Games of the Abstract: Ninja Baseball Bat Man (1993)

 

Developer: Irem

Publisher: Irem

One to Four Players

Arcade

 

Never converted from the arcade, Ninja Baseball Bat Man is one of the biggest examples of a game which never had a console conversations, when others did in the nineties, but managed a cult reputation when, as a result, the creation of MAME for emulation allowed people to see this game. Regardless of your opinion of emulation, sadly, if people cannot access these video games, you not only lose history but also potential audiences. This creation from Drew Maniscalco, an American co-founder of Irem America, is an intellectual property he own even if Irem still owns the arcade game, one which has developed a cult legacy that, even on June 5th 2022, lead to a Kickstarter campaign for an official comic book reboot¹ by a British comic duo Team Beats.

Maniscalco has admitted the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, which was huge at the time, was an inspiration for these characters. Other influences was Batman, and the 1973 film Walking Tall², likely a connection with this game's baseball weapons to how Sheriff Buford Pusser, the real professional wrestler-turned-lawman from McNairy County in Tennessee, as reinterpreted by Joe Don Baker carries a big stick and became iconic to the film version of this figure. The name of the game is clearly as much inspired by tokusatsu television shows, and Japan's love for baseball is something we will get to in a second. The designs come from Maniscalco hiring Gordon Morison, the pinball artist working with Gottlieb, an American company known for pinball machines as well as arcade cabinets, whilst for the American version, the names of the four main characters are after famous players - Jose Canseco (red), Ryne Sandberg (green), Roger Clemens (yellow), and a favourite for Simpsons fans, Darryl Strawberry (blue).

Arcade games over the years sadly have been neglected even when console ports were a convention, which is way MAME (Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator) has had to exist since 1997. Intellectual properties are an issue, considering that Konami would have access to an esoteric licensed title like Bucky O' Hare, the arcade beat-em-up not to be confused with their NES adaption, both released in 1992, where licensing is an issue. Or Konami's 1991 beat-em-up adaptation of The Simpsons for the arcade, which has been released for consoles over the years, but is also affected by licensing and more so as a cultural juggernaut. Ninja Baseball Bat Man's lack of console release is strange, except if you consider it was not a success in the arcades, where some of the lost cult games from that area came from, as it barely reached the North Americas, even if it did all right in the Far East and Japan². This seems, in hindsight, more tragic considering two target markets were being catered to with this wacky take on baseball for baseball fans as much as arcade players. Like the United States, baseball is really popular in Japan. Ever since baseball was introduced to Japan in 1872, by an American named Horace Wilson, an English professor at the Kaisei Academy in Tokyo³, baseball in Japan - if you just stick to videogames - is really well regarded culturally, to which it is popular enough that this goofy premise could appeal to someone like peanut butter and jelly.

Someone has stolen golden baseball artefacts, and so a team of male ninja practicing baseball based combat (base-nitsu?) - Captain Jose, Twinbats Ryno, Beanball Roger, and Stick Straw - have to travel the United States, from Las Vegas to New York City among states, decimating giant sentient baseballs and gangster dog men with Tommy guns among others to get them back. Red/Captain Jose is, as with any red indicated leader of a team, generic but the all-rounder you begrudgingly accept. Yellow/Beanball Roger is a food fixated large ninja - as he will have thought bubbles about food if you leave him still for a moment. Blue/Stick Straw is a lank rail of a combat specialist, and Green/Twinbats Ryno is the quick and pint-sized magic user.

