Tecmo made and published this in 1989, another NES baseball game from a different company rather than a sequel. It feels like a hybrid of RBI Baseball, NES Baseball and Bases Loaded. Sam joined Mike, Sean and Joe. The pitching and baserunning are good, and the batting and fielding gave us trouble.

What works

Pitching. Up, down or nothing on the D-pad sets the speed, then you pick one of eight directions, then steer a curve while the ball is in the air. It was probably the best-executed pitching of the baseball games so far.
Baserunning. Probably the most fluid running system so far, and the most enjoyable. You can send a runner or call him back. Fielders get a little more leeway on timing, so double plays that felt impossible in earlier games were doable.

What doesn't

Batting. The hardest we've had to bat in an NES baseball game so far. With the camera behind the pitcher, the ball shrinks away from you, which makes it harder to time. The strike zone is "up to your nose," the umpire is a liar, and there are no difficulty settings.
Impossible pitches. After about 50 rewound swings at one pitch without connecting, we decided a few pitches can't be hit.
Fielding. You steer all your fielders at once, so chasing a ball with the wrong one sends everyone the same way. It finally answered why Nintendo didn't trust us to control the fielders in NES Baseball. A high-pitched whistle helped, mostly in the infield.
The pop fly. Every runner takes off on his own, and if the ball is caught they are all out, because there's no getting back. Backyard Baseball has the runners go slowly and then do the right thing once it's caught.

Worth knowing

Between innings. The scoreboard sometimes just says "fight." We expected a benches-clearing brawl. Other times it says "big hit" or "Tecmo is number one."

The bottom line

Skip it. We didn't vote it onto the Essential Games List. Sam said an NES baseball game has to be "way more arcade-y and less realistic" to be fun, and this one "simulates baseball well enough" but isn't on the list for him. Sean said it ends up "not being good enough at the only thing it can do." You're "kind of doomed" in a genre with nothing on the list if you're not the best, and RBI Baseball is still "far and away the best one on the system." This one has "slight levels of paranormal activity," the ump especially. Keep your copy, just don't put it on a Ouija board.

Written from our conversation in this episode.

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Tecmo Baseball! Manage your own team to the series championship. Even create your own all-star game.

NOSTALGIA And welcome to NEStalgia, a chronological exploration of every NES game released in North America. I'm Mike. I'm Sean. I'm Joe. And I'm Sam. And we are playing another NES baseball game, yet somehow still not getting like a sequel. This is just another different company saying, I want to stay up at baseball games too. There will be no monopoly on baseball games, but there will be monopoly on the NES. We just haven't gotten there yet. Guys, thoughts on baseball games. Take it away, Sean. NOSTALGIA We've seen a lot of different basic takes on it. Like where to place the camera, what to do with hitting and pitching.

There's a couple things that have sort of become universal, but since there's no recipe for a sports game yet, they all kind of have their own flavor to them. NOSTALGIA Joe, give me your thoughts on going to a baseball game. NOSTALGIA I like going to a baseball game. It's a great, uh, a great pastime, an American pastime. Uh, I, I, and this might be a bold stance, but I actually prefer going to a baseball game than watching two AI opponents play each other on the NES.

Ah, it's a little too far for me. NOSTALGIA Yeah, I know, I know. It's a, it's an unpopular opinion. NOSTALGIA Sam, thoughts on cricket as a rival to baseball? NOSTALGIA I don't think that it's really a rival to baseball. I see it more as a rival to running bases.

Um, you know, the game that you'd play as a kid or as an adult, I don't really tell you how to live your life. But, um... NOSTALGIA What is running bases? NOSTALGIA You've never played running bases? NOSTALGIA I've never played running bases. Unless I called it a different name or something. NOSTALGIA Should we get into this? NOSTALGIA I would love to. Sam, break down, break down just the basic rules of running bases. NOSTALGIA Okay, so the basic rules of running bases are there are two bases. And there are,

you have, there are people, one person, two people on the bases. NOSTALGIA This is hotbox. One person on each base. Right? And you have, I think, usually a tennis ball. Uh, and you throw it back and forth. Those two people throw it back and forth.

And each time you, they have three throws, I think. I think it's like one for the money, two for the show. Three, get ready, four to go. Um, that's how we would play it. And then on the last one, you have, so if you're, there's also people who are on the bases and you have to run to the other base. And if you start running to the other base, the, uh, the, either person with the ball can peg it at you. And if you get, uh, hit with the ball, then you're out. So some people go immediately to try and get people off guard. And some people wait until you have to go on the fourth one. And there's a big crowd of people. So you're kind of protected in the herd.

Um, and some people might wait for someone to try and, you know, throw the ball. And they mess up the throw and it goes too far and they get that, they get away that way.

