Backyard Baseball

absolutely CRIMINAL price tag....they are predators just preying upon nostalgia. higher difficulty does not equal a harder challenge that you can traverse through skill, it just means EVERY. SINGLE. HIT. gets caught for an out. you spend about 80% of the game in the field because the difficulty system just means "how fast would you like us to catch your hits" this game is extremely shallow for a 40 dollar pricetag, and there is no challenge or difficulty... not one you can control by being better at the game anyways. the harder the difficulty, the more the ball just miraculously goes straight to an outfielder and the lower your chances are for big hits. Higher difficulty = fixed game

This game has potential but it misses the mark big time. Don't get me wrong, the gameplay is fun, And i enjoyed the game. But i can't recommend it. i think they should have pushed the release back because the game isn't even complete. Gameplay wise it has bugs, that is to be expected. But it is kind of frustrating when having a runner on first and hitting a single into the outfield only to have the runner get thrown out at second because the cpu decided your runner should stay at first base so then you have to manually tell them to move. Its also annoying to have fly balls that bounce off the outfield fence walls in multiple ballparks get called out when the cpu catches it. It feels to me like this game wasn't even tested when they released it. The championship stadium, i took a screen shot of the field, the foul poles and the fair and foul line don't even make it to the fence. That is straight up embarrassing for a release. The gameplay bugs i can look over because they happen and can be fixed. But what i can't overlook is how they kinda stripped the personality of all the characters and part of the game itself. I am not a big fan of the homerun celebration sequence and the music, i know you can turn it off, but For example Achmed khan. They turned him from a heavy rockin guitar man into a pop artist. His homerun music is this weird trap beat and when he does his celebration, he does this weird michael jackson yell. That aint achmed khan at all. i am also not a huge fan of the voice acting. Its Clear they didn't spend time recording that many lines. Vinne the Gooch is too quiet and sounds too depressed. They re-use the Sunny Day "pitcher entrance" vocal line when the pitcher on the other team GOES UP TO BAT and isn't pitching. Not only that, but they seemed to forget to record Sunny Day's vocal name lines for the Non-backyard kids. Chico Pappas will get custom card art made for him, but won't even get his name read out by Sunny Day in game. I don't know how they missed that. It was in the old games. Overall i think this game is a mixed bag. i had fun playing it, but its clear to me that this was not ready to be released and i hope they go back and work on the vocal lines and at least fix the fields.

Can't recommend with blatant sponsorships in game combined with the high price. Others have already mentioned in their reviews the Gatorade powerups, but I haven't seen anyone discuss the Frosted Flakes sponsorship. There's additional Gatorade sponsorships in the Super Colossal Dome (a banner in left field and one in the commentary booth) which feels like a real slap in the face to see after making it to the Ultra Grand Championship of the Universe Series. There's a similar banner for Frosted Flakes at Big City Stadium which would've frustrated me, but the game went a step further. In Dirt Yards, there's a cute mural mostly of old Backyard Baseball team logos and has a Tony the Tiger in the lower left of it. Again, would've annoyed me if that's all it was, but I hit a home run that bounced off it and was gobsmacked when Sunny Day and Vinnie launched into an exchange along the lines of "wow that ball was hit right at the kellog's frosted flakes mural! the breakfast of champions! it's grrrrrreat!" I couldn't believe my ears. So it's for these previously undisclosed sponsorships I cannot recommend this game. The price being $40 in addition to having these is a huge insult. And, I know this game is marketed towards 30-40 year olds who remember playing these games as kids, but those people's children are going to play this game. And they're going to be served these ads. And that's just really gross to me. Honestly, game-wise, I do like a lot of what they did. Baserunning is worse than in past games (can't steal bases anymore and the AI is really bad at tagging up/going with no way of overturning its decision). Fielding feels as janky as it did back then, just with new jank. Pitching is as much a mystery box as it was but I like the timing minigame added as a distraction from that. I like hitting a lot. Feels like that's where all the focus went and I think they did a great job on that. And most importantly the pace of the games is just way better. Things like the ball getting back to the pitcher after a pitch taking half a second rather than two seconds adds up. I could talk more about subjective things like how I don't understand the voice direction for Vinnie making him sound really sleepy, or why the songs are purposely toned down when it was cool how bombastic and in-your-face they were, or why promise online play but not come with it at launch, but I think that's beyond the scope of the review. The bottom line for me is that I need the sponsorships gone if I'm ever going to recommend this to anyone else.

