The Good
The animation is amazing: from the ball control, first touches and dribbling. The player ID was well implemented in this game because the dribbling animation is very smooth. I also liked the little details in 'Master league' and 'Become a legend.' These include visits from your secretary and her reports (Master league), your discussions with your technical team during match day, your discussions with the team captain and the encouragement sessions you give your team before a vital match. Even the idle animation where your team engaged in different training sessions added great immersion to this coach simulation. I hope future Konami games will bring back some of these features. Defending in PES 2013 is tactical thereby requiring more strategy.
The Bad
The CPU AI is so overpowered. Pes 2013 is one of those games where the higher the difficulty, the more any team, be it good or poor, will possess like prime Barcelona and defend like prime Italy. Regular difficulty is too easy. But anything above gets ridiculously frustrating and difficult.
1. CPU AI dribbling is too overpowered. The AI can dribble your defenders as if they are all Messi. It doesn't matter whether they are rated 85 or 68. There are 3 ways to defend in this game during a match: Press, containment and teammate pressure. I play countless PES games, such as PES 2017, on Top Player at the very least. But with PES 2013, even professional difficulty has the CPU AI dribbling your defenders and phasing through them as if these defenders are statues. Utilising all three defending controls is so meaningless in this game. Your hand will grow exhausted from pressing multiple controls to defend only for some 67 rated player to dribble your defence like Messi over and over again and score.
2. CPU AI defending nearly has no fault beyond regular difficulty. The CPU AI also implements the 3 modes of defending during a match. The problem is that the AI is so perfect at every defensive move. You can trap the ball with a player who has great agility such as Iniesta or Cazorla. But the CPU's defenders will still use containment and block your player's movement, making progression too difficult. In Pes 2016, at least the AI was not too perfect on defence, and this allowed my wingers/midfielders to trap the ball with R2 and create space for progression. In addition, your players do not take advantage of open space. This makes possession play and even counterattacks feel so stagnant.
3. No domestic European League. The only way to play a normal league campaign is through Master league. This means you have to go through numerous cutscenes, and a slow process to play a next match. This isn't bad if you're simulating as a coach, in fact, I mentioned earlier that I liked some of these details. But at times, I just want to play a simple straightforward league campaign and I get tired of these delays. The modern PES games have rectified this.
4. Momentum switches. When playing on a difficulty higher than Regular, the CPU AI can suddenly switch into a higher level when you're winning. Suddenly your players are playing so poorly until the AI equalises then they revert back to normal. You can substitute tired players out but that does little to solve this issue.
Over all, PES 2013 is great if you're playing against other humans or if you're playing on regular difficulty. Anything beyond that feels so energy draining. Many praise this game as one of the "best of all time pes." I've had it for 2 years but it still keeps on disappointing.
