Bases Loaded & Lee Trevino's Fighting Golf retrospective: Burning fight | NES Works
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- Опубликовано: 12 сен 2024
- This episode focuses on perception, especially vis-a-vis Bases Loaded. A certain demographic of NES owners LOVES Bases Loaded. However, in my experience, people who discovered the NES later (when better and better-looking baseball sims were available for the console) tend to find it lacking and shallow. And then there is the Japanese Famicom owner's perspective, in which Bases Loaded (aka Moero!! Pro Yakyuu) is almost universally reviled. How could so many people hold such contradictory points of view? This episode delves deeply into that question.
This episode also talks about Lee Trevino's Fighting Golf. (Yes, I am aware of The Simpsons' parody. No, it's not germane to this discussion.)
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Production notes:
- NES and Famicom footage in this episode was captured from @analogueinc Nt / Nt Mini / Nt Mini Noir via RGB out.
- Neo Geo footage was captured from a consolized MVS.
- Standard definition video upscaled to 720 with xRGB Mini Framemeister and @retrotink339 5X.
I used to play Lee Trevino’s Fighting Golf every weekend with my dad. It’s still one of my favorite golf games on any platform. Soundtrack is one of my favorites too. Thanks for doing it justice! Btw, the ball only hooks if you swing too far past the sweet spot-if your third button press is early, it’ll slice right; if it’s late, it’ll hook left. It wasn’t until I bought a boxed copy 30 years later, and read the manual, that I realized you can hit the ball high or low by pressing up or down on your third button press, and apply backspin by pressing left or right. Maybe that’s why dad always beat me…
I've had something of a fascination with golf games, lately. I'd always been a big fan of Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour and had played NES Golf before, but I've been giving all sorts of golf games a go for a few months (Neo Turf Masters, DMG Golf, GBC Mario Golf, etc.). So, it was quite funny when the AV Famicom I ordered from a Japanese eBay seller came packaged with a Famicom copy of Golf as a surprise. I didn't think much of it at first, but after I cross-referenced the US manual's maximum club distance chart with Google's yards-to-meters calculator, I was having a great time despite the sparse content and lacking aim system.
I was only playing that to hold me over until my NES-to-Famicom adapter came in, however, and had recently picked up Fighting Golf in anticipation of its arrival. Again, something quite funny happened when I'd been tooling around with this random golf title from the 80's and trying to figure out where I could find a max-distance club chart for it or even if one existed only to go to RUclips and see this video had just been released.
So...is there any way to judge the distance of your shot accurately a-la the club chart in NES Golf or do you just sort of guesstimate based on the club and the lie?
Thank you for the shoutout. One of my favorite things about that initial release of Moero!! Pro Yakyuu is that Jaleco put a slip of paper in the boxes explaining the bugs by saying the game used modified baseball rules.
I remember as a kid thinking Bases Loaded had amazing graphics and looked ultra realistic. Makes me laugh at myself a little now in my 40s.
I remember seeing it on a friend’s ENORMOUS 27” TV and being blown away by its lifelike realism. It wasn’t just you!
Nintendo Power agreed. Bases Loaded was one of the highest-rated games in the console's lineup, based on the Power Charts they published. The evaluators must have loved the realistically proportioned characters, and the digitized voice samples. One of the magazine's issues included an explanation of the Power Charts, and cited Bases Loaded in a comparative pool of NES baseball games, showing why each game received the scores they did.
The infield was perfect where the outfield worked far too slow when it called on beating the runner...Never the less one of my favs.@@JeremyParish
I admire your restraint in not mentioning that Simpsons golf game, Lee Carvallo's Putting Challenge. Marge would be proud.
It was fascinating to learn that Lee Carvello's Putting Challenge was based on a real name of a real game. Love your work collating the thoughts and opinions and discussions of games from thirty years ago.
And like Lee Carvello's, Fighting Golf was a nightmare gift for kids who didn't want a golf game. Which back then was nearly everyone.
I assumed until recently that Lee Carvelo was just some random ass golfer and busted up when I found out he was just made up, it just sounded like a golf name.