But that, that's kind of it. It's kind of like monkey in the middle, but I'll just know you're trying to hit the monkey. From that description. I don't think it's just from your description. I think, I think that I just don't have a handle on that. I can't even visualize what's happening. It's basically a base running. I'm pretty sure that I played this just by a different name. Uh, we just called it hot box. We also didn't, didn't say whatever it is you said at the top. Uh, one for the money or whatever. But I also can't remember if we have, we had to throw the ball at each other or if you just had to tag someone like they were. Well, you can tag, but you also can throw. Okay. Maybe that's what it was. Yeah. We called it hot box.

Got it. Totally makes sense. Totally makes sense. Well, we're not talking about real life video games, um, which is weird to call them video games. They're not, but we're going to talk about Tecmo baseball, the less spoken of Tecmo game. I think we already mentioned this, but I don't think a lot of us were anticipating anything other than Tecmo bowl. Were you guys anticipating like Tecmo to make other sports games on top of the football games? I was not. I had only heard of a Tecmo bowl. Same. And so the funny thing here is I, I'd give an overview, but we always just say it's baseball. Like, you know what you're getting.

However, this time they chose, like Sean mentioned, you know, there, there are choices that you make on where you're going to place the camera and how you're going to play it out. It's kind of a mixture of a lot of the different games that we've seen in the sense that I feel like it kind of plays like RBI baseball in certain respects, but it feels like NES baseball in a lot of other respects. And the camera controls are a lot like bases loaded.

So if it's possible to have seen those games get made, learn from them and then make a hybrid of those three games. I think that's ultimately what Tecmo baseball comes out with. However, I'm just not sure that the development timeline allows for that. So it's just really bizarre set of coincidences that they managed to copy three different NES baseball games formulas and make a somewhat unique baseball game here.

Yeah. I mean, I think part of that is just that there are only so many ways to logically create the sport in a video game sense at this technology level. So, I mean, it wouldn't really make sense to, I don't know, put the camera out to the side so that like the, the pitcher and the batter are like sort of facing each other in profile. Like that wouldn't make any sense. So you can really only think like, I'm going to put it in front of the batter. I'm going to put it in front of the pitcher or something along those lines. Or just like directly overhead. Or yeah, I guess that is a possibility too. But what's sort of unique about this one is that it just stays behind the pitcher for the most part. Actually entirely.

Regardless of who's batting. Yeah. It takes a broadcast style there. And I think we've talked about that for Bases Loaded, really bringing the presentation part of a baseball game to the NES. Joe, what are your thoughts on when you have that pitcher overhead camera view as opposed to being, you know, the camera kind of behind the catcher where it seems like most baseball games even today have wound up. What's your, what's your take on that camera view? You know, it's fine. I didn't really think about it too much. It didn't bother me just because I was just playing this kind of in a vacuum.

I, I, I do think that it makes sense that it would be behind the pitcher, whether you're batting or you're pitching, just because if you're playing two player, you would want it to be consistent. And then I just assume they wouldn't want to like go through the trouble of making it different in single player than it would be in two player. But yeah, actually, now that you mentioned it, you're right. That, that does feel weird based on like modern, like MLB games and stuff where it's always behind the catcher. Right. I, I just hadn't even really thought about it as I was playing, but it's been a while since I've played a baseball game that's not on the NES. It's almost like the, the, your perspective is the catcher.

Right. Not so much behind, but yeah. Right, right. That's right. There's also no MLB affiliation in this one. The teams are, you know, loosely mirrored to baseball teams. They just don't use the players' names and they don't quite say New York Mets. I think they say New York NM for national, whatever, not national league, but whatever NM would stand for in this particular league. New York, New Mexico. There you go.

Exactly. It's just a hybrid team between the spring training and the actual place that they play. Absolutely. I wanted to ask Sam though, does it matter if we get baseball, real baseball players in these NES games? Like they don't really have a chance to get their likeliness in there. So do you really care if you're playing as, uh, you know, the actual stars of 1989 or would you just be fine playing as Derek somebody?

I think that if, especially, I think the only, it doesn't matter except when the pitcher stats come up. I think that might've been cool to see like recognizable pitcher names next to the, like the ones who have good, um, good stats for each game.

And it's funny cause it's there, right? Like there it's in a way it's the pitcher stats from those teams just not being able to actually use their names. Yeah. I think that if they had, um, I don't know if like between each, uh, each batter, they had like a little portrait that came up to show who was next. Like then it would kind of matter at this point. And this game has, uh, um, it's the, the graphics aren't really all that good in comparison to something like RBI. So that like likeness wouldn't matter anyway.

Um, but I think that if, if the game looked a little better and maybe if they had like those portraits that popped up, then, then that would be an interesting thing to do. Yeah. It also feels like, um, maybe, maybe no one was really thinking of that as much because we're, you mentioned at the top, Mike, that we're like not really in the era yet of, of sequels to baseball games or of like, of like the same company making another baseball game.

So it might just feel like if you were to do that, it would, it would be outdated pretty quickly and then be over. So it might just feel like, uh, kind of pointless to do that. I mean, granted you might still sell, sell in your initial year, but then after a while when, when things are changing, people are moving to different teams or whatever.

