0 to Z of Playstation 1 Games - Big League Slugger Baseball

       

Big League Slugger Baseball also known as Baseball Pro Nami Kusayakyuu for it’s Japanese release, as well as Wai Wai Kusa Yakyuu when re released as part of the Major Wave budget series. The game is a sports game based around baseball, and was developed by industry veterans Now Production, the company that most recently brought us the Mega Man Legacy Collection 2.

 

The game had three publishers for it’s releases, the first was Media Gallop who published the game for it’s initial release in Japan on the 7^th of December 2000. Agetec would published the game for it’s North American release which came three years later in 2003. The final release for the game, was the Major Waver re release in Japan, which came on the 20^th March 2003, HAMSTER Corporation would publish this release of the game.

Big League Slugger Baseball or Baseball Pro Nami Kusayakyuu as it was originally called for it’s initial release is a baseball game with an anime visual style and big head chibi style character design. The game uses the standard behind the catcher camera angle for both batting and fielding.

When batting the D-Pad is used to position your batter, when ready the X button is used for a standard normal swing, to add more power to the shot, the same button is used, with the addition of up on the D-Pad, to bunt the player presses the triangle button plus the D-Pad.

 

Once you have got one of your players on a base, you can advance them by pressing either the X or triangle button with the D-Pad. To return the base runner the circle button plus the D-Pad is used, to return all of your base runner at once the R1 shoulder button is used, while the L1 shoulder button is used to advance all base runners.

 

Moving on to pitching, like batting the D-Pad is used to position your player, to make an angle the X button is used along with the left and right D-Pad keys. To pitch a fast ball the player presses the X button as well as up on the D-Pad, a slow pitch being the opposite with X and down on the D-Pad used.

For additional pitch types, a fork can be delivered by using the X button and pressing down on the D-Pad after the pitch has been released from the pitchers hand. A curve pitch can be done in the same way, only this time after pitching using the X button, either left or right on the D-Pad are used.

 

Fielding next, the player uses the D-Pad by pressing either left or right to move the fielder, to make your fielder jump the triangle button is used, while a dive or throw can be done by using the X button plus the D-Pad. Finally running to one of the bases with your fielder can be done by pressing either the circle or triangle button plus the D-Pad.

The game has two modes to choose from, the first is the exhibition mode which can be played with either one of two players. The second mode is the main mode of the game and is a single player season, with the player playing either a 10 or 30 game season.

After completing the season they can go on to the Final series, the games equivalent of the World Series. The game is not a licensed baseball game, so not real life teams, players or stadiums are included in the game, the game does however have an editor for the player to create their own players and teams

This being released first in Japan, and then coming towards the end of the Playstations life cycle, reviews for the game are non existent. As a result we head over to GameFAQs for their user ratings for the game. Here we find the game sitting at an average user rating of 2.50/5 from a total of six user ratings.

Taking a closer look at the user ratings we find the game did not rate above a 3.5/5, while this rating did have a majority over the others, with two users rating the game at this. The remaining four users all rated the game differently, with one rating the game at a 3/5, another at a 2.5/5, below this there is a drop down to a 1.5/5, with the final user rating the game at a lowly 1/5.

Moving on to the games difficulty level, again we find just four users rating this category, with a three to one split in favour of the game having just the right difficulty level, the remaining user rated the game as being on the easy side, overall the game averages out at an easy/just right difficulty.

Lastly we have the games lifespan, like the previous category we find four users rating this one, this time however we have an even split between the users, with each rating the game lifespan differently. Starting with the shortest lifespan which comes in at 2 hours, from here another user spent 4 hours with the game, while the last two spent either 8 or 12 hours with the game. Averaging out between the four users this comes to a life span of around 6.5 hours.

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 we find that they offer just $1 for a copy of Big League Slugger Baseball is you are looking to trade in your copy. If on the other hand you are in the market for a copy of the game from Gamedude, you will be looking at a $5 outlay.

 

Heading over to Retrogames.co.uk we sadly don’t find the game available or even listed, no surprise really this being a North America and Japanese only release. So we will quickly move on to eStarland.com where we sadly don’t find any copies of the game available either.

As a last hope he head over to Amazon.com, where we do find the game listed, with a reasonable number of copies currently on the market, with new copies outnumbering used ones at the time of writing. Starting with the used copies we find the first few are either disc only or incomplete copies, we find a very good condition copy which appears to be complete for $7.18.

For just 76 cents more though you can get yourself a new copy of the game, with the cheapest coming in at $7.94, a few more new copies come in at under the $10 mark. New prices steadily rise from here, with new copies currently peaking at $24.94, with the exception of one new copy which is priced at $35.

Written by

P J Gibbon