Virtually Overlooked: Super Baseball Simulator 1.000
Welcome to our weekly feature, Virtually Overlooked, wherein we talk about games that aren't on the Virtual Console yet, but should be. Call it a retro-speculative.
There aren't many sports games that we have enjoyed over the years. Not being fans of real sports, we have understandably little interest in simulating them in a video game (although that argument doesn't really track for all gametypes-- we enjoy Duck Hunt without caring to hunt real ducks, etc.)
Like everyone else, we enjoy Wii Sports, but before that we've generally shied away from team-sporting games-- except for Culture Brain's Super Baseball Simulator 1.000, which is so delightfully idiosyncratic that it got even our attention. Super Baseball Simulator 1.000 is the Super NES sequel to a very similar NES game called Baseball Simulator 1.000. Really, we'd love to play either on the Wii, but we have more personal memories of the SNES game, so that's the one we'll discuss in this column.
For the most part, Super Baseball Simulator 1.000 plays exactly like any other 8/16-bit baseball game: batting is accomplished by holding A, pitching by holding a direction to choose pitch type and pressing A; when you move one player during fielding, you move them all simultaneously. We got used to these little quirks from even the most limited playtime with any NES baseball game, from Baseball on. You could play in one of two leagues and you would basically be playing a (very) slightly prettier SNES version of any NES baseball, with cute, bouncy music and a digitized umpire who periodically tells you to "PLAYBUH".
But what Super Baseball Simulator 1.000 offers over its competition is its third league, the Ultra League. In this league, all the players have super powers. Batters can hit the ball so hard that it knocks multiple fielders into the wall, or they can turn the ball into a leaf that floats to the ground after hitting. There are 15 different Ultra Swings, ranging from the slightly disruptive (removing the flying ball's shadow) to the obvious (turning the ball into a flaming projectile) to the completely devious (reversing the fielding controls, or spinning the screen). The pitcher has a similar arsenal of hilarious moves, like a pitch whose speed or direction can be controlled midflight, or an iron ball.
Each of the teams in the Ultra League have a different distribution of skills, but you can edit your team to distribute skill points among players according to your own preferences. This includes normal skills like speed, but also Ultra skills, each assignment of which costs some number of Ultra Points. You can, of course, also change stuff like uniform colors and player names. There are few moments of multiplayer gaming as satisfying as having two fully customized teams face off with a well-designed arsenal of Ultra Swings and Pitches. It really feels like a strategy game and a fighting game when you try to match your pitches to the current batter's skill. Also it's really dang funny when the fielder tries to catch the ball and it explodes. Obviously.
We miss the kind of games that Culture Brain put out. There was something very experimental and rough-around-the-edges about their games, like the bizarre Flying Dragon/Flying Warriors series of fighting/RPG games. Of all of Culture Brain's releases, Super Baseball Simulator 1.000 was the one that worked best, but it still feels like a labor of love from a very small, and weird, company.
