FreeStyle Baseball 2

FreeStyle Baseball 2 Review

By, Herman Y.

FreeStyle Baseball 2 is a free-to-play, online baseball game developed and published by DAERISOFT, a small Korean mobile game developer relatively unknown in the mobile marketplace. FreeStyle Baseball 2 is related to the PC FreeStyle online basketball games but with a more casual, baseball theme and is the sequel to FreeStyle Baseball, which was very popular with over 1 million downloads worldwide (with a different publisher). FreeStyle Baseball 2 maintains the core gameplay of the original game but improves on the graphics, animations, and overall polish. The game offers a purely 1 vs 1 online PVP experience and players looking for some quick, online fun will find a lot of entertainment in FreeStyle Baseball 2.

Tournament-Based Progression
FreeStyle Baseball 2 has a non-interactive world with many tournaments for players to participate in. Players start off in Salvador, Brazil and gradually advance from city to city and eventually around the world. Each city has a tournament that has a single-player feel to it except all the opponents are actually real-time players. However, it is not like a real online tournament. The progression in the tournaments ignores whether you win or lose and each “stage” in the tournament matches players up with random people. After defeating an opponent, players move up the brackets and each tournament requires 3-4 wins to complete. Again, losing is ignored and players maintain their position in the brackets even if they lose. Completing tournaments gives rewards such as random summons for characters, catchers, or bats. It’s an interesting system that combines single-player progression with online, multiplayer gameplay. Each match takes up a ball, which is the energy system in the game.

Show Time
After selecting the “Start” option in the tournament page, players are randomly matched against other players online. Once in the game, players compete in two opposing modes: pitching and batting. During pitching, players can aim their pitch with a joystick on the bottom right and begin the pitch by holding down the joystick. Once the joystick is held down, a circular outline continuously zooms in and out on the pitch location and players have to release when the outline goes exactly over the ball to throw a perfect pitch (which causes the ball to go to that exact location). Throwing a “Good” or “Bad” pitch makes the ball go slightly in a different direction, with bad pitches skewing farther to the side. Players can throw “Balls” by throwing outside of the strike zone or “Strikes” by throwing in the strike zone assuming the opponent does not swing or misses. Players have two types of pitches depending on their equipped bat and character, and there is also a special pitch skill that players can use after their SP bar is full.

After 3 strikes, players switch roles and pitchers can now play as batters. Batting is a lot simpler than pitching. Players do not have to aim where to hit, rather, the game automatically aims for the player. All the batter has to do is time when to hit the ball by pressing the swing button. Batters have to press the button at exactly the right time to hit a good distance otherwise they will hit a foul or miss. Although it sounds simple, batting takes a lot of practice and time to get used to and beginning players will miss the ball often. There is also an option to manually aim where to hit which requires a lot more skill but can be much more rewarding. Players also have to make sure the ball is headed in the strike region otherwise they will likely miss if the ball is off to the sides. Batters, like pitchers, also have a skill they can activate that allows them to hit the ball more powerfully. Players win when the other player runs out of health, which decreases if players strike and hit foul balls, or if the opponent hits a good distance.

Graphics and Animations
The graphics are quite good in FreeStyle Baseball 2. Players who have played the FreeStyle Basketball games on PC will recognize the art style immediately, which is kind of cartoony and artistic. The graphics are cell-shaded and the characters and environments are fully in 3D. Compared to FreeStyle Baseball (the original), the animations are much more polished and realistic. Batting and Pitching both involve realistic, natural motions and there is also a physics system (for the ball) when the ball is hit. There are many different environments, ranging from urban streets, to Mayan temples, to real-life baseball stadiums. There is also a day and night system that changes the lighting of each map randomly. Overall, the game looks visually appealing and polished, and it also has some funky, urban background music.

