Backyard Baseball Review
To be up front, I did not grow up on Backyard Baseball. It was Ken Griffey Jr. Presents Major League Baseball, every day, twice on Sunday. So when the Backyard Baseball revival was announced, naturally, my first thought was “what the hell is Backyard Baseball?” Well, unfortunately, I got my answer. After spending the last week with it, I’m flabbergasted. This is one of the most frustrating games I’ve played in years.
I’ll start with what works, because the list is short. The visual presentation is charming. The team behind this reboot found a way to modernize the chunky, big-headed kids from 1997. More importantly, they did it without losing what made those characters recognizable in the first place. Character models are solid and more expressive than the originals. The fields are bright and filled with small details. The overall art direction respects the source material rather than trying to reinvent it, and I gotta give kudos for that. If a screenshot were all I had to judge this game by, I’d call it a success.
The audio is fine, though it isn’t a highlight either. The soundtrack stays upbeat and suits the backyard aesthetic well enough. It never strays far from what you’d expect out of a game with this sort of aesthetic. Pleasant background noise about sums it up.
Field Woes
But Backyard Baseball completely crumbled the second I stepped onto the field (or cemented alleyway). Hitting and pitching hold up reasonably well on their own, only because both systems lean on simple, forgiving inputs instead of any real depth. Swing timing works the way you’d expect – aim, wait, press button. Picking pitch types barely gives pitching enough nuance to stay interesting. Fielding, though, is where the whole experience falls apart. It’s ridiculous how many times I’ve found myself scrambling to correct a throw that went to the wrong player. And getting a fielder into position for a routine catch feels about as difficult as beating Elden Ring’s Malenia with a Rock Band guitar. I get that this is a revamp of a 30-year-old game, but why does it need to feel like I’m playing a 30-year-old game?
Base running compounds the trouble. Runners move with such sluggishness that it completely sucks the excitement out of any big hit. Far too often, a promising stretch single would turn into a drawn-out slog, and don’t get me started on the number of 9-3 outs I’ve seen. I can’t sugarcoat it – finishing a full nine innings in Backyard Baseball went from pastime to chore in about seven seconds flat.
The mode selection doesn’t help matters. Six different modes were announced ahead of launch, but in practice, it boils down to Quick Play and League. Everything else plays like a thin variation on the same clunky foundation. There’s a home run derby option included as well, and it works fine as a quick diversion, but it does nothing to address Backyard Baseball’s core issues. Online multiplayer isn’t even available yet, which further narrows the options. None of this would sting as much if the core gameplay loop wasn’t utterly painful, but it is. Pacing drags at nearly every turn, and getting through a single game demands more patience than a kids’ sports title should ever ask for. I kept hoping League play would smooth some of these rough edges out over a longer stretch of games. Instead, it just gave the same problems more room to flaunt themselves.
Commentary Gold
Now, if there’s one part of Backyard Baseball to write home about, it’s the voice work. Vinnie the Gooch, now voiced by Playground Productions CEO Lindsay Barnett, is pure comedy. His deadpan quips after a strikeout or as a batter steps into the box are fantastic. The same goes for his jabs whenever my defense fell apart, which admittedly gave him plenty of material. He brings personality to innings that otherwise drag, and that alone kept me pushing through a few extra games I might have otherwise abandoned. Whoever wrote his lines understood the assignment, even if the team behind developing the fielding didn’t.
I really wanted to like Backyard Baseball, but it can’t overcome its core mechanical failures. A cute art style and a sharp-tongued commentator only carry games so far. Once it gets going, it immediately falls on its face. Fielding breaks down more often than it functions. Base running drags every inning to a crawl. A thin mode list leaves little reason to push through the frustration once the novelty wears off. The comeback is dead. Now, where’s my copy of Ken Griffey Jr. Presents Major League Baseball?
***A Steam key was provided for this review***
The Good
- Fun commentary
- Detailed parks
- Charming visuals
The Bad
- Atrocious gameplay
- Limited game modes
- Excruciatingly boring
