Re: Super Mega Baseball 3 Impressions Thread (All Platforms)
Well, I had recorded my first played game with commentary and everything, but a lot of stupid circumstances led to my video file being both unrenderable and unrecoverable after some time mucking with it. I've since recreated my San Mateo Bearcats team (since I was on PS4 and now I'm on PC, I literally had to start again from scratch), and this took way more than "just a little over an hour" to do like I had initially thought. I think it ultimately took 4-5 hours.
Anyway, here is some Exhibition gameplay without commentary. It didn't upload to 1440p even though that's what it was rendered as; if anyone knows how to make sure it hits that target resolution on YouTube (does it need to encode to x265?), let me know! (EDIT: nevermind, it has since processed and it is now available)
<iframe width="768" height="321" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/iX0eZM-MJ48" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Okay, onto some impressions.
First of all, if people don't already know this, I love this video game series a heck of a lot. If you want me to gush over what this game already does well and what I enjoy, I'm not going to type about that here. I'd be typing all day if so. I'm just going to note the changes that I have seen (also jumping from PS4 to PC, as I can't guarantee what is and isn't different between the two from 2 to 3), and how I like or dislike some of the changes thus far, or how I'm surprised at certain things that haven't changed. Note that I have only played two Exhibition games so far.
Let's start with presentation, which ranges from things in-game to things in-menu.
Now I'm going to move on to the adjusted gameplay mechanics (including controls), which is where the adjustments mostly really shine.
Now onto some miscellaneous items:
That's it, phew! I'll have a lot more to say the more that I play, but this game is pretty legit and I can't wait to see how franchise works when I dive into that!
Well, I had recorded my first played game with commentary and everything, but a lot of stupid circumstances led to my video file being both unrenderable and unrecoverable after some time mucking with it. I've since recreated my San Mateo Bearcats team (since I was on PS4 and now I'm on PC, I literally had to start again from scratch), and this took way more than "just a little over an hour" to do like I had initially thought. I think it ultimately took 4-5 hours.
Anyway, here is some Exhibition gameplay without commentary. It didn't upload to 1440p even though that's what it was rendered as; if anyone knows how to make sure it hits that target resolution on YouTube (does it need to encode to x265?), let me know! (EDIT: nevermind, it has since processed and it is now available)
<iframe width="768" height="321" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/iX0eZM-MJ48" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Okay, onto some impressions.
First of all, if people don't already know this, I love this video game series a heck of a lot. If you want me to gush over what this game already does well and what I enjoy, I'm not going to type about that here. I'd be typing all day if so. I'm just going to note the changes that I have seen (also jumping from PS4 to PC, as I can't guarantee what is and isn't different between the two from 2 to 3), and how I like or dislike some of the changes thus far, or how I'm surprised at certain things that haven't changed. Note that I have only played two Exhibition games so far.
Let's start with presentation, which ranges from things in-game to things in-menu.
Spoiler
They obviously went with a different look, slightly simpler and darker in tone. Not the biggest fan of the change, but I think it's something I'll appreciate more in franchise mode because of all the text I'll be looking for, and simple is sleek in that sense. The muted feel will really help out. At first I thought I wouldn't really be able to see the attributes bars very well, and honestly it's slightly more of a chore than I need it to be, but I can live with it. The I think I like the old scorebug more, but again that's whatever. I just think this teal color might not really match what I'm seeing in-game as much as the old look. I haven't paid too much attention to the music, but music is exactly that, and it's fine. I did notice once that it was playing an actual popular song, but was covered as an instrumental... though sadly for the life of me, I can't recall what it is anymore! Oh well.
This game has gorgeous textures. A lot of the closeup cameras on the walk-ups really show this. The stitching of the jerseys, the fine grain of the dirt, the gleam in the eyes, the haze of the atmosphere, etc. is all top-notch. These games have always felt silky-smooth, and this game has made a huge leap in maintaining that while boasting the best they could with the graphics. I think some skin tones are off and grass shades from the lighting could be much better, but they definitely made a step in the right direction here.
I'm halfway a fan of the new fielding camera. I like that it has a narrower depth of field like a TV broadcast, but compared to the hitting camera it chokes up a lot mid-flight and is a bit disorienting. I don't feel it pulls back/up enough on fly balls, and I have a much, much more difficult time judging fly balls now. It's not much of a bother on offense, but on defense I hilariously keep trying to pull my chin up in hopes that the camera will track a little more upward in an angle. I'd say having an option for fielding and batting cameras would be nice at this point (including for pitching with lefties, as I'd like to always be over the right shoulder), but this game never really has been all that option-heavy.
