Football Manager (Switch)

[Hero-of-Time]

The game popped up on the Korean ratings system earlier today and now it's confirmed to be on the way.

I'm pretty excited by this announcement. If this is a simple and good running version of the game then I imagine I'm going to be putting crazy hours into it!

[Happenstance]

I used to love Football Manager but I don't think I've enjoyed one all that much for years. 2007 was probably my peak and then 2012 was when I felt it properly going downhill, both the full and Touch versions.

[Dcubed]

Oh wow! That's actually a pretty big deal! Could actually do some decent numbers in the UK; especially given that it is a defacto exclusive as far as consoles go!

[killthenet]

I checked out a video of the Touch version after seeing the rumours about a Switch port earlier and it actually looks a lot more in depth than I thought so seems to strike a good balance between the simplicity of earlier installments and the complexity of the current PC iteration. I haven't bought a Football Manager since 2012 but I've clocked up over 2000 hours on that and I still fire it up regularly so having a version on Switch could be very dangerous for my playtime.

[Kaepora_Gaebora]

Lord, what a coup! 

Checked out his tweet and someone asked about a PS4 version, to which he replied "not currently" so I imagine this will be a console exclusive to a degree, certainly between PS4 and Xbox One.

I bet this was going to be/will be an e3 announcement of the game.

[killthenet]

Just been shadow dropped on the eShop for £30. A friend of mine recently got a job at a games company and dropped a hint that he was working on something that would be of interest to me, never expected that it would be Football Manager but he dropped me a text just now telling me it was out and it's the first game with his name in the credits.

Edited April 13, 2018 by killthenet

[Hero-of-Time]

Bit pricey considering the season is pretty much over. I will wait to hear how it runs and what features it has before pulling the trigger.

[killthenet]

I've only played it for just over an hour so far so can't give too in depth impressions but so far it seems to run okay. It takes quite a while to load up to the main menu and there is some stuttering on the SI logo and some other intro bits which definitely had me expecting the worst. The interface takes a bit of getting used to, at first everything seems too small and the pointer moves a bit too slowly but once I had familiarised myself with the physical controls I started to get the hang of things. I've only done a few pre-season matches so far and tooled around a little with scouting players. Like I said before I played the mobile version years ago and was not impressed by it and never really got going and it definitely seems to have a lot less depth than its PC counterpart but it's been quite fun so far. I think the main issues with it are indicative of the Touch version in general and not specific to the Switch version, in fact having the button controls probably makes navigation much smoother than just being limited to the touch screen. 

I intended on doing at least one season before I could judge it properly but as far as first impressions go I'm quite pleased with it, £30 does seem like quite a lot to drop on a game that seems like such an unknown quantity though.

[Hero-of-Time]

Thanks for your impressions.

I've been reading a few impressions on Era and Reddit and there are a few users who have had multiple crashes and sluggish gameplay moments. Not great when you are dropping £30 on a game.

This whole release has really baffled me. They've done it with no fanfare, charged a premium and released it at the end of the season. They would have had a better shot at success if they just worked on optimising the engine and getting next seasons edition running smoothly and ready for launch alongside the PC version.

[killthenet]

In my experience FM is always buggy to some degree and it depends a lot on the database size, I'd be interested to know what settings the people who have suffered crashes have been running the game at, I only have England and Scotland activated - top two divisions on Scotland and down to the National League in England and I haven't had any issues with sluggish performance or crashes yet. 

It does seem odd that they would release it now, I think I was a bit hasty in buying it (didn't consider the fact the season is coming to an end and was probably a bit biased by the fact a friend of mine worked on it) and for the first 15 minutes or so I was regretting buying it but after getting used to the interface and getting a couple of matches under my belt I'm starting to enjoy it.

One thing I find funny is that this has video capture enabled from the get go while EA haven't bothered to implement it into FIFA yet.

[Clownferret]

They've been sneaky with the pr images   which show Watford, tbe only Prem team that is licensed (bizarre) im really hoping there is a way to download badges, kits etc like you can on the other versions. I haven't played this yet, set up my career only to realise i had taken on the Man City job, so ive got to go through the process again. But generally buzzing about this. 

[Kounan]

Is there a reason I can't find it on the eshop (I am using German eshop)? 

[killthenet]

13 hours ago, Clownferret said:

They've been sneaky with the pr images   which show Watford, tbe only Prem team that is licensed (bizarre) im really hoping there is a way to download badges, kits etc like you can on the other versions. I haven't played this yet, set up my career only to realise i had taken on the Man City job, so ive got to go through the process again. But generally buzzing about this. 

