Friday Starter is a weekly column of news and tidbits from the world of baseball video games—past and present, domestic and foreign.
Pokémon was almost localized as a baseball RPG
There is a whole mythos behind “Decisions made in localizing Pokémon.” This was a hit franchise ready to distribute across the world, but you could see why it might be too new or different of an idea for other markets. Are Americans going to connect with the idea of walking through the countryside, looking for monsters to catch, train, and trade? Will American kids connect with the marquee cute animal designs, or would they want something more grown-up, or tough?
The most recent discourse has been around discussions to give Pikachu boobs, for just one crazy example.
Another example surfaced in English earlier this year, in an interview between Frank Cifaldi (Video Game History Foundation) and Gail Tilden (former Nintendo of America marketing).
Gail talked about early thoughts around making the art in Pokémon grittier to localize it, then moved into a very specific concept that was pitched: “There was also a thought like, are the– is the way that the game is formatted, could we make it that they’re all baseball players in a baseball league, but not like a Pokémon league?”
Nintendo of America President Minoru Arakawa eventually decided to scrap any discussions around major localization changes like this, and these ideas were put away for good.
The catching, training, and trading mechanics might have played into a baseball theme fairly well. Hit the Ice was a hockey game that had a similar sort of RPG design, going around an overworld and collecting players. I don’t know that it could possibly have hit as hard as Pokémon really did, but I would love to see someone take on that design challenge and make an unusual baseball game with that design.
I should mention here, indie developer Q*Bert Reynolds created a heavily Pokémon-inspired baseball game for Game Boy called Béisbol. It’s not yet complete, but it’s got some great art assets and is available on itch.io. And that’s where the image at the top of this post comes from.
Power Pros history video essay by Checked Swing
British baseball fan and YouTuber Checked Swing released his first Pawapuro retrospective video this week.
This is something we’ve been badly missing in English for a long time: A history of this big-in-Japan series of games from the start, with context and quotes from developer interviews. And thankfully, this is no 16-hour marathon video essay like has become popular on YouTube recently. It’s a bite-sized, 15-minute look that anyone can dip into and learn from.
Give the video a look and subscribe to Checked Swing, who started off with Pro Yakyuu Spirits tutorial videos but has since put out a lot of fun looks at Japan-only baseball games.
A great Mario Superstar Baseball play
Please enjoy this clip from streamer and speedrunner GrandPooBear showcasing the best of Mario Superstar Baseball. The drama. The splendor.
Song of the Week
I continue to hear the Namachuukei 68 soundtrack around the internet. It’s breaking containment beyond the world of baseball games. It’s just an incredible EP’s worth of high-quality electronic easy listening tunes.