This is a hard game for me to review because I am not a baseball fan and I don't know a lot about the sport. However, I have spent some time playing the game, so I will do my best.
Gameplay:
If you are familiar with baseball, then you will know more or less what to expect from this game. However, in case you don't know much about it, I will try to explain at least a little about how this game works. I'll probably sound like an idiot due to my lack of knowledge, but never mind :) This is obviously not really a baseball simulation, but more of an arcade style game (i.e. not all of the rules of real baseball apply here), so it is fairly easy to get into. You get to choose from a selection of different teams that have different stats and you also get to choose a stadium to play in. You can also choose to play a single match, or go into a tournament.
There are two parts to the game, batting and pitching. When batting, you just have to press the A button to swing the bat at the right time. If the ball is caught, or if your batter doesn't run to the next post in time, then you will be out. Once three of your batters are out, the teams change over.
When pitching, you press the A button to throw the ball and if you press a direction button afterwards, you can make it curl in that direction. When the ball is hit, you have to control your fielders to try and catch the ball before it hits the ground, or to get them to pick it up and throw it to one of the 3 bases before the opposing teams players reach them.
Although at times it can be a little awkward at times to get control of the fielder you want, pitching is the easiest part of the game. When it comes to batting, it can be very hard to hit the ball and 8 times out of 10, one of the CPU fielders will catch it. Either that, or you will not hit it very far and you will end up being out anyway. I haven't had all that much practice at this game, so it may just be that I am not very good, but it does seem a little unfair sometimes. For this reason, this game would be a lot more fun to play in the two-player mode.
Graphics
Baseball Stars Pro was among the first batch of games released on the Neo Geo, which means that the graphics are extremely dated. The presentation is fairly decent for a game of its age, but it doesn't really look fantastic. There are one or two nice touches, like the players breaking their bats when they miss (they have real bad tempers).
Music & Sound Effects
I thought the sound was of a decent standard for its age too. There is quite a lot of speech throughout and the sound effects are not bad either. The music isn't too bad, although you will probably get annoyed with it after a while.
Overall:
If you like baseball, you will get a bit of enjoyment out of this and even if you aren't into the sport you may still enjoy playing it for a limited time. You will probably pick up on how to play this game quite quickly, because it isn't really all that complicated anyway. There's one thing that I can tell you though; the sequel to this game is better...
Graphics: 5.5/10
Sound: 6/10
Game play: 6/10
Replay Value: 5/10
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