Despite the negative review that I gave to Com2uS’ HOMERUN BATTLE 2, I had a lot of fun with HOMERUN BATTLE 3D. Since the sequel is really more of the same, I know there’s a good game in here. It’s just hidden behind some appalling, greedy design choices that taint an otherwise enjoyable game. Rather than remain bitter and delete the app, I decided I’d ride out the early pains and try to find a route to be competitive against people who are willing to spend the cash.

The path is not simple. It will take work. It will take time. It will even take a little luck. However, it is possible. Let me walk you through the early game to get you powered up  in as little time as possible.

If you own HOMERUN BATTLE 3D and have it linked to your Com2uS account, congratulations. Your road to success is much easier. You even get a free permanent ability that increases your “goldball” pitch ratio by 15%.

For those of you who don’t have that luxury, let’s go to work.

Update: This guide will not tell you how to earn stars in HOMERUN BATTLE 2. There is no way to “earn” stars other than to pay for them. If you want to purchase stars, touch the bottom right corner of the screen in the Main Menu. You can then buy stars through an in-app purchase. This guide is intended for people who, like me, were not aware of how much the game pushes you to make in-app purchases and still want to play the game without spending more than their initial purchase.

Newbie Stats: 0 power, 0 contact

HB3D Owner Stats: 12 power, 8 contact

The very first thing we should do is look at obtaining some free equipment through achievements. For those of you who received the HB Stars uniform from playing HOMERUN BATTLE 3D, you can skip the Ace’s equipment steps. They would reduce your statistics.

Familiarize yourself with the controls in a non-competitive mode if you’d like. If you really want to learn the ropes, I highly suggest starting with Burning Mode. It’s a faster-paced mode that helps gives you an on-screen grade after each hit. Using this information, you’ll get a good feel for where “Great” or “Perfect” hits are. This will help you later, especially once you choose to play competitively. You may even unlock an achievement or two doing this.

Once you’re ready, go to multiplayer mode. Select “Mission” mode from the top and then “Quick Match” and enter a room. Exit after completing each mission and then use “Quick Mode” again. Do this a total of five times, and you are awarded the “Ace’s bat.”

Exit out until you return to the main menu. Select “ITEM” from the top, then select “EQUIP”.  Change your bat from Rookie’s bat to “Ace’s bat”.

Surprise! You are awarded another achievement and “Aces” cleats. Equip them as well.

Equipment obtained: Ace’s bat, Aces cleats

Updated Stats: 2 power, 2 contact

Head back into multiplayer “Mission” mode, again. While it loads, touch the batting helmet “+” icon. This adds a rival. An achievement unlocks and you are awarded the “Aces” gloves. They only add 1 contact point, so you can probably ignore them for now. While playing you will likely unlock the “Aces” helmet if you haven’t managed to hit twenty home runs already. That’d be a good time to equip those items.

Equipment obtained: Aces gloves, Aces helmet

Updated Stats: 3 power, 3 contact

The current version of the app has a Christmas theme where Santa pitches to you, but he only shows up when playing multiplayer. At random, Santa will throw out “gift balls” with rewards. Hit one out of the park and you’re randomly rewarded goldballs or pieces of Santa’s suit. Because these items are much more powerful, we are going to ignore the Aces uniform top and pants for now.

Santa’s suit is comparable to the HB Stars suit owners of HOMERUN BATTLE 3D are given, but comes with no special abilities. We are now going to look to complete the Santa suit. Unlock all 5 pieces of the suit in Mission mode (the best place to pick up goldballs and gift balls), and you are rewarded the “Happy Christmas” achievement prize, the “Candy Cane” bat. It is slightly more powerful than the HB Stars bat, so it may be worth your time if you’re saving up goldballs.

Equipment Change: Aces or HB Stars equipment -> Santa Suit and Candy Cane

Updated Stats: 16 power, 14 contact

Now that you are powerful enough to consistently hit balls out of the park, let’s look about making improvements where possible. My next suggestion would be to go back into Burning Mode or Arcade Mode. Playing these single-player modes gives you a chance to unlock one of two different bats. I found the Burning Mode achievement to be the easier of the two to obtain.

If you are able to meet the following three requirements in Burning Mode, you will be awarded the “Burning Hitter” achievement and “Biker’s Gang bat” reward: 25,000 points, a 20 hit combo meter, and 7 perfect hits in a row. These three requirements don’t need to come from the same play through. Depending on your skill level, this may be quick. It took me eleven tries before I was able to get the “7 perfect hits in a row” requirement.

