Mario Superstar Baseball Preview

Mario is just everywhere in the lives of Nintendo fans these days! His presence has graced more genres than any other character in the gaming industry today! Whether it’s platformers, fighters, sports, RPGs or adventure games, Mario has done and seen it all! The genre that Mario has been focusing on a lot lately has been sports. Whether it’s been basketball, golf or tennis, he’s done it! Now we are seeing him make a presence in upcoming games involving dancing, soccer, and now baseball! Just how much can Mario do in his lifetime? The odd thing about this Mario sports title this time around is it actually follows a story!

The story that drives Mario Superstar Baseball is quite simple really, and almost just seemingly “thrown together” just to try making the game more interesting. Mario and Luigi just happen to be playing catch with each other one day and eventually a flyer glides down from the sky into Mario’s hands! The flyer is from, no not Princess Peach, but actually from Bowser himself! In the flyer he is requesting opponents for an upcoming baseball tournament. Then just like that, others like Peach, Donkey Kong and Yoshi have the same exact flyer and are all of a sudden joining various other characters to play some ball!

With a seemingly uninteresting story and rather odd background music, Mario Baseball actually does seem like it will end up being yet another great team effort between Namco and Nintendo! The game appears as if it will have something entertaining to offer to not only multiple people but others that choose to go it alone as well!

There is a nice number of different modes to play in Mario Baseball. These may include ones such as Exhibition, Challenge, Toy Field, Mini Game and Training! Exhibition and Training are pretty much self-explanatory, as they portray the playing of baseball just like it would be in real life. In exhibition, you can either take on a human opponent or the computer, whichever you wish. You each then choose team captains and put together your team. Then you designate the order in which in each member will step to the plate as well as where they play in the actual field! Also, a nice feature in the case that you don’t necessarily feel like choosing each player on your team by yourself, you can simply allow the game to choose them for you! Mario Baseball will start off with twelve total characters to choose from and five separate stadiums to showcase your stuff!

Toy Field mode happens to be such that adds a whole new element to the sport of baseball. In a seemingly complicated setup, players will switch between pitching, batting and their various fielding responsibilities! The outfield is actually split into 15 separate squares, and each of those squares happens to carry an event or attribute that will be unlocked when the ball lands in them! A particular square that might happen to say “Hit” on it will reward the batter ten coins as well as another shot at smacking the ball! Obviously other squares such as “2B Hit” (double) and “3B Hit” (triple) will award the hitter with more coins. If you happen to have your ball land on a square marked with a “?”, you will activate a lovely slot machine! Using the slot machine, you will “reward” yourself with either something very nice or something that could be potentially detrimental to your team!

Then of course with just about every Mario sports title, this one comes with its share of mini-games! But don’t be expecting to see quite as many as you may be used to seeing in previous Mario sports games. Yes there is a nice amount, but it’s nothing that compares to the number that certain others may have. Mario Baseball starts out with five different playable mini-games and there are spots open for two more to be unlocked! The mini-games in Mario Baseball can range from tests of your team members’ power through home run derbies to various tests of accuracy through the skills of batting and pitching!

However, the actual “main” mode of Mario Baseball appears to be Challenge mode. Your objective in Challenge mode is to form and maintain the most powerful team that you possibly can by drafting players on rival teams! This will take you through a series of games that will eventually net you a shot at playing against Bowser’s team! Who would’ve thought? You will start off Challenge mode by selecting a captain for your team whom you will train throughout the game. The game itself will actually give you your initial team, and of course it’s no surprise that most of them are weaker players. You are then directed to a “play map” which allows you to freely speak with other characters, purchase helpful items and take on story missions! A baseball game with missions? Mario sports games do indeed shed a new light on what they represent!