Recent reviews by Arcalian

Please remember that unauthorised performance of Jazz in Nivalis is punishable by death.

A classic in the franchise, best so far.

Match engine has gone backwards by a large margin. Very little variation in patterns of attacking play. Over reliance on crosses and headers, scoring from set-piece routines etc. Through balls are as rare as hen's teeth for both the player and the A.I. And finally, some absolutely laughable stats. Liverpool in my save have had numerous matches with 45-52 GA and upwards of 26 shots on target against teams in the top 8. SI were supposed to be addressing defending in this edition. Back to FM 17 for me where the match engine (where this game is ultimately judged) is far better and doesn't play like it wasn't designed by Big Sam after 6 pints of wine.

I assume it would be enjoyable if you had severe ADHD.

Bethesda's business model is sickening.

Tense, WW2-era shooter, with a helpful and communicative player-base. Also, extremely dedicated dev team that have rolled out loads of updates and have a large roadmap for lots to come.

This game is a staggering achievement from a single developer. So much do do - space combat, ground combat, exploration, trading, mining, the list goes on.

It's fully playable and engrossing already yet constantly being improved. Well done, Maverick Games.

Much better than FM18. I thought the series was starting to stagnate a bit, however, this is a very impressive step forward for the series. The tactical templates and the new, detailed layouts for in possession, transition and out of possession are excellent. Furthermore, you can see the team replicate the tactical changes better in the match engine. A cautious, possession-oriented style reflects as such in the ME, as does route one or gegenpressing. Futhermore, the scope is there to further tweak to tailor your tactic to suit your vision.

The training overhaul is massive and complex and will take some getting used to. I applaud SI really doing their home-work on this as it much better reflects real training at club level.

As for the UI, the purple isn't half-bad at all, but there's the usual dark and light skins available.

There's a lot of other QOL changes which are nice and the additional scouting information is a welcome touch.

The best thing about it is that SI are clearly taking a lot of the constructive critisism on board and adapting the game for the better. Both the large changes to the tactical and training modules were clearly brought about through suggestions in the forum from the former and speaking to coaches and managers for the latter.

Overall, a very good effort this year.

Unbearingly tedious and repetitive.

An improvement on FM 13, with new player instructions, roles, etc. The tactical instruction overhaul is a welcome change as well. The match engine is an improvement, with players capable of flowing passing moves leading to goals. An unfortunate issue is that there's far too much shooting from tight angles, even when a player has several team mates awaiting a pass inside the area. The overhit corners is also problematic with the "he certainly didn't mean that" plays which results in the ball hitting the crossbar, or in some cases, dropping behind the keeper.

A good evolution on FM 13, barring the above mentioned bugs, which hopefully will be addressed for the full release of FM 15, if they haven't been tweaked already.