Super Mega Baseball 3

Genre: Sports (Baseball)

Players: 1-4 Team Competitive (Local / Online)

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Review:

Super Mega Baseball 3, much like the previous game, is a game with the appearance of a goofy, cartoony Baseball game, but one that hides underneath it a pretty good simulation of the sport (although, again, without the official MLB license, and a league of fictional teams instead). I’ll skip the pleasantries and say that many of the things I wrote in my review of Super Mega Baseball 2: Ultimate Edition remain true in the game’s sequel, although that’s not to say this is a low-effort copy-paste job, as developer Metalhead Software has added in some nice new features this time around.

As with the previous game, Super Mega Baseball 3’s presentation features characters with giant heads and exaggerated proportions, and the overall style here feels something like a caricature of the sport, albeit a very good caricature, with some excellent animation, good detail in both the players and the imaginative stadiums they play in, loads of personality coming through every element of the game’s design, and a superb resolution and framerate. For an unlicensed indie game, this is a pretty good-looking title.

The gameplay also carries over from the prior game, with the same excellent adaptability, the same depth, and the same accessibility that made the previous game so great. Suffice it to say, if you’re a kid just looking to throw pitches and hit balls, this game will play great… and if you’re a sports junkie looking to get into the nitty-gritty of team management and strategy, this game will play great. Plus, this entry in the series makes measured refinements to the gameplay, such as adding more nuance to stealing bases.

However, one of the biggest things this game brings to the table above and beyond its predecessor fixes one of the prior game’s flaws – online cross-play now joins local multiplayer to ensure that you should be able to enjoy some good online play with a wider group of opponents, and this game even incorporates a full franchise mode, more customizable pennant race games, the ability to form leagues… in so many ways, Super Mega Baseball 3 is an absolutely sublime game of ball, and one that’s wonderful to play with friends both locally and online.

It’s not exactly a controversial statement to say that the Nintendo Switch is generally a poor choice of a game platform for gamers wanting to play Sports games, yet just as the previous game did, Super Mega Baseball 3 manages to be one of the best Sports games on the market, an absolute joy in an otherwise largely joyless field of offerings. What’s more, the improvements this time around not only add a lot of meat to this game’s bones, but help to address one of the biggest issues of the previous game, the empty online servers. The result is an outstanding game of Baseball that any fan of the sport should definitely pick up… at least as long as they don’t mind the cartoony look and lack of officially-licensed teams and players.

tl;dr – Super Mega Baseball 3 improves on the previous game with a new franchise mode, customizable pennant races, various small gameplay improvements, and perhaps the best new feature: online cross-play, all while keeping the original game’s excellent deep but accessible family-friendly gameplay. If you’re looking for a baseball game on the Nintendo Switch, this is the one you want… just so long as you don’t mind the cartoony characters and lack of officially-licensed teams and players.

Grade: A-

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This game has been nominated for one or more of eShopperReviews 2020 Game Awards:

Runner-Up: Best Sports Game

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