0 to Z of Playstation 1 Games - Bottom of the 9th 97

       

Bottom of the 9^th  97, also known as Jikkyou American Baseball in Japan, is a baseball simulation sports game. The game was developed by Konami Computer Entertainment Chicago and published by Konami of America, and is the sequel to 1996’s Bottom of the 9th

Unlike the previous game this one would not be ported to any other systems, with the game releasing exclusively on the Playstation in North America on the 10^th of July 1997, with a Japanese release of the game under the alternative title Jikkyou American Baseball coming on the 14^th of May 1998.

Notable people who worked on the game, Norio Takemoto who worked as Lead Designer and Producer on the game. a role he would also hold for the follow up Bottom of the 9^th 99. Most recently he has worked as a Production Project Manager on the Pro Evolution Soccer series.

Masahiro Ueno who worked as a Production Supervisor for Bottom of the 9^th  97, a role he would hold for the 99 release of the series. He was the Producer for the Konami Collector's Series in 2002, the first being a collection of Castlevania & Contra games released on Windows, the second was the Konami Collector's Series Arcade Advanced which was released for the Game Boy Advance.

Following those releases in 2002, Ueno worked mostly on the Frogger series, working as a Producer on five Frogger titles from 2002 up until 2005. Following this Ueno moved to MySims and the 2007 Wii release as part of the Production Team, he would go on to be a Senior Producer on MySims SkyHeroes which was released in 2010.

Bottom of the 9^th 97 the follow up to Bottom of the 9^th now features and increased number of stadiums to play in with the total now up to 15, these stadiums however are still not licenses so appear as city names instead such as Chicago, Boston and Houston. The game does feature over 750 real life Major League Baseball players.

The game now features multiple camera angles as well as new day and night games. the major change to the game however is the scenario mode, this mode puts the player in one of twenty different game situations, such as coming from behind late in the game and pitching out while all bases are loaded.

Gameplay wise the cursor system that is used for pitching and hitting return, this system when pitching uses a rectangle that can be positioned anywhere over the plate. When batting the hitter will have an X in the centre of the their cursor, the size of the cursor depends on the hitters skill level.

The pitcher will place their cursor somewhere over the place, once done the batter will need to align their X cursor with the O cursor. If you are a beginner this can be switched to a locked on mode to make things easier. Besides the previously mentioned Scenario mode the game includes season mode, a practice mode to hone your skills, playoff mode or you can skip that and go straight for the championship. The game also features stat tracking and the ability to trade and build your own dream team.

Basic controls for Batting, the D-Pad is used to move your batting cursor, to swing at the ball the X button is used, you have additional shot types to choose from as well. You can do a bunt with the Circle button, a hit and run can be done with either the R1 or R2 shoulder buttons. You can also change the swing type from either a contact swing or a power swing, this is done with either the L1 or L2 shoulder buttons. The select button is used to centre the batting cursor while the Start button calls time.

When running the D-Pad is used to select a base, you can advance all runners if you have multiple runners on the bases, to advance all runners one base the Triangle button is used. You can return all runners by one base by pressing the Circle button, you can command all runners to stop, this is done by pressing either the Triangle, Circle or Square button + the X button.

You can also advance a single runner by pressing the Square button, in order to get your runners to move faster to make it to base before the ball is fielded or to sneak that extra run in you can press together either L1 and L2 or R1 and R2. When Pitching the D-Pad is used to select the type of pitch available, the number of pitch types will depend on the skill of your player.

To throw the pitch the X button is used, to catch out any runners that are trying to steal a base, you can throw the ball to any of the three bases, with the Circle button throwing the ball to first, the Triangle button to second and the Square button to third. You can hide your catchers mitt by pressing the R1 shoulder button, you also have some tactical control with the ability to push your defence in or out as well as bring your corners in.

When fielding again the D-Pad is used to move your players, when fielding you can make the player you are controlling jump or dive, this is done by pressing any of the face buttons plus the D-Pad for which direction you want to jump or dive in.

Once you have fielded the ball you can throw the ball to any of the bases using the face buttons. The X button will have your fielder throw the ball straight to home place, Circle will throw to first, Triangle to second and Square to third base. You can also throw the ball to the cutoff man by pressing any of the shoulder buttons.

Critically the game has only a couple of critic reviews with the game being pretty averagely received, the game receiving a review high of a 60 while the lowest of the reviews coming in at an average as you can get 50. As usual we will start with the best of them which comes from IGN.

The IGN reviewer who rated the game at a 60 commented on Konami releasing some quality products of late, with the reviewer mentioning Castlevania Symphony of the Night and NBA in the Zone 2. They continued however by saying, But it seems that the buck has stopped at Bottom of the 9^th 97.

While the reviewer did not find Bottom of the 9^th 97 to be a horrible game, they did find the game to be missing a lot of features that just make the game bland. One of the major lack of features they found was the lack of MLB licenses. One of the reviewers main gripes was however the games loading times, with simple things like changing options, putting in a relief player or even just starting the game results in a long load screen.

While the reviewer did have plenty of issues with the game they did find some redeeming qualities in the game. One of which is the batting interface and the player batting skills effecting how well or likely they are to hit the ball. Another area that the reviewer had praise for was the scenario mode, this mode allowing you to recreate pinch situations without having to play through all nine innings.

Concluding however the review found that the game simply lacks the graphics and gameplay you would expect from an average baseball game, the reviewer continued by saying. Not to mention, the game was a little late coming out of the dugout this year as well. Sorry, but this one rides the pine this season.

The final review which comes from GamePro (US) who rated the game at an average as you can get 50. The reviewer commented on how good Baseball game have been recently, they continued by saying. Too good for a sorry effort like Bottom of the 9^th 97 to be considered for the big leagues. The reviewer concluded by saying, This series badly needs an overhaul.

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 the game at Gamedude you will be looking at just $1 for your copy of the game. If on the other hand you are in the market for a copy of Bottom of the 9^th 97 from Gamedude, you will be looking at an outlay of $5.

Retrogames.co.uk are next up, unsurprisingly this Japanese and North American game is not available or even listed on the site. So we will quickly move on to eStarland.com where we find the game listed, however at the time of writing the game is currently out of stock.

When in stock the game has a usual price of between $1.75 and $3.50. Also on offer at eStarland.com is a trade in for the game, with up to just 75 cents being paid for a complete copy of the game. This price will decrease to just 22 cents if the copy is a disc only copy of the game.

Lastly we have Amazon.com where we find a limited supply of the game available. While the supply is limited pricewise it is pretty reasonable with a complete used copy in very good condition available for between $8.44 and $10.09.

These two copies however may not be ideal, with the first being shipped by Amazon so free shipping only applies to those with Prime Membership or spending over $25. The second copies while stating that it is in very good condition it does not state that the copy is complete.

A better option is the two new copies that are next listed, these copies are priced up at $10.43 and $10.99 respectively. Priced above this at $14.99 we find a like new and complete copy of the game, again this however is shipped by Amazon. The final two copies on offer are both new copies of the game and are priced up at $21.99 and $23.94. While a game with so few copies on the market would normally be rated a endangered or critically endangered the prices on offer don’t suggest this, so the game has been rated as vulnerable.

Written by

P J Gibbon