Um, totally. It's not like you're coming out with a new one every year. Yeah. There's a reason why they do this like yearly release schedule now every year because nobody wants to play with, uh, the New York Mets team that isn't representative of the current team. You know, even though you could technically do those trades yourself, they'd rather just buy the next year's version. And, uh, we haven't seen that yet on the NES of like a Tecmo baseball, 89 Tecmo baseball, 90, you know?

Right. So when you start up the game, uh, you, you know, it's a confusing set of messages where you have to select twice. They want you to be certain that you're, that you're picking your things. And I'm not going to get into that again. I know how you love that. There's also a confusion for me here with the DH rule of use and not use. Do we think that's just like a, a weird translation thing there? Like that there could have just been a better way to get that over? I don't know. The words use and not use just feel strange to me. I mean, I guess it, I mean, it's not the most, uh, it's not the most elegant way to say it, but it's clear enough to me. I would have appreciated a yes. No, that's all I'm saying.

Okay. Or maybe just stay true to the fact that in the national league, there is no DH rule. So you don't even need to ask that question if you're playing in a home team's national league ballpark. True. Does it even like, I mean, I guess there's no, there's no differences in the ballpark. So, um, I, well, whoever's the home team, I guess, you know, if the national league team is the home is, is in the bottom of the innings, then you would know like, okay, cool. No DH rule. I don't know. It's very specific, but it's a thought I have.

I do have bigger thoughts about the game that we can just get into right now. Cause we might as well start talking gameplay, the meat and potatoes of a baseball game. It's all about batting, fielding, base running and pitching. Those are, those are the meat and potatoes to give a little bit of criticism about the game. I think Tecmo baseball finally answered for me why Nintendo didn't trust you to control fielding in NES baseball. Does it have to do with the visibility?

It's a visibility issue. It's also a, just a fielding in general issue is like, I was never able when the opposing team hit the ball. I was never able to accurately predict where that ball was going to land, which one of my fielders was going to be the one, because you just happened to control all of them at the same time. So if you currently see your second baseman and the ball is like a pop-up, you might think like, okay, cool. My second baseman can go like into the shallow outfield and catch that. But then the ball continues to just keep rolling back.

And then all of a sudden you realize that it's more of a catch for your center fielder. However, he's now all the way at the fence because you've been driving your second baseman, left fielder, right fielder, and center fielder all towards the same direction. So now he's got no chance of catching the ball. The ball just kind of lands there. And then it's like an ant, like slowly marching towards the ball, because they are that small, to pick up the ball and then throw it somewhere. So I think maybe that was Nintendo's logic way back when in 1985 to be like, you know, I just don't think we have the technology to let people control the fielders themselves.

That's why they made the game haunted. That's sort of how I started off playing was like that was a very annoying and frustrating feature. And that's sort of how it was, I think, in one of the other baseball games that finally let you control the outfield. But over time, like because the information is there like that, like it still uses that like high pitched whistle sound to tell you when it's still going up. And it kind of comes back down when the ball starts coming down. So over the course of the couple of games that I played, I was a bit more accurate with like who I thought the ball was going to.

I was never perfect, but I think that like if you played this game over and over, you would sort of get the hang of that. Yeah, I was I was OK at getting under it. But my problem was that was the visibility thing where like if something if a ball is hit and it's going to left field and it's something that normally I would think the left fielder should get.

But but I can't see the left fielder. So my gut, my instinct right there is just to have like the shortstop or whoever I can see go towards it. And then he can't reach it. And then by the time it by the time it lands, I realize, oh, the left fielder would have been able to get it. But I would have had no way of knowing it because I don't know where I don't know which I don't know exactly where he is. So it's really hard to control him by guessing where he is off camera. Yeah, I think that kind of like Sean said, the more that you play this game, the more you get used to you get a feel for that. How? Yeah, because I think for me, the audio cue is the biggest help. Like the you can hear where the peak of it is.

And so while I also have the same problem with the outfield, I was fine in the infield mostly because of that audio cue. But I think if I played the game enough to know like, all right, if this is a hit like a fly to left field, I'm not going to send out my shortstop if the pitch is still going up when it is like leaving the infield or something. You know, yeah, something like that. But it's not super intuitive.

But then it's like you you you you logically are like, well, I want to control the, you know, the left fielder. But yeah, of course, you want to bring him in if you if you think you know where it's going to land. But you still don't know where he is, like left or right of the ball. Right. That's what was giving me a problem. Then I'd like get on screen. I'm like, oh, I'm nowhere near the ball. I think that might come down to just knowing the game and knowing kind of how fast people move.

But still not intuitive at all. Yeah, I sort of agree with that. That statement like it's it's not something that you're going to figure out on the first game or two. But since I'm sure that each setup is exactly the same every time it cuts to that fielding sequence, you will know where your fielders are. A lot of this game, even, you know, fielding aside, batting, pitching, you name it. A lot of it feels like if I was actually playing in a major league baseball game, the way I was playing this video game was going for me as well as I would expect if I had to take an at bat in the major leagues.

