Retro Gaming 90’s- Baseball Stars 2: (1992)

The early 90’s was such a great time to be a fan of 2D gaming especially with the releases of game systems like the SNES, Neo Geo AES, Sega CD and Sega Saturn. While there are several forgettable 2D sports titles from the early 90’s aside from Temco Super Bowl and NBA Jam that are forgettable; games like Baseball Stars 2 for the Neo Geo AES are considered to be memorable to some people. Baseball Stars 2 was developed and published by SNK and received an arcade release back in ‘92 before it was brought to the Neo Geo AES. The graphics and gameplay for Baseball Stars 2 were looked amazing for its time despite having basic gameplay. Baseball Stars 2 had eighteen fictional teams across two leagues known as Exciting & Fighting which reflected the in- game difficulty of novice and expert. The animation for the Neo Geo versions Baseball Stars 2 was fantastic because it was unlike any other sports game you would see on any other console. In fact, for whatever reason Baseball Stars 2 was also ported for the NES console in ‘92 and looked horrible compared to the Arcade and Neo Geo versions of the game.

The 8-bit NES console was inferior to the the Neo Geo AES due to its limitations and would have looked much better on the 16-bit SNES console. With the release and popularity of games like NBA Jam from ‘93 its been proven that arcade styled sports games could be attractions on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. Despite, not being a massive success from a sales standpoint Baseball Stars 2 received mainly positive reviews from critics and various gaming publications. Its a shame that SNK never made a sequel during the mid 90’s because people rarely got to see arcade style baseball game like the classic that SNK’s produced in 1992. However, the Neo Geo AES console was way too expensive following its initial release with the starting price of $649.99. As popular as the Neo Geo AES was back in the early 90’s it did not perform good in sales because $649.99 was and still is considered to be very expensive. But there is no doubt that Baseball Stars 2 deserves far more recognition than it gets.