Franchise Hockey Manager 5 Reviews

It's a fun game. Probably isn't for the casual hockey fan as it's pretty difficult to learn because its so in depth and granted the menu system isn't the easiest to navigate. However i'd strongly recommend if you're a little more seriously into hockey and to start playing the game with a decent amount of previous knowledge about players, lines, tactics, contract negotiations etc. Overall a very fun game so far though

Long time EA NHL user. I have a friend who isn't into video games who played the baseball version OOTP.. He recommended me to try FHM because of the same makers and the depth of realism. I am obsessed with analytics and simulation management. EA Franchise mode has always frustrated me as there is no variance. You buy NHL 19 and Crosby is god forever and always. This game really has so many factors that change every aspect. A long term bruins fan jumped in and said 'Bergeron doesn't need more training!' Halfway through the season Bergy starts to decline in skill (Yet still can be effective with good line chemistry) I try to play him with unfamiliar linemates and he performs terribly (As when he was at prime (used other players to compare)). So many leagues and prospects. No trade clause depending on the team trying to negotiate with. Ability to take part in coaching the world teams and seeing your players leave your roster for that duty. It adds so many elements that real GM's have to experience. This is my first OOTP game and am extremely impressed. I truly look forward to the innovation in the upcoming games and cannot wait to see how much further analytics will become a play in these type of simulator games. My ONLY negative remark is the confusion of online leagues. I was fortunate to join a league with people who helped me understand the process and once you do it once, it is an easy concept. I truly believe OOTP would see a huge upvote if they implemented a sort of built in way to make the online play easier. (I am not a developer so I am sure there is a reason it is done the way it is)

I didn't feel like providing feedback, but the begging of (positive) reviews when starting the game changed my mind. The way to get positive reviews is to make a great game, not trying to get sympathy by stating you're a small studio. I bought this game in the hopes it would offer competition to the current leading title and especially its online-mode. Safe to say I was disappointed. The UI and logic are, with a few exceptions, awful. UI - It's slow. - It sometimes looks like a project a 1st year CS student made with the white background and no borders (Setting numbers and some others I don't remember) - Finding things is, at least personally, hard. - The Logic - Crashes happen way too often for a game at this price tag. - There is a "funny" bug when going to start screen from a game and then pressing previous on your mouse. - When trading, you need to have the team selected on the navigation tool as well to see the salary. - Sometimes the salary negotiations bug and you offer them 0/minimum for 1 year. This makes the players mad and unwilling to resign. The bug also persists itself when the player has cooled down so if this bug occurs you're all out of luck and have to trade the player to get some value. Gamedesign has issues as well. - Why is there no tutorial? The game has a lot of options everywhere. That would be a good thing, but some options don't have any descriptions (tactics come to mind). It would also help a new player to know where to find things. - Why is it such an integral part of a GM's life to set player numbers. Why can you not automate it? It is also weird you need to assign them numbers every time they get called up. - The window for signing prospects is a really weird thing. Why can you not sign contracts in advance and they just kick in when the window opens. To me it seems like the coding is sloppy and weak. I also don't know how some of these things slipped past QA. They become obvious very quickly when playing. There are also positive aspects when it comes to some features, but for now it seems like there are too many glaring holes in the product for me to enjoy it. Too bad it took more than the 2 hours granted by Steam to figure it out. TL;DR Has some potential, but too many bugs/bad design make it unplayable. I'd say 5 bucks would be a fair price to pay for it.

I really love the game since Im a hockey fanatic. The details within the game as far as player type, stats, players character and more are really great additions and creates more morale decisions when trading or cutting a player. The KHL player rights situation is kinda confusing atm as I havent figured out if I have to wait for their KHL contracts to be up or not. Now the reason why I wouldn't recommend the game is because of the offseason simulations. During the season it's not bad simulating day to day, but when the playoffs end the game takes forever simulating to either the draft or even a week for that matter. It literally took me a day to simulate past Year 1 offseason due to it being unresponsive and the occasion crashing. The game never crashed for me during the season but that offseason simulation annoys me and slows my gameplay. The only reason why I keep playing is because I love what they added to this game, but I know a lot of people that wont stick it out for that reason. If they change the offseason simulation then I'll change my review.