Oh how the mighty have fallen. I was so happy to get another backyard baseball game decades after my childhood. But it needs so much polish it could could have the white house sparkling. It looked at the phrase "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" and spat in it. Everything used to be managed with a click. The pitches need to be held for accuracy, the pitch assist when batting is either pinpoint or none at all rather than a zone like the OG, meaning it's baby easy or swing and pray. they added a "press space to dive" feature whereas my infielders automatically did it and all the fielding throws are arced and sluggish. To have a perfect template readily available, that worked for multiple iterations, and say "nah, let's change it up" is modern companies acquiring an IP in a nutshell. $40 for this abomination is diabolical. Especially when they showcased OG MLB players appearing and they aren't selectable. Thanks for putting the OG Backyard Baseball games on modern platforms, but until you realize that's what we wanted but with better graphics, I'll take my money back and wait for you to get it together.

If this was early access I would say it feels broken and unfinished. Performance is fine, but gameplay is mid at best, plus some bugs (especially with baserunning) and QOL issues such as having to watch players walk all the way back to the dugout, etc. Bummber.

First the $40 value is way too high for this game. Secondly, it's entirely too buggy for this to be a full release. Thirdly, the mechanics are really annoying if you're using a controller. For the mechanics, just to provide one example, I was on defense and the ball was hit to 3B. I wanted to throw to 2B and back to 1B for a double play but because the SS was standing in front of the third basemen, I had to throw it to him as if he was the cut off man and it made everyone safe. For the bugs, runners randomly not running, the commentary is really annoying too. I'll hit a groundball to 2B and they'll say its a ground ball to CF (same for 3B and LF, etc.). I can see the potential for this game to be good but they need to fix the bugs and improve the mechanics for contollers.

I believe they did an amazing job at replicating what the originals did before they lost the plot. if you loved the og games Pick it up and play it.

Nostalgia of the original series with an updated flair! Mechanics are updated slightly and take a bit to get used to, but once you have them down, the game is incredibly fun! MLB players are unlockable and the new home run derby and Wiggle Ball additions are fun inclusions to expand game modes! Definitely recommend for fans of the series and to kids who want a fun and easy baseball game they can enjoy!

Brings back childhood memories. I can't wait until the other Backyard Sports games are released!

I just want to start with saying that I want to love this game so badly. I loved the original games and this game has so much to love. The card packs are really fun with cool art. It’s also exciting to see more characters showing up! However, the main draw for me with this new game is the 2 player mode, and it has some problems. First you cannot select team names or colors, they are random. Not necessarily the worst thing but surprised me. Also in two player mode you can see where to opponent is pitching and what they are throwing. This isn’t necessarily the problem. That’s just how sharing a screen with the opponent works in a game like this. To still make the game competitive it seems that the better the pitch you throw the larger the circle. Therefore more area the pitch could be in, making it harder to hit. The problem is that no matter how well you throw, the pitch always ends up exactly in the center of the circle. After my partner and I realized this no matter where or what we pitched if it wasn’t a ball it was a home run. It completely ruins any sort of actual strategy and it’s just a home run derby. I get it’s not supposed to be a super serious baseball game but I really hope this is some bug and not the game functioning as intended. The game is so fun and has so so much to love, but as others have pointed out it still needs work and has its fair share of bugs. Honestly, I would give it a ‘sideways’ thumb if I could. Devs seem passionate and open to feedback, so I am expecting the game to quickly improve, but for now I gotta stick to single player.