New Star Baseball by UK company New Star Games is a sports simulator that gives you full control over a single player across their career, beginning in the amateur leagues all the way up to the highest tiers of play. It’s an RPG, life simulator, sports manager, and baseball-themed mini-game collection all wrapped up into one, and there’s really nothing else like it.

The whole idea of New Star Baseball is that you’re an up-and-coming rookie and potential two-way star. A two-way player (someone who can both hit and pitch well) is a rare combination, so the world is watching your career with great interest. Of course, in the real world, pro-league potential is scouted when players are quite young. The most promising individuals will start their careers at the highest levels, and duds are tossed down to the lower leagues. For the sake of sports romanticism, though, in New Star Baseball you’ll begin your career at the lowest level of professional baseball and have to work your way up to the big leagues.

You don’t need to be a baseball fan (or even understand how the sport works!) to play New Star Baseball. Matches play out mostly automatically via text-based commentary, much like you’d find in Football Manager. Since you’re not the manager, the outcome of a game ultimately depends on the quality of your team. However, you’re given several opportunities throughout a match to make whatever impact you can. In these moments, you’ll find yourself either batting, pitching, base stealing, fielding, or catching; each situation is its own mini-game that you’ll have to master if you want to win games, earn high ratings, and attract attention from sponsors and other teams.

The mini-games are all fun, though some are better than others. The most tiring mini-games are the outfielding and base stealing mini-games, as they both involve rapid swiping of your screen in the direction you want to go. When batting, you tap, hold, and drag your bat to where you think the pitch will end up then release to swing. Pitching involves simply tapping where you want to throw the ball, and you can put some spin on it to trick the batter. And to catch a pop fly, you drag your glove to where you think the ball will land. The mini-games are all simple enough that anyone can get the hang of them after a few tries, and they’re short enough that repeating the same few games never gets boring.

You can make these mini-games easier by training your catching, running, pitching, and batting ability outside of matches. But even maxed out stats won’t guarantee you’ll perform well during a match. For example, upgrading your batting ability makes for a greater slowdown effect on the ball in the moments before you swing, but the highest batting stat can’t save you if you fail to predict where the ball will wind up, or you release your bat too early or too late.

Additionally, training doesn’t guarantee a stat boost. Each training session is a mini-game with a specific mission that you must complete, like hitting the ball into left field, or successfully stealing home base. Fail to complete the mission in three tries and you won’t get the stat boost. And you can only train three times between games, so you can’t go from the worst outfielder in one game to Mike Trout in the next.

How well you play in a match not only affects the business side of the sport; it also influences your personal relationships with your teammates, manager, and fans. Additionally, your style of play can also impact your relationships -- great batting and pitching will make your manager happy, but if your outfield work is poor and you can’t catch a ball to save your life, your team relationship will reflect that.

There’s a ton of things to do when you’re not on the field, too. Sponsors like flashy players that live extravagant lifestyles, so you can spend the money you make from playing on expensive gadgets, big homes, and fancy cars if you want to land a sponsorship deal. Once every season, you can negotiate your contract, a process that’s represented through a version of the higher or lower guessing game. You can also spend the cards you earn after a match to train your player.

Monetisation Model of "New Star Baseball"

New Star Baseball is very much a single player game. The lack of any competitive multiplayer elements means the pay-to-win in-app purchase monetisation model doesn’t hurt free players in the slightest. If anything, spending real-world money on booster packs and extra Star Bux (the in-game currency) is akin to paying for an easy mode. But as established above, success in New Star Baseball is really more dependent on mastering the mini-games than any stats or ability boosters.

Sure, free players won't get to enjoy anything beyond the most basic of agents and trainers, and the best shoes and bats are locked away behind a paywall, but honestly, you can go just as far in New Star Baseball without any of those things.

Outside of the in-app purchases, you can earn a bit of the game’s currency or energy by viewing rewarded video ads. There’s also the occasional interstitial ad, though thankfully, they’re shorter duration ads and can be skipped after 5 seconds.

Unlike in most free-to-play games, the energy system in New Star Baseball is used as a balancing mechanism rather than a means of artificially lengthening gameplay. Actions like training, improving relationships, and playing matches all cost energy, so you have to learn how to manage your energy levels between training and playing. Going into a match with low energy will cause your manager to take you out of a game, reducing your rating and hurting your relationships.

You can buy NRG Drinks to re-energize, and they’re relatively cheap as well. Still, that’s money that could go to lifestyle items, trainers, agents, or gear.

The Final Word

For such a casual sports game, there’s a surprising depth in the various mechanics that make up New Star Baseball. No, it might not be hardcore enough for sports fan looking for a “real” baseball career simulator, but if you’re a fan of RPGs and simulators -- and don’t mind a sportsball twist -- then you won’t find much better than New Star Baseball.