It’s hard not to get jaded when reviewing annual sports games like MLB The Show 25 year in and year out.

These titles are iterative by nature, which means they can blend together. That sometimes makes it difficult to appreciate just how strong the underlying experience actually is.

While it’s certainly stagnated in the raw visuals department, San Diego Studio’s digital take on baseball is probably pound for pound the best sports game money can buy – and that hasn’t exactly changed with this year’s edition.

Long-time players can expect minor refinements in the core gameplay department.

Some mechanics have been revised, like the speed at which weaker fielders get the ball back to base, making for a more offensive experience overall.

But generally, you’re looking at largely the same moment-to-moment action as last year. It still feels amazing when you crush a pitch with perfect timing and placement, and likewise the precision pitching mechanic remains one of the smartest additions to the series in years.

Minor additions, like ambush hitting – which gives you a contact boost when you correctly guess the half of the plate the pitcher will target – add depth to the offense, and the thousands of fresh animations keep the gameplay feeling fresh and smooth.

It’s in Road to the Show, though, that the developer’s invested the most time.

This staple single player mode – which takes you on a rags to riches story as a rising MLB star – now takes you all the way back to high school, where you’ll compete for a championship before making some tough decisions.

You can either choose to be drafted and take your shot at the big leagues, or sign up with one of the many licensed college programmes in the game and work on honing your craft. Both options are viable, but we opted for the academic route, giving us a better direct path into the MLB.

Because of those extra college games – which come with unique presentation packages and pageantry – we were able to upgrade our stats to the point where we instantly impressed at the AA level, and quickly got our shot on the big stage.

Unlike in past games, where you glacially progressed your player by participating in games, now you earn tokens for everything you do, and have more flexibility over fine-tuning your stats.

You can level up groups of attributes, like hitting and contact, or you can more meticulously define your playstyle. Personally, we like stealing bases, so we put a lot of points into our speed.

While the storytelling aspects, which rely on bland text message conversations, feel dated, the whole mode feels much more refined than it has in past years. And because of the way progression works this year, the pull to play just “one more game” can have you hooked.

Diamond Dynasty is another aspect that’s seen plenty of attention this year.

The marquee team-building mode, which sees you collecting player cards in order to build out your roster, prompted apologies in MLB The Show 24, after a seasonal structure was roundly rejected by fans.

San Diego Studio wanted to do away with the gradual power creep that occurs every year by refreshing sets on a monthly basis, but this ultimately devalued the grind for the biggest and best cards, and turned players away.

This year is returning to the tried and trusted format, and it’s brought a new single player mode along for the ride.

Diamond Quest works a little bit like a roguelike board game, where you explore a map hunting for challenges and rewards. Completing tasks will reward you with perks, improving your performance in the big games.

Your ultimate goal is to clear out all of the stadium icons on the board by winning three inning games, and if you do so, you’ll get a shot at a grand prize. You can choose what difficulty you want to play these matches at, although testing yourself will give you a greater shot at earning the best rewards.

It’s a really fun idea, and while it recycles many of the same gameplay elements from the Moments and Showdown modes, the retro game set dressing adds a different flavour to it all which keeps it fresh. It’s great to see this continued focus on single player content in Diamond Dynasty, as not everyone wants to sweat it out online in the upper-echelons of competitive play.

Speaking of sweating, we should mention the new GOAT difficulty, which increases the speed of pitches and makes hitting the ball an almighty struggle. We’ll be brutally honest, this tier is too challenging for us, but it’s a great option for those who really want to test themselves.

Elsewhere, the underrated Nego Leagues mode returns, once again anchored by the charismatic Bob Kendrick. This includes several new playable documentary-style campaigns about some of baseball’s forgotten greats, and while the gameplay hasn’t really evolved much since the mode was first introduced, it’s packed with punchy presentation and tons of interesting anecdotes.

The only real downside is that there’s no separate storyline like in MLB The Show 24. We really enjoyed the emphasis on Derek Jeter’s career, and we’d like to see San Diego Studio make more of these campaigns moving forwards.