Equipment Change: Candy Cane -> Biker’s Gang bat

Updated Stats: 20 power, 22 contact

For the remainder of this guide, I will assume that you chose the Biker’s Gang bat route when calculating stats. However, the Arcade Mode route may appeal to many of you who prefer its slower pace.

If you are able to meet the following three requirements in Arcade Mode, you will be awarded the “Homerun machine” achievement and “Cheer Stick” reward: 25,000 points, a 10 hit combo meter, and 5 called shots in one game. Again, these three requirements don’t need to come from the same playthrough. Some people may have a very difficult time obtaining the called shots requirement.

Alternate Equipment Change: Candy Cane -> Cheer Stick

Alternate Stats: 24 power, 15 contact

Again, this is the last time I am addressing those statistics. Power isn’t as important as contact, for the most part, for what we are doing next.

Now, along the way, you likely have picked up a few random goldball achievements as well as the goldballs you’ve obtained through simply “goldball” and “gift ball” home runs. Com2uS also has a few standard “bribe actions.”

The first one will ask you to review the game. When you get that pop-up, click it. Then, push your home button twice to open up multitasking and return to HOMERUN BATTLE 2. For this game and every other game that bribes you with currency, you should know that they track nothing more than if you left the app using their exit. When you return, you are rewarded 300 goldballs.

The second one will ask you to connect to your Facebook and like either HOMERUN BATTLE 2 or Com2uS. This one is actually tracked. Do it and collect your 200 goldballs. You can always unlike it later.

Now, your most efficient purchase will be unlocking the “Football Player” gear for 1,680 goldballs. You will receive a significant power boost. More importantly, you unlock the permanent ability “3% chance for double goldballs when you win.” That’s a translation from shoddy English to actual English.

Equipment Change: Santa Suit -> Football Player

Updated Stats: 27 Power, 22 Contact

Now, we are going to switch to multiplayer “Survival” mode.  This mode comes with items that either buff your batter or de-buff your opponent. We are going to focus on one of the items, the flaming bat. It may take a few tries, but it’s very easy to unlock two goldball achievements in this mode.

Focus on playing this until you unlock “The beast” and “Moonshooter” achievements. These are obtained by hitting a ball 550 feet and 700 feet, respectively. I unlocked both simultaneously. Doing this will reward you with 500 goldballs. This is one of the easier achievements to get.

From this point forward, you should be powerful enough to survive in multiplayer mode against most players. Moreover, now most achievements should be obtainable, though it will take some work. Many of them, however, are awarded through regular gameplay. Most players are not able to control the ball so well that they can consistently get “crashes” or “pole hits,” so they just come with time and luck. So, focus on the bigger achievements and the small ones will fall in place.

The easiest of the big ticket achievements to obtain is “Mission Acer.” A majority of your time will likely be spent in Mission Mode, regardless, as it’s the quickest route to goldballs. Plus, if you followed this guide, you may be close to meeting the three requirements already. If you can play 200 missions, win ten missions in a row (this may require either an empty room or playing with friends to obtain), and completing 30 “team” missions, then you are given 3,000 goldballs.

This is more than enough to unlock “Catcher” package and just a bit shy of the “DeMarini Vexxum 2011″ package. Remember, packaged items come with abilities that will help you in the long run. I do not know, however, if the abilities stack or not. Since the DeMarini Vexxum 2011 package and Football Player package abilities are the same, I will assume that they do.

If you’re looking purely into stats, you may want to look at the winter themed “White Band Beanie” at 2,540 goldballs or “Graffiti Hoodie” at 2,980 goldballs while they’re available. There’s no telling if they will be removed from the item shop in the next update. These are both upgrades over the early goldball package uniforms and also an improvement over many star items, as well.

I went the White Band Beanie and Graffiti Hoodie route, putting my stats at a solid 33 power, 26 contact. While still less than people would get for ten bucks, I’m ten dollars richer for putting in the time and effort.

You may want to look into unlocking the “Bandana” through duels, if you are good at it (or have a friend who doesn’t mind throwing some games to help you out). It is more powerful than the “White Band Beanie” and you’ll save goldballs in the process.

Final tip: Know your achievements. While not as rewarding as the ones found in HOMERUN BATTLE 3D, achievements are still the quickest route to goldballs early on. This should be enough to make your experience more tolerable when playing online. From here on out, it’s a long grind to upgrade your equipment. Be prepared to put in a lot of time here.

 

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Related posts:

1. HOMERUN BATTLE 2′s current item sale is broken.
2. HOMERUN BATTLE 2 receives content update for Christmas
3. Got HOMERUN BATTLE 2? Get 300 Stars for free.