San Diego Studios is celebrating the 20th Anniversary of MLB The Show this year.MLB The Show 25is also relieving the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One of its duties by making the game prioritized on current-generation consoles (outside of the Nintendo Switch version). Some new things have been added including a new gameplay system known as Showtech, a new boardgame-inspired mode in Diamond Dynasty, good presentation elements and more.At the core ofMLB The Show 25, even going completely to a new generation and noting meaningful changes, the series just feels left on second base.A dynasty of a bygone era.
What is ShowTech and What Does it do?
This remains baffling as these feel like either changes to the gameplay or a renaming of certain elements from the series. The ShowTech implementations to MLB The Show 25 include Ambush Hitting, Fielding Reaction Times, a new difficulty setting, a Home Run Rob Meter, changes to the Throw Accuracy Meter and a plethora of more animations. The aspects of this just seem all over the place.
Are these meaningful updates? To a degree, they are, but they don’t all hit home. Ambush Hitting is only geared towards those who use Zone hitting and can choose a side of the plate to provide a hitting boost if guessing correct. You can also double down by holding in the Left Stick and choosing a quadrant of the zone to further gamble on the pitch. The thing is, this has been in the game for a while and maybe the mechanics behind it have been retooled?
Fielding Reaction Times are a good positive change as this takes into account player ratings on defense. The Throwing Accuracy Meter does not seem as punishable this year, adding a perfect throw element marked in blue. There’s still a meter that rotates and there will still be a learning curve to getting this right, but overall this aspect has been improved.
Are these meaningful updates? To a degree, they are, but they don’t all hit home.
Those who play the game 24/7 and have mastered the highest difficulty now have the option to go higher with G.O.A.T. Difficulty. There’s just a small percentage of players who are going to do this, although maybe others will try it for the laughs. The Home Run Rob Meter, in the course of over twenty hours of playing, prompted only once and there was no context on what to do with it.
Adding to the Realism on the Field
The amount of animations San Diego Studios has added to the game in recent years is insane and more gets added inThe Show 25. This is the aspect that watching a trailer or seeing screenshots doesn’t do justice. While the focus doesn’t seem to be as much towards animations in the field, the facial animations and celebration animations are massively apparent.
A lot of the animations are tied to creating a more-realistic atmosphere in terms of presentation. The facial changes and slow motion updates are applied through cutscenes. San Diego Studios has also added even more presentation elements including different eras of score bugs and overlays. The 1970s and 1980s versions are basically the same and the 1990s and 2000s get more bold. These are actually clean aesthetics that could be used on television today and help to freshen up the experience.
The presentation overlays can be selected prior to games along with three different PA announcers.The Show 25 is also getting 75 unique mid-game presentations that focus on key player, team and league storylines during a Franchise. More camera scenes were also created to bring more realism and the No Doubt Home Run scenes. While these have been touched on a bit in the past, there’s more of a focus this year and it delivers on immersion.
The Jump to Current Gen Only
At face value, there doesn’t seem to be much of an increase in visual fidelity. This changes once hopping into a game and seeing much more detailed player faces and much better hair physics than the previous years. Lighting is approved as well, with reflection coming off batting helmets and shadows being picture perfect across the board. Gameplay runs smooth on both the PlayStation 5 and PS5 Pro, as the latter is what the review was conducted on.
WhileThe Show 25was initially on the PS5 Pro Enhanced list, San Diego Studios recently removed it prior to launch. There are differences between versions, though. The biggest standout on the PS5 Pro is that the game appears to run at 120Hz, which is most noticeable in cutscenes. There are just player animations that are so fluid in their movement that hasn’t been noticeable on the standard PS5 version. The game may just be uncapped, but there won’t be additional elements like ray tracing or improved textures.
There are noticeably-improved textures simply from going to the current generation, but a lot of the assets are still beyond ancient in the game.This series needs to build an engine used to maximize the current hardware on the market.The standard PS5 version suffers from framerate issues in cutscenes and arguably during gameplay. Image quality at a distance also appears to be softer and less detailed.
