I used to an the SFC version all the time however a few weeks ago I played the Mega Drive version and found it to be so much more fun. Mention it to your brother, he'll probably like it.
Another great Neo Geo game. I remember playing this one, and Baseball Stars 2, in the arcades. It's a shame that they didn't do a better job with the SNES version. Programming is part of it, but if memory prices were a bit lower back then, I think we would have seen better conversions, sine the Neo Geo games were so large. Thanks for another great episode.
Laurent Giroud YOu may be hypothesis but you could be right. The MD version does indeed seem to use code from the Neo Geo. You can tell the way the screen fades is the same as are one or two graphical defects.
The SNES version does have the Dead Ball; I once saw a vid where the guys playing it managed to pull it off twice. Said vid was of the American version, so maybe it was added back in for that one. Also, nice to see the Genesis version get some love, that's a really good conversion. NuFX did a great job on it, and that version's music renditions (by the awesome Brian Schmidt) are the best. I do wonder what Japanese audiences thought of it, considering it was the very last home port they got (without counting the NeoCD one), three years after the arcade original. Definitely one of the better Neo-Geo-to-Genesis conversions I've seen, especially compared to the ghastly World Heroes port from around that time, also by a Western team (Sega Midwest Studio, coincidentally an Illinois-based studio too; said port even had the aforementioned Brian Schmidt behind the sound!) (EDIT: Didn't see you had already made a BOTP about World Heroes) Also, some more info about NuFX that I just saw: the 2020 port wasn't the last NG-related thing they did, as they also co-developed Windows 95 ports of Samurai Shodown II and Fatal Fury 3, which were primarily made for the Japanese market, as were other Win95 ports of Japanese-made console/arcade games. A lot of those were made by Western studios as well.
ah, maybe the Dead Ball in the SNES version is just hard to pull off? I just couldnt get it to work myself. Funny how two Neo Game both got ported by American teams in Illinois while one was excelent and the other a complete joke.
I lovvvvvvve Super Baseball 2020, both on SNES and Genesis!! (And I definitely don’t miss “Now we’ll set the crackers!” on the SNES version. It actually make me kinda prefer it!)
I remember playing the SNES version. Gameplay felt a bit off back then, glad I'm not the only one. Kinda want to play Baseball Stars 2 now after watching this!
To me I think the audio in the Neo Geo CD exceeds the arcade and seems to have more punch and clarity. I don't know if it's nostalgia from me growing up with the Genesis version but that's still my favorite version of this even though the arcade and CD is vastly superior. I'm surprised you didn't rag on the genesis sound like you normally do lol :)
I think the Red Book audio on the NGCD uses superior samples to the cart version so I'd consider it an arranged OST. Many other NGCD' s do this, but usually with more obvious differences. Top Player's Golf and Baseball Stars 2 have excellent arranged soundtracks on the CD versions.
videogameobsession Thanks for clarifying because I didn't grow up with Neo Geo CD nor did I take the time to try them out on emulator. But if this example sounds as good as it does then I need to be more open minded and try more Neo Geo CD conversions!! I can't imagine Samurai Showdown 2 or Real Bout Fatal Fury Special!! :D
I don't rag on the Mega Drive sond when it isn't called for. If you take a look at my site, segagagadomain.com you'll see that I own many Mega Drive games and I'm a big fan of the system and it's sound. BUT it's always the Japanese that really knew how to use the sound chip. Most American developed games sound like crap. European ones are pretty nice most of the time.
It's the same with View Point on Neo Geo. The CD version sounds about the same as the arcade, except a touch cleaner. I usually prefer the original arcade over re-arranged. So this is nice.
I always figured both 2020 and Soccer Brawl were developed by the same team. They are very similar in appearance and concept. I think the Red Book audio may vary slightly on the NGCD port. Many of the early ports (Baseball stars 2, Top Player's Golf, Last Resort, World Heroes, etc..) feature arranged OSTs
I rented the MD version twice or or three times and I really had a ball with it (no pun intended). The only baseball console game that made me enjoy as much was that MLB Live with those codes that created a team of real misfits like Adriano Celentano and his ginormous bat (didn't know Celentano was known outside Western Europe).
NEO-CD version is not a port, it is the same code and the NEO-CD is the same main hardware as the MVS and AES. The save screens you speak of are also on the MVS and AES as well if a memory card is inserted. The NEO-CD console has the memory card built in.
A great game! I played this a ton on the Neo Geo emulator back when that was first released. I never realised there were ports. Luckily I can play it now on the Neo Geo CD, it's still good, and not even that expensive.
Lyra's Gaming Channel In general I hate sports games apart from car racing but every now and then a gem like this comes along. I also love Neo Turff Masters.
