College Football 25 had over a decade of expectations and wish lists to overcome, but EA managed to revive the series with a gem of a game. That said, some modes like Road to Glory feel undercooked and aren’t really friendly to newcomers.
Smooth and playable
Excellent presentation transmission.
Deep to explore
There is no genuine mode of instruction or learning
Undercooked Road to Glory
For those who have kept the faith, the return of a school football game developed through EA has been a long time coming. Football enthusiasts have been waiting almost 11 years for EA Sports College Football 25.
With so much pent-up demand, EA had to do the right thing to bring the series back. There is too much time in between, too many expectations, too many wish lists.
Surprisingly, EA has kept its promises by producing one of the most productive pigskin games in years. College Football 25 is fluid, fast, and feels like a throwback to the most productive NCAA football games. However, there are some flaws. , adding a lackluster Road to Glory mode and a disappointing lack of tutorials to teach new and returning players the intricacies of the updated control systems.
If you’re a fan of high school football or just sports games, read my full review of College Football 25 to find out why you want to get back on the field.
The basics of College Football 25 will be familiar to anyone who has played an EA football game in the last 20 years. However, some settings are either a blessing or a problem.
The running backs act the same way and the defense is pretty much a carbon copy of what you’ve noticed in previous NCAA games. Catch the ball is slightly updated with Madden buttons to retrieve the ball. For example, Square catches and runs, and X catches the ball safely. It doesn’t feature stunning shots like Madden, so there are no Justin Jefferson circus act receptions for you.
The real adjustments are in the aerial game. EA Orlando has presented 4 characteristics for success. High pass mode is the default, but players can decide between location, location/accuracy, or classic, depending on their play style. NCAA 14 used classic, which is based on the grades of the quarterback in play. Location and Location/Accuracy is similar but gives the user more about the strength of the pass and the accuracy of the ball throw.
The revamp brings more nuance to the quarterback position by giving players maximum control. You are in the range of the necklace bow, strength and location.
While holding the catcher’s input, a counter appears on the QB that determines how much force is injected into the pass. This counter also determines accuracy, because the longer the button is held, the less likely the pass is to be accurate. it also depends on what the QB is doing; Attempting a pass while running causes the counter to turn almost red and you have less chance of completing the pass. But if you place the quarterback’s feet, the meter will only turn yellow and the chances of the receiver catching the ball increase.
EA has talked a lot about how the CFB 25 offers passes with more layers. This means you can pass the needle between defenders more as it should or use touch passes to get the ball to a receiver located in a zone between a linebacker and an oncoming strong safety.
This is completed by the new position control, where you move the left stick in the direction you need the ball to go. If a defender is aiming with your receiver, you can lower the stick to throw the pass, which will cause your receiver to return to the ball. Or you can push it up and left to place the ball lower in the box and out of reach of a defender, a classic backward shot with your shoulder.
Reworked passes make you actively think like a quarterback when you play, beyond just reading the defense and for an open guy. Now you can create openings and strategize around defenders. Classic mode may look familiar, but the revamped option opens up the game.
Unfortunately, the game doesn’t tell you any of this. There is no mode of instruction in College Football 25. There’s an open-ended education mode where you can run the same game over and over again to master the mechanics. There are also mini-games that put players in express conditions and make them score problems (similar to EA Sports FC 24 or Madden’s practice mini-games). The Ultimate Team mode has an Ultimate Team 101 segment with demanding conditions that teach you the basics of football but won’t really teach you the game’s controls.
I didn’t even know about the left stick location feature until I told a friend who bought early access and loved it. I had to look up articles published by the progression team to understand what the guy was talking about. He may not be the only user who doesn’t read the development logs to see what schemas have been updated.
This game is not friendly to beginners or those returning to school football after more than a decade of absence. It’s frustrating that there’s no compromised instructional mode in the game.
EA has struggled to make Madden shine with the Frostbite engine, but in CFB 2025 it surely works. Part of this would arguably have to do with the pomp of school football, with the team enjoying exclusive displays, especially those with pregame traditions, such as Clemson players running downhill and around Howard Rock or the Buffaloes of Colorado running with a live bison down the field.
I discovered I had other streaming groups to draw inspiration from. The big games of the season will have advantages from ESPN’s A-team of Kirk Herbstreit and Chris Fowler, but the daily games are more likely to feature a stand from Rece Davis, Jesse Palmer and David Pollack. This sounds more dynamic and opens up the game to other sound clips than you’re used to.
On the field, the game develops smoothly and quickly. In fact, despite the realism factor, it has an arcade feel, which is a drawback. This makes the game lively and fun.
One flaw I discovered is that you can’t skip the game’s advents. It’s annoying when you go through modes like Ultimate Team 101, demanding situations where there’s an advent even in mini-games that end without delay once you’ve finished the challenge. .
There are five game modes in College Football 2025. The simplest is Play Now, where you form a team and compete against another team on the field. This can be against a processor or face to face with a friend. Next, I’ll take a look at the other 4 modes.
Road to Glory is the career mode for CFB 25 athletes. You build a player, and after answering a few questions, you create a team to ply your craft. Most people will be disappointed with the CFB 25 attempt because it is so simple.
In this year’s edition, you’ll be able to choose from 4 tiers of player types, from elite five-star players to underdog two-star players. From there, you paint throughout the season to gain your coach’s trust, attend school, and build a brand. Teachers, players, and friends will text their athlete throughout the season providing them with “picks” that will improve their ranking. Text messages seem to disappear quickly. I was very surprised when, after weeks of gambling, I would suddenly receive a text message from a tutor with an occasion that had virtually no effect on my grades.
