Great Baseball

Great Baseball belongs to the Great series of sports titles that Sega used at the end of the 1980s to systematically cover key sports genres on its Mark III and Master System consoles, similar to the football, tennis, or golf titles released at the same time for the same target audience. The game offers a basic baseball match with alternating offense and defense, where the player as batter hits the opposing pitcher's throws, and as fielder instead tries to catch hit balls and put out the opponent's batters before they can reach the field's individual bases.

The presentation of the field matches the technical possibilities of the time — the characters are simplified and blocky, but the animations of hitting, throwing, and catching are legible enough for the game to function as a full-fledged, easy-to-follow sports match even for players unfamiliar with the precise rules of baseball as a North American national sport. Great Baseball also offers the option to play against a second player instead of the computer, which made it a popular choice for short, competitive matches between friends, similar to the other titles in the Great series released during the same period for the same console and its Japanese counterpart, the Mark III. The game also allows a full nine-inning match to be played according to the classic rules, which wasn't entirely a given among simpler sports titles at the time.

In Master System history, Great Baseball represents one of Sega's first attempts to offer the American national sport to European and Japanese players as well, who might not have been very familiar with the precise rules of baseball and learned them directly by playing the game itself, without a manual. Today the game is interesting mainly as an archaeological showcase of Sega's early sports output, rather than as a title players would return to for depth of gameplay or the sophistication of its simulation of this specific sport, less well known in Europe.

Why play it: For those interested in the archaeology of Sega's early sports output, rather than for players seeking depth in a baseball simulation as such.