Has anyone played MLB17 and how is it?

I haven't touched the series since MLB12 so I'm out of the loop. It would be nice to have a more realistic baseball game even though I really dig Super Mega Baseball too.

Yeah, I'm super curious myself. I haven't played anything besides OOTP in years but I've got the itch to.

I actively avoid any info on this series. I don't want to buy a console for one game.

I assume it's still great.

The added retro mode makes it play like Ken Griffy on Super Nintendo which is honestly pushing me to get it.

Played about 4-5 hours of it so far. Gameplay wise it feels just like last years with some small improvements with regards to hitters hitting around the field more often and not just pulling non-stop.

I don't play a lot of Diamond Dynasty so I can't speak to that mode but for Road to the Show it feels heavily contrived. The choices they added to build a story around your player just feel odd and not realistic, like my coach making me switch positions despite me being fantastic at 3rd base for a while.

Overall though, if you liked last year's and want an incrementally better version, this is it.

(All that being said, I will still probably put 100+ hours into the franchise mode because I am obsessed with managing awful teams to greatness)

The changes to hitting physics (namely, finally processing a round ball hitting a round piece of wood rather than a basic 2x4) are significant enough to change the simulation side of it exponentially from when you last touched a baseball game.

I love the additions to Diamond Dynasty as well and was a huge Griffey fan so that was enough for me to sink hundreds of hours into it regardless, but like most sports games the servers are an absolute mess right now so the mode is fairly crippled if you're interested in doing anything besides playing the CPU to start Team Epic rewards.

I'll echo what's been said here so far. It plays well, and better than prior years, which is a compliment because I've never had a problem with how it feels. Haven't tried retro mode yet, and just skimmed the surface of Road to the Show, but I like the more RPG/interactive nature of it so far. A bit worried about contrived drama like someone posted above.

So far, I do have two things about it that irritate me. First is menu responsiveness. This has never been the series' strong point, but it's terrible this year, especially in the online Diamond Dynasty mode. Just trying to change my lineup (which has its own usability problems) is fucking tedious. Also: while the commentary system needed an overhaul, it did NOT need Harold Reynolds. Nothing anywhere has ever benefited from the addition of Harold Reynolds.

If you're looking for realism this game will definitely scratch that itch. Franchise mode and Road to the Show mode are excellent. You could buy the game and only play one of those modes and still get your moneys worth. They have tons of sliders to adjust the difficulty, the game looks great, plays better than they do a really solid job of keeping the rosters and even player attributes updated so it plays like current season is playing out if you want. They also added retro mode which I haven't played yet but is basically just two button mode if I remember correctly to give you a little more of an arcadey mode as well as the hardcore sim stuff.

I haven't played yet tonight but the servers have been a mess the last two nights. I mostly play Diamond Dynasty so it's been a super frustrating first couple days since I could barely even access the mode consistently until late last night. It worked alright early this morning as well before I went to work. Pitching feels exactly the same but the hitting is a bit different although I mostly notice the different/new ball flight paths on foul balls and sometimes the ball feels like it's floating a little bit to me.

Diamond Dynasty got a pretty solid upgrade this year and has way more missions and other little things going on that looks to give you some pretty solid cards as rewards. Disappointing that they took out the ability to see if you're facing a righty or lefty before the game so you can adjust your lineup though. They said it was because too many people quit if they were facing a lefty but I thought it added a lot and kind of liked mixing and matching my lineup and making sure I had guys on the bench that could do different things.

I love baseball so I play the hell out of this game every year no matter what but it's also a great and super deep game. I was a die hard franchise guy basically since the game first came out until last year when the online play quality was finally pretty close to offline and I got hooked on diamond dynasty and barely touched franchise or road to the show.

Thank you for all the detailed answers, they really helped. It's hard to get everything right in a game but my main concerns were them switching/upgrading engines, missing basic features they've had in the past, things like that (looking at you Rory McIlroy PGA Tour).

I watched some developer commentaries on the Road thing, and yeah, it looked a bit contrived and cheesy, but I'm ok with it (can't be worse than Spike Lee's NBA nightmare...).

Shame about the menu speed. I don't understand why so many companies how so much trouble making fast, responsive menus that just work.

I've played countless seasons of Be a Pro in NHL games so I'm glad there's a game mode with some character development.

I hope Jeff maybe plays a bit for a UPF or a Quick Look. I'd like to see how it looks, and I'd rather see GB play it rather than some anonymous YouTuber.

I really thought they would since it has that Retro Mode that's basically the first SNES Griffey game (potential spoiler: it's not as quality as you'd hope) but we're coming up on a month removed from release so I really don't see it happening unless the Giants improbably make the World Series or something. It's weird, though, the lack of The Show coverage feels like if not the first one of the rare times they completely avoid covering a AAA release. Then again, I suppose they avoided much coverage of major sports game releases for a long time (seems they waited three years to do a Madden Quick Look) so there isn't really a norm established.

One thing I wish some outlet were covering more is this game's widespread server issues, which aren't nearly as bad as they were the first week of release but are still nowhere near up to par. I'm not nearly as upset about it as most of the MLBTheShow subreddit is but it's a real issue that has kept a lot of people from playing the game the way they'd like to. I was forgiving of them initially because I was there for the shit show launches of massive games like Destiny and GTA Online, but it's becoming a bit insane how often online games still get kicked to a queue that never logs your game or the game simply freezes up and gives both players a loss despite so much of the game revolving around win streaks and advancing up divisions/standings.

The gameplay improved fairly significantly between the fielding animations and batted ball physics.