Outside of the menu music, the sound has made a few alterations, and honestly I think almost all of them are for the worse. This goes from the hollow bat contact and crowd sounds (I don't know, "hollow" is a good word to use here), to the new sound effects for cycling your baserunner (it's like they're "getting on their horse" or something), to the chimes for getting XP, to the heads up notifications of the player traits, etc. It sounds fine when you square the ball up, but off-contact sounds really strange. Some of those chimey effects could be mitigated if there was a different audio slider for actual game sounds and then these presentation sounds, but they are all tied into the same slider, sadly.
They have a new PA announcer who is fine, and it's awesome that he announces player names (there is this one player named Pomp Duchee who will absolutely make you crack up when you hear him say his name). It's unfortunate that created players can't find their way in the database though, neither from the game's name randomizer nor from typing in names of existing SMB players. It would especially be nice if they added an audio name database that you could select from (ala The Show and Power Pros), but The Show has had the luxury of developers coming in and taking name requests on OS and such as well, so that's all over the place regardless. Still no commentators, and for now that's probably fine, but I think if they had the wackier sound of MLB Power Pros (not SlugFest) then it would work out well.
Regarding in-game management though, I'm definitely a fan of being able to see the opposing team's lineup. You don't know how difficult it was in the past to decide whether I want to put in one pitcher or another (or leave my current one in) based on knowing who the next three players up are, who they have on the bench, their handedness, mojo, etc. You can even go deep into their roster and see all the traits they have and the attributes by number. You can do this for your team too, by the way. Anyway, I've only played exhibition games so far so I couldn't tell you whether they kept one feature but I didn't see a slot for it: in SMB 2 you could see the number of pitches your relievers threw in the past three games. I hope that's still in the game, as that was pretty awesome.
While I was able to recreate my team from scratch because of so many team/player editor options being identical to the last game's installment, I'm definitely saddened they didn't go deeper on customization. No more layers, barely any more faces (and the two new female faces are ugly and frog-like) or accessories, no new stances or walk-up animations (and they tweaked some of the old stances for the worse IMO), and so on. I'm sure they are looking into what they can improve on this game still, but I think a lot of this will stay untouched.
On PC at least I can get a 100% crowd capacity, which is nice and densely packed. They look great, and though they don't try and catch the ball the game still has decent collision detection out there for your bombs to feel more rewarding. It's kind of weird that you can put the crowd at 0% and you still hear them cheer, so I guess you just gotta lower the crowd volume if you want that. By the way, for those wondering, I think that the "Crowd Variation" option has to do with how many home vs. away fans there will be, so I'm going to leave that on default. This game offers to match my 3440x1440 resolution, and it's so sweet to see foul line to foul line when batting (though it's freaky when you have a runner on third and he/she takes their secondary lead, haha). They do stretch everything else that's not in-game, though. Any text or images fill the screen wide. It looks like that doesn't get acknowledge for ultrawide, which can be a bit archaic and off-putting, but having 21:9 in and of itself is pretty sweet. I can max everything out and not have a single hitch in framerate.
I really appreciate that the game now has day/night settings for every stadium. It's kind of strange how weather is locked in with certain times of day (for example, in one park you can't do "evening" without "stormy," which kind of sucks), and it's also funny to see certain stadiums have a similar time of day from the previous game but look way different (like Sakura Hills, El Viejo Stadium, and Emerald Diamond). And I don't know where else to put these, but names under players on the field is a nice touch, and there is still no replay of any kind except on home runs (and even that look is tired and can certainly be better).
This game has gorgeous textures. A lot of the closeup cameras on the walk-ups really show this. The stitching of the jerseys, the fine grain of the dirt, the gleam in the eyes, the haze of the atmosphere, etc. is all top-notch. These games have always felt silky-smooth, and this game has made a huge leap in maintaining that while boasting the best they could with the graphics. I think some skin tones are off and grass shades from the lighting could be much better, but they definitely made a step in the right direction here.
I'm halfway a fan of the new fielding camera. I like that it has a narrower depth of field like a TV broadcast, but compared to the hitting camera it chokes up a lot mid-flight and is a bit disorienting. I don't feel it pulls back/up enough on fly balls, and I have a much, much more difficult time judging fly balls now. It's not much of a bother on offense, but on defense I hilariously keep trying to pull my chin up in hopes that the camera will track a little more upward in an angle. I'd say having an option for fielding and batting cameras would be nice at this point (including for pitching with lefties, as I'd like to always be over the right shoulder), but this game never really has been all that option-heavy.
