Football Manager 2023 Review (wee-g)
I've bought every FM since 2015 and this is my last. It makes me laugh when I hear the backlash EA and other developers get regarding adding little changes to their game franchises as Sports Interactive have been robbing their fan base for the last 5 or so years. They pump out an exact copy and paste each year for a whopping AUD $80 price tag and add a new feature here and there but NEVER address the bugs and issues that fans having been begging to be fixed for years. Admittedly there's little they could add to the game, the features are there but some are just laughably bad, bugged out, or completely broken.
The first issue is the dialogue options and player interaction during individual and team meeting conversations. The choices you have when trying to have a simple conversation with one of your players is laughable. You have about four options to choose from but they always end in two outcomes. One you either bend over backwards and promise a mediocre/crap player more playing time or a new contract even though they probably don't deserve it. The second direction you can go is say no to the player in which they will have a tantrum and start yelling to the media and their teammates about how much you suck as a manager, even though that player has an average rating of 6.4.
Team meetings are even worse! The dialogue options are not only poor when it comes to choice, they're completely broken. My team was 10 games unbeaten, top of the table and had a 10-point gap between us and second place. I decided to have a team meeting as to avoid potential complacency, I chose the option "We've been in great form, lets keep it going and ensure we can win the title". My players responded with "That's being too ambitious" and then their morale plummeted in which I lost the gap and inevitably missed out on promotion. We were strong favorites in the win the title and you expect me to believe they didn't have the confidence in themselves to win the league? To say it in one sentence, dialogue and player interaction sucks in this game!
Also a side note, why are my three dialogue options at the end of the season team meeting only covering when I want my players back in pre-season? I couldn't care less about pre-season, I want to rip my players a new hole for dropping the ball right at the end of the current season, not next season. IMPROVE YOUR DIALOGUE OPTIONS.
The second issue is the media . I've seen some repetitive features in games but my god this takes the throne. Yet again it seems Sports Interactive struggle to make a decent feature that involves interaction between the player and an NPC. Every signing, every match, every injury, you will deal with the exact same copy and paste meaningless questions from the media that rarely impact the game. I attend the main press conferences in pre-season but then usually skip the rest, I don't want to repeat myself constantly.
The third and main issue with this game is the injury system . Horrific. The most unrealistic and garbage portion of this game is the never-ending constant bombardment of injuries that you will face. No matter what I have changed or tweaked I never seem to go a season without 30+ injuries. 5-10 would be acceptable but in this game it's just ridiculous. Hire the best physios the world has to offer? Nope. Reduce the intensity of training to lower injury risk? Nope. It is not realistic that players are snapping ankles, breaking legs, and breaking ribs week-in week-out.
Until Sports Interactive address issues that have been present in their game since around FM 2018, they're going to continue to bleed fans. START ADDRESSING YOUR ISSUES!