Still waiting for Lee Trevino to show up in The King of Fighters.
As far as NES baseball games go, it's gonna a real trip when you get around to SNK's Baseball Stars, an unusually feature-rich baseball game for the era, and a game that oddly found a post-NES fanbase during the SNES era of Nintendo Power magazine as it mysteriously just starts showing up in the NES top games charts.
I'm gonna go out on a limb and assume you're an SNK fan. :')
I hit home runs with Paste and Bay in 1988 that have not landed yet
Man, this brought back a bummer of a memory. We rented Lee Trevino back in the day. It was winter time and snow was on the ground. My dad and I were playing the game, but my mom wanted me to go outside and play with my brother rather than sit in front of the Nintendo, nevermind that there was an opportunity to spend time with my dad, who I never had anything in common with. He's interested in Nintendo! The most important thing in my world! Went out and played for a while, came back in, but my folks decided that I didn't play outside for long enough and my dad took away the NES for a week.
I can’t wait for you to cover Bonestorm.
Gotta wait until the holidays, then you can SHOVE IT IN YOUR STOCKING
BUY ME BONESTORM OR GO TO HELL
Neo Turf Masters is the greatest golf game of all time.
Possibly one of the most universally agreed-upon facts in all of gaming fandom. And that's hard to do.
It's not, but it's a great game. Definitely the best of its era, though.
I recognise Bases Loaded has it’s place in history. But give me Namco’s R.B.I. Baseball and Konami’s Powerful Pro Baseball any day.
Not Konami's Basewars?
@@XanthinZarda That one’s a bit too far removed already.
Baseball Stars
Ah, if only there had been actual fighting in Fighting Golf. I wanted to whack people with a nine iron then tee the ball on their unconscious back and send it sailing toward the cup. Sadly it was not to be.
Sounds like Base Wars may just be the game for you, friend. Not golf, but, topically, it's baseball game with just that...and robots. It's a good time.
I had this game as a kid. When I was 6 I stuck out and the umpire went "You bum! OUT!" I was shocked. Scarred even. It was like a creepypasta thing. Many years later i read about how an audience member could heckle you and it was just the nes's limitations that made the "fan" and umpire sound the same. But for years I thought the umpire was talking **** to me.
Can you at least put the ball in the parking lot in Lee Trevino's Fighting Golf?
If you walk it out there on foot and set it in the lot, yes
You can select POWER DRIVE although not in so many words
+1 like for this retrospective. A few observations about Bases Loaded, from a man who played more than 100 hours of it, and made a few videos about the mechanics:
4:20 Batting in Bases Loaded is ridiculously easy, once you learn how to follow the disembodied catcher's mitt. Compared to the Bases Loaded sequels, it's too easy to make contact in this game, once you get comfortable with that mitt reading trick. At which point, the game's randomness kicks in, and the ball almost invariably flies like a heatseeking missile into the glove of a defender.
The NES version does contain a few notable bugs, such as the inability to empty your bench, which allows you to replace every non-pitcher on the team with copies of the last player on your roster! And a human base runner can consistently steal by baiting the AI fielders into throwing the ball way past the base defender. If you do this right, you can goad the AI into throwing a ball at the outfield wall, which is a guaranteed run scored.
I appreciate the extra effort to cover Bases Loaded here, I've never seen a single account of it besides 1) modern nerd passing it by without comment (my people), or 2) nostalgic 80s sports kid talking about how great it was. It really helps bridge the gap between the sports-fixated offerings on, say, Intellivision and the modern day for me and helps me appreciate that sports simulations have always had a crucial market share on these systems.
Why is this the Bases Loaded Nintendo games in Europe that release in unknown??
I'll ask this question here that I have had for years: Most of these Nintendo baseball games feature the same tune. It's commonly associated with RBI Baseball (you can hear it at 7:00) but it's also in Bases Loaded (11:15, a different arrangment but pretty sure it's the same tune), and it featured in Baseball Simulator 1.000 as well. What is this tune? How did it end up in every game of the era? Was/is it traditionally played at baseball games in Japan (at least in 1988)?