Outside of the menu music, the sound has made a few alterations, and honestly I think almost all of them are for the worse. This goes from the hollow bat contact and crowd sounds (I don't know, "hollow" is a good word to use here), to the new sound effects for cycling your baserunner (it's like they're "getting on their horse" or something), to the chimes for getting XP, to the heads up notifications of the player traits, etc. It sounds fine when you square the ball up, but off-contact sounds really strange. Some of those chimey effects could be mitigated if there was a different audio slider for actual game sounds and then these presentation sounds, but they are all tied into the same slider, sadly.
They have a new PA announcer who is fine, and it's awesome that he announces player names (there is this one player named Pomp Duchee who will absolutely make you crack up when you hear him say his name). It's unfortunate that created players can't find their way in the database though, neither from the game's name randomizer nor from typing in names of existing SMB players. It would especially be nice if they added an audio name database that you could select from (ala The Show and Power Pros), but The Show has had the luxury of developers coming in and taking name requests on OS and such as well, so that's all over the place regardless. Still no commentators, and for now that's probably fine, but I think if they had the wackier sound of MLB Power Pros (not SlugFest) then it would work out well.
Regarding in-game management though, I'm definitely a fan of being able to see the opposing team's lineup. You don't know how difficult it was in the past to decide whether I want to put in one pitcher or another (or leave my current one in) based on knowing who the next three players up are, who they have on the bench, their handedness, mojo, etc. You can even go deep into their roster and see all the traits they have and the attributes by number. You can do this for your team too, by the way. Anyway, I've only played exhibition games so far so I couldn't tell you whether they kept one feature but I didn't see a slot for it: in SMB 2 you could see the number of pitches your relievers threw in the past three games. I hope that's still in the game, as that was pretty awesome.
While I was able to recreate my team from scratch because of so many team/player editor options being identical to the last game's installment, I'm definitely saddened they didn't go deeper on customization. No more layers, barely any more faces (and the two new female faces are ugly and frog-like) or accessories, no new stances or walk-up animations (and they tweaked some of the old stances for the worse IMO), and so on. I'm sure they are looking into what they can improve on this game still, but I think a lot of this will stay untouched.
On PC at least I can get a 100% crowd capacity, which is nice and densely packed. They look great, and though they don't try and catch the ball the game still has decent collision detection out there for your bombs to feel more rewarding. It's kind of weird that you can put the crowd at 0% and you still hear them cheer, so I guess you just gotta lower the crowd volume if you want that. By the way, for those wondering, I think that the "Crowd Variation" option has to do with how many home vs. away fans there will be, so I'm going to leave that on default. This game offers to match my 3440x1440 resolution, and it's so sweet to see foul line to foul line when batting (though it's freaky when you have a runner on third and he/she takes their secondary lead, haha). They do stretch everything else that's not in-game, though. Any text or images fill the screen wide. It looks like that doesn't get acknowledge for ultrawide, which can be a bit archaic and off-putting, but having 21:9 in and of itself is pretty sweet. I can max everything out and not have a single hitch in framerate.
I really appreciate that the game now has day/night settings for every stadium. It's kind of strange how weather is locked in with certain times of day (for example, in one park you can't do "evening" without "stormy," which kind of sucks), and it's also funny to see certain stadiums have a similar time of day from the previous game but look way different (like Sakura Hills, El Viejo Stadium, and Emerald Diamond). And I don't know where else to put these, but names under players on the field is a nice touch, and there is still no replay of any kind except on home runs (and even that look is tired and can certainly be better).
Now I'm going to move on to the adjusted gameplay mechanics (including controls), which is where the adjustments mostly really shine.
Spoiler
Let's start with pitching. I am exclusively a power pitcher (by using the Square button on a PS4 controller) just for the sake of not needing or wanting to mix it up, and now that they have the wild pitch portion (most of them are balls, but a few are strikes), there is a much greater risk/reward which has led me to throwing many more balls and walking many more batters. This is all but a good thing. It makes everything matter so much more, including player attributes. I do think the strike zone feels slightly tighter as well on the sides, which is good. The CPU hasn't chased out of the zone too much yet, but I don't know if I've earned it all that much either. Hey, pitching has simply been difficult. I play at a high ego (in that game it is at 85, and I started an A+ pitcher), and since I got shelled my first game 15-0 when it was on 92 for pitching, I knew that I could definitely temper it and be satisfied for now. I like that there are pickoffs, but I'll get into that again in a moment.