You worried me when you mentioned that Watford were the only licensed Premier League team, I was worried it would be like PES used to be with West Midlands Village and the like so I had to check (I always start out in League Two or Conference so don't get to see the Premier League teams for a while) but all of the players and team names are correct they just don't have the badges and to be honest I can't remember any FM game ever having the proper badges for every club so doesn't bother me.

 

@Kounan I'm not sure if the launch was worldwide on Friday so it might not be available outside the UK just yet. 

[killthenet]

I've just finished my first season on the game and I have to say I'm pretty impressed by it. At first I had a lot of issues with the interface, it felt like it was designed to be used on a larger touch screen and the drop down menus were quite fiddly but once I had acquainted myself with the button controls it became much easier to navigate. There are definitely times where I struggle to open drop down menus or press the wrong thing on the touch screen but the slips are far less frequent than they were when I was getting started with the game. In terms of actual gameplay I was concerned that the touch version wouldn't offer the same feeling of control over a team as the desktop version and at first I struggled with getting my team to gel, I didn't look at a guide for the touch version so I learned about the complexities in the tactics more naturally after I had a few games under my belt at which point I started to feel like I had more control over the outcome of matches, I would recommend to anyone who is new to the touch version (and especially those new to Football Manager in general) to look up some guides online before playing as it can feel a bit confusing at first.

Fortunately for me I have yet to experience any major performance hiccups, there have been a couple of issues with the notifications that show in the match engine and the game stuck on a loading screen for what felt like a bit too long earlier but I haven't suffered any crashes yet. My main gripe with the game is that it takes an age to load up initially so if you're swapping between Football Manager and other games it can be a bit frustrating to have to sit through the laborious loading process but once the game has loaded its actually pretty snappy. On PC saving the game used to seem like it took forever but on this version the game seems to save in a matter of seconds, transitioning between days is also pretty quick but this will vary considering how large you choose the database to be. The game simulates the major leagues in England, Scotland, France & Germany et al regardless of what database size you choose but you have control over the number of other leagues that the game will simulate results for. You're able to choose up to 3 nations in which you can manage in and how far down the pyramid you want to be actively part of the game, in England for example you have the widest choice of leagues and can manage from as low down as the Conference North or South (now know as the Vanarama National League North or South) right up to the Premier League. I generally start at Dagenham & Redbridge who are currently in the division above those regional tiers, the Vanarama National League so I chose that as the lowest division that I could manage in, I added the top two tiers in Scotland as active leagues too so the database wasn't too large but it gives me scope to branch out and manage in Scotland if I choose and with the number of leagues available in England I thought it would be a good test of this versions performance. 

One thing I haven't really looked into yet in too much detail is scouting players, the signings that I made were done through luck mostly as I wasn't au fait with the interface yet, it's definitely an area I need to put a lot of time into during the summer break so will report back with my impressions of that aspect of the game at some point later this week. It's my biggest worry for the game that I won't be able to get as in depth with signing and scouting players as I have done in the past but hopefully it's complexities become more apparent to me as I cycle through more of the game.

I spoke with my friend who worked on the game the other day and I asked him why they decided to release it so close to the end of the season and he told me that they basically saw this as an opportunity to get the game up and running on the Switch so that the precedent and the knowhow is there to release future entries on the Switch. Much of the work on this version was just getting the engine working on the Switch so it should be much easier to port the next entry to the Switch to release day and date with the other versions. It seems like it's doing quite well on the eShop and so I think the work has paid off for them but as a consumer you're probably better off waiting until FM Touch 2019 inevitably launches on Switch later this year, until then I think this is probably just for the die hard fans. I'm really happy with my purchase, after the growing pains I've enjoyed my time with the game immensely but if my friend hadn't worked on it I probably wouldn't have bought it right away. If you're someone who is looking to scratch that football management itch right away then don't hesitate in picking it up, but if you're concerned about dropping £30 on a game right near the end of the season it probably makes sense to hold fire until the next iteration launches. 

And a note about my season, it started very inconsistently and I went through a pretty bad patch losing 3 in a row but after that the team started to gel and we went through the rest of the league season unbeaten to be crowned National League Champions and won the FA trophy to boot. In all the seasons of FM I've played I can't remember one where my team has scored so many goals, we racked up 125 in the league and let in quite a bit chunk too. I'm really interested to see how we get on in League Two but considering how leaky our defence was I'm expecting us to have a pretty rough ride. Oh and I got through that first season in about 34 hours to give you guys an idea of how long a season can take. 

Edited April 23, 2018 by killthenet

[killthenet]

Just a quick update, the in-game game status screen says I've played it for over 50 hours but the Switch's own activity log shows just over 25 hours so I think there must be the same problem that Xenoblade had where the in-game counter ticks over even when the system is on standby which is a bit irritating, so I probably finished that first season in just over 20 hours rather than the 30 odd that I thought it took me.