Simply put, when Baseball Stars was released for Nintendo in 1989 it was the answer to all of my prayers and an absolute dream come true. The FIRST game that kept cumulative stats, the little battery in that cartridge was the best thing ever. Others agreed, it was a huge success all over the world and had more than one sequel produced. A poll in the old 'Nintendo Power' magazine even had it rated as the best baseball game of all time.

GRAPHICS get an 8 from me. Everything is crisp and clear, and considering this is the same system that produced Bases Loaded(another popular game of the era with inferior graphics), it's really well done. The players themselves on the field are very generic though with the only real difference other than their sex being their throwing motion for pitchers or batting stance. The home run celebration is nothing special either really and is always the same.

SOUND could be better. Like most baseball games, the soundtrack will become repetitive. These games are best played with music on in my opinion. Otherwise I wind up hearing it when I'm trying to sleep. You get a hit, the crowd cheers, not much else to say really.

ADDICTIVENESS is a 10. If you're playing this game because you just want a quick game you can just pick up and play, it's easy enough to control but there may be better options out there. However, if you want complete control over your team including the ability create your own, then you couldn't do any better in 1990. And it's still fun.

STORY There really isn't one. Use your imagination, You're the manager and GM. You can create your own teams, players, and story lines.

DEPTH would be a ten. You can play this game to infinity. It's baseball, and those rules still apply, but the rest is up to you. There are 8 computer teams with different strengths and weaknesses. The best team is obviously the American Dreams, a team consisting of the best of baseball's Hall of Fame like Hank Aaron, Babe Ruth, Cy Young, and others. The worst is probably, God bless them, the SNK Crushers. There is also a team in all black called the Ninja Blacksox, a team called the "Lovely Ladies" that consists of all women players, and the 'Ghastly Monsters' whos starting pitcher is a cyclops and Damien bats clean-up.  The best part of the game is that you can create your own team from scratch though and build them into contenders. Each player has abilities like hitting, power, speed, etc that rank from 1 to 15. When you win a game, depending on how much prestige BOTH teams have, you will be awarded cash. You can then use this cash to sign a better player, or build up one you already have. Sometimes it may be better to fire a player in favor of one with lesser abilities but more potential. Just like real baseball. Unlike real baseball, at least for now , you can also have female players whos abilities match those of the men. They also have the addition of being able to throw underhand.

DIFFICULTY I give a 7. The controls are easy to learn and if you've ever played baseball video games the players do pretty much what you'd expect. I do like the fact that you can leap at the wall and steal a home run away. Difficult, but I have done it. But as far as in-game difficulty, you can really make it as tough on yourself as you want by selecting better opponents. You'll never beat the All-Stars with a mediocre team though.

OVERALL I give this game a 9. Partly because of the fact that I loved it so much that it seems like nothing will ever stand up. But if you're a stat-freak like me, It's just great. I actually used to physically write down my game stats from Tecmo Bowl and keep track all season. And that involved tracking every play, not just game by game because it didn't give game stats. So when I got this, I was like 'They FINALLY figured out what I I want in a sports title'
Thanks for reading and 'may your balls be plentiful.' - Tom Hanks 'A League of Their Own'

Another good review from you my friend. Although your paragraphs could use more spacing, they are clearly defined. In addition, you give it plenty of details that clearly show your appreciation of the game. Had I been into sports games, you would have convinced me to try it.

Good review man. The only suggestion I would give is to put a space in between paragraphs/categories just to make things look a little better.

As for the game itself goes, this game is EASILY one of my favorite Baseball games of all time. Having the ability to create a whole team and buy/sell/create players was a VERY revolutionary thing at the time. I can't remember another game from this era that had as much depth in that regard.

Also being able to customize seasons and play them out while saving the whole thing was another great feature.

The gameplay itself was very solid. Still love playing it all these years later.

Keep up the great work on the reviews! I look forward to reading more from you in the future.

Jordan78
janus
Look guys. Spaces!  Thanks for the kind words.

Ferdinand : Great job with the spacing man. Makes your reviews look much more pleasing to the eye. I look forward to future reviews from you!

Great job again, man. I like how you handle the run into each new category. Most people put the category's name above the breakdown, but you just put it in caps at the start of the breakdown and run it all as a single line. That's actually pretty cool, and it's refreshing to see a unique approach and one that's actually good at that. xD Keep it up.