Backyard Baseball

I'll admit that I haven't played the original Backyard Sports, and I do mean any of them. So I'm not going into this with the nostalgic experience that many other players have. However, I do like what I see from this game so far. Pros: One thing I like about this game is that every character is useful in some form (for the most part). Meaning it is difficult to have a player that is completely useless on your team unless you are intentionally looking for a bad team comp. The gameplay is fluid and fun, and the developers have continually made updates to improve the experience. One thing that I've found interesting is how the pitching mechanic works. When you pitch, you hold down left click/A Button and release it right as the inner white circle touches the ball to make your pitch land precisely where your cursor is. However, if you intentionally time it incorrectly, it can appear in a slightly different location, making it more difficult for the batter to predict where the pitch will appear. I don't know if the developers intended this as a strategy, but it is one to consider when playing. I also like how you adjust the fielders' formations to account for power hitters, line-drivers, and even open and closed stances (left or right) to defend the field better. Batting is also a lot of fun, with the need to aim and time your swing. Plus, having pitches that vary from slow pitches to crazy screwballs and frozen balls makes it a little more challenging to watch for visual cues and time your swing to get on base. The gameplay, for the most part, is straightforward to understand. Furthermore, there are no microtransactions or in-game payments of any sort; you buy them for the entire game upfront and unlock characters and stages by completing certain objectives. This is better because it makes you better at the game and unlocks more characters and stages, rather than having everything upfront, unlocking them randomly, or paying for more content. Cons: While there aren't necessarily any useless characters, there are several that are just better than others. For instance, Keisha is simply a better version of Billy Jean in almost every way, including her batting and speed. Though Billy Jean is still a good player, she would likely be one of the middle roster or last characters you pick since there are just better characters. Obviously, some characters are just designed to be better than others (like Pablo), but I do feel that there should be some rebalancing for some of these characters. Hence, players are more apt to try them, such as how Billy Jean's lengthy and taller stature fits well as a fielder. Therefore, her fielding capabilities could be a little better to represent that. It is also annoying that sometimes characters will not proceed to the next base on a successful hit. Fielding can also use some improvement. For one, which character you are controlling when fielding is inconsistent and sometimes annoying. I've noticed that the AI sometimes isn't the best at choosing which player to get the ball, and the change character button is the same as the dive button. It will make a character dive instead of changing to another player even if you are hovering over them. I noticed that my fielders would move out of the way when the ball was passed to them, and didn't understand why until I realized that both the mouse and keyboard were used to move the characters. So there would be times that the characters would follow the mouse and move out of the way of a pass. There have been times when I had to click every single runner to get them to proceed. Regarding unlocks, I believe that most of them are fair while presenting some challenge. However, there are a few that are not bad, but odd. One you unlock by completing the tutorial. I never played the tutorial and would have never realized that he was playable if I didn't look him up. Another character is one of the easiest unlocks in the game if you play with the game's menus and is easily one of the best players in the game. I believe this one in particular should be a harder unlock due to how good of a character he is. While the custom characters are fun to create and use, and are clearly still being worked on, there's a weird bug right now where you cannot change their stats after your first initial save for them. It's not the worst thing in the world since you can always make another one, and most people want to play iconic characters such as Pablo and Pete; it is annoying that the only way to update their stats to how you want is to make a whole new character and delete that one. Overall, this game has been a lot of fun, and the developer's updated roadmap from earlier today looks promising. I'm hopeful for what this game has to offer and have thoroughly enjoyed what it has given me so far.