Now, onto batting. Immediately, the reticle being a different size based on the player's contact ability, whether you power/contact swing, and certain traits activating is just a tremendous piece. It has really changed the entire dynamic of hitting, and I'm proud to say that I'm striking out more often as I should. I haven't bunted yet, but bunting was always a headache for me in SMB 2 for many reasons, and it was way too hard to be successful in sacrificing. I'm hoping to deliver some good news there soon, but there is still no drag bunting which is unfortunate. The CPU also doesn't bunt very often. The rest of batting mostly feels the same, which again is a great thing. I'm sensing I'll get walked a lot more by the CPU as well too, especially with my bigger hitters. They seem to throw around them a heck of a lot more than they used to, and I don't think it's just a placebo effect. Combined with the slightly tighter strike zone, I think batting is a hit!
Defense has changed very little regarding what we do, but the ramifications of being a good or bad defender is impeccably polarizing. Having a good defense will matter so much this time around, as well as having players with the Utility trait. Also with wild pitches and passed balls, good catchers are now a big plus. Diving catches are nearly an impossibility now unless you hit it right on the glove and have a good fielding rating, which is cool but a little frustrating haha. Stopping the ball can be nice, but this game needs better logic in switching defenders now that we switch with L2 and not by letting go of the analog stick. There are a lot of plays I could have finished if the switching was a bit smarter on its own in those areas, especially now that the ball gets kicked around a lot more. Throwing seems a lot floatier, which is totally fine, so scoring on a base hit is much more possible and there are a lot less turned double plays. In my first game, I simply couldn't turn any. My defense sucked and the other team had good speed. It didn't matter how hard the ball was hit or how routine it should have been, even with 90+ throwing power on my end for both throws on a 6-4-3. I'm mostly just glad that defense here really matters and cannot be an afterthought. The AI is also really good at making late defensive changes if need be to protect a lead.
Baserunning has a lot of big changes. This first thing is probably more of a presentation piece, but I like that now when I use the left analog stick to try and select a runner that there is a little blue cursor that maps onto the baserunning diamond in the corner to let me know who I'm trying to select. I've been wrong once or twice in the past where it had cost me, and this is a big help. They have some interesting new controls on advancing the lead runner or retreating the trailing runner which I have yet to exercise, practice, and make use of, but I can already think of some great reasons they would be put to use, especially when it comes to tagging up runners. Freezing runners with L1/R1 will take some getting used to, especially since it seems like I have to hold onto both of the buttons until I want to unfreeze them. This game has always had a bit of weird take-off logic on line drives where I sort of wish they would freeze automatically, as it has caused me to be doubled up more than I think I've deserved. I want to naturally send my own runners when a ball is in the air, and then just have them go the first time the ball hits the ground (if they're forced), but that's for another day.
Stealing is now damn hard, and while that's mostly a good thing (especially for online players), it seems like some of the aspects are getting in the way of the game just a little bit. For one, the CPU incessantly attempts to pick you off if your runner has more than decent speed and the game is close enough. I've seen one attempt sail out of play out of maybe 50 so far, and only twice have I seen the CPU lower their mojo for attempting to pick off far too often. They once did three attempts, pitched it, then two more attempts before they pitched again, and their mojo never once lowered. It's gotta be like a pinball table that's ready to tilt and be a little more on-edge, because they already have a fast delivery and can pitch out to remedy it. I had a player with 99 speed and the Stealer trait again a >50 pitcher speed and a <50 catcher arm, and I was dead to rights trying to straight-steal second after they did their damage keeping me close. It's just kind of not worth it to even try stealing. Third base will even be harder since they do the spaghetti move, and there isn't enough in the way of camera changes and such to know when they'll do one versus the other.
There are three other stealing bothers: (1) I have yet to be a successful hitter at the plate while stealing since the pitch comes in so quick as I'm trying to time it (I sure as hell won't be able to power swing); (2) runners don't go automatically with full-count and two outs either, so now I have to cue that up among everything else... so (1) and (2) would be nicely remedied if there still was an automatic steal option (more for situations like the hit-and-run and such, so it's a much less successful type); (3) defenders, specifically middle infielders, are hovering over an occupied base on the oppo side way too much, and it is exposing massive holes in the defense, which is crucial when players seem to hit opposite field every bit as often as they pull it.
