The Super NES strikes out in this week's Video Chronicles
The name "Super Bases Loaded" is only 2/3 true.
If there's anything surprising about Super Bases Loaded, it's that it took a whopping 14 episodes for us to reach a baseball game on Super NES. We've already had multiple racers, simulation games, and shooters! It's like someone was asleep at the wheel.
Interestingly, though, this game doesn't come to use from Nintendo's internal dev teams as the earlier baseball releases on NES and Game Boy. Instead, it's a sequel to the most beloved NES baseball franchise of all: Bases Loaded. Well, I say "sequel," but this is really more like a scaled-down port of Bases Loaded 3. It includes a lot of the same design and mechanical elements, adds a physics system (supposedly), and uses the same viewpoint as Bases Loaded 3. Unlike that game, however, it includes only a single stadium. So, weirdly, it's a less complete game than its NES counterpart.
An astute baseball fan did point out the fact that the batters and pitchers all use a huge variety of stances that seem to translate from the body language of actual contemporary Major League players. Including, one assumes, Ryne Sandberg.
Anyway, yeah. This isn't a Nintendo-developed baseball sim, but like Nintendo's takes on the sports, it kind of feels like a placeholder for robust baseball releases to come in the years ahead.