I think you’ve hit it on the head with the traditional song thing. I’d wager it’s the equivalent of “take me out to the ball game”
It sounds like a variation on Combat March, which a RUclips video I located says is the fight song of Waseda University. Dropping that into the search box will lead you to the video I found, but some quick online searching didn't come up with much beyond that.
@@oobgarm1 You got me on the right path. I think it's actually "Dash KEIO" sometimes also called "Combat March", but not the Waseda U version.
@@michaelmarks8443 Incredible sleuthing work.
I've wondered what that song was my whole life. Thank you for this info.
Seeing this channel cite Fangraphs is something I would never expect but I like it
My primary memory of Bases Loaded is that my brother and I couldn't play a full game without it devolving into us beaning each other's players and cackling madly.
Okay, thanks for uncovering that mystery for me. I saw a JP Twitter post showing a guy bunt a home run and wondered what the deal was with that lol.
There was a DLC character in Game Tengoku's rerelease on PS4 literally called Homura Banto, inspired by that glitch
I couldn't afford a lot of games as a kid, but I remember renting Fighting Golf every chance I got. Thanks for the trip down memory lane.
I’m extremely disappointed in the lack of actual fighting in Fighting Golf
Yeah, I was hoping it would be like Ninja Golf.
I had no idea Lee Trevino's Fighting Golf was a SNK title, much less that it was the only real golf game since Golf on NES. No wonder it seems to regularly pop up when people discuss pre-Neo Turf Masters video golf.
It amazes me to this day that Nazca's first release as an independent (i.e. not Irem) developer was a masterpiece that took excellent advantage of a system that, to my understanding, they co-designed with SNK, and would set the standard for golf all the way to today. You can really see the roots of that title here.
Great research as always. Maybe if I finally end up in Japan I'll pick up some Moero!! Pro Yakyuu carts for peanuts.
6:35 I confused the "User join date" with the "Post date", and that made the "recently" very very funny.
for those wondering, adjusted for inflation, Dragon Warrior IV was about $125 bucks
Lee Trevino's Fighting Golf's greatest legacy....
Inspiring Lee Carvallo's Putting Challenge
"YOU HAVE SELECTED NO!"
I did not expect to see a Fangraphs reference in an NES Works video, but I welcome it.
"For sports loving former NES owners of a certain age, one sports game stands head and shoulders above the rest"
Yes, Baseball Stars. Oh wait...
Sounds like you are just babby
Fighting Golf was always my Dad's favorite NES game. When he comes over, he still occasionally asks to fire it up!
The Baseball game on the NES my bro and I had was "LIttle Leauge World Series" and we loved and still love it.
Fun Fact: HARDBALL (c64) is the game that the sick boy (Fred Savage) is playing in the opening scene of the 1987 classic "The Princess Bride"
Great episode. I am surprised you did not mention the famous Simpsons gag featuring "Lee Carvallo’s Putting Challenge".
No fighting in Fighting Golf? Oh, the 2 irony.
Using a clip from Akira and it isn't the motorcycle-slide-turn? Jeremy, you *rebel*.
I don't usually play sports games, but the context of these two titles is fascinating
I am not really a sports person, but I will listen to Jeremy Parish talk about games based on sports. Fascinating to hear about how these games fit into the overall history of the hobby.
And now you can see why we 50-50 year olds are as jaded about sports these days.
I'll be playing this on the Evercade's Jaleco Collection soon. Thanks for the perspective on the Japanese version (Power Blade would be another game that the US got the better version of)
LOVE the Evercade, great for more obscure stuff like this
Adding actual hand-to-hand combat would definitely be the next obvious feature to add tk the speed golf mode in mario golf switch
My fondest Bases Loaded memory was the ability to make every game a shutout (as long as the CPU didn't hit a home run). After the CPU gets on base, switch to fielding and intentionality throw an error to goad the opponent into attempting to steal, let them get about halfway before throwing back ball, then easily run them down.
(un) Fortunately, this little trick does not work in the sequel.