In all, my guess is this addresses a lot of the online play cheesing that probably goes on. I haven't played any SMB game online yet, but if this all helps for that then I'm all for it. It doesn't break the actual game, it separates good from bad players, and only the best can beat the best now.
Now, onto batting. Immediately, the reticle being a different size based on the player's contact ability, whether you power/contact swing, and certain traits activating is just a tremendous piece. It has really changed the entire dynamic of hitting, and I'm proud to say that I'm striking out more often as I should. I haven't bunted yet, but bunting was always a headache for me in SMB 2 for many reasons, and it was way too hard to be successful in sacrificing. I'm hoping to deliver some good news there soon, but there is still no drag bunting which is unfortunate. The CPU also doesn't bunt very often. The rest of batting mostly feels the same, which again is a great thing. I'm sensing I'll get walked a lot more by the CPU as well too, especially with my bigger hitters. They seem to throw around them a heck of a lot more than they used to, and I don't think it's just a placebo effect. Combined with the slightly tighter strike zone, I think batting is a hit!
Defense has changed very little regarding what we do, but the ramifications of being a good or bad defender is impeccably polarizing. Having a good defense will matter so much this time around, as well as having players with the Utility trait. Also with wild pitches and passed balls, good catchers are now a big plus. Diving catches are nearly an impossibility now unless you hit it right on the glove and have a good fielding rating, which is cool but a little frustrating haha. Stopping the ball can be nice, but this game needs better logic in switching defenders now that we switch with L2 and not by letting go of the analog stick. There are a lot of plays I could have finished if the switching was a bit smarter on its own in those areas, especially now that the ball gets kicked around a lot more. Throwing seems a lot floatier, which is totally fine, so scoring on a base hit is much more possible and there are a lot less turned double plays. In my first game, I simply couldn't turn any. My defense sucked and the other team had good speed. It didn't matter how hard the ball was hit or how routine it should have been, even with 90+ throwing power on my end for both throws on a 6-4-3. I'm mostly just glad that defense here really matters and cannot be an afterthought. The AI is also really good at making late defensive changes if need be to protect a lead.
Baserunning has a lot of big changes. This first thing is probably more of a presentation piece, but I like that now when I use the left analog stick to try and select a runner that there is a little blue cursor that maps onto the baserunning diamond in the corner to let me know who I'm trying to select. I've been wrong once or twice in the past where it had cost me, and this is a big help. They have some interesting new controls on advancing the lead runner or retreating the trailing runner which I have yet to exercise, practice, and make use of, but I can already think of some great reasons they would be put to use, especially when it comes to tagging up runners. Freezing runners with L1/R1 will take some getting used to, especially since it seems like I have to hold onto both of the buttons until I want to unfreeze them. This game has always had a bit of weird take-off logic on line drives where I sort of wish they would freeze automatically, as it has caused me to be doubled up more than I think I've deserved. I want to naturally send my own runners when a ball is in the air, and then just have them go the first time the ball hits the ground (if they're forced), but that's for another day.
Stealing is now damn hard, and while that's mostly a good thing (especially for online players), it seems like some of the aspects are getting in the way of the game just a little bit. For one, the CPU incessantly attempts to pick you off if your runner has more than decent speed and the game is close enough. I've seen one attempt sail out of play out of maybe 50 so far, and only twice have I seen the CPU lower their mojo for attempting to pick off far too often. They once did three attempts, pitched it, then two more attempts before they pitched again, and their mojo never once lowered. It's gotta be like a pinball table that's ready to tilt and be a little more on-edge, because they already have a fast delivery and can pitch out to remedy it. I had a player with 99 speed and the Stealer trait again a >50 pitcher speed and a <50 catcher arm, and I was dead to rights trying to straight-steal second after they did their damage keeping me close. It's just kind of not worth it to even try stealing. Third base will even be harder since they do the spaghetti move, and there isn't enough in the way of camera changes and such to know when they'll do one versus the other.
There are three other stealing bothers: (1) I have yet to be a successful hitter at the plate while stealing since the pitch comes in so quick as I'm trying to time it (I sure as hell won't be able to power swing); (2) runners don't go automatically with full-count and two outs either, so now I have to cue that up among everything else... so (1) and (2) would be nicely remedied if there still was an automatic steal option (more for situations like the hit-and-run and such, so it's a much less successful type); (3) defenders, specifically middle infielders, are hovering over an occupied base on the oppo side way too much, and it is exposing massive holes in the defense, which is crucial when players seem to hit opposite field every bit as often as they pull it.
