Before starting I would like to clarify that I am a person who has never been very attracted to the sport of soccer and in general any sports or simulation game. However, I have played them when I was a kid and today, I can finally say that I half bury the hatchet about whether or not I like soccer games.
the race of your life
You know that feeling when you’ve done something right and you celebrate it without realizing it? That is exactly what happened to me when I scored my first goal on goal in FIFA 23 and I raised my hand yelling “goool!” without me intending to do so. Was this what they call fun? Most likely yes, since there are many game modes that are quite curious. The game modes in general are entertaining and some are even fun, such as the career mode, where we can choose to play as a player or as a manager. In my case I decided to try playing it both as a manager and with a real player.
In this mode, the days will pass as we advance by clicking “Continue” and we will have to manage our team with the objectives, investing in various things such as donations or buying others such as a swimming pool that will give us different types of points such as worker or rebel points. , among others. In addition, in the process we will have to play normal simulation matches, fast simulation and even be able to play real matches in this career mode.
In this case, the only novelty has been that in career mode we can choose a real player like Simeone, Klopp or Guardiola, among many others. For the rest, there isn’t too much novelty beyond being able to simulate matches and select the highlights so that we play them if we only want the best of the emotion that, although it’s not bad either, it’s always better to play the match yourself.
Also, another novelty are the scenes after some relatively important games, as well as the possibility of selecting the AFC Richmond team with Ted Lasso as manager. However, that story mode that we long for so much has been missing for some time and, unfortunately, due to the short development time, it cannot be implemented.
Street football could not miss
A descendant of FIFA Street and giving it a more simulator and less arcade touch is Volta Football, the modality where we will play 3v3, 4v4 and even 5v5 matches. Although it is also true that they have added a small novelty and that is that, like the Pro Clubs mode, now we can get together with ten friends to form a complete team to really exploit the potential of the online mode. In this sense, we will move up in positions so that we add progression both in the most arcade game modes such as minigames and in the most classic modes.
In the game process we will be able to fulfill certain objectives to obtain some rewards as packs, VOLTA coins and PT coins that will not be used to customize our player main or our entire team if we wish. However, despite the fact that I have seen all this quite entertaining, I have not been able to stop missing a story mode that would have encouraged me much more to become addicted to this title that has already eaten up many hours of my free time. .
The long-awaited FUT mode
Being a beginner player, I am not surprised that at first I had a hard time understanding everything that surrounds the FUT mode that is so requested year after year and that it is really what moves the players who buy FIFA annually. A novelty compared to other years is that a kind of challenge has been added to what they have called FUT Moments. These are modes where we can participate in somewhat special moments in games of star soccer players like Mbappé among others. Some of these moments are somewhat limited while others are based on real events that have actually happened. Completing these FUT Moments will earn us very juicy rewards with which to progress more easily.
Although this small mode with challenges added entirely to the FUT mode has been a great novelty that has given Ultiamte Team a certain difference and more variety, the truth is that maybe it would have been better being a completely independent mode of FUTsince that way they could have further broadened the horizons as NBA 2K23 did with its Jordan Challenge mode, which gave the title a lot of freshness.
Good gameplay is essential
FIFA 23 is not a game that has applied any notable changes, but instead has decided to improve some aspects and add other elements. In this case, Electronic Arts has not needed to put its fist on the table to radically change the gameplay, but has left it almost the same as in the previous title, although this does not have to be bad if we talk about this year the Hypermotion engine was revamped to Hypermotion2 in order to capture more than double the data on the movements of soccer players when capturing animations. I fully corroborate EA’s words about Hypermotion2 and its novelties, since as soon as you play for a long time you can see new animations with much more natural movements than in FIFA 22.
As if that were not enough and as was more than obvious, this novelty of Hypermotion2 has been applied to female soccer players, so you can imagine that the experience of seeing such good animations is quite pleasant. This novelty with more natural and fluid movements is not only aesthetic, but also helps when playing, because now we can see that the players will react much more quickly to our commands such as making a low pass or hitting the ball on goal.
Secondly, I have no complaints about the Artificial Intelligence, as it seems that it is not only good, but has been improved over previous years, because in the beginner difficulty they will not be stupid, but they will not give us goals either, while in the Legend difficulty (the highest difficulty) they will use all the existing and existing soccer techniques to give us a real beating when it comes to play so as not to leave us or get close to their goal. In fact, the quality of the matches is quite good if you play in Professional, as you will see very close matches between your team and the rival’s.
A continuous technical section
That’s how it is. The technical section remains the same, since we can continue to see that the footballers could be more like the real ones, something that does not seem that they are going to want to dedicate more effort to it. In addition, the stadiums are still full of twin brothers and twins, the public being several clones copied and pasted together. Of course we don’t ask to make a million NPCs for each stadium, but maybe we do hide it in some way or distribute the public better so that there are not so many clones together.
Something that has surprised me is the grass, since unlike in previous deliveries, now all the damage that we do to it between falls and steps will remain marked until the end of the game, which I did not expect since in most of games any mark on the floor of footsteps is gradually erased. At first it may seem like a minor detail, but this gives the game greater realism as far as physics are concerned, both for the movements and animations and for the treatment of the grass. All thanks to Hypermotion2.
A dream soundtrack
For ass tastes, that each one has their own (or so the saying goes) since not all of us have the same tastes, but if we go into the sound section I have to become more subjective, since some hit songs like Big Talk by sofy or SAOKO of Rosalia I liked them a lot while other shadows like Ojitos Lindos from bad bunny I liked them less (or directly I didn’t even like them), but in general I must say that each and every one of the songs have been carefully selected so that this FIFA 23 has a soundtrack for all the tastes and colors of any player .
As for the commentators, I have been able to notice that there have been some recycled comments from previous games and, although I don’t know how many games they have been recycling for, I hope that in the next Electronic Arts football title they will change the commentators or for at least add new lines of dialogue between the mythical Paco González and Manolo Lama.
conclusion
After playing FIFA 23 for many days (and hours) I have been able to realize that you should never judge a video game genre simply because it does not appeal to you, since you will probably end up seeing something good in the title after spending a few hours. . However, here the question arises as to whether this game should really come out at full price or even maintain the annual release format, something that may change with the new EA Sports FC format for the next year 2023.
If you are a fan of FIFA, it is most likely that you are already enjoying the game or plan to do so soon, but if you are not convinced of your purchase, perhaps with the free updates of the Qatar 2022 World Cup and a more than possible discount for those dates, do make it a much juicier product.