0:43 Metroid+Mega Man= Shock-Man in TG16 by NCS
Japan:Apr 1991
America:1992
Europe:Unknown
0:52 Super Mario Bros. 2 by Nintendo
America:Oct 1988
Europe:Apr 1989
Japan:Sept 1992 (Super Mario America)
0:58 Mega Man by Capcom
America and Japan:Dec 1987(USA is Mega Man, JPN is Rockman)
Europe:Dec 1989
1:05 Zelda+Metroid= Castlevania by that Nintendo plus maths to Konami
Japan:Oct 1, 1986
America:May 5, 1987
Europe:Dec 1988
1:15 Excite-Bike by Nintendo
Japan:Dec 1984
America:Oct 1985
Europe:Sept 1986
1:34 Baseball by Nintendo
Japan:Dec 1983
America:Oct 1985
Europe:Mar 1987, not 1989!
2:04 Major League Baseball by Ljn softworks
America:Apr 1988
Europe:Unknown
2:08 RBI Baseball by Namco to Tengen
Japan:Dec 1986
America:Jun 1988
Europe:Unknown
2:30 Kirby Adventure by HAL and Nintendo
Japan:Mar 1993
America:May 1993
Europe:Dec 1993
2:55 World Series Major League Baseball by Mattel
America:1983
3:43 Ishido The Way of Stones in Mega Drive by Accolade
America:1990
3:48 Jack Nicklaus' Turbo Golf by Accolade
Japan:Nov 1989
America:1990
Europe:Unknown
5:30 City Connection by Jaleco
Japan:Sept 1985
America:May 1988
Europe:1988
I will always have a soft spot for RBI 1. I remember my friends and I playing that for hours. I have so such attachment to Bases Loaded
RBI baseball. That was a baseball game I wanted to love but boy......
Everytime you hit a fly ball the computer would automatically catch it no matter what. Your only hope was to bunt or hit line drives all the time lol.
Everyone's got their childhood game, I imagine. I was one of the weirdos who grew up owning and renting Bad News Baseball, which went hard on the cutesy style.
I WILL NEVER forget Christmas of 1988: Bases Loaded, Double Dragon, and Super Mario 2, all priced at an unheard of $80 (and higher) per cartridge in retail stores
I sure hope that was Canadian, because in my neck of the woods they were all $39.99
Thanks for making this man I been ill today these videos are great to relax to
My family had Bases Loaded as a hand-me-down from my older cousins. I was only a toddler and didn't really know or understand baseball, so I'd just spend a few minutes trying to play catch between the fielders for as long as the game would allow before shutting it off. Not a favorite in our household, lol. But none of us were ever really baseball fans to begin with.
Both Based Loaded and Hardball were trying to capture _what baseball looked like on television._ I think that’s the essential thing, illustrated nicely here.
Bases Loaded was one of the few games I played with my Dad. Good memories.
I remember Bases Loaded II....even if I never cared about Baseball, the graphics were really impresive.
Even though it's a retro game now neo turf masters is in my opinion the best golf game there's ever been
Wow I never heard the story about the Japanese version of Bases Loaded, although I feel like I've seen the bunting meme referenced at 8:06, I'm guessing that's where it originated from?! I did have a friend that had it in junior high school and I'd usually hang out with him and play it.
I owned Bases Loaded! I can't remember if I got really good at it, but it was probably the most fun I've had with a sports game besides Wii Sports. In regards to batting, I think the movement of the catcher's glove was intended to help you keep track of where to hit.
I'm a little surprised no one has done the crazy things with US Bases Loaded carts since those are a dime a dozen today as well
We moved a few years ago and when we were unpacking I opened up a box there was a random copy of Bases Loaded in there that I had ZERO memory of still owning. I think they've transcended time and space.
I remember Bases Loaded as the first game we got for the NES. I even remember the team with Paste, who slugged it out of the park regularly.
Are you going to cover unlicensed NES games on this channel (ie, Color Dreams, later Tengen games)?
Bases Loaded and Silent Service seem like the 2 most ubiquitous games in NES retro game bargain bins nowadays. I don't think I knew anyone who owned either back in the day, were they a case of games being totally overproduced and then just being dumped in bargain bins? It's crazy how there ended up being 4 Bases Loaded games on NES but everyone I knew preferred Baseball Stars for their 8-bit baseball fix.