Got the MVS cart. Pretty good for a baseball game actually. There was a NES baseball game that had robots in it as well (Basewars?) that came out at the same time I think. Not sure who copied who.
ShadowSumac hahaha, it's not that difficult to be honest. I also have no interest in Baseball although I could learn the rules very quickly. I don't like typical baseball games but I do kind of enjoy these fantasy Arcade style games.
I think the MD version is better than the SFC mainly because it came out a bit later, and it's on a 16 MEG cart compared to the 12.3 MEG cart on the SFC. A little more room for the sounds and animations, and the code probably didn't needed to be altered very much due to the similar Motorola 68k hardware as the Neo Geo. Love your vids, but please for the sake of my Homeland... The 'S' is silent in the pronunciation of Illinois! "There is no 'noise' in Illinois!"
@@RetroCore There was also a Japanese version of Desert Strike for the Mega Drive and Super Famicom, but you've managed to just use the Western version.
I'm surprised they never did. SNK could easily have improved upon the original with more stadium variety, larger character sprites, improved design, more alien speech and so on.
Kind sir, Another well done video. Thank you for posting it on, The Official NEO-GEO Thread on Atariage.com for us to benefit and enjoy. 8^) A futuristic sports title that clearly was way ahead of its time. It started to show the potential on what the Neo-Geo had to offer and the fine details the developers did on it really showed the beauty on Baseball Stars 2020. I do have the ports for this, but clearly, the limitations do show. I mention this on the Neo-Geo thread, that I believe its also one of the few sports games (with Baseball Stars Professional) to feature intergender competition, so both males and females can be competing against one another in a single match!! As always. Thank you again for what you do for the community. We surely are entertained by your works. Anthony...
Retro Core Baseball Stars Professional is fun, But I highly recommend Baseball Stars 2. its very enjoyable. I believe you'll like it just as much with 2020 Yakumo.. Anthony...
Pretty weird how you don't even mention the big hit the MD version received in the frame rate. It's sluggish and kinda annoying to look at, specially in a generation where 60 FPS were the default in consoles. In any case you're better off playing the NeoGeo version. It's not like the ports offer much new to cover the downsides...
It still *plays* closer to the original than the SNES version. Also the fact it tried to keep as much as it could from the NEO GEO game without much compromises can make me look past the framerate. It's another one of those games where framerates don't affect playability.
The audio in many Megadrive/Genesis games just takes me out the game completely. This is one such game. Scratchy music and voice samples just rub me the wrong way.
Retro Core The worst audio I've ever heard in a Genesis / Megadrive game though, was DooM for the 32X. The game had NO excuse to sound that bad. People place the blame at using GEMS, but in the right hands GEMS can do some great music.
memory was very expensive at that time. the genesis pcm channel is not the limit. it can sound much better than one sample channel of the snes. it was the memory restrictions. i have no idea why the snes seemingly never had problems with that (a special kind of compression perhabs?) and for the music: the genesis has a very solid YM2612 fm synth chip + the master system psg it couldnt have been better at that time. but its all in the hands of the programmers how good it will sound.
Andrew Vrba thats exactly what i am trying to say. the genesis sound hardware was very good for its time. but of course it cant sound good without the music composers doing a decent job. just compare the doom 32x soundtrack with thunder force 4 (and i mean the real deal not shitty sound emulation)
![Is Super Baseball 2020 [SNES] Worth Playing Today? - SNESdrunk](/img/1.gif)
My big bro is addicted to play the SFC version, has good music and i like the chiptunes. Nice video.
I used to an the SFC version all the time however a few weeks ago I played the Mega Drive version and found it to be so much more fun. Mention it to your brother, he'll probably like it.
Another great Neo Geo game. I remember playing this one, and Baseball Stars 2, in the arcades. It's a shame that they didn't do a better job with the SNES version. Programming is part of it, but if memory prices were a bit lower back then, I think we would have seen better conversions, sine the Neo Geo games were so large. Thanks for another great episode.
I think the SFC version is weaker mostly due to the developer. Maybe there was some rushed development and they had to miss stuff out?
Laurent Giroud
YOu may be hypothesis but you could be right. The MD version does indeed seem to use code from the Neo Geo. You can tell the way the screen fades is the same as are one or two graphical defects.
The SNES version does have the Dead Ball; I once saw a vid where the guys playing it managed to pull it off twice. Said vid was of the American version, so maybe it was added back in for that one.
Also, nice to see the Genesis version get some love, that's a really good conversion. NuFX did a great job on it, and that version's music renditions (by the awesome Brian Schmidt) are the best. I do wonder what Japanese audiences thought of it, considering it was the very last home port they got (without counting the NeoCD one), three years after the arcade original.
