‘Backyard Baseball ’97’ Is Almost A Fantastic Phone Game

Batter up! It’s time to play Backyard Baseball 97! The resurrection of the Backyard Sports series by Mega Cat Studios is like a forgotten piece of childhood popping up out of nowhere. You always think fondly of it and are always down to play it, but it fades from memory when it’s not around. Thankfully, this resurrection doesn’t require buying old hardware or downloading sketchy software to play a game from the ’90s.

Currently, the phone version is almost a perfect phone game. However, it proves that nostalgia releases should expand their reach even with just a port to a new platform; they should work more to adapt to that platform. Don’t just add some new ways to access the same features on other platforms; know your audience and have the game work well with that platform’s player base.

Phones seem to be the go-to for old hardware to be easily accessible. Several publishers are putting their old  RPGs and games on iOS and Android for a low price, with controls translating reasonably well to a touchscreen. Backyard Baseball 97, even more so.

Backyard Baseball 97 makes the jump to touchscreen pretty exquisitely. And the game’s simplistic control scheme works in its favor, with batting, pitching, and directing players on the field acting with just a touch of your finger.

It even brings along portions of Backyard Baseball 97 you wouldn’t expect, making the jump from the PC version. For example, skipping animations is now a click of a fast-forward button on the side of the screen. This is only possible by running the game in a 4:3 aspect ratio.

That extra space in the PC version now has a couple of extra buttons for additional options, and they are clear about their usage. Even toggling all the different sounds, except player chatter, can be changed at any time mid-play. But why is player chatter not toggleable in this extra menu when it is in the main menu?

But this leads to a more significant issue. While Backyard Baseball 97 is almost perfect as a phone game, it has one vital flaw—it does not hold its place in the background if you swipe to a different app. In other words, if you swipe away to do something else, you’ll lose all progress since you last saved. You’ll have to actively save to return to where you were in the middle of a game. Being such a simple game, it’s shocking that a snapshot feature wasn’t added to make it even easier to pick up and play during downtime in your life.

This goes back to a previous point about reviving old games like Backyard Baseball 97 for the modern era.

It’s great to see their return and to see that they stay true to form in gameplay, graphics, etc. Occasionally, adding new features to make the game more accommodating to that specific platform is okay, like understanding that those on the phone may not always remember to manually save because they swiped away to open a text or check out a post. Adding a tool commonly used in modern emulation, save states, could prevent many headaches that would prevent players on a platform who frequently delete an app out of frustration.

Regardless, Backyard Baseball 97 feels great on the phone. I’d say it works better as a mobile game because its aspect ratio takes up more of the screen than it does with its PC counterpart. Yet it doesn’t feel like it was fully made with mobile gamers in mind. Gaming on the go, gaming when you have a couple of minutes of downtime, completing a level quickly for a fast serotonin boost during the day, may require the player to close out quickly to move on to something more important.

Backyard Baseball 97’s players have many other apps, notifications, and life competing for attention when playing on mobile. Simple updates that don’t take away from the nostalgia of Backyard Sports games to match the audience of wherever it’s ported to would go a long way to not only build out a new audience but bring back those who would love more fun from their childhood in their lives again. Simple updates like that go a long way, maybe even required, when porting to different platforms with a vastly different audience whose attention you’re fighting for.

Regardless, Backyard Baseball ’97 should join your growing arsenal of phone games. It’s a great quick hit of nostalgia whenever you need it in your pocket. The lack of commitment helps even further because you don’t need to remember any major story beats. You just need to think about how you want to approach the next pitch. Even though it’s not a perfect match for the modern era of phone games and requires some foresight to save before moving on to something else, you’ll still have a great time.

Backyard Baseball 97 is available now on PC, iOS, and Android.