Namco almost snuck one past me
Do you love baseball games, anime… AND have $80 burning a hole in your pocket? Then good news:
The video above is Jujusta 2024, AKA Jujutsu RBI, a bonus game included with the Deluxe and Ultimate Edition of Jujutsu Kaisen Cursed Clash, a 3D arena fighter based on the anime.
Jujusta 2024 looks like a deluxe romhack of the original Pro Yakyuu Family Stadium (Famista for short) by Namco, released in North America as R.B.I. Baseball. It’s got custom character art and a good schoolyard stadium, along with all the sounds of the original. And it’s fully translated for the English release of the game (here’s some footage of the Japanese version if you’re curious).
I’m very curious about the legal status of any trademark for R.B.I. Baseball. Atari/Tengen was a subsidiary of Namco when they published the first R.B.I. game, but every single one since then had nothing to do with Namco, besides clearly being based on the same original game. It’s maybe telling that even though the title screen for this mini bonus game says Jujutsu RBI, the Steam page and YouTube trailer call it the Japanese name, Jujusta, instead, even though the name is unintelligible for 99.9% of the English-speaking audience. Maybe they’re not confident they can market this game under the RBI name either.
This actually came out in February this year, but I didn’t realize until a comment by Fido Artz on one of my videos this week alerted me to it. I’ve never seen the anime, and I really don’t want to pay $80, but I do have to play the first Namco Famista game in four years. What to do…
Bad news for English-speaking Prospi-hounds
The recent announcement trailer for Pro Yakyuu Spirits 2024-2025 turned heads not just in the weirdo community of import baseball gamers like myself, but even at Jomboy Media. So I’ve been rubbing my hands together, waiting joyfully for the Steam preorders to come online, only to find:
There aren’t a lot of region-locked games on Steam, but it certainly looks like Prospi 2024-2025 is going to be one of them. The Steam page for the game is live, and will load if you’re in Japan or using a Japanese VPN, but not for us gaikokujin out here.
So having easy access to a Konami baseball game is a dream deferred. The PS5 version will be easier, with physical copy imports and Japanese accounts able to pick it up with no issue. The PC version, being locked to what is a very popular DRM program in Steam, will be a pain. Buying the game on Steam will require both a good Asia region VPN (Steam sniffs some of them out) and an Asia region Steam account. And trying to work around the region lock can result in getting your account banned.
Why lock the game down? Maybe there is some region specificity to the NPB license agreement? Maybe Konami just neglected to click a button somewhere? Maybe Konami doesn’t want my money?
We’ll see how it looks as we get closer to release. No release date is announced for Prospi yet, but it’s coming later this year. But it’s a tragic turn to what we thought might be the most accessible Japanese baseball game ever.
I used my limited language ability to ask Konami to make the game available in the States, for what it’s worth:
I don’t think nine faves is gonna make the monocle pop off of some Konami bigwig, but I do what I can. In summary:
Mariko: The Anjin says he wishes to give you seventy dollars.
YouTube Viewing Guide
- Yerr Out (PC) Gameplay – I’m interested in any brand-new take on baseball, and this has that going for it. I’m pretty disappointed in the lack of differences between animals. An ant and an elephant have different levels of strength/speed/etc., but pretty much play the same. I can’t really recommend this one, though the price is right at $0.
- Major League Baseball 2K7 (PS3) CPU vs. CPU Gameplay – The billowing jersey effect in this era of 2K games is so funny. It’s a visual effect that looks fancy, and should exist, but it makes it look like every game is being played during a tornado. Anyway, Roy Halladay is fun to watch even in video game form.
- Super Famista 4 (Super Famicom) Gameplay – Namco does crazy better than anybody. And the Namco-themed stadium in this game truly looks like a zany romhack, but it’s the real deal.