After spending 11 hours in two days, here are my thoughts: - Incredibly slow user interface (it feels like the UI shares thread with the logic) - Lists lose their sorted order when you go back a page - AI setup lines misses certain players and makes weird lines - Inconsistent menus (way too many clicks to get to certain pages) - Even when set at the fastest sim settings, the games take forever to simulate - The message system is really buggy and annoying - No native profile headshots, even though the game has the official NHL license - It feels like tactics don't really impact the outcome of games - $35 is a huge waste of money on this low quality product - Can't really find anything good about the game as it stands now Basically, get the latest roster updates for EHM instead, because it's better in every single aspect.

I spent 20 hours on this game and around 500 on the last game and its honelty a downgrade not rote the price that its at right now. Also its funny how most of the likes that this game has are from people that have nearly 300 hours in a game that came out 2 weeks ago cons -feels a lot slower then past games -cant see which players you have are playing international anymore so the preseason is like a game of clue -maybe this is just me but you dont have the face pictures anymore and when you trade or sign someone they keep the jersey from the past team -you cant see the the defense, offense etc or the stats anymore unless you go to your roaster,click on their name hich sends you to back to the top or have it on the hub heres the problem you cant do that if the player is in the draft or in free agency why cant we just hover over the player name like the last games??? - AI is still dumb i traded shea weber for the 1 overall pick in the draft with Viktor Arvidsson and Mattias Ekholm attached to it -drafting and free agency is a mess you better make should that the player you click on is the right one because it causes you to go back to the top and resets what you were looking for idk if thats a bug but thats jusst stupid -a downgrade from the last game come on guys -the new lay out is confusing -switching to your farm team is a mess pros -has an updated roster they seemed like they wanted to try some new things but it failed you guys had to have played tested it and played number 4 and saw how bad it is compared to it now. If you want to play a game like this get 4 its much better then this landfill

I really ummed and arghed about whether I could reccomend this game or not despite enjoying large parts of it. Ultimately I would reccomend it but there are some issues that need addressing, some quite urgently. As somebody who loves Sports Sim/Management game and a huge ice hockey fan I was so excited by this game. I've played EHM for quite a while now but after growing frustrated with that I wanted to try this. At first all seemed good, it looks much cleaner and more inviting than EHM and the proper licensing rights to the NHL is great. As somebody who likes to tinker with things the Commissioner mode is a nice touch too, although I do wish there were more options to edit teams etc. I also enjoy the feeling that the North American League's in particular are just slightly more complete. The financial side of this feels better than other similar games, especially the addition of local TV Market deals although I noticed the contract negotiations with players coming off their rookie deals doesn't seem even close to realistic at times (I managed to sign McAvoy to a 4 year deal at $1.4million cap hit). Contract negotiations other than this seemed fairly normal other than the tendency of overpaying stars (although most games do this and I dont think this is a weakness of FHM at all). But quite quickly I discovered the first problem. The game is unstable and clunky. Whilst I'm fortunate that I've not had many crashes yet the game freezes for 5-10 seconds every time you click the drop down menu or any options in it making it incredibly difficult to navigate around the game. This isn't helped by the fact that sometimes things just arent where you expect them to be. Navigating to clubs outside of your league is a real pain and international sides is even more difficult. This is still the biggest problem I have with the game but I do have a number of other more minor problems. Firstly to me, the trading system feels slightly innacurate with teams often making unrealistic moves. The strangest thing I've come across is the League wide over valuation of mid round draft picks. For some reason in my first save Tampa inexplicably traded the majority of their players with any marketable value for 3rd, 4th and 5th round picks including Kucherov for 2 3rd rounders at the end of the 1st season. By the time season started they had accumulated 3 2nd round picks, 8 3rd rounders, 3 4th rounders & 5 5th rounders across the 2020/21 drafts. They did win the cup and were facing cap problems which may explain this slightly but it seemed odd the extremes of this and the favouring of mid round picks over prospects. Some of the trades were just ridiculous (Kucherov for example). Secondly, while I think the tactic system is a great idea and I enjoy being able to mess around with player roles, it just doesn't feel easy to use. I find it difficult and counter-intuitive to set lines and dress or undress players, same sadly with the training screen. I'm sure once I get more used to this it will start to make sense but for now its just an unnecessarily difficult part of the game. Finally, This touches on what was briefly mentioned before but the interface is just weird. Its awkward to find free agents, the trade block (Not to mention the frustrating method of trading itself), and the calender is limited in what it tells you. There is more I could write but I don't want to feel like I'm knit picking. Ultimately I am enjoying this game and there is a huge amount of potential but there is a lot about it I find frustrating. The unstable nature of it is really limiting my enjoyment too, particularly over longer gaming sessions. I really hope this series does continue though as there is a lot about this to like. Before buying the next one though, I will wait to see if the stability issues are sorted.

