Mario Superstar Baseball – GC – Review

That Mario,
who knew he was such a sports nut? But here lately, he’s been busy playing
tennis and golf, and now he’s even formed his own baseball team. There’s only
one catch: he must defeat Bowser Jr.’s handpicked team, to get any respect
from friends and foes alike. If he can only recruit the ultimate team, he may
have a chance to beat Bowser, and have his team declared the best in the
league.

The story
setup is minimal; suffice it to say that Mario is challenged to play Bowser
Jr. … This story line is maintained in the Challenge mode, but is mostly
irrelevant in the other modes. The opening movies that set up the plot are
fantastic, and feature some of the best animation to date on the GameCube.
However, we’re not here to watch movies, we’re here to play ball!

Before Mario
hits the dugout, a little batting practice is in order. The handy Practice
mode allows players to practice various hitting, running, pitching and
fielding plays. These tutorials can be played in sequential order, or in any
order desired. I would highly recommend everyone hit the practice field first,
whether they are sports sim experts or novices, to get a good feel for the
control button functions.

The control
buttons are used to pick the desired players and actions, such as running,
fielding, hitting and pitching. The A button is used for the main hitting,
fielding and pitching, but the B button is used minimally for some reason. For
advancing and returning runners, the X and Y buttons are used instead of the B
button. Controlling the team members can be manual, or automatic. The
automatic option can be assigned for separate functions of running, fielding
and hitting.

There are
two main modes of play: Challenge and Exhibition. Challenge is the campaign
area of the game, and is the place where most of the single-players will be
hanging out. The ball parks include Peach’s Garden, Donkey Kong Jungle, Wario
Palace, Yoshi Park and Mario’s Stadium. These parks have unique features that
not only are humorous to watch, but often affect the outcome of play. The
Piranha Plants in Yoshi Park will scoop up a ball and then spit it out in a
new direction, the sandstorms in Wario Palace can also change the direction of
the ball, and the players in the field in Donkey Kong Jungle Park will have to
dodge the barrels and heel-nipping Klaptraps.

On beginning
Challenge mode, players will have to begin on the first level (Mushroom) and
play with the pre-assigned team. As play progresses, however, new team members
can be recruited. These new members become available by winning scout missions
within a game that also must be won. These scout missions are simple tasks
like “Get the player out” and “Strike the player out” and “Get three runs.”
The opposing team members who are available will have flags by their names in
their roster. It’s important to keep trying to win the scout missions, because
the starting team is pretty lame and will definitely need to be beefed up.

Besides
scout missions, there are also Star Missions, specific to each character,
which require certain objectives to be met.  Successful completion of these
missions will improve the character’s stats, until they become a Superstar.
Power-ups can be purchased in the Shop with coins earned by completing
Mini-games, but are temporary in nature. Other items that can affect play are
special Star Skills, which each team member possesses. Using these Star Skills
uses up one Team Star, which are special Stars that each team has at the
beginning of a challenge mode, the number of which are dependent on the
chemistry between the captain and the team members. This team chemistry is
determined by the compatibility between the members, which is listed beside
each character.

At the
beginning of the Challenge mode, there are four teams that have to be beaten
in order to challenge Bowser officially in his own personal stadium. Before
that happens, Bowser and the other teams can be played as often as desired,
but the level won’t be over until all have been beaten. The four main teams
have to be chosen for a game, but Bowser has the run of the park, and will
automatically challenge Mario if he runs into him. These games with Bowser out
in the field only last one inning. After each win, Mario can pick up
additional team members and reshuffle his team for the next match. Once the
level has been cleared, more parks will be open for play. However, Mario has
to begin all over with a new team, which unfortunately is once again the
basic, not so good team. Selection of a dream team has to be worked for once
again.

The
Exhibition mode is where players can play pick-up games against an opposing
team in a two-player match, either against the computer or another person.
This is the mode for party play – pick your team and let the best team win!
For more party-play fun, take a walk on the wild side with the Mini-games,
which are a hoot and can be played by up to four players. Our favorite was
Piranha Panic, where matching colored eggs have to be thrown at the Piranha
Plants. If the egg is the wrong color, watch out, the Piranha Plant will spit
it right back. Another game is listed separately as the Toy Field mode, but
it’s really another mini-game. This is a baseball game played on a field with
sections marked off like a casino table, with labels of hits, coins, number of
hits and homeruns. Players earn coins by either the offensive team hitting
balls on to the marked sections, or by the defensive team striking out players
and catching fly balls.

This is
slightly more of an arcade game than a true sports sim, but the baseball play
has still been designed well enough to really  feel like a baseball game,
except for one major design problem with running the bases. Mario’s team is
convinced they should run no matter what, even if it is an obvious fly ball,
and although they can be sent back manually, most of the time it is too late
and they’ll be thrown out before they can get back. This swiftly becomes
annoying. Our solution was to finally give up the manual control for running,
and use the automatic run function. The outcome was better, but this option
had its own problem of the runners not running sometimes when they should.

Not only do
the cutscenes look fabulous, but the whole game looks great. Mario, Wario,
Peach, Donkey Kong, and all the others are drawn in vivid color and detail,
and move fluidly. All the animated denizens of the parks are just as detailed,
and the backgrounds are of the same quality. Everything is very Mario-ish. The
music is bright and cheerful, and many of the tunes are reminiscent of old
Mario games.

We have been
having a tremendous amount of fun with this game. There are so many different
options of play that everyone can enjoy it in their own fashion. While
single-play is cool, the real fun lies in party-play, with either one good
friend in some modes, or four in the Mini-games and Toy Field modes. Nintendo
chose Namco for the designer, and the result is excellent and right on a par
with the previous releases of Mario Power Tennis and Mario Golf Tour,
both of which were designed by Camelot. If the AI of the team members’ running
decisions wasn’t so dismal, this would have been an almost perfect game.  Even
with this problem, though, the game delivers a solid sports arcade experience
that everyone will enjoy for a long time.

Review Scoring Details for Mario Superstar Baseball

Gameplay: 8.0
Playing baseball
is pretty wacky with these guys. The parks are a hoot, with their strange
inhabitants who have their own way of dealing with fly balls or hapless
fielders. All the different options really make this game long-lasting, and
the balance of arcade and simulation play is excellently designed. The problem
with runners is the only thing holding this game back in any serious way.

Graphics: 9.0
Truly lovely
graphics!

Sound: 8.0
Most music for
console games becomes annoying, but the music here is just right.

Difficulty: Medium
The learning
curve is a bit tough in the beginning, especially for novice sport sim
players. However, it’s not very complicated and with practice comes ease of
play. Still, younger players will do better with the equally excellent Jr.
Sports series from Atari.

Concept: 8.0
Having Mario play
all these sports is inspired thinking.

Multiplayer: 8.0
This is where the design really shines!

Overall: 8.0
A truly
well-crafted game that exemplifies what the term “family game” really means, a
game that most ages can play and enjoy together. Kudos to Namco.