Since becoming disillusioned with FIFA, the last football game I bought was FIFA 13. After skipping 2 iterations, I decided to give Pro Evolution Soccer a go. So this review is really a comparison between PES 2016 and FIFA 13...
After some minor tweaks to the controls it's pretty much FIFA, so there's no learning curve. Obviously the first thing you really notice is the lack of licensing which PES is infamous for. In the English leagues, the only team to have the official name, badge and kit is Manchester United. There are a couple of fully licences leagues like France's Ligue 1 and Spain's La Liga.
The players names are all fine, but there's a lack of official kits, badges and team names. Sure, you can edit them, but this takes time, especially when it comes to kits. The thing is, it wouldn't be so bad if the colours and basic designs were like the official kits, but instead, no attempt has been made to get it even remotely close. This can make it hard to use the default kits, because a lot of them clash.
One of the features you expect to see in a new iteration of a football game is an updated squad roster. This game was shipped with the previous years squads, and a separate patch was released a month or so later to correct it (but even this wasn't fully accurate).
In general, the menus could be clearer. When making a substitute, the main piece of information I would want is the player's stamina. To see it, you have to toggle some tiny icons. Moving the cursor to the correct player is also awkward.
In terms of football, I like to play a lot of through-balls and crosses into the box, and this was one reason why I got fed up with FIFA. PES 2016 does cater to my style because you can create some amazing goals this way.
Referees are very lenient, really bad fouls deserving of red cards only penalise you with a yellow. The AI plays fairly and it is rare they foul you, so free-kicks and penalties aren't common-place.
Graphically, it looks decent and contains many realistic looking player's faces. The main gripe I have with the graphics is that sometimes it seems slightly washed-out, and white surfaces can be very reflective. Fans in the crowd are very reflective too which is just stupid.
The commentary is very good, led by former ITV commentator Peter Drury.
The loading times seem a bit lengthy, and there's large delays moving between menus as it is “connecting to server”. Once you start playing, the game runs smoothly apart from the strange drop in frame-rate every several games or so.
Overall, PES 2016 is a good football game. You can create some brilliant attacking plays and it always feels fun to play, rather than leaving you feeling cheated. This is basically what I wanted from it, so it meets my requirements. If you can accept that the licences are a bit patchy, then it's definitely worth checking out.