Nintendo Okie

Some things stick with you more than others and it’s not always apparent why.  A favorite movie experience, your first kiss, your mom’s meatloaf every Sunday morning.  The point is that those experiences aren’t always good, but they aren’t always bad either.  I’ve been a fan of baseball all my life and when I was younger I soaked up everything about the sport I could.  I can remember very vividly being in a Toys ‘r’ Us and seeing Little League Baseball: Championship Series on the shelf and begging my parents to get it for me.  Back then I didn’t read video game reviews, but I had a subscription to Nintendo Power.  I judged games based on their cover and what I thought the game might be like.  What was this baseball game like and was it a worthwhile purchase for my parents to make?

The NES was dominated by all different sorts of baseball games.  You had things like RBI Baseball, which reigned supreme during the days of the NES, to Cyber Series: Basewars, which featured robots in a futuristic setting playing a game that resembled baseball.  There was something out there for everyone.  Little League Baseball: Championship Series satisfied those kids out there that wanted to play the same version of the game they played on a near daily basis during the summer.  It featured 16 teams from around the world; exotic places like Chinese Taipei to many different places in the United States.  These teams were competing in a tournament to see who was the best Little League Baseball team in the world.  Each of the teams had strengths and weaknesses that could be assessed on a chart showing things like batting power and fielding.

Once you selected your team the home and away teams would be decided by an animation of an umpire tossing a bat in the air.  The two team captains would take turns grabbing higher onto the bat.  The person who grabbed the top of the bat was the home team.  Once in the game you found out that not only were the teams very different, but each player on the team varied widely in their abilities.  The ones who were best at pitching would be able to vary the speed of the pitches greatly by pressing up or down on the d-pad while the ball was in flight.  They would also be able to put a lot of sideways movement on the ball to try and confuse batters.  This only really worked against human opponents because the AI knew exactly what you were doing.  Guys with very high power ratings were able to crush the ball out of the park on a fairly regular basis.

Each of the character models was fairly well made.  There was a lot of variation in the size of players and some of their features, mostly the hair color.  To a 10 year old back then it was a huge deal because you always knew which of your players was up to bat based on how big they were and the color of their hair.  The one really big drawback to the visuals looking back is the stadium.  There’s only one stadium in the whole game and it’s populated by only three or four different people who are repeated dozens of times.

The game does a pretty good job of replicating the little league experience.  Games are shorter at only six innings long and they have the mercy rule.  This meant that if one team had a 10 run lead on their opponent after any specific inning then the game would end.  It was possible, like in little league to thrown runners out at first base from right field, though this didn’t happen very often and so it felt right.  Pitchers who were starting to wear down or batters who had lower ratings would sweat visibly.  Homeruns would be met by a cut scene showing a cheering crowd and cheerleaders.  It made the experience feel like you were actually at the Little League World Series.  One thing that I remember stumbling upon and a great exploit for anyone that has this game to try out if they haven’t learned it yet was forcing players to make errors.  When you’re on the basepaths you could begin to run to the next base and then stop on the base paths a couple steps away from the base.  The opposing team would then begin running towards you to get you in a rundown, but right when they get to you if you run back they would throw the ball.  If you timed it right they would be too close for their team mate to catch it and the ball would end up in the outfield letting you advance at least one base, if not two.  Repeat the process for every base and you’ve got an “inside the park homerun”.  It was very rare that I didn’t run rule teams at some point.

This was a very easy game to get into, but it felt like baseball and did a really good job at representing the sport on the NES.  Visually it looked good.  Each of the teams had unique color schemes and the players, despite being a bunch of sprites had some personality.  It was always great fun to see the opposing pitcher sweating because your best hitter was up to bat.  Teams like Texas, New York and Taipei would dominate the field, but with smart play it was possible to take even the worst teams all the way to the top.  When you did finally win it all you would be greeted by a picture of your cheering team mates and it made the whole journey worthwhile. 

Final Verdict: Find it!