You know, the ball, the ball is very fast. And I looked back at some of the other baseball games just to see, like, was it was all the pitching always like this? Did you always have to be ahead of the of the pitch and really, like, just make your decision on a gut reaction? And I think RBI baseball comes the closest, although RBI baseball has a little more of an arcadey style to the whole thing. So I think it works because the whole thing is fast and fun and your bat is huge. So a lot of times you don't have to worry about making contact in this game.

For some reason, I was just like, I was just really awful at at being able to tell what what the what the pitcher was going to do. And he would he would pretty much be able to paint the strike zone around me and there's no difficulty settings or anything. I'm just kind of wondering if you guys felt the same way, you know, about batting and stuff like that. If you felt powerless in there, I'd say, first of all, the umpire is a liar.

And the there's definitely that strike zone is like up to your nose. Um, so there's a lot of because it will telegraph to you where the ball is going to go with the with where the catcher's mitt goes. And from there, it's just can you get your batter into position and time the and time your swing right? Um, but I'd say that the ball moves so fast when it's when they're doing fastballs that like, yeah, this is the hardest I've had to bat in an NES baseball game so far. It's just very difficult hitting. I also think that for me, the angle that it like you you hit from the angle that's behind the pitcher. I understand that it's like for that TV look of getting both in the same shot.

But from a playing experience, I think it's a really frustrating angle to choose because it's like on one. It's on the Z axis that we don't really know that doesn't really exist. Um, and two, it's like going away from the camera, if that makes sense, because you're behind the pitcher. So logically, like the ball should be getting smaller as it approaches the batter.

Whereas in some in like other baseball games where the ball is coming toward you, it's like a little bit easier to time because of that. But in this one, it's like getting further away. That makes sense. And it's also really fast.

Yeah, I get that. That is a kind of unintuitive way to do it. I didn't have any, um, like save states or anything like that. So I couldn't confirm this. But it did feel like certain pitches, you're just not allowed to hit. There's just something about them where it's like your bat can't line up with where that pitch is going. So if you swing, it's just going to count it as a miss. It doesn't matter how early, how late you are. You're not going to get a piece of that. And obviously, I can't confirm that. I'm not going to try and confirm that, but I will say that I did do some testing because I did do a couple games just playing the game as the game is played.

But there were a couple times that I was like, I need to see if I can hit this at all. And I think I took like 50 chops at this one particular pitch, just rewinding and playing and rewinding and playing while it's in midair. And I couldn't land on it at all. So I think that there are some that are just impossible.

Not that anyone that is playing this game on an actual console, like they'd ever know that. Like they would just blame it on themselves. But I think that there are a couple impossible pitches in this. That's pretty sneaky. Yeah, because like people, yeah, like you said, people in 89 would never know that. They probably just thought like, oh, I got to get better at this game.

Well, I'll admit something when it comes to the batting that after a while, because I was having a lot of trouble with it too. And after a while, I noticed that, I just noticed that for some reason, there were a lot of like, apparently just at the top of the strike zone pitches. Like, I don't know, it seemed like there were more than any other pitches. So I started just before the pitch was even thrown, just deciding I'm going to swing high. And I had better results just by guessing high every time than I did when I was actually trying to like, no, like trying to hit the pitches. So I don't know what that tells you about my skill. Hey, I mean, you found a pattern and you exploited it.

Do you think that, you know, given that the game seems to be kind of hard to a novice, right? Do you think that with time, I don't know how much time it would take, but just pretend that you have time. Do you think that this game could replicate the more fun baseball experiences that we're used to having in some of our other NES games? Or is this one, is this one just being a little too difficult to continue on with? I think notwithstanding the handful of impossible pitches, I think that this does come pretty close. Because in previous games, I could not for the life of me pull off any kind of play in terms of base running.

But with the base running system in this game, like I was able to, you know, send my first base runner to second and then swing away and actually sort of get myself out of what would have been a double play. And then likewise, on the other hand, like in terms of fielding, I was able to actually pick up some double plays that in previous games just felt impossible to me. Because I feel like in this game, the fielders have a little bit more leeway with timing.

So I think that like the way that they tweak the knobs in this one for balance, there are some like fun, there's some fun stuff that you can do with it. I actually did notice that you mentioned too, I noticed a couple times where a fielder, an AI fielder would just hold the ball for like two seconds when they clearly could have gotten me out. Yeah. I don't know if that was just like a little bit of a, like a mercy thing that they put into the game to make it out too hard.

But I noticed that a couple times. There is something though about pace of play in a baseball game, in a baseball video game too, where there, you know, and this game had a weird balance of it too, because you have the pitcher throws the ball really fast, which I think, you know, hey, that's probably how fast it, or if not faster, it feels in the real major leagues, right? Those guys are throwing 96, 98 miles an hour. You know, who knows what it's like to face that kind of at bat? Only the other major leaguers do.

