MLB The Show 25

Genre: Sports (Baseball)

Players: 1-4 Team Competitive (Local), 2-8 Team Competitive (Online)

The Nintendo Switch 2 Difference

.

Review:

It’s another year, so we’ve gotten another edition of Sony’s acclaimed Baseball series, and by this point the novelty of having a Sony game on Nintendo Switch has worn off. As I’ve said in previous years’ reviews of these games, I’m not a huge baseball expert, and as such I’m not the best person to ask for in-depth analysis of stats or team management, nor of changes to the different gameplay modes here. What I’m mainly concerned with is the gameplay and the presentation – does this still look and play like a great Baseball game on Nintendo Switch.

I will at least take a moment to spare a comment for a game mode I’m glad to see returning, with this game including the third year looking back at the classic Negro Leagues. I’m delighted to see this historical exploration return yet again, and by this point I hope this signifies that this is now a permanent feature of the series.

I’m also happy to report that the core gameplay seems to be every bit as good as it always has been, providing players with a wealth of control options for every facet of the game, from pitching to hitting to baserunning to controlling your outfielders as a pop fly heads their way. Sony has always done a magnificent job giving players a wealth of options in this regard and making the experience as deep or as user-friendly as the player wants it to be, and this year is no exception to that.

That said, it is getting harder and harder to excuse just how ugly this game looks on Nintendo Switch. Low resolution with lots of aliasing, ugly player faces, some terrible looking textures in some places, and even some nasty slowdown at times, in addition to long loading times. The Nintendo Switch is definitely showing its age here, and this series desperately needs to start releasing on Nintendo Switch 2.

If you only have a Nintendo Switch, this is still playable. More than playable – it’s a great Baseball game. But oof, it is not a pretty Baseball game, and if you have another platform to play it on, I recommend doing that instead.

tl;dr – MLB The Show 25 once again brings back Sony’s stellar Baseball series with great gameplay, but at this point it’s getting harder to overlook the ugly graphics. If Nintendo Switch is your only platform to play games on, this will still give you a solid Baseball game, but it’s definitely not going to be one that’s great to look at.

Grade: B+

.

The Nintendo Switch 2 Difference

MLB The Show 25

Genre: Sports (Baseball)

Players: 1-4 Team Competitive (Local), 2-8 Team Competitive (Online)

.

Review:

Okay, seeing how rickety this year’s entry in this series looks on Nintendo Switch had me hoping against hope that Nintendo Switch 2 would bring some sort of improvement. So… did I see anything to salvage this rough-looking (but still great) Baseball game?

Actually, yeah. Oh, it’s not as much of a difference as we’d see with a full Nintendo Switch 2 Edition of the game, and there are still major problems here, but compare this to the way the game plays on Nintendo Switch and you’ll see two major improvements.

First up, the loading times, which were not great on Nintendo Switch, which took 59 seconds to load up the game, and another 14 to go from menu to gameplay once you’ve gotten everything selected. On Nintendo Switch 2, those times are down to 33 seconds and 9 seconds. Not a huge improvement, but an improvement.

The other major boost here is to the framerate, which goes from being really rough on Nintendo Switch to being silky-smooth on Nintendo Switch 2. I was honestly surprised that the game was capable of flowing this smoothly after seeing it chug so hard on Nintendo Switch.

Sadly, there doesn’t seem to be any improvement to the resolution, and the aliasing still looks really bad. But the improvements to loading times and framerates make this a much better experience on Nintendo Switch, even if it’s still a far cry from what we see on other non-Nintendo platforms. However, if all you’ve got to play with is are Nintendo platforms, this is absolutely going to be a better way to play than on a standard Nintendo Switch.

tl;dr – MLB The Show 25 once again brings back Sony’s stellar Baseball series with great gameplay, but at this point it’s getting harder to overlook the ugly graphics. If Nintendo Switch 2 is your only platform to play games on, this will still give you a solid Baseball game, but it’s definitely not going to be one that’s great to look at, even if it’s definitely better than the way the game plays on the original Nintendo Switch.

Grade: A-

.

^{You can support eShopperReviews on Patreon! Please click HERE to become a Sponsor!}

^{This month’s sponsors are Jamie and His Cats, Ben, Ilya Zverev, Andy Miller, Johannes, Jaka, Jared Wark, Gabriel Coronad-Medina, Francis Obst, Kristoffer Wulff, and Seth Christenfeld. Thank you for helping to keep the reviews coming!}