Thanks for the answer.
So far I'm quite displeased with the gameplay. There are marginal improvements here and there such as player placement (which is still far from perfect but at least your wingers will try to cover the entire width of the pitch whenever possible), the ability to box kick (although most kicks go uncontested unless lucky) and the
VERY, VERY PERFECTIBLE set piece plays. Defence still feels very unnatural, with defenders suddenly teleporting towards the ball carrier to halt the linebreak. And despite the slight improvement in coverage which I talked about, most players still gravitate towards the action area instead of remaining where they
are should be. Ball motion has been
slightly corrected and more often than not, players will not throw perfect bullets when put under pressure, but other games such as
Rugby Champions do it better. It will feel like an RC3 reboot.
The only area I'm satisfied with is player customization and the addition of women's rugby (which is still limited to 7's). I'm a fan of customization so I went to town recreating some players.
When you get the hang of it, the tool can be leveraged to recreate players with way more precision than was allowed in the previous iterations.
Dynamic weather is also a nice touch. I personally love it when starting a game in the evening and realizing that it ends at dusk.
But these are more details and gimmicks than proper features. You'd expect a rugby video game to nail the basics, which are a solid and realistic gameplay, with proper ball physics and kinesthetic realism. Above all, you'd expect them to start tackling difficult areas such as rucks, mauls, scrums, set piece and refereeing in a way that recaptures the notion of advantage. There have been very little improvement in these areas.
RC4 is a botched video game which only relies on a new game engine and overhauled aesthetics as a selling argument.
Buy it if the new look is a compelling argument. But the game feels very similar to RC3 and previous versions.