In all, my guess is this addresses a lot of the online play cheesing that probably goes on. I haven't played any SMB game online yet, but if this all helps for that then I'm all for it. It doesn't break the actual game, it separates good from bad players, and only the best can beat the best now.
Now onto some miscellaneous items:
Spoiler
I am glad that they have included a DH option, though sadly I was hoping for a little more flexibility because of what I specifically do with the game. Since I'm running my operation like a high school softball team, I was hoping to have a DP (designated player) instead of a DH. There are a few major differences between the two: (1) the DP can hit for any position player on the field, and it's not just restricted to the pitcher; (2) the DP position itself can swap with any other fielding position, though the starting DP is married to that flex player; (3) you can burn the DP or the flex at any time and drop straight to nine players, all batting and all on the field. I wasn't hoping they went the way of player re-entry as well, because that would be way too much. I was just hoping to get the most out of my particular situation is all, so I can't gripe if this is a small bit that is much ado about nothing. I haven't started a season yet to see how the DH is managed for different leagues and conferences, so that will be an interesting look for sure.
I know that the developers have spoken on new changes to mojo, so I'm curious to discover more about all of it. I had mentioned in the past that I wished mojo didn't affect the player in all attributes and only certain ones, but that doesn't seem to be the case. That being said, I think the mojo is much less of a boost/deficit than the past (whereas traits seem pretty boost-y), and there will likely be balances and trade-offs with your other players now. This is a good thing. My players were far too hot for far too long during the season, and it was really hard for a lot of them to cool down; on the flip-side, if one of my pitchers became rattled, it was really hard to shake his/her funk out of them while pitching (plus they had to hit, and that wouldn't help much either). Speaking back on player traits, they are definitely awesome, but I would like to see some tendencies added on top of it (fly ball hitter, pull hitter, ground ball pitcher, etc.).
Some stats still aren't really working out quite right. I can't mention them all, but a lot have to do with errors, fielder's choices, earned runs, and RBI's. I'm sure it's hard to track the logic of it all and give reason to what is considered "ordinary effort" and things of that nature, but I figure it is worth mentioning. I was also credited with a stolen base on a 1st-and-3rd situation when my runner on third got caught out in a rundown. There was a small infield fly bloop with the bases loaded where I couldn't control my fielders correctly, but it wasn't called in infield fly... perhaps because it was hit so low that the game decided it shouldn't be called one, which would be interesting. Anyway, I think the developers are baseball nuts and understand a lot of the nitty-gritty that goes on within the game, and I like that a lot of situational aspects are occurring more based on the score of the game than it did in SMB 2.
I know that the developers have spoken on new changes to mojo, so I'm curious to discover more about all of it. I had mentioned in the past that I wished mojo didn't affect the player in all attributes and only certain ones, but that doesn't seem to be the case. That being said, I think the mojo is much less of a boost/deficit than the past (whereas traits seem pretty boost-y), and there will likely be balances and trade-offs with your other players now. This is a good thing. My players were far too hot for far too long during the season, and it was really hard for a lot of them to cool down; on the flip-side, if one of my pitchers became rattled, it was really hard to shake his/her funk out of them while pitching (plus they had to hit, and that wouldn't help much either). Speaking back on player traits, they are definitely awesome, but I would like to see some tendencies added on top of it (fly ball hitter, pull hitter, ground ball pitcher, etc.).
Some stats still aren't really working out quite right. I can't mention them all, but a lot have to do with errors, fielder's choices, earned runs, and RBI's. I'm sure it's hard to track the logic of it all and give reason to what is considered "ordinary effort" and things of that nature, but I figure it is worth mentioning. I was also credited with a stolen base on a 1st-and-3rd situation when my runner on third got caught out in a rundown. There was a small infield fly bloop with the bases loaded where I couldn't control my fielders correctly, but it wasn't called in infield fly... perhaps because it was hit so low that the game decided it shouldn't be called one, which would be interesting. Anyway, I think the developers are baseball nuts and understand a lot of the nitty-gritty that goes on within the game, and I like that a lot of situational aspects are occurring more based on the score of the game than it did in SMB 2.
That's it, phew! I'll have a lot more to say the more that I play, but this game is pretty legit and I can't wait to see how franchise works when I dive into that!
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