#61 - Baseball Stars

Biff Wellington smacks it out of the box!

Yes, that is a ninja pitching.

 

Whenever I see the three letters "SNK," a tidal wave of nostalgia rushes over me, reminding me of simpler, better days in the gaming industry; days when any company could conceivably produce a console, if they had the financial wherewithal. SNK was always one of the craziest third-party developers, as anyone who has witnessed a Neo-Geo console in person can attest. Granted, they always made great games, even if they competed with Capcom for the company who could put out the "least essential sequels" in the early-to-mid 90s. The size of their collective cojones eventually became their downfall, when they were trying to juggle three systems that weren't selling in the late 90s. But in 1989, before the Neo-Geo CD, before the crazy 6-in-1 arcade systems, and for lack of a better segue, they produced Baseball Stars.

For baseball gaming fans, Baseball Stars is a revelation. It introduces two new features never before seen in a baseball game up to that point: create-a-team and create-a-player, on top of already excellent game mechanics. For the time, these two features were remarkably in-depth. In addition to the twelve default teams, you could make up to six teams and save them with the memory chip. For your teams, you can make up to eighteen players and trade them between other created teams. Also groundbreaking: tweaking player statistics and "upgrading" player features with money from won games may be two of the first RPG-like characteristics featured in any sports game. Truthfully, do any of the stats matter? I'm sure they do to some degree, but lest we forget, this is still just the NES. Only the hardest of the hardcore will be able to tell the significant difference in play between characters and teams.

That's all fine and good for baseball sim freaks, but for the rest of us - for the people - how does it play? Amazingly enough, it plays like a worthwhile baseball game. It's a bit harder than Baseball Simulator 1000, but from my perspective, the AI feels just about perfect. In BS 1000, home runs were prevalent from both the player's and computer's end. In this game, each team is going to have to work for their choice hits, which is the way it should be. I've never seen such a good camera in a Nintendo baseball game, either; it scrolls perfectly along the field and it never lets the ball get too ahead of itself.

Even though this is probably the most well-crafted baseball game I've played so far, I think I would still pick one of the other games over this one. BS 1000 and Base Wars might be lacking, mechanic-wise, but their personality shines over Baseball Stars. It's not a boring game, by any means, but aside from the two features discussed earlier, it lacks that special something that makes it stand out. To many who read this (does anybody read these?), that might seem like blasphemy. But I was never the player that Baseball Stars catered to to begin with, so cut me some slack! It's getting a good score!!!! GWARRRRRRRRRGH!!!

B+