I will admit, whilst likely to be stuck in a pink costume, the lack of a female character here for a beat-em -up is disappointing. In mind however, that Drew Maniscalco based these characters on real players, this leaves an entirely different issue of gender politics about if any female baseball legends deserve their name recognition, when Maniscalco created this as a huge fan of baseball but, for female players, women in the sport are maligned. Just searching online for well regarded players, and literally starting with the first two in the list⁴, you have enough instantly fascinating figures, and have not even touched other figures from older periods or the modern day. You could have had a Dottie Schroeder, “The Human Vacuum Machine” who played within 1943 to 1954 and started only at fifteen, or Toni Stone, the first female player of the African American League in 1953⁴, and it is sadly a case that, yeah, even among baseball fans this is an area that is neglected. Most people like me who do not even know much about baseball can only think about male figures that transcended into popular culture in general, like Babe Ruth. Or it is like Daryl Strawberry, someone who iconic in cameos in work the likes of The Simpsons which admired his status but teased it playfully.

Honestly, the leads themselves are props, but this is with outmost admiration for this game's aesthetic style, a world that already stands out with these central figures certainly memorable because of their idiosyncratic "baseball-jitsu" techniques and distinct costumes. Standing out more than most male protagonists in this genre, let alone other games, they are archetypes in a world which is insanely colourful, imaginative and weird as a brawler. The game as a beat-em-up is conventional, within context to this genre, and simple to pickup. The personality, and the legacy this game got, is how it is solid as a game and because of what it is, a vibrant aesthetic going to bat for a ridiculous premise of baseball combat, that pun appropriate for a game which begins from stage one with you fighting giant baseballs with eyes and limbs. Barring the requisite bonus button bashing stages, it is a traditional beat-em-up with scrolling fighting stages, with not a lot of changes in presentation, but compensating for this in style and having to fight against enemies that are more ridiculous as it continues.

Its tone is the biggest virtue, its wonderfully bright and surreal style feeling of an ultraviolent brawl depicted with the contents of a car boot toy sale, which I use as a compliment as. A reference that may only make sense for a British reader from a certain age and/or region of the country, this feels appropriate to use, also with weight to having referenced Bucky O' Hare or that this was inspired by the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, as this does feel like a Saturday morning cartoon in tone, one which would have gotten action figures you would find in those car boots second hand, a menagerie of strange colours and designs of an inherent surrealism to them especially of nineties pop culture I grew up with. As someone who got second hand Bucky O'Hare toys from a car boot, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles toys for Christmases, this beat-em-up (whilst fully ingraining its characters and stages into a consistent logic and style) does feel like if you took the content from a car boot sale box and bashed a motley set of toys together in dream-like conflicts. Here you are literally fighting an anthropomorphic as a first boss, or an evil mechanical alligator for another boss later on,  fully investing into the idea , which I admit to doing as a kid myself with a lack of preservation of said toys, of taking two regardless of size and have them scrap. Texas here is a haunted house of flying refrigerators and ectoplasm, Las Vegas a jaunt through the bright lights against sentient playing cards and a slot machine boss who does have a potential dangerous random slot reel attack unless you punt him beforehand. It is strange and wacky in a great way.

The game' simplicity includes that throws are simple to pull off, and there are few power ups, as small as the move list, be it baseballs and objects to throw, to food to replenish health, or the ability to briefly summon a cheerleader troupe, which can either create a cornucopia of power ups, or a super crowd clearing attack. Beyond this is the challenge of having to clear the game, including its twist reveal of the final boss, one whose reinterpretation of the United States is deliciously silly, a cartoon in its tone which, barring its text base and still shot cut scenes, is bold to watch. It is not a surprise why the game has a cult status, for how ridiculous its tone is, and the quality of the art style does a lot to stand out. The personality here really shows how important that is for a game, emphasising how you can stretch a silly premise as far as you can, and not stretch it out too far.  

 

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1) The Ninja Baseball Spirits #1 Kickstarter Campaign.

2) The History of NBBM, from the official website for Ninja Baseball Bat Man.

3) Gorham Man's Gift to Japan: A National Pastime, written by Steve Solloway, for the Portland Press Herald, and published on May 20th 2007.

4) Top 10 Greatest Female Baseball Players of All Time, written by Samantha Lauren, for the Sports Browser, and published on January 19th 2022.