0 to Z of Playstation 1 Games - Bases Loaded '96 Double Header

Bases Loaded '96 Double Header also know as Moero!! Pro Yakyuu '95: Double Header in Japan is a Baseball sports game developed and published by Jaleco, who had taken over the development of the series from TOSE. The game is the eighth and final entry in the Bases Loaded series, the sub series of Super Bases Loaded would have one more entry in the series the same year as this game.

Bases Loaded '96: Double Header released first in Japan on the 22^nd of November 1995, the game would release on the Playstation as well as the Sega Saturn. A North American release of the game came the following month on the 1^st of December again for the Playstation and Saturn.

Notable staff members for this game include Yasuo Katō who worked as a graphic artist on the game went on to work on games such as WWE Raw 2, WWE Smackdown vs Raw and Rumble Roses XX working as a modelling artists.

Minoru Sugiyama another graphic artist on the game worked as a battle gear texture artist on Xenogears in 1998, more recently he worked as character artist on Dark Souls II and the Scholar of the First Sin DLC, he was also a map artist for Bloodborne in 2015.

Osamu Kawamura worked as a graphic artists on the game as well, in 2001 he would work as graphic director on Kessen II and later in his career would work on the Dynasty Warriors series as an interface designer, his most recent post was as an interaction designer for the 2017 release Warriors All-Stars.

Finally we have Takeshi Shimizu who also worked as a graphic artist on the game, he largely went into the production and marketing side of things in his career and was involved in the Sonic series and was involved in the project management of the 2010 release Resonance of Fate.

Bases Loaded 96 Double Header is a partially licensed baseball game with realy MLBPA players with around 700 from the 1994 MLB season appearing in the game along with pictures of the players, however the stadiums for the MLB teams only go by the city names rather than their full names for example the Atlanta Braves appear as Atlanta and GA the state initials after that.

 

The game is broken down into three modes, exhibition which allows the player to play a single game against any AI controlled opponent or another human player. The second mode is Regular Season, this mode allows the player to set how many games will be played in the season with 13, 26, 52 or a full 162 games are on offer.

 

The final mode is a championship mode, with the player selecting a team and an opposing team to face off against each other in either 3 a 5 or 7 match championship series against the opponent. The game has additional options including errors, designated hitter rule, wind, and automatic fielding.

 

As you progress through the season the game allows you to change your starting lineup as well as adjust your pitching rotation in your quest for the perfect balanced team, the game also has stats tracking for keeping track of how well you and your players have been playing, the game also had one for one trading.

Controls wise when batting the D-Pad is used to move you batter while the X button is used to swing, if on the other hand you are looking to bunt that is done with the square button. To advance a runner the D-Pad plus X button is used while to return a runner to the base the D-Pad and circle are used.

To steal a base the player used the D-Pad again but this time with the triangle button, to slide in to the base the X button is used again. The player can advance and return all runners at once by using the L1 and L2 shoulder buttons to advance while R1 and R2 return all runners. When fielding the D-Pad is used to move your players, the X button is used to thrown the ball, while the O button is used to touch base. 

This being a very early release in the Playstations life cycle not many reviews have stood the test of time, the two that have don’t really give this game a glowing review with both scores well below average and generally score the game pretty poorly.

 

As usual though we will start with the best which comes from All Game Guide who scored the game at a poor 30, with the review critical of Jaleco failure to use any of the PlayStations capabilities. With the review commenting that fans would have preferred that they merely updated the excellent Bases Loaded 3 from the NES. They concluded by saying that the NES games showed much more promise than this poor excuse and said PlayStation owners should save their money and wait for better games to come.

 

The final review comes form Next Generation Magazine with the review scoring both the Saturn and PlayStation versions of the game at a 1 out of 5 which converts to a 20 score. They had the following to say on the game, "Jaleco's long-running baseball series ran out of steam long ago, and this totally disappointing 32-bit incarnation is a perfect reason to let it die."

This is the part of 0 to Z where is visit four online retailers and see what the availability of the title is, and what price you would be looking at if you wanted to pick this title up, the sites that I will be using for this are Amazon.com, eStarland.com, retrogames.co.uk and Gamedude.com I know the last one is very location specific, but from a podcast I listen to, I’ve heard they have a huge stock of older games, Ebay has now been dropped unless the game is unavailable at other retailers.

So lets get down to business with Gamedude, where if you are looking to trade in your copy of Bases Loaded ’96 Double Header, you will be looking at $5 for your copy from Gamedude. If on the other hand you are in the market for a copy of the game, it will set you back $14.

 

Retrogames.co.uk are up next and unsurprisingly this Japan and North American only release are not stocked by them. So quickly we move on to eStarland.com, where we find the game is listed but sadly at the time of writing is currently out of stock. The game is usually priced at between $5.70 and $9.50 depending on the completeness of the copy.

Also on offer is a trade in with up to $3.50 being paid for a copy of the game, if you are looking to trade yours in. This price however is conditional on the completeness of the copy, with a disc only copy worth just $1.57, while a missing Box or Manual will reduce the trade in price to $2.28 and $2.80 respectively. 

Lastly we head to Amazon.com where we find a very limited range of copies on offer, with all bar one of the used copies available being disc only copies, these range from $6.47 up to $8.01. The only complete used copy that is currently available is priced up at $35.40, once shipping has been added in.

A few new copies are currently on the market, these three new copies are priced around this range as well with one new copy coming in a few cents cheaper at $35.00. The other two new copies on offer are priced up at $35.41 and $38.99.

Written by

P J Gibbon