WBSC eBaseball: Power Pros

Genre: Sports (Baseball)

Players: 1-4 Team Competitive (Local), 2 Competitive (Local Wireless / Online)

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Review:

WBSC eBaseball, released in 2023 on Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4, is a Baseball game in Konami’s long-running Power Pros series, which started out in Japan in 1994, but which has only rarely made an appearance in the West, due to its frequent lack of the MLB license and its graphically-unimpressive, cutesy, chibi-style players. Given the series’ lack of presence in the West, Konami has made something of a desperation play with WBSC eBaseball: Power Pros – the game has released here for under $1.

If we’re just looking at the presentation, that price is understandable. WBSC eBaseball: Power Pros is not even remotely close to what one would consider an impressive or good-looking game. In fact, its low-poly characters look outright primitive (seriously, what are those 2.724GB of space the game requires even being used on?). The game does at least have some nice details and textures in its stadiums, and plays at a smooth framerate, for those looking for silver linings. This game also features some anime-style high-energy synthesized music which… doesn’t exactly fit American Baseball but suits this game well enough, and it’s accentuated by a screaming, heavily-accented umpire calling the shots. Yeah, this game is definitely its own thing.

Still, while the presentation won’t win anyone over here, the gameplay is pretty solid, with some good hitting and pitching mechanics. They’re not quite as accessible as what we see in the Super Mega Baseball games, or even the MLB The Show series, but they work well enough. Just be prepared for opponents online and even computer-controlled players to absolutely smoke you until you get the hang of them.

I should also mention that this game allows players to put together a pretty extensive array of their own custom teams with a custom list of players, including players will all manner of odd sentai outfits, pink princess hair, and so on. Suffice it to say, you’ll definitely have a chance to custom-create the oddball team of your dreams if you so desire.

In the end, WBSC eBaseball: Power Pros isn’t likely to win over anyone from the Super Mega Baseball or MLB The Show franchises – not for its gameplay and certainly not for its visuals. While Konami may have grudgingly decided to release this game at a bargain-bin budget price, that price actually suits this game rather well, and at $1 this is the best inexpensive game of Baseball you’re likely to find, and as of this writing the only Baseball game under $25 or so I’ve gotten my hands on that’s worth playing. If you’re looking to have fun with a super-cheap Sports game on Nintendo Switch, this is worth the tiny asking price.

tl;dr – WBSC eBaseball: Power Pros is a Baseball game with outright ugly low-poly chibi characters, but for a mere $1 this is still a pretty decent Baseball game, though not one that’s anywhere close to the reigning champs of the genre. Still, for those looking for a fun, cheap take on the sport on the Nintendo Switch, I think this is $1 well spent.

Grade: B-

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This game has been nominated for one or more of eShopperReviews 2023 Game Awards:

Winner:

The “Why is this taking so much space on my memory card!?” Award (2.724GB) – eBaseball isn’t a terrible game, and it actually has a nice little niche when it comes to Nintendo Switch Sports games, being a budget alternative to more expensive games. Along with this comes graphics that look… well, bad. The game looks bad. Low-poly, unimpressive, primitive, ugly. But for $1, that’s forgivable. But why the heck does a game that looks so absolutely terrible take up nearly 3GB of space of your Nintendo Switch’s memory? For comparison’s sake, this is a bigger file size than Super Mega Baseball 2, a much, much better-looking Baseball game released on Nintendo Switch four years prior. I suppose you could attribute the difference to eBaseball’s audio commentary, but that commentary simply isn’t worth this huge gap in quality and file size.

Runner-Up: Best Sports Game

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