MLB 15 The Show’s directional hitting has taken me back to MVP ’05, where moving the left stick in a direction would attempt to influence the ball to go that way. It’s a system that’s pretty confusing if you’re locked into zone hitting, but once you wrap your head around it, it can be very useful in key situations. The fact that your swing will revert back to a timing-based version if you don’t pick a direction, complete with hitting stats based on each player, means you still have a viable way of making contact if a particular at-bat isn’t going your way.

The basic conceit of directional hitting is that you’re influencing where the ball will go and NOT where you will swing. This means that aiming the left stick up and in with a right-hander will try and pull the ball for a home run. Just the same, aiming the left stick down and to the left will try and slap the ball on the ground to the right side of the infield, allowing a runner to move from second to third.

Honestly, the system makes a lot of sense to me, especially as someone who doesn’t play The Show with the regularity that some people do. I think it was implemented to give the casual or mid-level users like me an option that’s not the highest difficulty or the lowest. It allows some level of finesse without completely messing you up if you revert back to timing-based swings in the middle of an at-bat. Admittedly, swinging with a direction every time will probably lead to a lot of pop-ups and foul-offs, so it’s a tool that you have to deploy at the right time.

Initially, you might want to consult the game options to tweak the directional hitting to your liking. The hitting difficulty will affect how things go for you, so maybe consider turning things down to veteran, rookie or dynamic if you want to have a better chance of learning the system. A lot of how you do in The Show is going to be dictated by your ability recognize pitches out of the pitcher’s hand, and any of the available hitting systems become workable if you’re good at that right away.

The options screen will also allow you to decide whether you want to turn on the plate coverage indicator and whether that PCI involves a camera shift. The plate coverage indicator will show a yellow reticle on the outside of the strike zone box so that you always know where you’re aiming and where you might influence the ball to go. Enabling camera shift will actually tilt the camera (and the strike zone box) to focus your view on the direction you’re aiming. This camera shift is subtle, but it is enough that some users might get thrown off when picking a direction at the last minute. All of this can be turned off if that’s the case, so it’s good to try out various settings.

Directional hitting also supports analog input, so you can go down that path if you prefer. With the simplified analog inputs this year, it’s probably worth a shot, but analog hitting is kind of a take-it-or-leave-it for most people, so you probably know where you stand on this.

Working Things Out

Taking things to batting practice is always a good idea, no matter what skill level you have. Since the game will generate various batting situations (counts, runners on base), it’ll give you a good chance to try and place the ball where you want it — or at least attempt to. This is also a chance to change around some settings and see what you’re comfortable with, as you can run through all the options here without wasting time during an actual season game or whatever.

Personally speaking, I’m still kind of working on getting down the timing aspect of directional hitting to fully take advantage of it. To be sure, I’m abandoning the directional aspect if I’m down 0-2 or 1-2, but I might still try and influence the ball if I guess both the zone and pitch type in those situations. I find guessing a direction — outside, for instance — and then using that to bat defensively in some counts can really aid the use of the fly ball for directional hitting. Sometimes you just need to score that runner from third, and this can help you do that. It’s also great for putting the ball on the ground to advance a runner, but it’s up to you to work a count that will make that likely to happen.

If you get overly eager in thinking that you can hit the ball where you want it to go at all times, you’ll end up fouling the ball off, popping it up or just lining out. The timing aspect is still incredibly important, and that will dictate a lot of your fortune with the directional feature. If you’re still way late or early on a lot of pitches, it might be a good idea to stick with timing-based hitting at first. Move your way up to new hitting system after putting in some games.
 

Directional hitting seems like a solid addition to the suite of options available in The Show, and it allows erstwhile users of the game to have a chance at a slightly more technical form of batting interface. It also gives fans of MVP’s hitting interface something to work with… even if I’m still waiting for the return of the hitter’s eye.