With this forum typically biased toward the negative, I wanted to state the case for why this is the best sports game ever made:
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Gameplay is overall amazing. Player animations, graphics, stadium detail, virtually everything is great. Just think about how accurate nearly all of the swings, stances, and pitching motions are. It’s incredible. And despite what all the entitled brats have to say, skill is constantly rewarded over time. It’s baseball, sometimes crushed balls aren’t hits and bloopers fall. But the cream always rises, which is obvious since no matter what I do, the few times each year I hit the 800’s I immediately lose to better players and get out in my place.
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So many cards. Beyond the love series, are there like 300-400 cards that have all been usable in RS at some point? And more drop all the time. Would I like Mark Grace, Bonds, A-Rod, Nomar, Aramis Ramirez, etc? For sure, but I prefer to focus on what we do get.
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Just stop and think how cool it is that I can fire up the PS5 and within minutes be playing another guy 2 time zones away, each with teams we’ve thoughtfully created consisting of players from over 10 different decades, and even the future. And then you get ranked based on how good you are. As someone who has played sports his whole life, what a treat it is to compete like that. And if you have even decent internet speed, it all happens consistently smooth with lag being really rare.
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You can build a legit team without spending money and if you “grind” wisely, it’s not much of a burden. I’m sure Conquest, Mini, and Showdowns aren’t for everyone and I’d much rather play RS, but I still have fun with the “grind” when I just want to puff and crank out some stuff. I like 2K and Madden as well, but their versions of “DD” are awful, hard to navigate, clumsy, and seemingly require 100’s of dollars to be spent to compete at all. And their “grinds” are truly that, just joyless gaming.
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The flaws that do exist are minor. Yeah, I’ve had some perfectly timed pitches seemingly finish outside the grey circle but it’s the exception not the rule. Yeah, Boog says things that are out of place and often straight up incorrect. But I can only imagine the complexity of adding a new announcer (the new voice has been a blessing by the way, just needed something fresh) and I’m sure by next year he’ll start properly calling foul balls. And yeah, I’ve had some fielding animations really screw me here and there, but it’s relatively rare. Should there be a DH? Probably, but that rule was implemented much too close to release for SDS to react, plus I’m not sure the experience will be “better” with a DH in RS (although I assume it’s coming next year).
And there’s lots of other little things (parallel system, co-op, etc) that contribute to this being the best sports game ever made in my opinion and I find life is better when you focus on what you have, rather than what you don’t.