The lack of offering PS5 Pro enhancements like the team did with the PS4 is disappointing and just tallies more into the PS5 Pro being a questionable purchase at this point. If new games from studios within Sony are not willing to do something to utilize a $700 console, then this is an article for another day. The transition moving to the current generation is most noticeable with a PS5 Pro due to that frame rate improvement and the improved player faces and hair physics.
you may arguably say that Road to the Show includes the biggest additions the series has ever seen. The mode has remained dormant for about five years, but now big changes are here including taking your player into the high school playoffs as you garner interest from real universities. There are just over a handful of universities, but they’re real and they’re spectacular. The thing is the recruitment aspect is fabricated, and in the end, you just choose whatever school you want to go to which sadly kind of kills the vibe.
Metal bats are in Road to the Show to replicate that experience at the lower level. While the College World Series isn’t licensed, once joining a program, you will play as your player going through the tournament. There are two drafts, complete with cutscenes that look fantastic. MLB Network cutscenes are included that discuss generic things that could be skipped altogether. Skill point allocations have changed this year and the addition of perks to fielding, hitting and throwing that allow a choice between two different boosts are really nice additions. College teams are also only playable in this mode.
There are just over a handful of universities, but they’re real and they’re spectacular.
During the games, dynamic opportunities return to provide more XP or skill points to use. Boss battles will randomly pop up to provide even more boosts. First-person fielding has been added as first-person baseball hasn’t been attempted sinceTriple Play 99. While that game had first person hitting,The Show 25has first-person fielding and it’s kind of a mixed bag.The weight of the player and the field of view can make reading the ball difficult. It never stuck after trying multiple times, so reverting back to third person was better. Randomly, the game throws quick time buttons for throwing and that is enough to throw you off as R2 typically throws the ball.
The difficulty level during the early portion of Road to the Show prior to going to the minors after being traded seems to be turned up. The same thing seems to bleed over to Diamond Dynasty. Honestly, the hitting seems nerfed across the entirety of the game, where as the realism of the ball coming off the bats has improved in recent years. The point is both DD and RttS, when gameplay has a touch of microtransactions involved, feels more scripted than it has in the past. Pitchers paint the corners perfectly and don’t get hitable balls, which gets frustrating
Diamond Dynasty Takes A Step Back
Diamond Dynasty has always been the better card-based microtransaction mode, which is mainly because of a competitive roster and a lot of ways to improve your roster without having to spend money. Something feels different this year.For instance, the cards that are out there just don’t seem as meaningful and there are less higher-end cards to start the season.Matchmaking also appears to match you up with people who took out a second mortgage to get their squad as opposed to more evenly-matched games.
First MLB The Show 25 Gameplay Trailer Released
MLB The Show 25 will celebrate 20 years of the franchise with some new options being added this year.
The mode returns the legacy modes such as Conquest and Mini-Seasons, but adds a new and unique mode that plays like a board game with a retro feel. Diamond Quest will have players rolling dice to explore a game board in many different modes. Players have small encounters along with boss encounters with a massive payoff to get rewards. The problem is the difficulty in this mode, no matter what is set, is high. This will make you believe you need better cards, but go back to the previously stated, there doesn’t seem to be a great selection without having to break the bank.
This mode also offers buffs and nerfs, so it’s possible to not get the full effect of the team that you paid for. It’s a cool mode, but Diamond Dynasty will embody the grind more than ever. The only mode that really allows to use the roster you paid for is the matchmaking or conquest. Team Affinity and some other modes will have caveats such as using players from certain teams. The Weekend Classic allows for more high stake games for more rewards. The mode remains the same at its core: play multiple different modes for multiple different cards that aren’t guaranteed and keep doing it every season.
Other Modes Including Franchise
Franchise Mode retains the multiple custom ways to play the game and March to October returns. Changes to how players are acquired and managed have more stipulations, but this isn’t something that isn’t going to get immediately felt. Logic such as player motivation and real contract structures bring more realism to the player management.The biggest update comes with the start of games, and this is only playing full games. A list or game stories, league stories and minor league stories are viewable.This allows you to be more engaged in your season and know what’s going on and what you’re going up against on that current day. You can even choose an event and the game preview focuses on what you selected. This is nice addition to have, but coming into custom games leaves the player clueless. A recap of where the game is at would be nice to have added in the future.