Definitely one of the better Neo-Geo-to-Genesis conversions I've seen, especially compared to the ghastly World Heroes port from around that time, also by a Western team (Sega Midwest Studio, coincidentally an Illinois-based studio too; said port even had the aforementioned Brian Schmidt behind the sound!) (EDIT: Didn't see you had already made a BOTP about World Heroes)
Also, some more info about NuFX that I just saw: the 2020 port wasn't the last NG-related thing they did, as they also co-developed Windows 95 ports of Samurai Shodown II and Fatal Fury 3, which were primarily made for the Japanese market, as were other Win95 ports of Japanese-made console/arcade games. A lot of those were made by Western studios as well.
ah, maybe the Dead Ball in the SNES version is just hard to pull off? I just couldnt get it to work myself.
Funny how two Neo Game both got ported by American teams in Illinois while one was excelent and the other a complete joke.
I lovvvvvvve Super Baseball 2020, both on SNES and Genesis!! (And I definitely don’t miss “Now we’ll set the crackers!” on the SNES version. It actually make me kinda prefer it!)
I remember playing the SNES version. Gameplay felt a bit off back then, glad I'm not the only one. Kinda want to play Baseball Stars 2 now after watching this!
To me I think the audio in the Neo Geo CD exceeds the arcade and seems to have more punch and clarity. I don't know if it's nostalgia from me growing up with the Genesis version but that's still my favorite version of this even though the arcade and CD is vastly superior. I'm surprised you didn't rag on the genesis sound like you normally do lol :)
I think the Red Book audio on the NGCD uses superior samples to the cart version so I'd consider it an arranged OST.
Many other NGCD' s do this, but usually with more obvious differences. Top Player's Golf and Baseball Stars 2 have excellent arranged soundtracks on the CD versions.
videogameobsession Thanks for clarifying because I didn't grow up with Neo Geo CD nor did I take the time to try them out on emulator. But if this example sounds as good as it does then I need to be more open minded and try more Neo Geo CD conversions!! I can't imagine Samurai Showdown 2 or Real Bout Fatal Fury Special!! :D
I don't rag on the Mega Drive sond when it isn't called for. If you take a look at my site, segagagadomain.com you'll see that I own many Mega Drive games and I'm a big fan of the system and it's sound. BUT it's always the Japanese that really knew how to use the sound chip. Most American developed games sound like crap. European ones are pretty nice most of the time.
It's the same with View Point on Neo Geo. The CD version sounds about the same as the arcade, except a touch cleaner.
I usually prefer the original arcade over re-arranged. So this is nice.
2021: from an unknown developer comes the past of baseball! :P
It is developed by pallas
I always figured both 2020 and Soccer Brawl were developed by the same team. They are very similar in appearance and concept.
I think the Red Book audio may vary slightly on the NGCD port. Many of the early ports (Baseball stars 2, Top Player's Golf, Last Resort, World Heroes, etc..) feature arranged OSTs
I rented the MD version twice or or three times and I really had a ball with it (no pun intended). The only baseball console game that made me enjoy as much was that MLB Live with those codes that created a team of real misfits like Adriano Celentano and his ginormous bat (didn't know Celentano was known outside Western Europe).
NEO-CD version is not a port, it is the same code and the NEO-CD is the same main hardware as the MVS and AES. The save screens you speak of are also on the MVS and AES as well if a memory card is inserted. The NEO-CD console has the memory card built in.
Reminds me of Base Wars for the NES. I wonder if there was any influence from one on the other.
maybe. You never know.
I know the Gen version is most like the Arcade. But the SNES just looks and sounds better
A great game! I played this a ton on the Neo Geo emulator back when that was first released. I never realised there were ports. Luckily I can play it now on the Neo Geo CD, it's still good, and not even that expensive.
Yeah, this is one of the very few sports games I like. Great game.
I'm not a big sports games fan as well XD
Lyra's Gaming Channel In general I hate sports games apart from car racing but every now and then a gem like this comes along. I also love Neo Turff Masters.
Retro Core Same thing. I love racing games as well. I'm going to try those two games :P
Nice comparison, i think your comments were spot on, the most noticeable problem with the SNES port are the animations, they are terrible!
They sure are. The game starts off with a good presentation but it all drops once the game starts.
As usual, another excellent video, Mark. BTW, have you had the chance to try the ACA NeoGeo version of this game? If so, how does it fare?
ACA version? I can't say I know what that is. Was it a special edition of 2020 Baseball?
Sorry it took me so long to reply.
www.hamster.co.jp/arcadearchives/xboxone/superbaseball2020.htm
There you go.
Got the MVS cart. Pretty good for a baseball game actually. There was a NES baseball game that had robots in it as well (Basewars?) that came out at the same time I think. Not sure who copied who.
