My Final Review of MLB The Show 25
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TA was definitely a dud. I was left wanting more after getting the voucher maybe then using that player somehow in TA.
Online play, I haven't played it very much so I can't comment to much on it other than they need to remove the lewd pictures, icons and names. It's rated for everyone and I am going move on from this paragraph on that note.
I feel that gameplay in offline what I play all the time is bad. The ball to bat physics was atrocious. Gameplay was extremely inconsistent. The dotting by common, bronze and silver players was extremely annoying and got to be unplayable at times. I know they are going to rework the gameplay and ball to bat physics for next year. I hope they make good on their promise.
Legend pool was good except for the left off legends and the whole Ozzie debacle. Other it was solid.
I felt that the 99 dump happened way too soon, it made the game feel very stale very quickly.
Did we really need 2 99 Ketel Martes or 2 of any 99 player? How about the 99 Brian Reynolds who is considered a meta player but in real life far from it.
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Leaving online out of it unless it interfered with offline. I generally hate PvP and while The Show can be fun with an evenly matched opponent Its almost never something I would ever want to play.
The good:
-While many won't appreciate this because they didn't address issue xyz, but SDS clearly made changes throughout the year as a direct response to community feedback
-Further this, I feel SDS really mailed it in by October last year, this year we have had some strong content in October and November
-The program capper cards were really strong this year in general
-They did a good job of recognizing in season accomplishments with the milestone programs
-The xp needed to complete innings was balanced well
-The frequency of conquest maps was a nice surprise, last year they fell off a cliff after city connects were done
-The last couple mini seasons were quite good. Inked had us playing theme teams, great. Run it back had good rewards and Finest one is solid too. I have the option of playing that one and facing better quality teams, or run it back if I just want easy wins
-Finest was a big win compared to last year
-I liked the intent of captain cards being the TA cards. Honestly I always disliked the captain card art (sad its back) and if nothing else its more aesthetically pleasing this way
-On that note, card art team deserves the shout out as well.
-Moments hit the right balance of mostly optional, less frequently frustrating, with a lot of extreme moments (this is GOOD hard difficulty)
-While it was rocky early on, by the time we hit summer the game was very solidly free to play friendlyThe bad
-Team Affinity
-Power creep was absolutely awful in the second half. We skipped the upper 90s completely, and the cards scaled to absurd proportions. When Kyle Schwarber gets max contact its time to revise how end game cards are constructed
-Innings drops with very little offline content. I feel Weekend Classic is a large part of this.
-Diamond Quest was a swing and a miss. Its salvageable probably, but needs more player choice and protection against bad 3 inning RNG or a disconnect undoing 75 minutes of tedium to leave the player in no better state than when they started
-Conquest maps were too small.
-Mini seasons were less frequent, less rewarding until late in the year, and the stat tracking is still [censored]
-Spotlight just isnt the same as weekly drops. I liked the old structure of weekly TA with Monthly spotlight, but spotlight was asked to do a lot of the Friday program heavy lifting this year
-The card quality from offline modes was inferior to online modes, and generally not sellable except for DQ
-In general mode specific cards should be phased out as the season goes on.
-Too many cards competing for stubs. Buying so many cards off the marketboard really drained my desire to play the game for a while. I could get stubs, sure, but its just not a satisfying way to acquire cards
-Too many wasted programs. Rivalry week with only two cards? Whats the point of even having the program then?
-Theme teams mishandled, partially because of the TA structure. In general the card volume should be somewhere in between the last two years and 2023, if not at 2023 levels
-Legends also mishandled. Why was there no 95 Royals Beltran? A large portion of players never got to use a diamond of one of the big legend additions. A Reggie Sanders for teams other than the Reds? And the current legends fared little better. Getting an early card was a bad thing in most cases because it meant you weren't getting anything in the mid 90s.Overall it was a step up from 2024, but from an offline perspective its still a big drop off from a more content rich version like 2023. I don't see why we cant have sets and seasons gone, but without the loss of content and without innings lacking any of the excitement of seasons.
7.5/10
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Great thread here with some awesome feedback. Thanks and keep it coming!
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I also did update my original thread, elaborating on more topics of my topics.
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@TheBigPapa55_PSN said in My Final Review of MLB The Show 25:
The player rewards didn't go above 97 overalls, and didn't go past Milestone Joe Nathan and Awards Joe Morgan. @Dolenz, you may need to fact-check me on this, but I'm 99% sure there is a 99 overall drop this year. At the very least, so many legends have been forgotten because of the lack of content in these other modes.
99s by year since 2021
2021: 193
2022: 274
2023: 494
2024: 535
2025: 469 (and still going)Kind of insane to think that we had more last year than 2023 and it's seasons and WBC content.
We could be pushing 500 or more by the end of this year.
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@Dolenz_PSN
31 cards? Seems like a tough task given it’s November… -
I just want a sort by parallel toggle when managing team. when we have 400+ 99s some of the best cards get lost and never appreciated the way they should.
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SDS please fix whatever RNG or issues this game is having. It’s getting really really old. Just let us play. Don’t interfere with the game because you know what ? Somehow you do. In the most opportune times or late in the game goofy stuff just happens to help the opponent and sometimes it favors me though I feel that’s much more rare. Maybe it’s ur servers but how could that be. Just fix it. It’s not fun playing a game that’s sweaty only for ur opponent to magically hit 5 homers in a row late and early out of knowhere or dink soft contact hits that defense suddenly doesn’t know how to react too and then the game is suddenly tied. It’s getting old. And the hitting engine. That’s a whole other story
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TA sucked in my opinion, I dont play online so I have no thoughts on that part but for me as an overall I wish the hitting model was better and the commentary oh lord please let's get someone new cause these guys suck!