So it has, it has like moments like that. But the fielding thing is a little weird, because Joe, as you mentioned, they'll hold on to the ball, which I think is, you know, forgivable, right? It's like, great, I'd love to be safe sometimes. But also like to, for the fielding of your own part, right? Forget the argument about, you know, sound cues and stuff like that. Fielders in general just move pretty slow in this game. And if the ball gets hit in certain areas, it is a crawl to get to the ball and then throw it to likely third base, because you know that the guy hit a triple at this point.

There's something about like how, in this style of a video game, there needs to be a decision about like, how fast an inning should move, and how long a game of baseball should take to play. I think Bases Loaded really got that right, in the sense that it was going full-on simulation and was trying to experience like a very long baseball game that was also, you know, had its downsides, right? It wasn't entirely fun, and we ultimately didn't put it on the essential games list, but it stuck to that.

And then you have RBI Baseball, which was very arcade-y, and I think a lot of us enjoyed, but still didn't get on the essential games list. This game feels like it's picking and choosing its pace throughout based on whether you're fielding, batting, pitching, or running. And I actually do agree with Sean that the running part is probably the most fluid of any of the running systems we've had so far, but also the most enjoyable because you actually feel like you have some control on the base running in the sense of,

okay, well, I can send this guy, but then if it looks like he's going to be out, I can send him back, and then I can put these guys in a squeeze and grab another guy over to third base. I like stuff like that, so I appreciate that. That's the kind of stuff I wanted to see modeled throughout the rest of the game. So I have a little bit of a devil's advocate on the running, though.

It is just one flaw, but it's a flaw that kind of hurt me quite a bit, and that's that when there's like a pop fly, anyone you have on base will automatically just run to the next base, will just advance.

And at that point, if the ball is caught, it's just like an easy triple play. You know, it's just too easy to get everyone out because they don't, I mean, as far as I know, there's not an option to have them run halfway down the bases and wait. So they just run or go back. There's no in-between like you would do in a real baseball game and just wait to see if the ball is caught. And a couple times I just didn't even notice that was happening because I was paying attention to my runner or whatever, and I didn't notice that was happening.

That or I didn't want to like give up and go all the way back for all my runners. No, I totally get that. Yeah, that's a huge flaw. Yeah, as soon as the ball is caught, it's just like, well, now I'm screwed because everybody who was on base is out because there's no getting back. I had a problem with it at first.

A joke is I noticed that actually happened to me with like I had a guy on third and it was only one out and it was a clear pop up and I was like caught by surprise with it. But then I kind of thought like, well, you know, the alternative is no, you know, in this baseball game, obviously later baseball games can do whatever they want. But in this one, the alternative is they just never run and you have to send them all the time. And I think it's better to be in control of because once you've hit the ball, your only responsibility now as the offensive team is to just be in charge of base running.

It should be your call to send people back rather than say, OK, I'm going to send everyone forward because then you're losing momentum on a potential like extra base hit when they're not running. And you have to send them like you'd have to make that call then. So I did appreciate that they decided to make everybody run rather than not run, because I think you would be caught in more jams if the bases were loaded, if it was the opposite way. I don't think it's binary, though, because I think that there there is the like they could have put some game logic into this that recognizes that that hit is a pop up.

And in that regard, base running will behave differently like it does in modern games. It doesn't have to just always be they stay until told to run or they run. Oh, absolutely. That would have that would have been the best solution. Hands down. I just think like if the only option is on or off, I'm saying leave that let them run. Yeah, I agree with that. One thing that it made me think of is my favorite baseball games were always the backyard baseball games. And the way that those guys do it is that if there's a pop fly, all of the base runners will still run, but they'll run really slowly.

And then after it's caught, they'll automatically do what they're supposed to do. But you can also tell them individually to do like to advance if you want to risk it or you can go back to a base. So I think that that is like a pretty simple, maybe way. I don't know how to code it, but that seems like it's a good halfway or a good solution. In between innings, you're greeted on the scoreboard with just the words fight. Not all the time. Not all the time. Sure, sure. But like that one in specific, I guess I see what message they're going for. But if we're going for like baseball fanfare, shouldn't it be like charge instead of fight? I mean, I think I saw fight a couple times, but most of the time it was just move on.

And it would move on to the next inning. And I think sometimes when maybe there was a home run in the previous inning, it would say like big hit. Yeah, I got that one too. Otherwise, they're kind of like non sequitur, and I kind of love it for that. They also have Tecmo is number one. Yeah, it's usually the seventh inning, I think.

I also brought up fight just because the first time that it happened, I was a little startled and thought that there was going to be like a benches clearing drawl that was happening between innings. I would have loved that too. But that's why I just thought like, you know, fight is something that you would expect to see definitely in a hockey game, in a football game, sure.

But in a baseball game, like fights don't happen that often. So it just seemed really strange when it popped up on the scoreboard. Now that you say it like that, I want to see like, I want to see the NFL referees like allowing two football players to fight just on the field. That would be something else. It really does show you how weird it is that it's kind of allowed in hockey. But that's beside the point.

