Mario Superstar Baseball Review

The mini games remind me of Mario Party mini games but they all concern Baseball. They are short but fun and they all have a purpose; they let you win money! At the start of each mini game you have to bet a certain amount of gold coins; either 50, 100 or 150. If you win you get that number of coins. If you don’t, you lose them unless you have no coins at all in which case you’ll lose nothing. In one mini game you’ll be sending eggs at piranha plants trying to match the color of the eggs to the color of the plants; in another you have to hit different shapes of fireworks with your baseball bat and as they reach the sky they will explode into different characters from the game. The mini games are there to let you practice the different game play aspects of Mario baseball so that you improve while having fun.

The gold coins are then used to go to the shop and buy upgrades for your characters. For example, each character has a special pitch and hit ability that you have to buy. Yoshi will throw an egg that will bounce on the ground several times and move from left to right quickly making it difficult to hit. Mario has the super fast fireball, Peach will throw a ball with a heart over it hiding the ball so that you’re not really sure when to hit it. As for the hitting abilities, if performed correctly, they are much stronger than normal a hit and have a better chance of being a home run then hitting the ball normally.

The special pitches and hits are done using the R button. You can only do a few per game as you are limited. It would be too easy to always use your special abilities all the time to beat your opponent. You can gain more during the game when you are offered Star chances. These are little challenges spread out during matches. If you are the pitcher then you’ll have to eliminate the batter before he gets to first base. If you are the hitter then it would be the opposite. These are the most common ones but there are a few others too.

On the game’s easiest difficulty level you shouldn’t have any problems, but once you try the more difficult settings the game can become frustrating. Once of the things I really hated was the fact that the characters on the field run really slowly while the ball goes really fast (which is somewhat normal) so when the other team hits the ball really hard then it might be difficult to catch it while it seems easy for them to do it. Another thing that really bothered me was that they often do double or triple plays. While it makes the game flow at a faster rate, it can be frustrating when you have all of the bases full and then have everyone retired in one at bat. I see that happen at least once per game and at times it made me angry and there is no way around it. Even when you know you didn’t hit the ball correctly there is no way to stop your characters from running to the next base and since they are really slow they don’t have time to get back and often get caught. Sure, when you are the one doing it it’s fun, but when it’s the computer’s turn it’s a completely different story and it happens all the time. I’m not saying the computer is cheating or anything like that, maybe it’s just that I’m a bad player, but I wish it was more balanced than that.

As I said earlier there are several stadiums depending on the team and they all look different with only Mario’s Stadium being normal. All of the others have funny attributes to them. In DK’s stadium there will be huge barrels rolling towards your characters so sometimes you think you’ll catch the ball and then a huge barrel hits you and the other team gets one run because of that. In Peach’s stadium there are invisible blocks in the air like in Super Mario World so that when you hit the ball you might hit one of those blocks and your ball will bounce off of it and fall somewhere else. There are also piranha plants or tornadoes that will create different effects and make the game more difficult for you but it’s all random and fun and it fits with the arcade style game play of the game.

Graphically this game stands out and looks similiar to every other Mario Sports title. Character models are highly detailed and some are quite funny to look at. The FMV intro is very well done but I wish there was more than just 1 video sequence in the whole game as it looked fantastic! There are others but not on the same level of quality as the intro as they are all mostly made of in game footage. The stadium themselves are nicely done with crisp textures and lots going on for a baseball game. The crowd is fully animated but it’s all made of 2D sprites and they are not at that high of a resolution and it looks like a blurry mess when you are too close though you only see them from time to time in replays. The characters in the game all performed their moves smoothly and there doesn’t seem to be any problems with the animations. Even some characters like the Goombas who don’t even have hands have been animated to hit or throw a ball! There are also nice little effects when the players perform their super moves and while it does not compare to other graphic intensive games, Namco did a very nice job of trying to push the GC hardware to its limits. And, of course, the game runs at a very smooth 60 frames per second and in progressive scan.

The music is made of remixed classic Mario themes and some newly composed music that reminds you of baseball yet has a Mario feel to it. The sound effects are nothing special and the characters’ voices are sometimes so high pitched and annoying that you might feel like pressing the mute button on your remote control! Well, maybe it’s not that bad but it would have been better without some of them, especially the Lakitu voice as he is the one “commenting” the game and can become very annoying. Maybe they could have gotten another character to do it or at least another voice.

The game also has a nice multi player mode where you can play baseball games (2 players) or mini games (up to 4 players). The mini game part is really fun and they are really fast paced like Mario Party. Since the game itself is fast paced this is a good mode to play when you’re with lots of friends as it goes by really fast and makes the rotations faster.

So what is my final verdict? I’ve played all the Mario Sports titles and liked each one, and frankly, this one is no exception. Namco did a really nice job using Nintendo’s flagship mascots and their talent to develop a baseball game that is sure to please a lot of fans. Anyone who didn’t know too much about video games would think it has been developed by Nintendo themselves! It’s easy to pick up because it’s not as deep as a standard baseball game but yet it can offer a great challenge. I am quite happy with my purchase and think a lot of people will be too.