Unbelievable
It was then that I wondered about it being worth the £30 that I'd shelled out on it. The controls were the same, but the game felt different. It just didn't quite feel like Pro Evo at the time and I seriously thought about selling it. How did i feel different? Well, if Pro Evo 4 is all about midfields and passing, this is all about the strikers and defenders; flowing moves are far harder to build in this, and defenders snap at ankles like persistent jack russels, making it harder for you to get the time and space. It was frustrating. I went back to Pro Evo 4 to build up my Master League squad a bit more.
It was about a month after I'd put it down that I picked it up again and had a go at the Premiership (I'm a bit sad; I always change team names so they are the real names). It was then, after my West Ham team had been beaten by a rampant Man Utd even though I'd played well, that I realised that this wasn't it's predecessor. It may bear the Pro Evo name, but it's a step forward for the whole series and a step in the direction of even more realism.
In this game, the onus is on the strikers to put the ball away, on the defenders to win the ball and on the midfielders to do what they can at either end; it really is just like real football and if God himself was to make a football game, he couldn't do much better (apart from to get a few decent referees in, maybe).
Games are tough on this edition. You really have to work for your win against all comers. One-nil up in the last minute? Expect the opposition to rally, to throw on three new strikers and to get the ball in the box. Losing one-nil? Expect the opposition to put nine men behind the ball and force you to either get it wide or play through them. But it makes for a compelling experience and one in which victory feels reward unto itself. Winning by a mile is rare, unlike on the lesser-being which is FIFA (or, should I say, F**A).
Perhaps the biggest downer on the game is the average - nay, dreadful - refereeing going on. Expect mystifying penalties a-plenty at your end while at the other, stone-wall penalties are denied. Expect your players to concede free-kicks in abundance as you battle to win the ball. Even if you do sometimes win the ball, the referee will come back and haunt you. Bookings are commonplace, but at least the refs keep the dreaded red card in their pocket for all but the worst tackles. However, you can expect there to be one rule for them, one for you.
One of the most satisfying things, on the other hand, is the way that you will never play the same game twice. This is just like real football as well. One week on the Master League (the principle mode in the game) you may play Chelsea and win 1-0 and play well, and the next you may lose 2-0 to the same team with the same squad of players.
One thing to savour in is the way that players actually have runs of form. Expect gluts of goals from strikers, but then be set for barren spells that may well run to a dozen games. However, they happen to all players in the game, and you can be safe in the knowledge that your main title contender (or relegation rival) may have a misfiring striker at just the wrong time.
In the multiplayer mode, expect plenty of good tussles with your friends, but never, ever expect a result just because you're better than them. In one recent tournament between me and three friends, one of my mates was playing another of my mates who was vastly inferior and he bossed the game and had a hatful of chances to win the game. He took none. My second mate scored a deflected winner in the last minute. Again, this is just like real football and - in one player mode - can be frustrating to the extreme, but it makes the game even more compelling.
In terms of leagues, three leagues are fully-licenced. Serie A (Italy), Eredivisie (Holland) and Primera Liga (Spain) all have full complements of official teams while the Premiership, Ligue Un (France) and the Bundesliga (Germany) have full complements of unlicenced but still correct teams. The league mode isn't the main mode of the game though. The Master League is the daddy of all league modes, as you take your group of pros through year after year of triumph, strife, success and failure in a quest to become the best. It's as close to a footballing RPG as you'll get, with players developing and declining as they get older and retiring at the end of careers. Add to that sometimes-tight transfer budgets and rivals who refuse to let players go and you've got a mode that is the greatest ever on a football title that will have you playing until the cows come home (or until Pro Evo 6 comes out).
This is footballing perfection that, as frustrating and annoying as it can be, is the greatest representation of the beautiful game that videogaming has had. This is the Pele of all football titles and it should be bought over anything else any day, regardless of licences.