Another Batter Switched In: A Look At RBI Baseball 2017 for Nintendo Switch

I’m not a sports fan, though I do like some arcade sport games like Mario Golf. I just want to give that warning at the start of this article. I can’t judge the following game in how authentic of experience it is in relation to baseball. For the purpose of this article, I can only judge the following game as a game, letting you know if it seems well designed. The game in question is RBI Baseball 2017 for the Nintendo Switch. For an actual review of this game, please check out Adam Roffel’s Xbox One review of RBI Baseball 17. The following is just my opinion of this game for Nintendo Switch.

RBI Baseball 2017 is a baseball game pure and simple. It has three different modes and a load of teams and teammates to pick from. As someone who is not a baseball fan, I didn’t see much difference between the three modes. Each of the modes play the same and look the same. Perhaps one mode is longer than the other, I’m not sure because, to be honest, I suck at this game.

I never played a full round of baseball during my time with RBI Baseball. The thing about this game is that its all about timing, whether you are the pitcher or the batter. My timing completely sucked with both. The other team always seemed to do as well as me or get ahead in the score. It wasn’t that the controls of this game are bad, they are not, its just that I could never get the timing down for the pitches or when I was at bat.

One thing I did not like about this game at all was that the camera would stay on the batter no matter if you were the pitcher or the batter. That seemed confusing to me. I’ve seen some baseball games when you were the pitcher, the game’s camera would go behind the pitcher. And of course it would go behind the battler if you were the batter. The only time the camera moved in RBI Baseball was when the ball went out to the field and you were trying to catch the ball out there. The static camera just doesn’t do RBI Baseball any favors. The game is bland enough without that.

The graphics in RBI Baseball are not horrible but the realistic looking figures don’t look great either. The game looks alright in TV mode but not so great in handheld mode. I’m sure this isn’t the worst looking baseball game out there but its far from the best.

RBI Baseball is an arcade-like baseball game but it doesn’t have anything that sets it apart from any other sports game. RBI is going for more “realistic” arcade than say something like Mario Baseball in Mario Sports for 3DS. I suppose RBI is an alright game and if you really need a baseball game on Switch, you may want to get it. Then again, you may just want to wait and see if someone else comes out with a better baseball game. RBI Baseball isn’t a horrible game, but I think it could be a lot better.