And so let's move on to pitching. Probably the only thing we haven't really talked in depth about yet. This one lets you choose your style of pitch, but then also control that pitch with your cursor as the pitch moves, you know, into the strike zone. Did we like that? I did like that. So it sort of works like there's like three phases to each pitch. When you initiate the pitch, whether you're holding up, down or nothing on the D-pad, that sort of controls the speed. So it could be like a fastball or like a slower pitch.

And then while the animation of the pitcher pitching is going on, you can select, I think, like eight different directions of like what corner you want to hit. And then while the ball is in the air, you could do like that aftertouch to make a curve in one way or another.

So I think that like pitching in this game, at least in terms of how much control you have over each pitch, is probably the best executed, at least in my memory, of the baseball games we've played so far. Yeah, I kind of agree with that, too. I, when I, my first thought was it was weird that you're controlling the ball while it's in the air. I don't remember if any other games did that.

And while obviously that's, that like kind of requires a set of like a skill or a type of thinking that isn't how you would think while you're pitching. Like once the ball's in the air, you don't have control over it anymore. But it is, when I thought about it more, it is a nice way to kind of replace the skill it would take to actually throw a curveball or actually, you know, it's not just like select curveball and your pitcher will automatically throw a curveball. Like you have to be doing something.

And the best way to translate that is by, that I can think of is by allowing you to control the ball in the air, if that makes any sense. Yeah, I think there was one, one, I don't remember which, but one of the more basic looking baseball games we played. I think all of the control was sort of after, after the pitch, but. Exactly. I, I think that there are others that didn't allow you to do that at all.

Yeah. And it is an interesting decision to have like, first you choose speed, right? Then only afterwards you're choosing, like Sean mentioned, the eight different directions, but also like the, the curve of the ball, like whether it will curve right or left or even forking the ball so that it has this sort of downwards curve, which I know fooled me every time the actual computer AI pulled it off. Yeah. That's really all you can say about pitching, right? I'm not sure there, there's a lot else there.

Otherwise, I definitely thought this was the more fun part of the game as opposed to batting because in batting, it was just so stressful to try and hit that ball. And honestly, I was, even if, even if they were, forget about if the ump is rigged or not and their strikes or balls more than likely, I was just swinging to hope to make some kind of contact. And then let's just see what happens when the ball is in the field. Yeah. You know, like let's just see what happens, but it wasn't good if I chose not to swing. Although I do wonder, do you think like, do you think a walk is possible with an umpire that rigged? I was walked a couple of times in my play. Okay. That's good to know. Yeah.

I just swang all the time. I have to swing when I see the ball come. There's just something about it. I don't know if it's that view, like that it would be impossible for me to know if it's a ball or not. I thought it was a personality trait of yours. Yeah. Sean, I think it's secretly a personality trait. Sean, how did you know that they were going to be balls?

I just, I mean like, throughout the game, I could have sworn that the same upstairs pitch was called a strike and a ball at random. So I just sort of hoped for the best and, you know, was swinging at fouls that were obvious in the zone. And I was able to drag like these plate appearances out until I somehow got walked.

Well, you know, random calls in the same pitch position. That sounds like a simulation game now. That's very real to what happens in a regular baseball game. So, you know, no complaints there. We also have a watch mode, just a mode where you could just watch Tecmo baseball. Do you think that this is something you would just like, you know, oh, hey, let me plug in the cartridge real fast. We'll just put on the watch mode and have a party. Yeah. A certain kind of person that does that. I don't like that person. Like in the off season, you want to watch some baseball. If you want to like play some bets, I guess, with your friends.

I remember back in the day, it was probably like the Xbox era Madden games. Like they did have like a camera angle that was sort of like that somewhat isometric view of the field that sort of mimicked the press box angle. And I tried to watch a computer controlled Madden game once. And the first time I did it, I'm like, this isn't working for me. This looks stupid. And I'm never doing this again.

I've heard. We found out. We found out that a in Mario Party, if the computers are all like turned on to play. Right. So you can have four computers just watch them play like a 50 turn Mario Party. Right. You could just go do whatever else you want. But if you on the last turn change them to be human controllers, then you get all the stars that they got during those 50 turns. So this way you could cash those in to progress along with the rest of the game for the hundred stars required to get to the ending.

And so we did that. We would just like have them run and the computers would do that. And we weren't actually going to watch it. I think it was bizarre that Nintendo included a feature that would just let you watch four computers play Mario Party for 50 turns. But then there's also the risk of like, you know, you go outside, you do some stuff, you come back and they're actually like done, you know, and you missed it. And now you have to run it again.

Incredible. I cannot believe you did that. I know that there's like charity melee tournaments also where everyone like pays money to be a computer player and then all the computers just fight each other. So no one's actually fighting, but they still do it tournament style. And certain characters cost more money because they have better odds than other characters do. So I think that sometimes it could be maybe interesting.

Yeah, that sounds fun. The Smash Brothers thing just reminded me of when the Amiibos came out and people were setting up on Twitch like eight player Amiibo fights because the Amiibos allegedly could learn from each other and from playing with you. So that's how they'd level up and they'd learn what to do.

