Of all the games that tickle my nostalgia, Backyard Baseball is the one that gets me the most. It is also a game series that I never thought would return in any way. A few months ago, I was shocked to see that a trailer had been released for a revival of Backyard Sports. It seemed like a fever dream and I didn’t have a lot of confidence in where this could go given the juggling of ownership for the series since its inception. Now having played the game, I’m feeling more confident about where things are heading.

To explain this confidence, I should start with what Backyard Baseball ’97 is. Backyard Baseball ‘97 is a slight remaster of the original game released 27 years ago. Developed by Mega Cat Studios and Produced by the newly established Playground Productions, Backyard Baseball ’97 has you create and control a Baseball team composed of elementary school children. You can either play individual games or play a tournament season where you attempt to win various championships.

While Backyard Baseball ’97 seems like any other Baseball game, the thing that truly sets it out is the eclectic and iconic players that you can have on a team. The most prominent character that almost anyone who grew up in the ’90s or 2000s would recognize is Pablo Sanchez, a short Spanish-speaking kid with a prominent belly. Each kid athlete has a unique personality that is shown through their appearance, swing, music, voice lines, and overall skill.

Now that all of the base game explanation is out of the way, let’s look at how well this version of the game compares to the original. As you may remember, I stated earlier that Backyard Baseball ’97 is a slight remaster. Backyard Baseball ’97 is a one-for-one recreation of the original game. This means that the audio and visuals are the same as far as I can tell with just some clarity brought to them to not feel too dated.

However, this also means that the problems that plagued the original still linger. The first big example of this is the lack of modern settings. There are no video or audio settings to change the resolution or the volume of various things. Due to this, the game is always at 100% volume (beyond lowering your headphones or speakers) and the resolution is locked at something around 480p x 480p.

This certainly gives the game the full nostalgic feel, but I could also see this decision alienating those who have never played the game before. However, if players who have never heard of the game before can look over all of that then things could go very well. Due to this decision, the release of Backyard Baseball ’97 seems to be a low-risk, high-reward situation. Assuming that the game sells well, we will likely see a brand-new Backyard Sports game or another remaster of one of the originals.

Another thing that shows how much Backyard Baseball ’97 captures the original are the bugs. While there aren’t too many, the few that do exist cause a bit of annoyance from time to time. The main visual glitch I ran into is where your character would turn partially green when under the Home Run Blimp’s shadow.

The main audio one that showed up for me was one where Vinnie the Gooch, an announcer for the game, kept telling the same story about my team at the end of every fourth inning. It was quite annoying and got to the point where I would take my headphones off and do something else while the audio played out.

At the end of the day, I believe that Backyard Baseball ‘97 is a great game and deserves to be a part of everyone’s game library. This release also serves as a form of media preservation, which is something that is important to consider as the video game industry gets older. There are certainly places where the developer or publisher could have pushed the quality higher, but I believe that Backyard Baseball ’97 is in the right place to be a litmus test as to where the Backyard Baseball series could go in the future.

A PC review copy of Backyard Baseball ’97 was provided by Mega Cat Studio for the purposes of this review.

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Backyard Baseball '97

$9.99

8

Score

8.0/10

Pros

• Great Price
• A Faithful Remaster
• No New Bugs

Cons

• Old Bugs Not Patched
• Lack of Audio & Visual Options