NES Challenge - RBI Baseball in 3:02:32 [197/714]
0Such a fun game, but I have to admit I had my childhood rose colored glasses on after playing it again. I had forgotten just how slow the defense is and you controlled a group at once. The pitching is just great being able to manipulate the batters and having to weigh the risk of using it vs tiring your pitcher out too quickly.
The controls are easy to learn and master. Sound is good and has a memorable song that will stick in your head. The graphics are ok, but it is a baseball game so there isn't much. I do enjoy the character design and the game feels humorous overall because of it.
I'm hesitant to bring this up, but feel it needs to be addressed. The reason the winning condition is to simply have a winning record is because the ending screen looks the same for all winning seasons with the only change being the record and team colors if I recall. The game is notorious for putting teams in a slump or very hot and this was a topic I wanted to go over in the video but simply forgot about. It is evident in my NY game with Darryl Strawberry and some of the other batters. There were also sudden "bugs" which appeared where you throw to a base but it doesn't register a forced out. It's possible the AI placed the character next to the base and not standing on it in its logic, but that seems weird. There are also times when every hit just has no power or goes right to a fielder; see the last innings of the NY game.
Now this isn't to say it goes in CPU's favor all the time. There are serious AI issues at times when the game throws to a base with nobody on it; I took advantage of that in the later games. I've also seen runners freeze in place just a few feet off the bag for an easy tag out and others run right into you when they can always retreat to their prior base.
There are also the hot streak sides when the batters consistently hit the gap and it's a double every time. This helps you really rack up the score at times, but can also haunt you. It seems like a rubber band effect but it may just be all random.
This all said, you are bound to have one team shoot down a perfect 9-0 record as seen against NY. I came out strong, could hold my own, and while I did make a few mistakes at bat, it doesn't factor into the luck they had other than a perfect storm of good luck on the hits and bad luck on mine.
Finally, there is a solid AI mechanic you can take advantage of, and that is when a runner is on third, you can advance the last hitter to second. The AI will adamantly hold you so you won't score and will freely give up second base which nullifies the forced out on second. You may need to have the third base runner threaten home, but the AI, for the most part will hold the ball at home or on third rather than risk you scoring. At times the AI will screw this up as well and go after the runner from first to second - play a bit cautiously and you will be fine.
Overall I think this is a great fun game to play and if you don't have Baseball Stars or RBI Simulator 1.000, this is the game to have. While those two games are superior, there are times I just want to play a simple game and this is the goto for baseball as it has the MLB players at the time. I'll rank this in the top 200-300 games on the system.