profile and establish a foothold in the realms of streaming and competitions. And that's just what the team at Konami has targeted as it starts a fresh decade at the top of the table.

Konami figuratively shifted its midfield and defenders forward in an all-out assault on the goal of becoming the premier esports destination for soccer gamers. Exhaustive efforts were given to balancing, server integrity, accurate physics and minimized perfunctory animations to strip the game of happenstance and place the emphasis on skill, tactics and reaction time to determine success.

Also benefitting from a boost in pomp, presentation and replay integration, "PES 2020" might have risked danger of losing its sense of fist-pumping fun on the pitch. From the first kickoff, though, any worries that the game would lean in too mechanical a direction are dashed. This is still very much a game designed, broken down and rebuilt by a team obsessed with the thrills, absurdities and goofiness of the game. As a result, the on-field action plays with a brisk, set piece-emphasizing vigor that retains the adrenaline of schoolyard and pickup matches.

While legacy AI hiccups linger, this is easily the smoothest and most logical match flow anyone has managed to craft to this point. Strategizing against the computer continues to evolve into a game of overreactive cat and mouse, with creativity and craftsmanship rewarded over monotonous spamming of safe, basic routines.

The next realm Konami can set out to conquer is online mode innovation. If esports continues to be part of the modus operandi, it will be important to craft minigames and overall progression that make online soccer as vital a part of a gamer's agenda as the likes of "Call of Duty" or "Fortnite." A three-on-three mode, skills competition or micro-challenge subcategory could fit the bill, and no doubt the squad behind the generation's most complete soccer game is hard at work envisioning the future.

For now, this fresh and vital edition of eFootball is more than enough to keep the soccer-obsessed enthralled.

Publisher provided review code.