Unlike all other modes in the game, when you’re in the box you’re just your player. So if you’re a running back, you can block or run, but you’re not the quarterback or the calls.
One thing I ran into as a benchwarmer was the practice mode. There are only a few minigames and they are temporarily repetitive.
Increasing the coach’s confidence XP bar will eventually allow you to fight the second player and eventually the starter. You can practice in simulation, but since you don’t race, it means you simulate 90% of the season until you win the position battle.
It is basically a matter of assigning some issues to the education, social, leadership and skills bars. Balancing them is too simple and I never felt like my possible options mattered so much. Unless you’re betting against an elite or three-star athlete, skip this mode. Paintings are not valued.
If you’ve ever bought a controller and tried to play an EA Sports game in the last decade, you’ve noticed Ultimate Team.
Unlike 2K Sports’ recent efforts, this is the position in which EA is pushing microtransactions. You pay for card packs to get better players, uniforms, stadiums, coaches, etc.
The new addition to Ultimate is called Chemistry. When you open packages, you can set up your roster to have a team chemistry where players build each other, or a schematic chemistry where you put the most productive player in for a quick playbook, as a weapon, as a starter.
There are also item cards that you can attach to individual players with talents like “Pull Down”, making the player less likely to lose the ball.
You can use your team in Solo vs. CPU, face-to-face and as a team. Squads allows an organization of players to take on roles on an Ultimate team, adding head coach, offensive captain, and defensive captain. Finally, there is the Gauntlet where you must pay to continue your winning streak. If you get 10 wins, you’ll get a lot of rewards, while if you get two, you’ll lose.
Ultimate Team isn’t my favorite way to play. However, it works well and there is a lot of intensity for those who enjoy challenges.
This mode serves as a competitive mode that is not Ultimate Team. You are a team and you play games to earn points by beating other players. If you win 10 games, you will have a chance to make the SFC playoffs and the national championship. There are other skills. levels and want to win games to progress.
I didn’t win 10 games and disabled this mode after the third game in front of a kid who cursed every five seconds. It’s up to me not to automatically mute each and every one of them.
Of all modes, Dynasty is the one in which players will see the most brilliance. Compared to NCAA 14, player recruitment is going through a complete overhaul, as is the system.
You now have an archetypal role for your trainer at the beginning of the dynasty. There are 3 from: motivator, recruiter and tactician. It’s like an RPG formula where you can be the elite in one domain or hybridize some domains. Unlike previous formulas, you can’t just spam XP to get all the upgrades. You want to develop a strategy.
The recruiter is pretty obvious. As your coach progresses, you can map problems to skills that make them better recruiters. This can apply to express teams of players like offensive linemen and can do everything from giving you more trouble spending on linemen when recruiting or keeping players out of deal breakers. .
The motivator is to improve the player’s progression as the season and dynasty progresses. Players will almost improve, but this setup makes them pass faster or helps them replace their abilities.
The tactician is in charge of the plan and preparation of the players on the day of the adjustment. This can increase players’ ratings on adjustment day. Points can be awarded for skills among all three, but it is more productive to focus on one or two to make a profit.
The dynasty runs deep. Recruit Mode has 14 other attributes that players read in schools, and you’ll want to find out how offensive and defensive coordinators complement the skills you’ve invested in.
It’s fun to try to steer recruits away from more sensible schools by using deal breakers like “Close to Home” or “Social Scene. ” Assigning recruiting problems each week of the season makes you think about the players you’re looking for. Do you send home that four-star who might prefer Kennesaw State to Georgia, or do you send some to a player organization to ensure a bigger, more powerful class?
We may simply devote an entire review to detailing how recruitment was replaced in SFBC 25. Suffice it to say, it’s a welcome improvement, and the systems are attractive enough that you need to see how other archetypes interact with recruiting and upgrading players. .
As for trainers, EA brought a new carousel of trainers at the end of the season. During bowling season, coaches can be fired, hired, or terminated. Even experienced coaches can receive job offers. The carousel lasts for five weeks, so you don’t want to make a decision right away.
It’s pretty good and my favorite feature is that if you take a new job, you can still coach the team’s bowling game, if you created one.
In the ten years since the release of the last school football game, the game itself has experienced a great deal of upheaval. When NCAA 14 was launched, there were no college football playoffs. Starting in the 2025 season, there will be a 12-team playoff.
Luckily, EA added playoffs to the game and that’s great. They also retained the ability to replace convention team members. So if, like me, you need to revive Pac 12 by repelling all the defectors at this convention, you can. You can’t officially rebuild the Great East, but no one is stopping you from trying.
Team Builder wasn’t around when I reviewed this game. However, it looks a lot like the edition released with NCAA 14, with more details.
One feature that is sadly missing is the ability to create an advantage in Dynasty mode or just in general. Player editing is most commonly limited to jersey numbers, height, and weight. I’m not sure if this is similar to problems with live games. Picture of the player in the game, but it is unfortunate that this feature is available.
College Football 2025 is the resurgence game that EA had to offer to satisfy fans. I’m sure that if they had graphically updated NCAA 14, many other people would be satisfied to see a new game. However, EA Orlando took the time and idea about the game and what would make players satisfied in the future.
There are flaws, such as the lack of an instructional mode and an undeniable Road to Glory, but that shouldn’t deter you from opting for it if you’re a school football fan. The gameplay is excellent and the really extensive updates to Dynasty will see your little 1-star school win the National Championship for years to come.
Scott Younker is Tom’s Guide’s West Coast reporter. He covers all the cutting-edge news. He has been involved in generation since 2011 in media and continually seeks to create the most user-friendly home media system. When you’re not writing about the latest gadgets, you’re more than welcome to chat with him about board games or disc golf.
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