Backyard Baseball

I wasn't crazy about the price but I bought it anyway. I wasn't crazy about the fielding controls, but I got used to them. I have seen some bugs that will hopefully get fixed eventually, but overall the game is a lot of fun to play, especially if you are a fan of this series. I do recommend it, but be patient in the beginning. There is definitely a bit of a learning curve here compared to most or all other baseball games. It's not hard really, just different for some reason. It would be nice to have a "classic controls" option because moving the stick to a base doesn't always work so good. From what I have seen though, the devs are aware of this and want to make it better. Here's hoping they will because this has potential to be a great game for a long time.

Enjoyable and easy to pick up. It brings back the nostalgia of the original with great visuals and fun gameplay. I think it will really be worth the price once online multiplayer is added. Legend Pablo for the win!

Great game, very fun to play!

I think this is meant to be said but, considering what you get, I do not recommend BYB 2026 yet at the current price point. The gameplay itself is struggling in the fielding element, with various glitches and exploits occuring, where fielders will not be able to pick up a ball despite having ran over and they are frozen in place except they can still move at your command??? A very weird occurance. This also wasn't helped by the auditory glitches found at the Super Colossal Dome where whenever you have a player enter the dugout, you get hit with a BLUSTER of elephant sound effects? When examining the captions, often for the generic players they will state [CustomKid] or [InsertNameofVA] or [DifferentGenericName] instead of the proper one, and many of the dialogue still lacks captions in certain places, and sometimes is left unfinished without proper punctuation or phrases said. There also is the presence of [Pronoun] in the captions instead of the player's pronoun being said. The voice acting has plenty of highs and lows, the gameplay rhythm is fun but clearly if you're a baseball fan who wants a less arcadey experience this wasn't going to be for you in the first place, not to mention that fielding is just too hard to handle currently, with poor control. This isn't helped by how on the higher difficulties the outfield can play a perfect game yet you are struggling to properly handle yourself. Bunting is abnormally difficult and proves useless, so good luck doing anything with that. Batting itself has become easier because of the lack of depth in the pitch circle as they show up and I would love for the adjustment to go back to that, but it's not as big as a fault compared to the fielding experience. The characters are fun as well, which are the highlight, but many of them suffer from poor voice acting (see Chico Pappas who has a VA that did not get properly mixed and mastered to sound right, as he is about several decibels higher than anyone else, and also sounds like a grown ass man. Ah, yes, puberty ends at 10, not 25, or ah, yes, he took growth hormones. Fantastic!), or lack details from the prior games in the series that kept them distinctive, such as some expressions of characters. Similarly, the walk-up themes are considerably weaker than before, and it's a step-back, but something that cannot be changed easily, much like the voice acting. Some of the wording on things is unclear in League Mode, making me confused on the format in championship rounds of things. For 40 dollars, you would expect a product that is finished and filled, however when the generic unlockable characters do not sit on the bench and can only be selected by scrolling ALL the way over to the side and clicking on TOP of randomly assigned stickers to them, it's not exactly ideal. As much faith as I would love to give MadCat and Playground for their efforts because this is a series that has gone through so much worse in terms of their entries and especially with a smaller studio that is more proactive, I want to give them grace. I recall during the release of the demo I lodged a big complaint concerning laptop performance (which has largely been resolved in the final build), so I do believe that they are able to improve upon what they've released but because of how empty this game is world-wise and how lacking it is in core fundamentals that ought to be re-evaluated, or just cleaning things up! But at the current moment of the game as of 1.0.8.3 (when I am writing this review), I cannot recommend this product at 40 dollars. Half the price, certainly. 30, if I'm being generous. I do believe that it can very much be worth 40 dollars, but not now.

Great game! I really enjoyed playing it. The vibes and the music feel so nostalgic.

This was my first Backyard Baseball game, and I can see why people have so much nostalgia for it. It's easy to jump into, the gameplay is simple but fun, and every match has that laid-back and chill vibe that makes it enjoyable. There's still some room for improvement, though. The fielding can feel a bit confusing and a little clunky at times, and I'm looking forward to seeing the gameplay get smoother with future updates. Having a great time with it so far.

this game is so tough

Love this game. It feels old and new at the same time. Love that the characters haven't changed. This brings back my child hood. Glad this game has been refreshed for the new generation

At launch, the game was a bit too punishing even on normal diff for some reason. Then I figured out controls, saw I had an update for the game, played it again, and everything made sense. I really am happy I gave this game a shot. Even though the price tag is a bit steep with its current build, I really enjoyed what I got. The game's vibrant, and hitting feels good. Defense can get a bit rough at times, but I'm chalking it up on my end as being not used to the game still. This game really brought back the memories of playing Backyard Baseball '97 for me when I was a kid. Seeing how passionate this dev team/publisher are (from what I saw on Joon Lee's channel), I'm happy to see that the spirit of the game lives on with this one. I hope the dev team continues to progress in making more Backyard sports games like Backyard Basketball, but only time will tell. For now, cheers to finally seeing a new Backyard title worthy of being played and here's to many more updates that'll iron out some of these newer features while also stomping out the remaining bugs that I and many other players encountered. Bug Examples: had a kid morph through a red fence on one the fields. Can't remember the name of the field itself, but it was jarring when the game registered practically the same hit the very next up to bat as a home run. Also the game does have stuttering issues mid-game on Windows 10. Not sure if it's the same for Windows 11 users. Lastly, when doing Season Play, every time I finish a game, the announcer gets mixed up with saying that their team is next up to bat, only to cut off to what sounds like a 'end of game' voice line. Not sure what's triggering the incorrect line to be played.

I think some balancing issues are present in the pitching and hitting mechanics HOWEVER this game reminds me vividly of what I remember growing up 1000 percent recommend for a chill and fun experience