A lot of little disappointments with The Show 21 at launch - thescoop's Blog

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A lot of little disappointments with The Show 21 at launch

Posted on April 18, 2021 at 03:53 PM.

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MLB The Show 21 is still a good game. At its core the game on the field is rock sold and that will keep it earning a lot of praise. But once you start digging into the little things, and the little things are part of what made this Franchise stellar in the first place, you'll find some disappointments this year.

Now before I dig into these items, a lot of them can be fixed and improve with patches. But some of the items are ones we aren't use to seeing from SDS and that's why pointing it out is important. But I want to stress this isn't a pure "bash SDS" blog. They had to deal with the Pandemic plus the PS5 launch and finally the add of two Microsoft systems. All of this in one year's time.

1. No search option in Stadium creator vault - This one is a true head scratcher. I really don't know why you have a vault if we can't search for creations. I'm hoping this is a simple patch in item but it might not be. I really hope there is a fix here because as it is the vault isn't great.

2. Roster Vault downloads not working - This one is pretty frustrating. Those that want to download roster can't right now. (at least on PS5 and Microsoft systems. I saw one person claim the PS4 works but I've not tested it yet.) This is a huge issue for a lot folks and needs to be addressed ASAP.

3. Sounds of the Show bug on PS4 - I'll get to more on Sounds of the Show in a second. But at the moment there is a feature killing bug for it on PS4. And due to the lack of attention to the mode on other systems there's a lot of folks worried this won't get fixed. I personally believe it will be fixed but who knows how quickly due to the feature only being on one system now.

4. No true Franchise upgrades and folks feeling RTTS has been downgraded - We knew going in thanks the features premier that Franchise wasn't going to be improved much. New menus and depth charts is what we got. That didn't surprise us much. But reading folks disappointed with the changes to RTTS is kind of a shock. Folks don't appear to like the new only one character option. There have been others complaining it isn't as open. I've not dug in the feature myself but I've seen folks complain about it and that's not a good look at the moment. And the lock to one character seems to be a trend in sports games but it doesn't seem as welcome to folks.

5. No Sounds of the Show on PS5 - I know know if the Xbox systems have something blocking the feature. And those new Xbox gamers never knew it in first place so I don't view their not getting it to be the negative that it not being on PS5 is. It was expected by several and was never addressed by SDS. In fact, they some delevopers even blocked fans on Twitter who merely asked them about it. The lack of transparency about this is why it makes the list. Some are hoping it can be patched in. Maybe it can but I doubt we'll see it this year and I fear it isn't coming back this time. Even this very website didn't post anything reporting it once it was exposed. It seems no one wanted to discuss it outside of us in the thread. I hope I'm wrong but a complete unwillingness to address it from SDS is why I'm not hopeful for the future of SOTS. In 2014 they were out front and honest about the issue and why SOTS wasn't in the first PS4 version. This time it was silence and not attempts to explain it.

6. No huge upgrade from PS4 to PS5 - While I didn't expect much in terms of graphics, I can't say that the $10 extra they are charging for PS5 by itself is worth it. Stadium creator is a cool new feature but not really a $10 feature, especially considering the removal of SOTS.

None of the list makes the game not worth it to me. But I needed to vent and decided to type a blog post about it.