For whatever reason, I'm somewhat of a big fan of 8-bit baseball games - not in the sense that I particularly enjoy them, but more in the sense that it is interesting to see both 1) how similar they tend to be to each other, and 2) how small design decisions can have big effects on the overall playability of the given title. When they do achieve the proper feel - that is, the proper balance of good hitting, pitching, and fielding - they can then be quite fun to play. The problem then is that very few of them achieve this balance. Most can do pitching and hitting pretty well, but very, very few do fielding halfway tolerable. That Bad News Baseball actually does it pretty well sets it pretty far apart from the competition.8-bit baseball fielding is a delicate beast. The hardware provides certain limitations, such as the fact that I can't think of a title that actually had the sense to put a target where the ball is going to land, and in forcing the perspective to typically be pretty pulled back. What does one do with control of the fielders - will they be controlled one at a time (depending on who the ball is headed to, probably the best solution) or all in tandem (which was used frequently)? It also needs to effectively balance the needs of the player on defense to be able to properly anticipate the trajectory of the ball and have a chance to field it with the desire of the batting player to see the sucker fly. The best entries ensure that the fielders move responsively enough and provide a good indication of ball trajectory so as to allow the player time to get under those hits they should be able to get. Throwing proves a less difficult issue, though also prone to mucking up (like base-running). For Bad News Baseball, it appears Tecmo learned good lessons from those titles that came before it, as it avoids many of these mistakes and proves itself amongst the best baseball entries on the NES.
It also has the good sense of being goofy as all hell. Your umpires are all rabbits (a bunny being Tecmo's mascot at the time), and matches feature a bevy of cartoon cut-scenes during close calls at bases, following homeruns, and between innings - a technique frequently used in Tecmo sports games of the time. But no other Tecmo titles featured cut-scenes approaching this level of, well, cartooniness (save for maybe Tsuppari Oozumou) - most evident in the inclusion of a Mr. T character in the line of players giving high-fives after certain runs are scored. Customization is also rather excellent (as was par for the course for baseball games at the time), featuring full roster control. Also available was a 'girls-mode' - holding down a button combination when turning on the system would allow players to play as, well, girls.
Tecmo really were wizards of the 8-bit sports scene. Everyone knows about the Tecmo Bowl series, which I will wax poetically on when its turn comes, but Tecmo had strong entries into pretty much every sport out there - even sumo, nearly always being at least amongst the top entries for a given sport, if not the outright best available.
8.5/10
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