Super Mega Baseball 2 - May 1st Release

[BeefMaster]

BUMP

Super Mega Baseball 3 has been out for a year, but it just hit Xbox Game pass this week, and I downloaded it and tried out a game after work. I played my initial game on the Ego 15 setting, very casual, and it came back to me pretty quickly. Very excited to get back into the game, try out the franchise mode, and slowly see how much I can ramp up the difficulty. I may not play another game of MLB The Show.

[nomaaa]

do they have it on the switch, and if so, can we play together?

i'm looking for a new arena of victims

[Turd]

It is on switch. And there is cross play. This game is incredible.

[nomaaa]

turd approved?? i'm sold.

you hear that, bonny??

[Turd]

Definitely approved. My favorite game no question. So much customization, and a great franchise mode.

[nomaaa]

i'll download this ish today

[TempoGL]

someone tell me more about this, pls.  I do have a Switch and pretty much all I use it for is Fortnite (so not that much)

[Shooty]

My kids have Switches now, so if there is online play, this could be a winner.

[BeefMaster]

It's the newest in a series of baseball games, that basically tries to bridge the gap between casual and simulation. No real teams/players, although there's a really deep team editor that allows you to recreate whatever you'd like to try and recreate (it also allowed me to import the teams I'd created in SMB2, which is nice), and the newest game added a franchise mode. Graphics are cartoonish but not inordinately so, and the on-field gameplay is really solid. On-field results come out pretty realistic, depending on what sort of difficulty level you're playing on. I seem to recall reading when SMB2 came out that the developers' goal was that you should be able to play a game in 20 minutes, and that appears to still hold up.

The adjustable difficulty is where the game really shines. They have a system called "Ego" that's on a scale from 0-100, allowing you to slowly scale the difficulty (or not, if you just like beating up on the CPU). At low difficulty levels, you get more reaction time for pitches, the batting reticle homes in on the pitch location a lot, fielders will at least start jogging toward the location of a batted ball, and CPU batters don't capitalize on your pitching mistakes. At higher levels, a 90MPH fastball is a 90MPH fastball, a misplaced pitch is going to get crushed, and you're completely on your own in the field. Looking back through this thread, it looks like I eventually got myself in to the 50s or 60s (the game names the ego levels, I think it calls it "hard" by about 50), but I never made a real attempt at the "win a season on ego 80" achievement or the "beat the computer on ego 99" one.

[BeefMaster]

I've never tried online play, but this game has it for both normal games and franchise mode.

[nomaaa]

i just heard about the online franchise part. pretty much a "have to" at those point

online franchise is all i ever really wanted from a baseball video game

[Turd]

The adjustable difficulty is where the game really shines. They have a system called "Ego" that's on a scale from 0-100, allowing you to slowly scale the difficulty (or not, if you just like beating up on the CPU). At low difficulty levels, you get more reaction time for pitches, the batting reticle homes in on the pitch location a lot, fielders will at least start jogging toward the location of a batted ball, and CPU batters don't capitalize on your pitching mistakes. At higher levels, a 90MPH fastball is a 90MPH fastball, a misplaced pitch is going to get crushed, and you're completely on your own in the field. Looking back through this thread, it looks like I eventually got myself in to the 50s or 60s (the game names the ego levels, I think it calls it "hard" by about 50), but I never made a real attempt at the "win a season on ego 80" achievement or the "beat the computer on ego 99" one.

Yeah, the ego system is genius.   You can play against anyone because you can set the egos as appropriate.  You could play vs. your kid and make it difficult for you but easy for them where they don't have to aim.  And, you can set the ego for specific parts of the game (pitching, hitting, fielding, etc). 

Don't let the arcade graphics fool you.  It's an incredibly deep game.  You could spend hours in the team editor as well.  If you play it on steam on PC, you can even import the MLB teams every year (not possible on consoles).  I'd play a game if anyone wants to, I have it on PC, but crossplay is available. 

Also, one more thing, the league configuration is so extensive.  You can set it up so many ways from casual tuesday night games to serious leagues with deadlines and whatnot.

[nomaaa]

is it possible to have someone on PC set up a league with cool rosters and then have people on console play along with those rosters?

[Turd]

Only if you also play it on PC.  The rosters don't transfer to consoles.  That was a requested feature, but they aren't doing anymore work on SMB3, possibly working on 4 or a different title (the small team that made it got bought out by EA Sports). 

[BeefMaster]

(the small team that made it got bought out by EA Sports). 

I had no idea about this until I downloaded the game via Game Pass and noticed that it had an EA Play logo in my games list rather than just Game Pass, and of course there was a ridiculous EA click-through EULA the first time starting the game (although at least it didn't do the separate EA Account nonsense like Star Wars Battlefront).

The purchase makes a lot of sense for EA - if Sony ever loses exclusivity on the MLB license and they want to resurrect their baseball series, Super Mega Baseball would be a rock-solid foundation for it.

[BeefMaster]

BUMP

Super Mega Baseball 4 hit Game Pass this week. It's basically an update of 3 with the same features (fairly substantial franchise mode, editable rosters, hugely customizable difficulty settings, etc.) plus a new one that they're really excited about: "Baseball legends". They added a new "Legends League" with 200-ish former MLB players, including a ton of RBIers - just from playing a few games, I've come across Andre Dawson, Bert Blyleven, Gary Gaetti, Dwight Evans, Steve Bedrosian, Chris Speier(!), probably a dozen other guys I'm forgetting. I'm playing an "Elimination" tournament right now (just an 8-team bracket, best of three each round) with the "Originators" team, which has Babe Ruth and Willie Mays, although most of the players are a lot more recent.