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@SoldierHill71_PSN
Agreed, Boog and Chris suck. -
@TheBigPapa55_PSN i'm fine with them, but i'm a cubs fan so whatever ¯_(ツ)_/¯
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I'm not opposed to them, but commentary definitely needs to be freshened up. Either by different commentators or freshen up with new commentary from Boog and Chris. Its the same ole ole for the past several years it's getting really stale.
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Boog and Chris are fine when they aren't trying to be funny. I like the sound of the commentary FAR better than the rather distant sounding Matt V from 2021 (I know this is blasphemous, but he kind of put me to sleep), but yes they really need a refresh of the lines.
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I miss: 'Oh, he botches it!' Or 'Hit 'em with the Heinnnnn!' From Matty V.
I don't miss: 'Snap throw!!'
One little thing I noticed is if you press 'Gen' to generate a lineup, the pitching staff is always all LS.
I need 'Sounds of The Show' back.
The 99's came too plentiful, too quickly, with too many players with more than 1 99.
The repeatable Draft map was gold, though.
I enjoyed myself and am so grateful for SDS's efforts. I think 7.5 out of 10 is fair.
I don't think we'll get competition any time soon, as some companies may be scared. Look at how the only NASCAR game, '25 was ripped to shreds on YouTube, especially by Ryan Moody who is usually bashing Madden, although that is justified! -
@Teak2112_MLBTS
TREASON! You are right that Matty V wasn't really Matty V, but Boog and Chris are nowhere close to him even then. -
The game is pretty [censored] good offline (as long as the pitcher decides against walking you 7 times per game). I just wish they could create a better CPU hitting AI than "fastball up-in 2x, offspeed low-away" that they rarely ever adjust to. That said, I guess grinders would complain if it weren't like that
Online...meh, I have a lot of issues with that. It literally feels like an entirely different game than offline. I kept wanting to play more online this year but the online gameplay felt more like a script than an actual game. I'm not saying that as a "Sore loser" because it probably helped me more than my opponents in the limited events / casual games that I played. The input MUST matter more both from a hitting and a pinpoint pitching perspective. EDIT - I'd like to add that I don't remember allowing so many fouls and hard hits on pitches nowhere near the strike zone. My opponents will crush pitches out of the zone but swing-and-miss on hanging change-ups and curves. It baffles me.
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@TheBigPapa55_PSN I would love to see some WBC announcer options
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Weekend Classic- Was alright, significant upgrade from Events and BR. Still ran into a few WAAC players, but nothing horribly experience ruining.
Innings instead of Sets/Seasons- Much needed and requested return to this format didn't disappoint. Felt like maybe the Innings were a touch too short but overall I thought they were great. Decent rewards, only thing I would suggest is to please stop putting useless things like icons and banners in the reward path. If it's just gonna be fodder-esque, at least make it something we can use like more TS packs- at least we can use those for exchaning etc
Collections I personally loved the return to this format, plenty of collections to complete and play for, I enjoyed the rewards as well for completing the different steps in the collections
Ranked Program/Rewards- Really enjoyed this, as someone who only just got into online this year, I felt like the programs were decent, the rewards were worth the time it took, and online wasn't a slog like in past years.
Gameplay- Definitely lacked in some areas...CPU defenders were back to playing infinitely above their attributes at times...results of batted balls weren't matching the actual contact, pitch morphing was worse than it's been in a few years online
Stadium Creator- Largely untouched from 24 despite being in dire need of proper updates like movable bullpens, custom foul ground or foul ground template layouts, using min/max settings to keep online eligibility instead of "it moved a 6 inches, ineligible for online play"
Diamond Dynasty- Good mix of programs and rewards, power creep was fairly well executed. Only thing we need is a third jersey option in the custom uniform section and that's about it
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@Sarge1387_PSN said in My Final Review of MLB The Show 25:
Innings instead of Sets/Seasons- Much needed and requested return to this format didn't disappoint. Felt like maybe the Innings were a touch too short but overall I thought they were great. Decent rewards,
The main thing I didn't like is that the bosses felt underwhelming, especially if it took you a while to get to boss packs because instead of the bosses being the Best cards of the inning they were being matched or surpassed by normal program cards in a matter of a week or two.
I feel like the bosses should be the ulimate cards for that inning and that the other cards would work their way up to those levels
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@Sarge1387_PSN said in My Final Review of MLB The Show 25:
Innings instead of Sets/Seasons- Much needed and requested return to this format didn't disappoint. Felt like maybe the Innings were a touch too short but overall I thought they were great. Decent rewards, only thing I would suggest is to please stop putting useless things like icons and banners in the reward path. If it's just gonna be fodder-esque, at least make it something we can use like more TS packs- at least we can use those for exchaning etc
I coudn't disagree more strongly with this.
Separating sets from Seasons, which everyone should do, Seasons were just longer innings. And unlike innings, Seasons came with content expected to last you most of the season. yes, this was largely linked to TA, but I thought innings drops universally were terrible.
Just the weekly spotlight program and three cornerstone cards for content, two hours and it was over. The rewards tracks were copy/pasted from inning to inning, the wheel rewards stunk inning 1 and remained the exact same through inning 10.
Season drops were by far the most exciting Fridays for content in 2023-2024. In 2025 they were an off week unless it coincided with the lightning program, but even those after the first one were over in an hour or two.
