Rusty’s Real Deal Baseball

Genre: Minigame Collection

Players: 1

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Review:

WARNING: THIS GAME HEAVILY PUSHES MICROTRANSACTIONS

Rusty’s Real Deal Baseball, released on Nintendo 3DS in 2014, is a really unusual approach to the sport of Baseball, in multiple ways. Rather than having players actually, you know, playing baseball, this game divides up various elements of the game into individual minigames based on that one facet of the sport. You have batting minigames, pitching minigames, fielding minigames, even an umpire minigame. What’s more, players don’t just access these minigames from a menu. Rather, this is a free-to-play game that asks players to haggle with the titular Rusty on the price of each of these minigames.

To be clear, that is you, the person playing the game, haggling with the videogame character over the real-world money you will be spending on that game. On the one hand, I kinda’ have to hand it to this game – that is definitely a unique way to monetize a videogame. On the other hand, for a game that’s potentially targeting kids to make them haggle over how much of their (or their parents’) money to spend is… bothersome.

That said, it’s not like this game is being super-deceptive about what it’s doing, and this mechanic is even couched in a really silly story about the luckless anthropomorphic dog named Rusty who operates a sporting good store and is trying to get his pathetic life back together, with the player trading items they earn in the minigames to sweeten his mood (and possibly convince him to lower his prices). Players even have a helper character who will let them know if the shopkeeper can be lowballed further or if he’s reached his low point. This whole element of the game really lends it a lot of fun personality, and makes it about something more than just the baseball itself.

This is partly thanks to a charming presentation. While this game is still relatively low-budget, it is polished, with memorable 3D characters – namely Rusty himself as well as automatons in the game with ball-pitching machines for heads. The locales depicted here look nicely detailed too, particularly Rusty’s shop, which changes as you go through the game’s story. This is backed by a fun but not especially memorable soundtrack.

In terms of dollars and cents, know that each of the 9 minigames included here has a sticker price of $4 each, but players who make the right choices in haggling can potentially get the entire contents of the game for $16. However, as this isn’t an up-front price, players should definitely be aware going in that this game will demand more from your wallet than the “free” price tag initially lets on.

Still, even beyond the silly story elements, the actual minigames here are quite clever and varied. Some require proper timing, some are focused on your observation skills, some make use of the touchscreen, some make use of gyroscopic motion control, and all actually have a good amount of depth to them, as well as unlockable “arcade” modes that allow you to try to rack up as high a score as possible.

In the end, If you’re looking for a straight-up Baseball game, Rusty’s Real Deal Baseball is not going to be that. However, if you want a game that celebrates Baseball through a slew of minigames, couches it in some really unique mechanics, and actually features a fun story… and if you don’t mind haggling with real-life money and spending up to $40 or so on a “free” game… Rusty’s Real Deal Baseball is a truly unique game well worth trying.

tl;dr – Rusty’s Real Deal Baseball is a Minigame Collection that’s nominally free, but that will actually have you “haggling” with the in-game character using real-world money to purchase said minigames. While there are troubling elements to this sort of monetization, I applaud it for being fairly unique and original, and being housed within a fun and charming story. Also, the minigames themselves are quite good, and offer a surprising amount of depth and replayability. While this isn’t the fully-fledged Baseball game you may have been looking for, it is nevertheless a truly unique game and one well worth playing.

Grade: B-

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