Bases Loaded was THE game all my friends were playing that school year. But it didn't have robots or spaceships or vampires in it, so my personal interests lay elsewhere.
Nintendo's Baseball is still my favorite baseball game on the NES 😂
WELCOME TO LEE TREVINO'S FIGHTING GOLF. I AM TREVINO. PLEASE SELECT YOUR CLUB.
6:36 And THIS is why the US Nintendo Seal of Approval program was a good idea.
(Among several reasons, really.)
I freaking love the early Bases Loaded games on NES. They were quick to play and a lot of fun. I play them from time to time.
I have spent many years wondering why Lee Trevino's Fighting Golf is called that, so I'm just happy for an explanation on that.
Also, baseball is no longer Tiny Pipsqueak Baseball, the future is here!
I remember being a kid and thinking "fighting golf" was something like base wars or cyberball, but golf, where robots or humans could run around beating each other up with clubs while playing. I was one disappointed little gamer to find out it was just normal golf. The name sucks, because it wasnt out of the realm of possibility that a full contact take on golf could be made.
Baseball stars and rbi baseball are the best baseball games for the nes.
Loved bases loaded. Preferred RBI and later, Bad News Baseball. But Bases loaded always first game I played that had a batter charge the mound after being beaned, then would be ejected. Usually the 4th or 5th hitter in line up.
Lee Trevino's Fighting Golf: The game your parents got you when you clearly wanted BONESTORM!!
Fighting Golf had an arcade version as well - not sure if the NES game was a port or a near simultaneous release.
That's interesting, I always thought of RBI as "the" ubiquitous NES baseball game. Though in hindsight I'm pretty sure I only knew someone who owned Bases Loaded.
Until Baseball Stars came along, Bases Loaded was by far the best baseball game on the NES. It blew me away when I first played it 30 odd years ago, and it still holds up today. A really good game...
You should have shown one of the Lee Trevino scenes from Happy Gilmore...
Ball is in...parking lot. Would you like to play again?
The funniest thing about Bases Loaded to me is that it got a NOVEL in the Worlds of Power series, along with titles like Castlevania, Metal Gear, Mega Man, Ninja Gaiden... There's a Bases Loaded novel. I can't deal with it
As Jeremy Parish said in the video, baseball was very popular in the 1980s. Think of all the movies from that decade about baseball: The Natural, Bull Durham, Eight Men Out, Field of Dreams, Major League, etc.
@@ginormousaurus8394 Sure, but I'm more thinking about the absurdity of a novel based on a plotless video game about sports!
bases loaded 3 was so good
My mom bought lee trevinos fighting golf with our Nintendo one Christmas and I had no idea how to play golf lol I remember a lot of upset character animations and not much else
As a kid, my cousin and his friends were WILD for Bases Loaded, while I preferred RBI baseball. To be fair, that was mostly because I actually owned RBI and not BL and my tiny child brain simply didn't want to accept that mine wasn't The Best One. Because if yours isn't the best what's the point of even having it, right?
My dad once kicked my butt on Bases Loaded. I hope to rematch him in RBI 21.
Nice! Looking forward to the “Lee Carvallo's Putting Challenge” episode.
Edit: Dammit, someone sort of beat me to it.
I came here for this comment after seeing the title. 😆
May I suggest "feather touch"?
@@Larry You have entered POWER DRIVE
@@Panzer_the_Merganser Ball is in Parking Lot
See, I thought you were going to tie Bases Loaded to "Fighting" golf with the fact you can actually make at least one player fight in Bases Loaded.
There were a few guys that if they got hit with a pitch they would usually charge the mound and beat on the pitcher! Then get thrown out of the game haha
Hell yeah. Love that Neo Turf Masters love!
Got a link to that post? Or thread title?
What did you google to get those images of people making fun of the low value of Moero!! Pro Yakyuu?
I didn’t. Ray Barnholt documented on his blog years ago.
All your work is amazing
I like that white Saturn back there, great video man!
ONG that short music loop in Bases Loaded 2 was insufferable.
