PlayStation 1
Released in 1996 by Sony Computer Entertainment
Grade: C+
This game has a nice look and it strikes a good balance: it’s a mostly realistic baseball sim that doesn’t overwhelm you with complexity. If only it didn’t take forever to play nine innings.
Where it falls in the series
It’s Sony’s first of eight baseball games in the MLB series on PS1, and in my opinion, it’s the best. The next installment, MLB 98, introduced grainier graphics and a silly hitting interface, a significant downgrade. See my review of MLB 99 for complaints about the PS1 run of this series, then see my review of MLB 10: The Show to see how great the series became in the PS2 generation.
Praises and gripes
This game is easy on the eyes. They didn’t go overboard with 3D models in this early PS1 game, so you’ve got simple sprites in a 3D environment. The ballparks are nice and bright, the players move fluidly, and the extra large baseball is easy to track.
To pitch, you select a pitch type, select a speed, move the cursor, and fire away. No meters or timing tricks.
On the easy setting, you simply press X to swing. One setting up, you’ve got to move a circle over the ball, and a marker pops up during the pitch to help you see where it’s going, but it’s more distracting than helpful. What do you try to watch, the ball or the stupid marker? Moving the circle into place doesn’t feel perfect on the old D-pad, but it’s intuitive and forgiving, which is nice.
The hitter-pitcher duels work well because there’s some smart baseball logic under the hood. If you throw a fastball and the hitter pulls it foul, you’ll be rewarded for keeping him off balance with a change-up on the next pitch. You can use a curveball to set up a blazing fastball for the strikeout. You can pitch to contact by peppering the low corners and rely on your fielders to handle the grounders that you’ll get. These details are critical to simulation baseball, and it’s really nice to see that Sony incorporated them in their very first release.
The rest of the action is quick and crisp and simple to control. The default settings have fielders go after the ball and you just throw. It feels like there’s a realistic mix of liners, groundouts, pop-ups, fouls, and home runs.
The big flaw in this game is its pace. It’s too slow. Between batters, you stare at the hitter’s stats and wait for the boring announcer to say his name. Between pitches, it takes an extra annoying millisecond for a fancy, early-gen interface to pop up. Nine innings is a time investment.
On the “arcade” mode, the wait times are much faster, but this mode also comes with wacky, physics-defying pitches. You can’t speed up the game when playing the much-preferred simulation mode.
Despite its flaws and the C+ grade I’m giving this game, it’s actually the best all-around baseball game on PS1. The other contenders are the sim-focused Grand Slam and the more dumbed down Sammy Sosa High Heat Baseball 2001, and I’ll take Pennant Race over both of them.
Published May 15, 2018
Updated August 14, 2024