Never heard of this game. That's what I get for not being a big sports fan, I guess :P. My kind of games are shoot'em ups lol
Don&t worry. Most sport games are crap anyway but every now and then there&s a gem like this.
Bad thing I don't know anything about rules of Baseball, so all this stuff going on the screen was as mysterious as morse code.
ShadowSumac hahaha, it's not that difficult to be honest. I also have no interest in Baseball although I could learn the rules very quickly.
I don't like typical baseball games but I do kind of enjoy these fantasy Arcade style games.
Jogo muito esse jogo e não sabia q tinha outras versões!
Its a good game. Lots of fun to play with friends.
I think the MD version is better than the SFC mainly because it came out a bit later, and it's on a 16 MEG cart compared to the 12.3 MEG cart on the SFC. A little more room for the sounds and animations, and the code probably didn't needed to be altered very much due to the similar Motorola 68k hardware as the Neo Geo.
Love your vids, but please for the sake of my Homeland... The 'S' is silent in the pronunciation of Illinois! "There is no 'noise' in Illinois!"
The SNES could've done better with 4 less megs. Most of the animation is NES tier.
sounds like it says 'super racewar' lol topical…
Why are you showing footage of the japanese versions of the SNES and Genesis versions when they got english language releases?
Because I live in Japan and own the Japanese games.
@@RetroCore There was also a Japanese version of Desert Strike for the Mega Drive and Super Famicom, but you've managed to just use the Western version.
The US released of the snes ports is by tradewest
That is right.
Someone needs to make a sequel to this game. Think NG DEV should make one?
I'm surprised they never did. SNK could easily have improved upon the original with more stadium variety, larger character sprites, improved design, more alien speech and so on.
Kind sir,
Another well done video. Thank you for posting it on, The Official NEO-GEO Thread on Atariage.com for us to benefit and enjoy. 8^)
A futuristic sports title that clearly was way ahead of its time. It started to show the potential on what the Neo-Geo had to offer and the fine details the developers did on it really showed the beauty on Baseball Stars 2020. I do have the ports for this, but clearly, the limitations do show.
I mention this on the Neo-Geo thread, that I believe its also one of the few sports games (with Baseball Stars Professional) to feature intergender competition, so both males and females can be competing against one another in a single match!!
As always. Thank you again for what you do for the community. We surely are entertained by your works.
Anthony...
I really do need to play Baseball Stars again. I havent played that in years. I don&t remember enjoying it as much as 2020 though.
Retro Core
Baseball Stars Professional is fun, But I highly recommend Baseball Stars 2. its very enjoyable. I believe you'll like it just as much with 2020 Yakumo..
Anthony...
Charlie Cat
Thanks for the heads up. I'll need to check that out.
Retro Core
You're welcome kind sir. You'll really enjoy it. Thank you again.
Anthony...
so the snes version it's the worst because it's just 1.000c version? :rolleyes:
That version number means nothing, All versions on the SNES have the same issues I mentioned.
Retro Core I know, just been cynical about it
Oh, its hard to tell on the net.
+Retro Core must be because my first language is Spanish and I learn English playing SNES rpg... XD
hehe, no worries
Pretty weird how you don't even mention the big hit the MD version received in the frame rate. It's sluggish and kinda annoying to look at, specially in a generation where 60 FPS were the default in consoles.
In any case you're better off playing the NeoGeo version. It's not like the ports offer much new to cover the downsides...
It still *plays* closer to the original than the SNES version. Also the fact it tried to keep as much as it could from the NEO GEO game without much compromises can make me look past the framerate. It's another one of those games where framerates don't affect playability.
I am watching this in 2020. Everything is a lie 😐
Lol, indeed 😂
The audio in many Megadrive/Genesis games just takes me out the game completely. This is one such game. Scratchy music and voice samples just rub me the wrong way.
I do get your point and I agree but in this game it does not really bother me that much.
Retro Core The worst audio I've ever heard in a Genesis / Megadrive game though, was DooM for the 32X. The game had NO excuse to sound that bad. People place the blame at using GEMS, but in the right hands GEMS can do some great music.
memory was very expensive at that time. the genesis pcm channel is not the limit. it can sound much better than one sample channel of the snes. it was the memory restrictions. i have no idea why the snes seemingly never had problems with that (a special kind of compression perhabs?)
and for the music: the genesis has a very solid YM2612 fm synth chip + the master system psg it couldnt have been better at that time. but its all in the hands of the programmers how good it will sound.
***** But good sound hardware is useless, when people aren't utilizing it properly.
Andrew Vrba thats exactly what i am trying to say. the genesis sound hardware was very good for its time. but of course it cant sound good without the music composers doing a decent job.
just compare the doom 32x soundtrack with thunder force 4 (and i mean the real deal not shitty sound emulation)