The Negro League Season 3 returns in its awesome documentary style. You’ll still need to try repeatedly to progress through the required goals in gameplay to advance. Once again narrated by Bob Kendrick, President of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, the delivery and the education is excellent. Disappointingly, there’s no continuity on what the series introduced with Derek Jeterlast year. San Diego Studios had a gold mine on their hands on doing a player-focused series like that every year. The pool was endless and there’s just nothing this year. Removal has become a part of this series this year.
One understated mode is the Challenges at the bottom of the main menu.This is a scoring mode requires hits to get points that factors in multipliers for consistency and increased difficulty. It’s highly addicting and even better than the Home Run Derby, which is in the game. This mode is restricted to one matchup of legendary players, so there’s no way to just create custom matchups. This should be made more available for everyone. There’s a leaderboard to go against and it’s streamlined, but there’s even more that can be added to this mode.
Audio Impressions Across the Board
Audio was specifically gathered for high school games and college games and it helps to create a different atmosphere. Here’s to hoping this is a test run to implement full college rosters in the future, but time will tell. Three different PA announcers are available to select prior to playing. The audio quality doesn’t sound consistent with the game, however, as if the recording was done in a studio. More reverb to imitate being in the stadium may have helped.
The same can be said for these new bat sounds, which are extremely satisfying. It sounds like the audio was captured in a batting cage, though. Both this audio and the PA audio sounds like it’s in a box, which was tested on two different sound setups. It’s not bad, but it’s noticeable. Jon Sciambi and Chris Singleton return and any new audio is noticed due to it being at a different quality level. They do a solid job and end up being more background noise, but a change here with the rest of the varying presentation elements would have been nice. There’s a lot of audio technology that has gone intoMLB The Show 25,which is appreciated, but the quality consistency is questionable.
Lastly, the soundtrack just doesn’t make any sense. The in-game cutscenes and presentation focus on the more serious and dramatic aspect of baseball. The soundtrack doesn’t scream baseball at all, but instead someone’s personal playlist. Madden and NBA 2K try to get younger artists an opportunity or up and coming acts that are on the radar, but this soundtrack is just all over the place. Naughty by Nature is awesome, but it just doesn’t scream grand slam to send the Phillies to the World Series.
The Direction of MLB The Show After 20 Years
Two things have been removed from gameplay this year: pitcher warmups and batter timeouts while online. Other missing aspects over the years include finishing disconnected player games online, manager ejections and arguments, PlayStation Move controls and custom soundtracks. The online experience seemingly hasn’t truly improved in ten years.
Also, every year for the first ten, the development team either added an innovative way to hit or to pitch. This seemingly stopped and the Ambush Hitting doesn’t hit the same mark this year. Timed hitting and three button pitching has been the personal setup for ten years now, while that changed almost yearly going into the PlayStation 4 era. There are solid updates this year, but things are being quietly removed. The miss on the Derek Jeter move is big.
Closing Comments:
There will always be a desire for a new baseball game and the quality remains withMLB The Show 25. The change to a release on current-generation consoles bring noticeable changes, but it equals about the same as the series going from the PS3 to the PS4. The PS5 Pro seems to play the best with a better frame rate, but the game runs fine on the standard version. The updates to presentation and the new storyline introductions in Franchise are big standouts this year. Ambush Hitting was seemingly previously in the game, but the updates to fielding are welcoming. The focus on realism and atmosphere are the key aspects to enjoy with the game this year. Diamond Dynasty goes harder on the grind and Road to the Show is the deepest it has ever been. Hopefully this is a test to see what feedback there is for a college baseball game, and with the popularity of the sport higher than ever, it’s the time to bring that in. At its core, the overall gameday feel and experience is largely unchanged. There are enough mild changes here to sway your eyes enough away from that aspect.
MLB The Show 25
Version Reviewed: PlayStation 5 (Pro)
The 20th Anniversary of the series, MLB The Show 25 features three cover athletes with Paul Skenes, Elly De la Cruz and Gunnar Henderson. MLB The Show 25 is the first game in the series that will release only on current generation consoles outside of the Nintendo Switch.