Characters, Bats, and Upgrades
When players start out, they can choose one of 4 starting characters with many more to collect later on. Similar to hero-collecting RPGs, players can collect and summon a wide range of playable characters from 1-3 stars. In addition to different appearances, various characters have unique stats that affect their playstyle, and a different type of pitch (i.e. upseam, fork, etc.). Bats can also be collected, and like characters, they have different stats such as power and impact that affects how they hit the ball. In addition, bats determine the second type of pitch that players can use, as well as the batting skill. If the player’s character has a lower ranking than the bat, players will not be able to equip it. For example, if the character is 1 star, they will not be able to equip a 2 star bat. Players can also collect catchers, which give pitching bonuses.

FreeStyle Baseball 2 has an interesting upgrade system. Players can level up their characters by sacrificing other characters and some gold. Leveling up a character will bring up a slot machine that randomly assigns 20 points into Power, Impact, B. Force (Batting Force), and Pitch, which is a really unique way of leveling up stats. However, the disadvantage is that players cannot decide where they want the points to go, meaning they won’t be able to build their characters how they like. Each character becomes more unique due of this system though. Players can also level up their bats by sacrificing another bat, which increases its Power and Impact. Pitching and batting skills can be upgraded with gold, and players can also fuse characters together (that are max level) to create a random character of a higher star ranking, allowing them to use better bats. Higher star ranking characters also have different appearances and better stats. There are also traits that players can select for their characters every so often that offer slight advantages for different situations.

Cash Shop/In-App Purchases (IAP)
FreeStyle Baseball 2 features a Gacha summoning system much like hero-collecting RPGs. With gold (in-game currency), players can summon random characters from 1-2 stars and with Gems (premium currency), players can summon random characters from 2-3 stars, bats from 2-3 stars, and catchers from 2-3 stars. Bats and catchers cannot be summoned with in-game gold. With Gems, players can also purchase balls (energy) and in-game gold, and expand character card slots (for more inventory). Players can also watch video ads to obtain balls and gold for free. Overall, FreeStyle Baseball 2 has a slightly pay-to-win feel to it. Paying players have greater chances of obtaining high ranking characters, bats, and catchers, and can purchase gold to upgrade their characters and skills. Because 2-3 star characters, bats, and catchers can only be summoned with Gems, non-paying players are at a disadvantage against paying players, especially due to the real-time PVP nature of the game. The game does, however, give out free summons from completing tournaments, and Gems occasionally, and the game is somewhat skill-based, but FreeStyle Baseball 2 still has an overall pay-to-win feel to it.

Final Verdict – Good
FreeStyle Baseball 2 is a fun, casual online baseball game with appealing graphics, simple controls, and arcade-like gameplay. Although it has a fairly pay-to-win design, it does not prevent FreeStyle Baseball 2 from being an entertaining game to pick up and play for quick bursts of online PVP fun.

FreeStyle Baseball 2 Screenshots

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FreeStyle Baseball 2 Videos

FreeStyle Baseball 2 Links

FreeStyle Baseball 2 Facebook Page
FreeStyle Baseball 2 Google Play
FreeStyle Baseball 2 iOS Coming Soon

FreeStyle Baseball 2 System Requirements

Minimum Requirements:

Android 4.0 and up

FreeStyle Baseball 2 Music & Soundtrack

FreeStyle Baseball 2 Additional Information

Developer: DAERISOFT
Publisher: DAERISOFT
Platforms: Android, iOS
Release Date: August 28, 2015

Shut Down: December 31, 2017

FreeStyle Baseball 2 was developed and published by DAERISOFT, a small Korea-based mobile game developer. FreeStyle Baseball 2 is the sequel to Vitusoft’s FreeStyle Baseball, which has over 1 million downloads on Google Play. FreeStyle Baseball 2 shares the same core gameplay as its predecessor but with improved graphics, animations, and content. Both games are related to the FreeStyle Basketball series on PC. DAERISOFT is also the publisher of lesser known mobile games such as Car Crash 1 and 2, and Shooting Warrior. The last public announcement for the game was made on November 23, 2017 with service shutting down soon after.