Modern football, that overblown and ongoing soap opera, is built on a mix of loyalty and nostalgia. That team, that goal, that year – the fan sticks with the badge through countless squads. This even seems to apply to football videogames; I wanted to play PES 2014 because the memories of its predecessors, like ISS Deluxe and Pro Evolution Soccer 2, play through my mind like a Cruyff highlights reel. This is why it's important that, as the title screen appears for the first time, Nessun Dorma starts to play. This is Proust's madeleine cake for the pie-chomping masses, the evocation of a particular era and all it means, a callback to Italia 90. It is a promise; here is not just football, but romance.

The ongoing alphabet war in football games is PES versus Fifa, the Old Firm of the digital age with its legions of fans queuing up to buy one and decry the other. EA's flagship title has recently ruled the roost and, with Fifa 14 seemingly offering more of the same but better, the onus is on Konami to up its game. PES 2014 does that and then some. This is a new beginning for a series that was looking timeworn, and one where the first principles are absolutely bang on.

For the first time I can remember, PES 2014 looks better than Fifa 2014. It's not a simple matter of comparing screenshots or the various player likenesses, but how everything moves. Players constantly track the ball, and their every twitch reflects the situation – crowded, open, one on one, holding off a defender – the range of animations and the sheer liveliness of the spectacle is astonishing. The crowds and stadiums are a gigantic improvement over recent PES titles, and the match introductions for competitions like the Champions League recreate the television presentation perfectly.

The visual upgrade aside, the far more important change is in how this feels. Suffocated beneath PES 2014's marketing ballocks about a Motion Animation Stability System (geddit?) and Trueball tech is the colossal achievement of approximating player momentum and movement – the 22 men on the pitch feel like 22 individuals.

PES 2014 doesn't have the license for certain clubs or players, but a handy feature means you'll be able to download fan-made 'corrections' easily enough. Photograph: Konami

In slow motion you can see the extraordinary precision of this system, and how every limb's animation flows fluidly out of another, every kick working and looking like football. First-time shots are caught sweetly on top of the toe, boots wrap right round the ball for swerving crosses, and the bad tackles make you wince in sympathy. The feeling of control this creates is remarkable: things like knowing when you have time or don't feed into simple actions such as cushioning the ball. Being man-marked is suddenly a massive deal. And thinking about what you're going to do next is as important as knowing what you're going to do now.

This creates a slower pace than the style of Fifa and recent PES, where with simple inputs players can ping the ball around with first-time passes. The way PES 2014's players move and act is from another world. Receiving the ball in midfield, for example, your first consideration is collecting the pass cleanly, then shielding the ball or turning, then picking the pass and only then pressing the button and getting the weight right. Players cannot swivel on a sixpence and slot a through-ball when they're running away from goal, nor can they effortlessly gather an over-hit pass or suddenly switch direction for an under-hit one. These might be the first videogame footballers I've ever controlled that vaguely resemble humans in motion, rather than just running through human animation cycles.

This has an acclimatisation period. The manually aimed through-ball system initially seems like a mess of waving cursors and lost possession, then after some practice a calmer head starts to prevail. This is also a supreme example of why PES's idiosyncrasies are so well thought out; the execution of a through-ball in this needs the same combination of split-second execution and cool planning as doing the real thing in a game. These little illusions or overlaps, call them what you will, permeate the advanced controls of PES 2014 and create an increasingly firm connection between you and the players.

Still, it's not all glory. The AI in PES 2014 is generally very good, especially on higher settings, but it has blind spots where defenders turn into Titus Bramble, gormless ball-watcher extraordinaire; specifically, a simple chip through on goal often leaves the AI flailing. More worryingly, it seems the developers have 'solved' this issue by giving defenders the odd speed boost in such situation. The goalkeepers also retain a tendency to drop the odd clanger, often from deeply unpromising situations like a lofted pass forwards, and online especially it's rather an embarrassment to score goals like this.

There are other aspects of PES that make Fifa look good; it could use an overhaul of the menus throughout, especially for mid-game changes, and faster transitions when the ball goes out of play. There are also some frame rate drops at the beginning of matches and after close shots, which are rather annoying but not detrimental to the football.

PES 2014

These flaws should not be ignored, but nor can they detract from what a monumental game PES 2014 is. Calling it a simulation doesn't quite feel right, but this captures the look and action of a football match better than anything else I've played. It even has an air of mystery in the form of its 'heart' system, which is supposed to mimic players' reflections of the way a match is going. This didn't have any impact that I could see until, in a Champions League semifinal, Celtic were at home to Barcelona and trailing by two goals. In the second half, an early goal for Celtic took the roof off – and for the next ten or fifteen minutes every player seemed a little more pumped-up, and first to the ball. The mighty hoops soon equalised, and went on to win 3-2. Was that the 'heart' system? I have no idea but, you've got to say Clive, what an atmosphere that was.

So what are the new battle lines between Fifa and PES? Where the first is brash, slick, easy to pick up and filled with pop songs, PES 2014 is slower and more solid, with all the focus on the pitch and what happens there. One of Fifa 2014's cover stars is the direct and thrilling Gareth Bale. That works. But if PES 2014 had a cover star it would be more like Andrea Pirlo as described by Barney Ronay; the space-conducter, the maestro, the artist capable of "filleting out the spaces between the people".

PES 2014, for all of its flaws, takes a different direction to Fifa. More than anything, its sensitivity in how it interweaves deep mechanics with the feel of its controls leads to a much more satisfying experience, and in its way delivers on that promise of romance. Technology in the service of atmosphere and animation. A feeling PES 2014 rewards the head as much as the hands. In these matches you have some unquenchable conviction that – whether you win or lose – there is a right way to play, and it is PES 2014. This is a beautiful game. This is Total Football.

• The game was reviewed on a PS3