Home Run Solitaire

10/10

This game was my second go-round with a Solitaire title from the Revills Games, following [i]Legends of Solitaire: Curse of the Dragons[/i], which I played and finished back in fall of 2020. I didn't write a review for that game, but the playing experience with this release is very similar to the older title, only with a story related to baseball as opposed to one with fantasy elements. I will always remember this game due to the fact that my old laptop bit the dust not long after I finished a session in the latter part of February. It had nothing to do with the game itself, as these things tend to happen with laptops that are 6-7 years old (especially ones that aren't high performance models), but I learned a valuable (and very painful) lesson about backing up hard drives, something I (foolishly) neglected with my old laptop (that's a very long story that will not be touched upon here). I only bring this up due to the fact that I had put 10.1 hours into this game prior to the computer problems, and this is not a title that gets saved in the Steam Cloud. This is most definitely what would be referred to as a "first world problem," but I had to start over from scratch when I resumed this game on a backup laptop that was sitting around here, and it took me 17.7 hours to complete it from beginning to end; this is around the total playing time (perhaps a bit less) that someone should expect if they intend to earn all of the achievements. The 27.8 hours that are on my record also reflect the time spent on my old laptop before it met its end. This game is enjoyable enough to play for 17.7 hours (or longer due to technical difficulties like mine, although it was frustrating to start over at the beginning), but I think that [i]Curse of the Dragons[/i] was a better game overall. The music and some of the elements of the game need to be set aside since they don't fit all that well with baseball (umpires are not known for using whistles, for example, and the music definitely fits much, much better with a fantasy theme than it does baseball), but it's important to remember that this is about Solitaire first and foremost. There's nothing wrong with the style of play itself, but it's probably best to play this game in shorter sessions since there is a lot of repetition, which is something you should expect with a Solitaire game. I was surprised to hear a [i]Spinal Tap[/i] reference during the level where you are playing the California team, and there are a number of (intentionally) corny jokes and references throughout that are heavily laden with puns. I didn't mind them at all since that kind of humor fits well with this type of game. I was able to get this game for 75% off during a sale back in late 2020, but I would still recommend it at full price since it's not incredibly expensive. The achievements aren't extremely difficult to earn if you put in a little time, and, while it's not the definitive Solitaire game, it's another solid title from the Revills Games.