Check out my video version of my written review if you don't feel like reading, or if you want to see the gameplay in action:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPyOeXCnZ2E&feature=plcp

Ninja and Baseball. What do they have in common? NOTHING! But if you were to fuse the two together, you'd get more than just something. We are talking about NINJA BASEBALL BATMAN! This game has received much popularity thanks to the Angry Video Game Nerd, and now Vizzed.com's arcade emulator, MAME. Apparently, the game was overlooked and sold poorly even though it was just so amazing, and cute. Well, onto our review of the one of kind beat em' up.

So, this is the basic rundown of the game. You take control of one of four Ninja Baseball Batmen called in by the commissioner of the Baseball Hall of Fame to search America for the 7 missing artifacts of the Baseball Hall of Fame. In each stage, you fight all sorts of enemies, from baseball bats holing baseball bats, to dogs dressed as Chicago gangsters wielding guns. At the end of every stage, you fight a boss who holds one of the artifacts, and after defeating them, a cute cutscene plays showing where your character's next stop in America will be. The ending, I shall not spoil, but if you really want spoilers, look at my screenshots.

The gameplay controls are very simple. You can move around in 8 directions, jump, and attack. However, there's quite a bit you can do with just three controls. Of course, you have your usual basic attack combo on hit, and you can jump and attack enemies. You can also use alternate attacks in the combo by pressing forward on the attack. Holding down the attack button and pressing jump allows you to use the character's special attack. When knocked down, you can press the buttons and movement controls to do a recover attack. There is also the run ability by tapping twice to the left or to the right which can be followed up with jump or attack for dash tackle and slide kick respectively. Walking directly into an enemy allows you to gab them to throw, strike, home run strike, or use a super move on the enemy. Pressing both attack and jump allow for a powered home run strike which consumes a bit of health. To perform a super, you can grab the opponent and press both attack and jump (however there is an alternate way to perform supers without grabs). Then there is Ninjutsu, which is done by jumping into the air and pressing back, forward jump and attack, or forward back jump and attack. So, for simple controls, there are many functions that can be used, especially when making large combos.

The gameplay itself is simply addicting, fun, and great to play with friends. However, don’t assume the game is easy because you beat it a few times through. The game is actually difficult for the fact that it’s very simple to die, you can kill yourself by abusing your super moves or ninjutsu, and if you were to act as if you were really at an arcade with only 5 dollars worth of tokens, (which would be 10 credits for a 0/2 tokens games), you probably wouldn’t make to the end of the game. The reason I placed 5 as difficulty is because the controls are the simple part, and the difficulty is the tough part. There are two minigames in Ninja Baseball Batman and I must say with my speedy fingers, I’ve never completed one minigame ever. These side games include squeezing a baseball flat and punching a baseball flat. The game also offers some unique offense items and recovery items, such as baseball bases acting like ninja shuriken, and cereal which recovers a good portion of the life bar. The charm of this game is all in the mechanics and creativity I find. It’s cute, it’s exciting, and I just feel a lot of the ideas in the game were done just right.

The graphics are quite smooth and full of color. I must say, out of the beat em’ ups I’ve played, this might be the most eye candy I’ve seen. I really can’t get over doing supers and ninjutsu just to watch the awesomely creative animation. However, I must say, the fire animation as red circles could have been a little better, but it’s still nice on the eyes. There is an emulator issue on the credits when the cast of the game is shown, it not only causes lag, but you see a blinking green screen. Of course that probably didn’t happen in the normal arcade, but I’ve really nothing more to say about the graphics. On comparison with other beat em’ ups, this beats a few games with its unique qualities. Not to mention, it’s very funny to watch Roger show off different positions of him flexing his nonexistent muscles while he walks, show off.

The music and sound in Ninja Baseball Batmen, where should I start. I’m not much a fan of the music, but I can’t get it out of my head either. It’s very unique just like the game, but I have no detailed ways of describing it besides it sounding funny and exciting. If anything, the most I can say about it music is, it’s very metallic or robotic in some way. The sounds on the other hand are very baseball like whenever you strike your enemy, so it’s actually quite refreshing to hear noises that aren’t common in most beat em’ ups. Not to mention, it’s pretty funny that Roger’s super move uses the sounds of a bass drum and crash cymbal when he slams the enemy on the ground multiple times. The small bits of voice acting in battle are pretty cool, especially when the characters shout out their special techniques similar to Street Fighter.

The story in the game is nothing like dungeons and dragons, but it's a little more than final fight. With little bits of funny cuteness in the cutscenes, it's nice to know how the characters socialize with each other and lets us learn more about them. From the cutscenes, you can automatically tell Jose is known as Captain Jose for a reason. As a leader, he's always level headed and never fools around like all the other characters. However, I'll let you the gamer play the game to choose who our favorite character is. For me by personality, I like Roger.


The depth of this game doesn't seem as huge when looking back on it, but giving some thought, the game was done just right. The stages have multiple parts to them, the game is plain fun, the enemies are funny, there are 7 stages, the bosses are tough, and there is eye candy all about. Out of all that, I have to say that's a pretty nice package, and, it's a beat' em up, not an adventure game. Fulfilling as it is, it does what every good beat em' up should do which earns it a 7. Could they have done more, maybe, but I feel it's just right. Overall, I have to say I love it. This game could also serve as a great introduction to those who have never played beat em' ups due to it's simple controls and unique gameplay.

Global Mods : This is it ! This was the exact post that he posted here ! : https://www.vizzed.com/boards/thread.php?id=48975&page=0#676845 ! Please ignore the post count or do any thing else !

Ah thank you. I was really confused by the post and had no clue what it was talking about for the most of it.

Whoa, that's not that bad for a game review, and I give it an eight out of ten Star Review, I'll make sure to do more of these commentations later on, but, I figured that I'd watch all of your Videos and rate and Comment on them, and even get to know this site better, so, good luck with the rest. I quite liked this, it was pretty good, keep it up! ~Sakura~