They would host these on Twitch and then you could bet on who you were thinking was going to win. And the better the win to loss ratio of the Amiibo was, the worse the payout was. So that was like actually very interesting and a good version of a watch mode. But, you know, I just think in general, like watch modes are just something that's so bizarre to even just see on these NES games. Like the idea of a child in this time wanting to watch something happen rather than just play it themselves feels weird to include.

It's funny, though, because now, I mean, obviously there's personalities attached, but now that's what everyone always does is watch other people play video games on YouTube. So they were ahead of the time. At least they're people, you know? Right, yeah. At least there's some personality there. Yeah, maybe we should do a Twitch stream with the four of us doing audio commentary of a watch mode Tecmo baseball game. That would be great. I'm not against this, yeah. One of us is just going to have to be like the injury report person, though.

That's great. So we're kind of winding down here. Let me take you through sequels and spinoffs. We're going to get a bunch of other Tecmo games on the NES, including Tecmo Bowl. I think that's pretty famous. I think everybody expected that one. Then Tecmo Super Bowl. I don't know if that was like a surprise, but seems like the next natural step to go. Seems like it would take a lot of money, though, to get the word Super Bowl included in there. I know you're not really allowed to say that anyone. Like the NFL has the rights to the words Super Bowl in that order.

Yeah, you shouldn't even be saying it right now. It's weird, though, right? Because technically I'm like promoting it. What do they have against using it? Like technically me saying the Super Bowl right now, everybody's like, oh, yeah, that exists and I should watch it in February. Now we're going to get it. I forgot it existed, Mike. Anyway, there's also Tecmo NBA basketball. Now that seems like they're going to have players from the NBA or at least teams because they're using the NBA thing.

And Tecmo Cup soccer game. Do you think they needed to include the subtitle soccer game? Does that feel weird? I thought you just included that just now. Right? Yeah. No, that's it. That is really there. It could be a racing game, right? That's true. Or even a tennis game, I suppose. It could be like, what's that pouring beer game? It could be like pouring things into cups. What the heck is that game? Arcade game.

Tapper? Yes. Or not Tapper. Something like that. Wow. It could be that. It's not. Okay. What is it? Soccer game. Yeah, it's a soccer game. Oh, I thought we were talking about the beer game again. No, we're saying Tapper. Oh, I'm sorry. It's okay. You said it. All right. Speaking of you said it. There's also a Tecmo baseball game on the Super Nintendo and the Sega Genesis. Can we guess what they might have called that game? Tecmo Super Baseball? Super Tecmo. You are absolutely right. Oh, Sam, you're so close, though. It might make more sense to be Super Tecmo Baseball. Because contrary to popular belief, there is no Super Baseball championship at the end. Like, there is a Super Bowl.

There's the World Series instead. So, Tecmo Super Baseball is what they went with. But maybe they should have went with Super Tecmo Baseball. Feels like the natural sequel to Tecmo Baseball. I took a chance here and said, well, if I'm going to continue the streak of playing all these sequels and spinoff games for the 1989 games, I might as well play Tecmo Super Baseball. This is a game that is very advanced for its time. I was blown away by some of the features that they included in this game.

And then I was, like, simultaneously blown away by how many obtuse decisions are included in this game. It's almost like they knew that Tecmo Baseball was sort of a tough game. Where, like, yeah, batting's not that much fun, but pitching's okay. Fielding is slow, but base running is fast. It feels like they knew that that happened, and then they just doubled down on it on the Super Nintendo.

And honestly, like, I consider Tecmo Super Baseball unplayable by my standards. I don't think that that's actually, like, that's like baseball if you're dreaming, you know, and you're just, like, running in slow motion. This is, like, everything that you try to do in that game, it's just a game where you can't win. Any time that Mike refers to his dreams, I feel bad for him because they sound so nightmarish. All the dreams are nightmarish. It really is. But I would argue that dreaming you're playing in the major leagues and playing in the actual major leagues would be very similar experiences. Okay. You know, like, you're going to be bad. Is that how it works in professional baseball? Or professional dreams?

Professional dreams and professional baseball. Think about it, Sean. You step into the major leagues by accident, right? You're the rookie of the year, that movie where the Chicago Cubs kid has broken his arm or whatever. You're that kid. Okay. But you also don't have that superpower. That happens in the movie. Instead, you're just playing. No, I know, I know. Yeah, exactly. It's true. It did happen in the movie. But just pretend for a minute, Sean, that it's you at your current age with all your current abilities. And they're telling you, you just have to pinch it. Okay? Oh, God. It's no big deal. Middle of the, you know, like.

Are you insulting me right now, Mike? I feel it. No, it's the middle of the season. Fourth inning of a know-nothing game. Like, it doesn't matter at all. But now you know that you have to go up there and at least see three pitches. You know, like, do you even swing? Do you even go for it? I think I'd fucking go for it. You gotta go for it. I know I wouldn't hit, but I think I'd fucking go for it. I bet I'd hit it. Swing away, Mike. I bet I would swing around in a full circle and then fall into the dirt.

