Little League World Series Baseball 2022

If you're shopping for a young or novice baseball fan, this will be an enjoyable arcade game, but it's not an instant must have. While Little League World Series Baseball 2022 didn't hit it out of the park, you may enjoy several innings before hanging up your virtual cleats. The game's graphics are impressive with good-looking, smoothly-animated players, attractive stadiums, and great cutscenes. Problem is, the cutscenes are virtually the same whether you're playing a regular baseball game or a super important Championship round against a rival team at Williamsport. This will no doubt be disappointing for players when the celebration animation, for example, with the players hugging, is the exact same each time. There were other weird graphical issues such as a left-handed hitter automatically becoming a right-handed hitter when they hit a home run, which suggests the game just wasn't done yet. Generally, though, the game's graphics are its greatest strength. The parks, and the different times of the day you can play, are really well done.

Too bad there wasn't as much attention paid to developing the gameplay. Almost every hit to the outfield is a single, for example. Runners seem to all have the same speed, and outfielders have a super accurate arm. The round-robin style Championship mode was fun, as are the player stickers you can assign for different attributes to help with your stats. The Tournament mode was lackluster, with only a semi-final and final game to play, and you win -- with little excitement felt in the process. Unfortunately, the various game modes get repetitive and there's no online multiplayer support. There are ways to customize the rules, though, such as selecting the number of innings (and extra innings), base steal, run rule, player exchanges an so on. Overall, Little League World Series Baseball 2022 seems like it wasn't quite finished. It looks and feels good but there's some work to be done in the gameplay department.