"It plays nothing like the real sport."

Back in the early days of the Game Boy, Nintendo released a bunch of games featuring one word anonymous titles where Mario was usually featured on the gamepak's cover. While they did promote the expansion of the Gameboy, most of these titles were one shot glories aimed at expanding a dismal Gameboy library. Baseball is another mishap placed by Nintendo with Mario on the cover. Unfortunately, Mario has nothing to do with this game, and the gameplay is so overwhelmingly flawed.

Graphics [4/10]
Coming from a Nintendo quality game, and with Mario on the front cover, many would expect top notch graphics like any platforming Mario game. Despite being a baseball game, you'd at least expect players and teams to look differently. Baseball offers nothing distinguishing or remotely detailed which completely ruins the gameplay experience. At a first glance, many of the game's menus are bland and text-based. The in-game display is very small and grainy. Whenever you bat, all you see is an outline of your player in the batting box, with the pitcher on his mound. Players have no distinguishing qualities at all, no facial expressions. Not even the team uniforms differ. Whenever the ball goes into play, the game zooms into an ''overfield'' view where you see the whole infield. The problem with this view is that many popups and fly balls zip off the screen, and you can't track the shadow nor see where your outfielders are. There's also a depth perception problem in the game on catching flyballs. The developers were too lazy to even bother making shadows larger or bigger whenever the ball comes closer to a player.

The quality is like a bumble bee; it stings with pain. Framerate is very bad with a constant slow, and dreadful pace. None of the players on the field look distinguishably different, and they're shaped like small Babe Ruths. Fortunately, animations in the game are decent, with pitching and swinging animations having realistic motions. There's no true crowd in the stand, just square pixels dashed along the stadium seats. And if you're wondering, you can't tell who Mario or Luigi is. Everyone in the game looks the same, it's just faceless player outlines. I couldn't believe Nintendo let this game get into such horrible quality.

Sound/Music [7/10]
Thank god that something was good about this game. One of the distinct features of Baseball is that whenever a ball is hit in the air, you'll hear a high pitching sound, and hear it slowly decrease as the ball gets closer to the ground. This is your only true way of knowing when the ball is coming closer to the ground, and was a nice feature to be put into the game. Foul balls, home runs, and base hits all have neat popping sounds. Even when the baseball hits the ground, you'll hear a pleasant thumping sound. There's enough basic sound effects in the game for different situations that this section deserves a decent score.

The actual music in the background, while repetitive, isn't too bad. It won't make you go dive your head into a bathtub, and start gurgling for air. Fortunately, it has a nice tone to it, and should keep you satisfied for most of your gameplay. For the most, this was probably the best work Nintendo did on this part of the game, but the rest was a true disappointment.

Gameplay [3/10]
Any sports game should have decent gameplay, and Baseball simply doesn't add up. The basic overview of the game is that you're simply playing baseball. This isn't the actual MLB; it's just a made-up fantasy league where supposed Nintendo players go to play. There are two modes of play including against the computer, or against a friend. Unfortunately, there's only two teams in this title, the Bears and the Eagles. Plus, you can't set your lineups. All you're allowed to do is pick the starting pitcher, and that's it. I was hugely disappointed with the lack of gameplay options. You can only pinch hit for someone, and all the players on your team have first names. Nintendo did include Mario and Luigi in this game, but they did it in a deceitful way. Unlike the cover of the game where it shows Mario pitching, they just name a pitcher Mario and say it's him. But since none of the players look any different than each other, you might as well think it's Jimbo Bob.

Controls are responsive in the game on the hitting side, but suffer greatly in pitching. As a hitter, you can move around the batter's box, and simply press the A button to swing. You have to time your swing at the correct moment to decide which direction the pitch goes. The worst part about this though is that hitting results are actually preset. There's only about fifteen different places the ball will go, and they're all in set positions. Eventually, you memorize what's going to happen when a ball gets hit in a specific direction. You know when you fly out, and you also know when you get a base hit. The preset hits are a huge downgrade compared to real baseball, and physics have nothing to do with this game.

Fielding is a complete nightmare. Unlike other baseball games where it automatically selects the player closest to the ball, you are forced to move 3 players at one time! If a ball is hit to the left side, the left fielder, shortstop, and pitcher all move at simultaneous times based on which direction you select. What were they thinking when they thought this gameplay system up? The entire pace of the game is slow. Whenever you throw the ball, it moves as slow as the runner! I'm not sure if they were trying to balance the game out, but it takes away from the exciting spirit of baseball on a close play. Pitching is a joke since controls aren't responsive, and curving the ball is based on whether you press left or right as you throw a pitch. You can try to master throwing a cut fastball, or a curve ball, but it's a waste of time since the CPU usually hits through all of them. Computer AI is very smart, and tends to catch more balls than usual. Plus, you rarely get walked as the CPU almost always throws three strikes. This game has no grasp of how baseball is.

Fun [5/10]
Baseball is a very arcade-biased game. Pitching has no true effect on the game, and hitting is the skill to master. Base hits can be as consecutive as ants entering a nest, while pitching can be a worst nightmare. Baseball can be a fairly entertaining game if you challenge a friend, but good luck finding an old gameboy with a link cable. The CPU provides no real challenge, and without difficulty settings, this game will eventually hit the dust. It's sad how a Nintendo launch release game turns out to be so bad.

Replayability [2/10]
With only two game modes, no way of keeping stats or saving progress, Baseball is a complete waste of time in my opinion. The only feature that will keep you coming back is...well there is no feature. It doesn't have enough depth, and the gameplay mechanics are too flawed to keep an average gamer coming back for more. What were they thinking when they only created two teams? More than two people bought the Nintendo Game Boy, that's for sure. There's not even any reward for winning a game, besides a victory screen. Home runs are such a rarity, and the preset hitting motions can really be an aggravation to the player. Expect this to hit the ziplock bag after a day or two.

Difficulty [4/10]
There are no difficulty settings in this game. That says a lot for such a horribly designed game. The CPU plays aggressively at times, and can constantly get hit after hit with no single ounce of remorse. Fielding is much better by the CPU, and pitching is too strict with almost all pitches going directly in the strikezone. Pitches are rarely balls, and this is what truly ruins the gameplay. You know the ball's coming over the plate, so you have to swing no matter what. Strategy is non-existent without setting lineups, and the only option of substituting a pitcher or a pinch hitter is just drastic.

Final Factor [3/10]
As a young boy, I use to play this game a lot when my father would go fishing on the river. I was such a foolish boy back then, because this game absolutely sucks. It hardly relates to real baseball, and just had Mario on the game cover so that people would buy it. A lack of gameplay mechanics, bad quality graphics, and no depth truly take a bite out of this cartridge. If you ever see this around, don't consider buying it. It's not going to do any good in your collection since it's not rare, and it's not going to get any playing time. Heck, it's not even worthy of the Nintendo Seal of Quality stamped on it.

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 07/19/03, Updated 07/19/03