2:46
YUK
DUM
BOO
BUM
I feel like an absolute idiot for finding this hilarious.
I wonder if Japanese gamers know that Bases Loaded was much more successful in the West?
Bob Whitehead! I used to work with him. Legend
Tecmo super bowl is the only nes sports game that stands above the rest
Shoutout Frieda and Norkus
Hey just trying to help out and say the audio sync is off by a few seconds at least for me.
Nope, the video's fine. This is an issue on your end.
Do you have some filters or something, seems my comment keeps getting deleted, not sure if you or RUclips. Bases Loaded was awesome. There is a 2016 version on the Japanese Playstation store, Bases Loaded 2016. Looks amazing for modern gaming.
The worst things about bases loaded were the pitching issues and when sliding into a base the player would slide and hop up to stand on the base and could be tagged out in that moment when he had hopped up and not touching the base. It was rediculous@
This is a really interesting video.
Bases loaded was pretty fun IMO.
As a kid, thanks to Maniac Mansion, I developed a fondness into game creation and lots of fun to be had playing Monkey Island, Sam & Max, etc. I honestly sorta wish Jaleco's take on MM lead to bringing those games to the NES-- a Sam & Max NES game would've been real fun.
Nintendo Power pushed Bases Loaded on every kid on my street with that review in the free issue they sent out showing the relief pitchers driving out in the bullpen cart.
Never understood the love for Bases Loaded. Terrible hitting controls, bland gameplay screen, and cheap AI. RBI Baseball on the other hand is outstanding, even with it's fat characters.
the best nes baseball game is bad news baseball, hands down - the umpires are rabbits?!
Tecmo's mascot at the time was a rabbit. Don't know if it still is.
Bases Loaded is an fantastic baseball ⚾️ video game and I am a Padres fan. 😀👍🎮
baseball stars was the best
You keep saying "JAL-ico". Is that the correct pronunciation? I always assumed it was "Ja-leeco" like as in "Coleco-vision". Somebody respond to this, please. Thanks.
The company's Japanese name is written as ジャレコ, jah-reh-co with a short E, so that's what I go with. But using a long E isn't unreasonably, since the name is short for "Japan Leisure Company," which has a long E sound following the L when spoken aloud in American (though not British!) English.
@@JeremyParish got it. I keep forgetting you're in the UK. Thanks so much for responding! I just found your channel a few days ago and I've been binging. I'm insanely fascinated by the deep dives you do in terms of company's histories, their relationship with Nintendo, games that they ported to different consoles/computers, etc. There are so many that I had no clue were arcade games in the first place.
Also, thanks so much for your vid about Arkanoid. I had it on an OLD Tandy TRS-80 (the first-run version), and picked it up on NES a few years ago. I was frustrated by how slow the paddle moves with the D-Pad, so I haven't played it much. I had NO idea the rotary controller even EXISTED. Thank you SO MUCH for that info, lol.
I'm not in the U.K.... I was just pointing out that Americans pronounce "leisure" differently than people who speak a British dialect. But I am glad you're enjoying the channel.
@@JeremyParish oh, ok. There are some other things in your vids that made me think you're in the UK but I can't put my finger on it. Now I know the truth, lol. Thanks.
Also, I would like to request a game review if I may. My favorite LJN release of all time is Who Framed Roger Rabbit, and I would love to hear your thoughts on it. Thanks. :)
Each time I watch one of your videos, I learn something. As an American, this offends me. Have you ever thought about shortening your videos and boiling down your thoughts to a 1 out of 10?
Joking aside, I'm glad I now know the trivia of what was perhaps gaming's first panty shot. Thanks, SNK. Thanks.
Oh, that wasn’t gaming’s first panty shot by any means
@@JeremyParish If you ever decide you need more clickbait views, I think you have a potential topic now.
Nice try, Chris Hansen
@@JeremyParish We thought we had a solid case after Miss Peach World
Jaleco is Japanese for "mediocre"
Cybattler is evidence to the contrary
@@baileywatts1304 if you have to point to one arcade game, I think this just strengthens my point
lee treviño