I would recommend this to people who would like to shoot shots from a distance, and maybe play defence. I am a handball player myself, and this not very close to being realistic. I definitely would not say it's worth the $40.

Firstly, the controls are pretty weird, at least on the offense. You never really know what button you should press to pass the pivot (the player behind the opponents defence). Sometimes you're supposed to pass normally and sometimes you're supposed to bounce pass, and during the one hour i played this i couldn't figure out when to press what button, leading to me passing the wrong teammate and losing the ball. But it's worthless passing the pivot anyway, since when he gets the ball, the opponents push him out, sometimes even pushing him away while he's in the air, which normally would lead to a penalty and the person who pushed him would be sent off or even get a red card. In this game none of that happened. I played this for an hour and never got a penalty even though it clearly should have been a penalty at least a couple of times. While you're being pushed away, (which takes way too long and breaks the flow of the game) you also can't pass the ball. It's the same with the other teammates when you're on offence, they too can't break through the defence and score, they just get pushed back. SLOWLY. (I have actually only seen one person be able to get through the defence, i found it on Youtube). This leaves you with only one option to score: shooting from a distance. That means the offense in this game is basically a simulator for shooting from a distance, so it's good that they created a couple of ways to do just that.

The defence, on the other hand, I'd say was pretty alright. You use the left stick to move your players and you can also hold down the left trigger to take control of one player and try to intercept the ball. You can push away your opponents, you can block their shots and intercept their passes. You also control the goalkeeper with the right stick, which you have to move in the correct direction when the opponent shoots. Sometimes the opponents get a penalty. (Unlike when you're on the offense).

Like i said at the start of this review, i really do not think it's worth the money.

Okay, I actually wanted to play this game a bit more than the last ones, because I hoped it would make a good step, after 17.
Sadly I have to say while all previous titles were enjoyable in their own way. This game is totally not.
I cannot say you should buy this because it makes fun. It does not, to be honest, if you want a handball game that is enjoyable, go with 17.
17s AI defense wasnt too extremely complex to come by and the throwing system of 21 is breaking the game hard.
I for myself bought every of the Handball games just to show that there is a market and to finance a hopefully better product with the next iteration. I do play them to take a look, but they are nothing yet to invest hundreds of hours into imho.

And this is also why I will try to address the Rest of this to the developers:


The big problem of the Game is not its amount of Features and Gamemodes and how well these are done.
The actual core problem of the Game is the fundamental Gameplay. The absolute base on how the Gameplay is designed.
Its flawed from the ground on and it seems that you developers are not taking the right decisions on where this game should go.


Think about Handball in Real Life. What are the first words that come to your mind?
- Fast paced
- Full Body contact
- Intense

Lets try to compare these points one by one to the Gameplay of the Game.


Fast Paced:
I havent seen any pace in the game whatsoever. In the previous titles that was kind of better. But there it wasnt great as well.
The game doesnt think about making fast kickoffs ( sry dont know the correct english word, but I guess everyone understands it this way), fast Counterplays.
You are often seeing replays, visual cuts, after which all players are sorted again.
Remove Replays and Slowmos. Two reasons. First they slow down the game play which is not improving the gameplay. Actually its making it worse.
Second for Slowmos and Replays to be great, they need to look great. And lets be honest the animations do not look great. Especially when the ball never fits to the animation (Ball holded by the elbow. Ball flies into completely different direction than the arm moves, etc.)
Handball lives from its fast paced gameplay, even after goals, you can make an instant counter attack and get behind the opponent defense line, while they are moving back. With these visual cuts and replays you remove any chance to accomplish such things...


Full Body Contact:
To achieve a good Gameplay where full body contact is well made in such a game is in my opinion the hardest part to achieve.
But it is the absolute base on which a Handball game needs to be built on.
The problem is you need to include such a system, while maintaining controllability over your player.
Currently in the game you play the character and once any body contact is involved, you are using blocking (meaning I as a player cant control the character anymore, he is in a fixed animation) animations.
This is actually the worst and an unacceptable part of the gameplay for a handball game that tries to be good.
I mean have you taken a look at a real handball game and try to compare it to "similiar" situations in the game?!
In the Game you cant break through the defense, they will just push you. You will go into a blocking animation, thus not able to throw. Get pushed again, you get into the next blocking animation, until you are standing at 10 Meters. Ball in hands, no inertia going on.
The only way to actually score from six meters is if you are lucky with a tactical play, but in the end you can better throw from 9 Meter, that way you are sure not to get pushed and get into the blocking animation again.
So what you need is to have your animations way more dynamic, they shouldnt be fixed animations that define the characters motion. It seems to me that you anyway use fixed animation trees that define the animation for the whole body. I guess you need to switch to some kind of procedural animation system.
One that is not forcing you to have the character at the right position to start the "grab ball from floor"-animation, but instead only the arm moves towards the ball that lies on the floor. While the rest of the body moves in the direction the player holds the movement stick.
Same goes for the actual walking/running of the player. Currently the player can only move forward. If you want to move back you will run in a circle. Meaning the player has a turning radius of at least a meter. And did you ever see a handball player or any person that makes such turns in real life?
We need to get side steps, back steps or even better get any step direction, instead of just moving forward and turn.


Intense:
I dont think I need to go on with this any further. The previous two points show full well, why this isnt given.
The game is boring. You are scoring out of boring situations. The actual intense part breaking through the opponents lines, make pressure to make room for your wing players, thats just not possible.
So most of the time you simply chose a tactical play, follow the arrows on the floor and pass the ball when highlighted. Score from 9 Meters or not, because scoring goals is actually not that easy.
You might think that sprinting before a 9 Meter throw is good? NO! Your accuracy gets increasingly worse depending on how far away from the goal and how fast you are.
Leading to the situation that when sprinting before throwing, you will never get the ball into the goal, because the range of accuracy is just bigger than the goal itself...
This is also destroying the last bit of fast paced counterplays, because if you sprint with the ball and try to throw, no chance to score. Stop sprinting before the throw, yeah no chance to not get blocked by the opponent...
A part of the Gameplay that also breaks this topic is Situational Awareness.


