Over time, Super Mega Baseball has gained the trust of an increasing number of players, who are primarily attracted by the customization options that the game offers. While titles like MLB The Show try year after year to refine the underlying properties of their simulation, Super Mega Baseball welcomes those looking for something more immediate to play without sacrificing too much game depth. If you look beyond the bright and over-the-top style chosen to portray the players, you can see that Super Mega Baseball 4 is a serious baseball game in every way with mechanics and rules far removed from the excesses of more shameless arcade games like NBA Jam.

Also in this reboot of the franchise launched in 2014 we are faced with a game that relies heavily on the previous title, maybe too much, but basically also thanks to the previous chapter that made it a great balance between complexity and commitment. Much of the Metalhead team’s effort this time around was improving the presentation style, expanding the number of stadiums, adding notable players from the past, and improving some features introduced in Super Mega Baseball 3, such as: B. Players boosted by the new “Team Chemistry”.

Team chemistry and player characteristics are two aspects They add more strategy to their team composition and allow you to make a decision more reactively when you are one on one in the game diamond. The trait system works the same as it did in Super Mega Baseball 3, but now the count is higher, meaning even more players have 1 or 2 traits. Team chemistry, on the other hand, indicates how much chemistry there is between players and affects the strength of the traits they possess. There is no difference between players on the field or on the bench, they all help determine team chemistry.

It might seem a little confusing to keep track of everything at first, as there are 5 different chemistry types and a total of 75 traits, each associated with a different chemistry type, but how it works mechanically is simple: if the team is made up of at least … 3 players belonging to a certain chemistry type, all traits of that chemistry type get a boost if they are positive traits; For negative traits, the penalty is slightly reduced. The more players have the same chemistry type, the greater the impact on traits.

Team chemistry is at its best in the new Shuffle Draft mode, which lets you create leagues by attracting players from different leagues, including new players for the new Legends League. Similar to card game draft modes, you can always choose from a pool of players to have on your team. The strategic aspect of combining players with similar synergies in order to improve their characteristics and create a team that is competitive in many ways is clearly expressed here. It turns out that Super Mega Baseball 4 is a game that already has a lot to indulge in a pleasant addition but not as defining a modality as the launch of the franchise.

The more customization there is, the more I’m convinced that the spirit of Super Mega Baseball 4 really comes out, so any change in that direction is still positive. Improving the tools available to players to create their own dream team is the necessary step that a game like this must take, even if it’s a new chapter There is no reason to be completely satisfied. Customization resources have been given a bit of a makeover, including the addition of new body shapes, new heads, and hair and color combinations. However, if you were hoping to manage more customization options than in the past to recreate family and friends even more with detailed management of mouths, noses, eyes, etc., you’ll be disappointed.

You’ll still find what you appreciated in the previous chapter, including the ability to customize logos and uniforms in a fairly convincing way, and you’ll be able to target a more consistent set of players with the addition of the legends revived within them resort to caricatured version. Unfortunately with the addition of new stadiums there isn’t the option to create your own stadiums, a feature that would have looked great in-game and is starting to be a bit missed given that you can already create leagues and clubs however you want. With all new visual changes including animations, sounds and cutscenes, It would have been really exciting to breathe the atmosphere of baseball in arenas built from the ground up. Maybe Metalhead will listen to our feedback and that of players who want to build their own team in every way.

franchise mode

If you’ve spent countless hours playing Super Mega Baseball 3, you might not want to know that although you can import players from other leagues featured in Super Mega Baseball 4, you can’t import your old teams into Franchise mode Free Agents. Mode is once again immersive and full of choices to be made as a GM, although the random events are a bit superficial. The biggest news is the introduction of a loyalty attribute that determines how loyal the player is to their team. Over the days there will be opportunities to change this attribute. The choice that is presented to us is between two players: based on the answer given, we will increase or decrease the loyalty of one of the two, or both can be affected by our choice.

A rather simple system Similar events occurred frequently during my testing, but this still needs to be taken into account when we update contracts at the end of the season. Higher loyalty players demand lower salaries, while lower loyalty players tend to demand higher salaries to stay on the team. You can choose whether or not to accept this request. In the second case, you risk the offer being rejected and the player becoming a free agent. Metalhead has found an effective and not at all complex way to keep players under control and reduce exodus at the end of the season.

Plus, there are more personal development opportunities than ever before to improve individual players on your team. The system is based on the success rates of a specific eventFor example, in some cases, you have 15% time to gain or even lose a new trait and develop other traits, e.g. B. It could be a new pitch type for a pitcher. I’ve never really liked a quota-based model of character development, especially when it comes to very low percentages. A system where the player can actively train traits until they evolve over time would have been more interesting and satisfying.

Is it worth playing Super Mega Baseball 4?

Overall, the game is much smoother, more dynamic, and the style of the models is definitely more vivid. The models themselves are more expressive with the animations and the caricature look comes through even more when fretting over an out or celebrating a home run. Although the new gameplay changes are appreciated because they liven up the course of the seasons, they don’t make the title a huge leap forward compared to its predecessor. The franchise would have benefited from a greater focus on simulation, without overdoing it of course, but the possibility of having even more ways to lead a team would have also just added the ability to make managerial decisions when simulating games, for example , things could have been improved a little more interesting.

For these reasons I feel Give two opinions depending on your experience with the game. If you’ve never played a title in the Super Mega Baseball series and are looking for a more user-friendly alternative to MLB The Show without sacrificing some depth of gameplay while gaining plenty of customization options, then there’s no doubt this version will give you many hours of gaming fun. Conversely, if you’ve played Super Mega Baseball 3 and continue to play, you may not have as much incentive to decide to switch to Metalhead’s new title, at least not at launch.