I bet I'd get thrown out. Yeah, I'd swing like a half hour after the ball was in the catcher's mitt. Anyway, we're not here to talk about how we would perform in the major leagues. We're here to talk about how Tecmo baseball would perform in a little something I like to call the Essential Games List.

So, to be honest, I don't really know where on my baseball games list this falls exactly. I feel like they're all getting, I mean, not that they're like, for all emulating the same sport, they have their differences. But in my head, they're all bleeding together a little bit. But what I can tell you is that this game is definitely not significantly higher than the other ones enough to get it on the Essential Games List. So, for all the same reasons I haven't voted any baseball games so far on the Essential Games List, I'm also not voting this under the Essential Games List. And Sam? This game is not the most fun baseball game that I've played. I don't think it's the most fun baseball game I've played on the NES.

And there's a lot of stuff that's wrong with it. There's a lot of frustrating parts. Personally, I think that for a baseball game on a console like the NES to be successful, it has to be way more arcade-y and less realistic to be fun.

And so this game, I don't know, it simulates baseball well enough, but it's not on the Essential Games List for me. Fair enough. Sean? I'll agree with Sam in that this isn't even the best baseball game on the system so far.

I think it's up there, but just by virtue of not being good enough at the only thing it can do, it's not going to be on the Essential Games List. Yeah, you're kind of doomed if you are in a genre that currently has no games on the Essential Games List, and then you're not the best game in that genre. Like, it's going to be really hard to get on the Essential Games List. So it's no surprise the way we voted today. I would say, however, that I could put this above NES Baseball, close to bases loaded, right up there with Major League Baseball, but like RBI Baseball is still far and away the best one on the system. You know, if NES Baseball is haunted, I think the Tecmo Baseball has like slight levels of paranormal activity.

Like, there's moments where this game has a mind of its own. Certainly the ump does, but I just, I don't want to say it's haunted. And I almost, like, when I first started playing this game, it felt like hell. But at the end of the day, given its shakeout, I think, like, there's just slight moments of paranormal activity that would set off, you know. Like an EVP device or something like that, you know? Exactly. Yeah. Exactly.

Nothing to be alarmed about. It's fine if you have a copy in your house. I wouldn't throw it out just yet. Just don't put it on top of a Ouija board. Yes, exactly. And don't speak to it. Don't speak to any of your video games, though, honestly. Next week, we're going to keep up the sports genre, and we're going to play WWF WrestleMania. I can only imagine how many sports fans I upset by calling a WWF game a sports game. But I just did. And there's nothing you can do about it because it's been recorded. Sean, is WWF a sport?

Wow. That's a loaded question. I don't think so. It's entertainment. Sports entertainment. I thought it was a federation. Well, that's interesting. Yeah, that's true. I don't think we say, though, that baseball is a league before we say it's a sport. Well, no, no, no. You asked me, is WWF a sport? That's true. I didn't want to say wrestling, though, because then it's like, well, which kind, right? Because there's obviously wrestling that is totally a sport. And then there's... No, I think even, like, Greco-Roman wrestling is rigged. Interesting. Well, I mean, we don't have any way to find out whether or not, right? Like, who knows if the Olympics might be scripted, for all we know. Did Michael Phelps really win all those medals by that slim of a margin?

Or did they start turning on the water jets for the other guys? I think this is the only worthwhile conspiracy theory. Just saying. WWF WrestleMania, it's a big deal because we've been talking about... I've been talking about it. I don't know if you guys have. I've been talking about WWF for a while. And now I get to finally talk about a video game for WWF. We've played some other wrestling games before, like Muscle in 1986.

That was a mess. So we're going to see if WWF WrestleMania could either break that streak or take the title. I really just want to play as Sting. Sting is WCW, but I can understand how you would make that confusion. No, no, no. It's not confusion. I just want to play as Sting. Oh, I got you. So this game can't be on... You judge your Wrestling Essential Games list by whether Sting is in it or not. You got it. Yeah, that's true. Sting the wrestler or Sting from the place? That's what I was going to ask. I wasn't sure about that. Sting the wrestler. He's going to say NWO is going down. He should say, like, don't stand so close to me.

That would have been good, too. Joe, any final thoughts on wrestling, Tecmo Baseball, the podcast, where to find us? Any thoughts about that? As far as wrestling, I just hope it's as good as the PlayStation 1 WWF games, which I'm sure is exactly the same. That's a great call, though. I love those PlayStation 1 WWF games. Me, too. So I have a high stakes or a high bar set for next week. That's true. Anyway, since you couldn't answer it, I will. You can always find us at NostalgiaCast on Twitter. You can talk to me, Michael Esposito. I'm at Esposito Film on Twitter. And we'll be talking to you next Friday for another great episode of Nostalgia. NostalgiaCast on Twitter.

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158 · Tecmo Baseball

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