As a fan of the FIFA game series, I always want to put my hands on the latest version of the game. Nevertheless, this year’s version was the exception.
FIFA 21 is claimed to be the best version of the famous game series in the last 20 years. The American game producing corporation promised to give FIFA 21 more enhancement to wonderful features including new grounds for the Volta play mode and a big update for career mode.
Interactive match stimulation is the most attractive update of the career mode, in my opinion. Whenever I purchase the FIFA game, career mode is the playing mode that I play the most, and it is always the first thing I will take a look at after purchasing the game. In the last decades, though, I have never seen a positive update for this playing mode.
Career mode was getting outdated even if EA always vowed that the career mode was an interesting and entertaining playing mode. Last year, the producer tried to improve its product by adding the UEFA Champions League tournament to the career mode. Nonetheless, this action could not make the game become more attractive.
EA kept the same training system. EA kept the same calendar system. And they kept the same stimulation system. All of those three is the threshold that makes FIFA turn out to be less favorable to me (and other FIFA’s players) throughout the years.
Interactive stimulation can be game-changing for FIFA 21.
Sadly, I am barely happy with this change of EA. Interactive stimulation should be created to make the career mode become an interactive play mode. In other words, this change should make the old-fashioned stimulation system become more interactive and aggressive. However, the aggression and interaction between players and this system are still poor. I could not feel how my tactics change would impact the game since the effect of that move is purposeless. Maybe, I can jump in the game and take a free-kick or a penalty, but that is the only move that would change the game.
Contrasting to the interactive stimulation, the introduction of a huge number of new faces to the game is seductive to me. For the first time, Marseille’s fans can see the real faces of Hiroki Sakai and Maxime Lopez (the player earlier moved to U.S. Sassuolo Calcio) in the world of FIFA. These two players have been key members of the Marseille squad in the season of 2019-2020, and the addition of their faces to the game is a fair prize for these two players.
FIFA 21 will also welcome back some legendary players. For the first time in the FIFA world, Phillip Lahm, Xavi Hernandez, Fernando Torres, Andrea Pirlo, Bastian Schweinsteiger, Petr Cech, Ashley Cole, Ferenc Puskas, Nemanja Vidic, Samuel Eto’o, Davor Šuker, and Eric Catona appear in the game as the ICONS. Personally, I am a Barcelona fan, and the only reason I am still considering buying FIFA 21 is the appearance of Xavi in the game.
The iconic player, at least, makes me want to try the new version of the FIFA series.
Unfortunately, only the graphics of this game is getting better. Career mode, as I have said earlier, is outdated. FIFA insisted that they put into the game new features such as player development, active training, schedule planning, new transfer option. However, all of these features have appeared in old FIFA versions such as FIFA 08, FIFA 10, or FIFA 12.
Instead of creating something new to the game, FIFA 21 actually is a reunion of old features.
The very last drawback of FIFA 21 is the price. Can you imagine that you need to pay $70 for a game that barely changed from its predecessor? I might still buy the newest version of FIFA since I am a fan of Barcelona, and I want to witness the appearance of Xavi on the playground one more time.
It is sad to say this, but EA needs to do better in the next year’s version of FIFA. The FIFA 21, at the end, makes me disapointed.
Khuong Vo accompanied in this article.