As featured in Retrogaming Times Monthly issue #23, April 2006.

There are few Tengen ports on the NES that have stood the test of time as well as RBI Baseball.  Even to this day there are legions of loyal fans, sites dedicated to this game, endless forums online and hundreds of people still actively playing.  With that in mind I'll keep information on this game general as I'm sure there are many that could go into great detail about this title and have already done so.  The beginnings of this game aren't in the arcade but on the Famicom itself which was the Japanese counterpart of the NES.  In 1986 Namco released a baseball game on the Nintendo Famicom called Family Stadium.  The game sold well as baseball is widely popular across Japan and spawned Atari Games to port Family Stadium to the Nintendo Vs. System arcade hardware.  So in 1987 Vs. Atari RBI Baseball was born and the game did just as well in American arcades as it did across home systems in Japan.  A year later the arcade Vs. Atari RBI Baseball was ported to the NES by Atari Games under their Tengen label and became the first console video game to ever be officially licensed by the Major League Baseball Players Association.  The MLBPA license meant that real player names and rosters were used in the game, however team names and logos were not included in the game as it was not licensed by Major League Baseball.  Famicom to arcade and back to Famicom again, albeit on another continent and under a different name with slight changes.  This game made quite a journey until arriving in the hands of eager NES owners.

Since the origins of the arcade version were rooted on the Famicom hardware and the Nintendo Vs. System was built upon similar hardware, RBI Baseball is a near perfect conversion.  Graphically things aren't better or worse just slightly different.  For instance the stadium background is more detailed on the NES however the pitcher animations are a little cleaner and more detailed in the arcade.  Some of the team colors are a little different as well but the transfer is excellent, right down to the attract screen.  Controls transfer over perfectly with the joystick functions now controlled with the directional pad and the arcade B and A buttons properly mapped to the NES B and A.  The little tunes that play throughout the game are perfectly recreated and sound great as do the in game sound effects, again, arcade perfect.

Some of the teams have been changed around from the arcade (Oakland removed) and while the official team names and logos aren't used, eight real baseball team head quartering cities are represented along with their team's proper uniform colors.  The game's over all color is slightly different to work with the NES palette but still quite correct and close enough.  Additionally the "Atari League" of the arcade has been renamed the "Tengen League" but all these differences are merely technical little tweaks here and there and don't change the game what so ever.  I've always felt that the NES version played smoother and faster than the arcade original but I wasn't able to definitively confirm or deny this so I guess that's something up to each player's discretion.

RBI Baseball would go on to have a pair of sequels on the NES and become a bankable franchise for Atari Games and their Tengen label on other platforms.  There is a reason why this game was so popular in both the US and Japan, it's an excellent baseball game, elegant in its simplicity.  Although the original release was licensed by Nintendo, Tengen soon broke off their licensing agreement and an unlicensed version was later released.  However the only change was the copyright and licensing information on the title screen.  Also of interesting note, Tengen doesn't appear on the title screen in either version, Atari Games is used instead.  Each subsequent release of RBI Baseball on the NES continued to advance the technology and update the rosters however kept the same simple to learn gameplay of the original.  This kept the popularity of the series directly on par, if not even more popular, than the NES's other big baseball franchise, Jaleco's Bases Loaded.  If you ever want to take a trip back to a time when baseball games didn't stink and weren't overcomplicated, RBI Baseball is a worthy purchase for any NES owner.
 

"InsaneDavid" also runs a slowly growing gaming site at http://www.classicplastic.net/dvgi

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