Better than the two previous version and more importantly, the game doesn't crash consistently. The new layout is an upgrade from FHM4/3. I've always enjoyed the core concept of the game but have some recommendations for future improvements. - please add a filter option to better find trainers and assistant coaches. Pain in the ass looking for a trainer with a skill of 18+ - not sure if its my game but the playoff stats always show zero on the team stats screen - players will immediately drop 1/2-1 star after a trade, being picked up on free agency or being moved between the AHL/NHL. - include a hot button on the right side to easily get to your AHL/ECHL team. The previous versions used to have your minor league stats/records on the parent home page. After each day sims, the default screen should be a "GM" view of the entire organization. I have to click on 3-4 buttons to see my AHL teams stats/line combinations. Doesn't make managing each team very easy. - there is currently a glitch where I offer a contact to a free agent for the base amount for 2-3 years @ 600k/700k. The CPU will reject the offer and make me counter-offer for a higher contract. The problem lies where the game doesn't allow me to increase my offer past 925k. The button for meet demand doesnt increase the 925k and simply ruins the negotiation process. I have plenty of cap space and roster space. It's happened a couple times so I have to increase the initial offer past 1M. - like other reviews have stated, there should be two sets of roles and roles shouldn't spill over into speciality teams. How can a legitimate 1C "playmaker" be a playmaker on the PK? That should be changed to a backchecking/two-way - add descriptions to the tactics. drop downs offer the name. I've added criticism and feedback in hopes to continue making this game great. The devs are always active on the forums and here on steam. Thank you for making another year. Was looking forward to it after seeing the improvements on OOTP.

Full of bugs, need to be mostly fixed to give a respectable gameplay. The interface is average, I see the potential but it's just not there yet. Not worth your money for the moment it's not as fluent as EHM for example. However main developper seems to be very active in steam / forums / etc. and I'm pretty sure this review could eventually change in a positive way. I Sure hope it was just a very early release and that the game will keep getting better !

I have put around 500 hours into the FHM seriers on FHM 3 and FHM 4, i have lead teams on these games to NHL season with 70 + wins for 5 straight years so id like to think i know how to play. Let me start by saying like everyone else on here i do think that the UI has improved a lot this year, but the reason im giving this game a negative review is because of what they have taken out. You can now only assign one role to a player on your team, in old games when your players where 5v5 you would assign them an offensive role and a defensive role ex. On offence you could have the player be Screener and while said player was on Defence you could assign him the Backchecking Forward role. Now they have one role and you can set players Backcheacking tendencies to low,med or high.However my BIGGEST problem with the game is the fact you can no longer assign players separate roles for 5v5 ,PK or PP what that means is when you give a player a role EX.Sniper he has to use that role for 5v5 PP and PK if you change the players PK role it also changes his 5v5 and PP role to the same.I think that is a huge mistake as i doubt players are ever asked to play the same way on the PP as they are on the PK.