There are so many good games out there, and there’s no rhyme or reason behind why some games experience success. Flick Home Run has seen great success, and has a great base gameplay where you simply swipe your finger to try to hit the ball out of the park. It’s so simple to get started, and the game is designed perfectly to keep you coming back. Every pitch costs energy, but you can earn it back with every hit, and you earn experience points for your entire performance. You can also level up your abilities with your experience to improve you power, contact, and batting eye.

Every point you improve your three skills has an immediate impact to launch balls further out of the stadium, and you’ll want to keep playing to keep upgrading. As you advance there are various pitch types making the balls more difficult to hit, and you can also unlock new game modes by playing through the early modes. There’s also online head to head play via Game Center to add more incentive to keep coming back. The game isn’t without its problems though beginning with the pricing structure.

The game feels like it a freemium game, but instead costs $0.99, and then a bunch of in-app purchase to level up faster. The game feels like ti should be free to download, especially since the in-app purchases feel essential because you upgrade at a snails pace. Another problem is that you need to complete steps to unlock the new modes, but after about five steps it costs more energy to pitch a ball than you earn back with a homer making it very difficult to unlock the new modes. Also, it would be nice to see some variability, because as is you play the same game mode over and over, and it feels like a chore to keep playing to upgrade.

Flick Home Run ($0.99, iPhone) has a great basic mechanic, and a bunch of potential. The problem is that it stumbles in execution as the game feels like it was developed for money first and foremost with the snail paced upgrades. It would be worth it to pay more if there were alternate game modes or some form of variation in the gameplay. It’s great to smash balls out of the park, but that wears off soon as you realize how repetitive and pointless it is to keep going.

Flick Home Run is worth skipping as there’s a definitive balance of aspects to like and dislike, and but it’s just too basic to pay for.