First Impressions of MLB The Show Mobile
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Okay, I have spent an hour or so with the new MLB The Show Mobile.
First off it is free so if you are ever truly bored with only your phone handy then it can't hurt to try it. That is the only reason I gave it go.
Secondly - This is not a competitor for the console game at all.
This plays more like a card battler where you have some control of the actual pitching, batting and fielding. You have a squad but there are no lineups and no rotations. What happens is when you are up to bat the game shuffles all of your position cards and then shows you 4 at a time and you choose which player you want to bat. You have a momentum meter that starts at 10 momentum and players have different costs to play. I had cards that cost either 1 momentum or 3 to use. If you do well (get hits, score runs, etc) you get momentum back. I never ran out of momentum so I do not now what happens if you do.
Same for the pitchers - You are shown 4 pitchers and choose the one you want to pitch with. Sometimes it let me keep a pitcher in for several at bats and sometimes not. Not sure of the criteria.
This means that every at bat you will usually have a new batter facing a new pitcher. The game will rank who has the advantage.
I played one 3 inning Solo Season game (the only option) and won 7-3. You get rewarded stubs and XP to advance you up the "battle pass" type of reward tiers. A Season appears to only be about 6 games maybe?
Another mode included is Moments. I did the first few sets to get a Nolan Arenado card and Jeremy Burnitz card.
I played Head to Head but I am not quite sure how that works. I matched up and all I did was hit. I earned four points and then it said my opponent was going and that I could do other things while waiting. I did not go back to it.
But lest you think this is a mostly positive review. This is every bit a free mobile game with all of the negatives that come with it.
You have a Premium Pass available for $9.99 which allows you to earn basically 2 rewards for each level. There also seems to maybe be some type of timer mechanic in the Season mode
The Store has
- A $19.99 1X Seasons Mode Airplane. I have no idea what that is but I assume it may do away with timers? If a season is so limited in length that seems mighty expensive.
- There is a $9.99 Double Diamond Pack.
- An $8.99 1st inning Booster pack (or you can buy a box of 16 for $75).
- A mere $99 gets you the 1st Inning 20X Booster Pack Offer.
- $20 gets you a 89 overall Carlos Beltran card.
- $7 lets you choose 1 of 5 86 OVR cards.
- $3 gets you a 85 Corbin Burnes.
There looks to be collections for each team along with a few others. 26 Cardinals would get me an 81 Red Schoendienst. The AL Collection is a 95 Mantle card. NL a 95 Randy Johnson
And of course there is a market where diamonds are going for a ridiculous amount of stubs
So that's the summary. The only other thing I will add is that yes, I got a server error. Also, the games take a few seconds to load.
I can see myself jumping in when I am very bored but I will never spend a penny on it.
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@Dolenz_PSN thank you for doing this so I don't have to
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@Dolenz_PSN thank you for doing this so I don't have to
I actually kind of enjoyed it. I have not played other mobile baseball games but the Hitting, pitching and fielding seemed fun enough and easy to grasp.
That won't make me spend money on it but as I said I could see myself playing some more.
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Did pretty much the same as you and while there’s still a few other things I’ve yet to look at, you did a great summary.
Take it for what it is, a free mobile game that you can waste time on when you’re not on your console. I can’t see spending hundreds of hours a month on it, but I’m sure there’s some who will.
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I’m sold! Gunna go download it right now and have so much fun!
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Update on seasons. They seem to be a mix. I just played the A's where the game started in the 10th inning. I lost.
It now looks like it is structured this way
Regular Season - 6 total games and 3 wins needed to advance
Quarter Finals - 3 games and 2 wins needed to advance
Semi Finals - 3 games and 2 wins needed to advance
Championship - 3 games and 2 wins needed to winWinning it all gets you 2,500 stubs and 11,000 XP
There looks like there are also card rewards for each level except regular season. I could not tell who those cards were though -
Okay, I have now played the mobile game more in the past week than the actual game
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O it's free, ok downloading now and ready to eat my words if it's fun
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@dolenz_psn so in your opinion is it worth the download or no
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Okay, I have now played the mobile game more in the past week than the actual game
You have also played the mobile game more than I have the regular game in the past week
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@dolenz_psn so in your opinion is it worth the download or no
I don't really know how to answer that. I have enjoyed it in my couple of hours playing.
It is not a mobile version of the console game.
Moments seem pretty straightforward. I did 5 or 6 moments to earn Jeromy Burnitz. So it was like a little program.
Head to head is interesting. Your not actually competing live against another player. There are three rounds. Each round a wheel spins at the beginning of a round and it is basically a list of challenges that determine what the challenge is for that round. Each round is scored and the person with the most points win.
Season is more of a tournament with a potential of 15 games across 4 rounds. Win the goal number of three inning games and you advance. There are also other little activities where you can send players to an autograph session and earn stubs.
Both head to head and seasons awards trophies which is the criteria to advance down the inning path. After 1 day I am like 60% complete.
But again be aware this is a typical free to play mobile game. There are extremely expensive packs. There are some timers in the modes. Everything costs stubs. Even when you earn enough pxp to level up a card it can still cost you stubs to gain that level. And if you don't like the pxp bonus you received then you can reroll to try and get a better boost, but that will cost stubs too
Just approach it as a mobile MLB game and don't expect it to resemble the console version. It's free to download but it is a few gigs of space. If you try it then get past all the onboarding tutorials and try each mode and see what you think
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Working as intended, lol.
That mobile game has some of you by the baseballs, just as SDS intended 🤪 -
Working as intended, lol.
That mobile game has some of you by the baseballs, just as SDS intended 🤪What are you talking about?
It's free so I figured "why not try it?". I have no intention of spending money on it. There are no ads that I see so if anything I am simply a drain on their resources
I may play it a few days and then never again but for now it is free entertainment when I have a few minutes to kill
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Haha, i've hit a snag, it wants me to play a head to head game but it can't find anyone to face me lol, typical MLB the show
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@samguenther1987_PSN same
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Haha, i've hit a snag, it wants me to play a head to head game but it can't find anyone to face me lol, typical MLB the show
That's weird. I had no issues earlier.
I just tested and sure enough there seems to be some issues
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Are XP points transferable to the console game or just specific to the mobile version?
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Are XP points transferable to the console game or just specific to the mobile version?
Nothing transfers, it's a completely different game, I got a Billy Williams before my game acted up... I wish Billy Williams was in the console game still
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I played the game for a few minutes until it froze during one tutorial mission. Uninstaller immediately. It's a waste of space money grab just like all mobile games.
