Baseball Stars is a series of baseball games developed by SNK. The original Baseball Stars was notable for being the first console sports game to feature an in-depth career mode, modeling stats tracking and allowing the player to trade, fire and hire players throughout the course of a season or use their winnings from the games to increase their stats. The Neo Geo installments, being arcade games, dropped most of the career mode features for pick-up-and-play action.
The following games are part of the series :
- Baseball Stars (1989, Nintendo Entertainment System)
- Baseball Stars Professional (1990, Neo Geo, Neo Geo CD)
- Baseball Stars II (1991, NES) : A Mission-Pack Sequel to the original game with improvements to the batting controls and more restrictions to the league feature.
- 2020 Super Baseball (1991, Neo Geo, Neo Geo CD, Super Nintendo Entertainment System, Sega Genesis)
- A Spin-Off set in the future as its name implies, 2020 Super Baseball features many twists on the baseball formula such as robot players, glass domes covering 3/4 of the playfield (homeruns can only be done in the center field), jump pads to catch the ball in midair, and non-lethal mines dispersed on the field between innings.
- Baseball Stars 2 (1992 Neo Geo, Neo Geo CD): The game arcadifies controls even more than Professional did and adds a "Power Bat" feature, where the player can distribute up to 5 hard-hitting steel bats to their players during games.
- Baseball Stars Pocket (1998, Neo Geo Pocket)
- ''Baseball Stars Pocket Color (1999) : An Updated Re-release of the above for the Neo Geo Pocket Color.
2020 Super Baseball and Baseball Stars 2 were developed by SNK's Team Galapagos, who would later go on to make the third and fourth Samurai Shodown.
The Neo Geo games have been released multiple times throughout the years, both as part of compilations and stand-alone rereleases. The original game is also included in the Xbox One version of SNK 40th Anniversary Collection.
The Baseball Stars series contains examples of :
- Amazon Brigade : The Lovely Ladies and the Wild Flowers teams in Baseball Stars Professional and the Tropical Girls and Battle Angels in 2020 are composed entirely of female players.
- Artistic License – Sports : In Baseball Stars 2, a batter hit by a pitch can "rush the mound" and punch the pitcher in the face, after which they can take first base with no penalty. Obviously, no real baseball promotion would allow that.
- Boss Battle : The SNES version of 2020 Super Baseball adds a final game against an unplayable team known as the Cosmopolitan Machinis. The Machinis have high stats accross the boards and their members are named after official of Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany.
- The Cameo : The mascot for the SNK Battalions in Baseball Stars Professional is Athena Asamiya.
- Gender Is No Object : Baseball Stars Professional and 2020 Super Baseball have mixed-gender teams, and female players are every bit as able to compete as their maile counterparts.
- Mad Libs Dialogue : Both Professional and 2 feature extensive voiced commentary with obvious and frequent splices.
- Mercy Kill: In the NES games, a game ends automatically if a team is ahead by more than 10 points at the end of an inning.
- Robot Athlete : 2020 Super Baseball features robot players. Robots generally have superior stats and don't tire out, but can "blow up" if exerted too much and have all their stats brought down to 0. Human players can be roboticised for a fee.
- Self-Deprecation : The SNK Crushers are the worst team in all of the games they're featured in, having awful stats and no advantage to make up for it.
- 20 Minutes into the Future : ''2020 Super Baseball' (released in 1991) is set in, well guess, and features all manner of futuristic technology.