Situational Awareness:
Handball lives from movement without the ball. Everything depends on your teammates starting into forward movement, before they get the ball.
Lets check what our teammates in the game are doing. I take the center back player move forward towards the opponent line, they are actually making the defense compact where I am moving towards. I pass the ball to the left or right back player AND!
Ah yeah they stand, get the ball while standing. Once I can move forward with these guys, the defense had no trouble to align appropiately.
This is a thing in every game since IHF 12. And it always bugged me very hard.
And its not only pressure play. Think about crossing (hope this is the right word in english), if I move with the right back player towards the center of the defense, the actual center player stands back in the center and stands and stands. Situational awareness... He should move to the right. Crossing with the player I currently control.
In my opinion such situational awareness wouldnt even be hard to integrate into a game.
I mean it doesnt need to be perfect, but at least these few situations should be implemented, because they are the basics of every handball match.
And yes I know that your first answer to this is, "tactical plays!". But this cant be the answer. I do not want to only use some predefined tactical plays.
I also want to play some free moves. In real handball you also dont play a set play in every single attack! And especially if they do not work out on the first go, you continue to play freely most of the times. Play the ball along the lines and use the initial pace of the tactical play to find another solution to score a goal.
A thing that also bugs me a bit is where the Wing Players are positioned. In the IHF games this was way better. You changed it with Handball 16. Wing Players are never standing in their corner in the game. They are in a way more centered position all the time. This again reduces the chance to make a breakthrough because defense doesnt need to stand wide. Have way [...]

Sadly character limit is reached. I have more thou
Find Rest here: https://pastebin.com/a7HAT498

I’m giving a positive thumb up for 2 reaons :

1) I’m happy that a dev choosed to make an Handball game. This sport has been forgotten for too long, especially by big compagnies. I want to encourage you to continue and to make the game even better as I believe it’s the only way to improve.

2) It’s way better than the previous one(s).

The publisher abandoned the game after a small patch and only a few weeks, leaving the (few) players of this game with a lot of bugs and unresolved issues, making the game unplayable for many people. Just look at the steam discussion forums of this title. Nice level of cynicism and consumer-contempt on display here. I love sports games and buy nearly all of them, but the next time I will be more cautious if it is from Eko Software/Nacon. They obviously don´t give a s**t about their titles.

Handball series has been a lackluster franchise since IHF Handball Challenge 14. Ever since, the only real change was in the graphics and animation, other than that it doesn't deliver that authentic handball sim feel we expect from a game like this. Handball 21 doesn't help much in that cause.

First thing it came to attention was the significant drop in the range of teams (nothing but four European countries to choose from), which I hoped it'd be the only negative point. Well, just step into the court and try to attack past the free throw line with any non-wingman player to see him being pushed back infinite times by every defender, unable to react until he gets twenty steps backwards. Or even, watch your goalkeeper randomly jump through a post as if he was trying to defend the outer side of the net by disrespecting any clipping parameters while the shot smoothly goes into the opposite post net.

While I'm a handball enthusiast hoping to see the sport decently represented in videogames, I can't really recommend this one here as it is right now, in fact it feels like a beta WIP. I still prefer to go with netmin games' Handball Action Total, which apart from slow pace and inferior graphic quality and animations, has a lot more to offer.

I have an i7-9700F , GTX 1660 SUPER , 16 GB RAM
I need help and the developers dont answer me, if they can´t help me I need the refund of the game because i cant play with this bug. I have a bug in the game, like a goal net at the middle of the screen, and i don´t know how to solve it.
I like too much handball and I hope you fix this problem.

My Review of Handball 21
Wind 10, GTX 2060, 16 RAM

PROS
- Graphics are adequate (not great)
- Menu is good
- No lagging screens
- Controls are easy to use

CONS
- Gameplay is not realistic as it is in real Handball leagues
- AI Offence does not try to break through defense to get alone
- Player animation is okay, not great

REVIEW
This is good start for this title, however because of the actual gamepley, I cannot recommend this at this time.

In real handball, the offense can break through the defense and get alone. A pass can then be made to the player and be one-on-one with the goalie and try to score. In this edition of the game that is not there. The offense always stays on the outside of the defensive wall and try to score from outside. They may once-and-awhile break through just barely on the inside. But NO one-on-ones with goalie.

This make the gameplay pretty boring. All they do is just go back-and-forth and take a shot outside of the defensive wall. I was hoping that this game would have similar gameplay as basketball, hockey soccer and especially handball.

Other than that the game is made pretty good. I think they may improve on this game, but until then I don't think its enjoyable yet. Will be seeking a refund.

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UPDATE (for response to developer below)
I know the player with the ball can breakthrough.
It's the other offensive AI players that don't.

In real Handball, more than one offensive player can break through the line to receive a pass from the other player and then try to score.

bad customer service - horrible graphics bug which they cant seem to fix or wont fix!

I actually enjoy this game. I love handball and these games actually introduced me to it, but the state of the game on PC is ridiculous. There's some wack ass spider web looking thing when in game and is super distracting. I would give it a good review, but this is unacceptable.

Wooow is this game a glitchfest? it is! i have a glitch that make the net in both goals huge and spider web like, and they move around the pitch and block my vision.. also the game looks and feels like a early PS2 game... clunky and static... Its totally unplayable for me...