A contact swing
Sega Genesis
Released in 1992 by Tengen
Grade: D+
Standard retro baseball, using the same old primitive pitching and hitting interface. Good looking but a step slow.
Real players with faithful team colors and stadiums, but no team names.
Where it falls in the series
The original R.B.I. Baseball on NES was a lovable hit in 1988. RBI 2 was on NES and Genesis, then RBI 3, RBI 4, RBI ’93, and RBI ’94 on Genesis only, then Super R.B.I. Baseball on SNES in 1995. They put the brand away for nearly two decades before starting up again with R.B.I. Baseball 14 on PS3, PS4, Xbox 360 and Xbox One, followed by yearly releases through 2021. (See R.B.I. Baseball 2016.) Nothing major changed the entire time except graphical improvements, and I don’t have much interest in figuring out which ones shine brightest among the pack.
Praises and gripes
Graphics are colorful, detailed, and make effective use of 16-bits. But the game moves a bit too slow, especially in the field.
Controls are simple and easy to pick up, but not quite responsive enough. “Getting the timing right” in this game is really like getting the timing a split-second wrong.
There’s no unnecessary wait time between pitches.
There are three difficulty levels, but I can’t imagine anyone is dumb enough to struggle on easy, or willing to play this game enough to ramp up to hard.
The retro pitching and batting system just doesn’t amount to fun, and it stupefies me that so many games like this got made. Pitchers magically steer the ball on its way to the plate, and can transform a fastball down the pipe into a bouncer in the dirt. It turns hitting into a guessing game that tests your patience, without enough read-and-react. I can’t imagine playing this game for any length of time, trying to improve my ability to watch a white blob that doesn’t look or move like a baseball.
Baseball games with this old, repetitive style need either undeniable charm or something special about the gameplay, and this game has neither.