Baseball Stars Professional (1990, NEO•GEO AES/MVS/CD)

Developer: SNK
Publisher: SNK
Clear Port: ACA NEO GEO Baseball Stars Professional (2018, Multiplatform)
Port Developer: Hamster
Port Publisher: Hamster
Clear Version: PS4
Clear Platform: PS5
Clear Date: 7/3/25

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Why should I care?
If you just can’t get enough NEO GEO baseball, this first game is an option.

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He hit that ball a country mile.

Sometimes I’m cruising a digital storefront and I’m like “I need to be playing virtual baseball.” That’s how I ended up with this game, which is worse in pretty much every way than the other two baseball games on NEO GEO, Baseball Stars 2 and Super Baseball 2020. Both of those games are awesome in their own ways and are fully deserving of play. Baseball Stars Professional ends up kinda feeling like a prototype for its successors, especially when played after them.

Nevertheless, it is snappy baseball good for burning some time here or there. Like the other NEO GEO baseball games, it features a bunch of made up teams vying for a championship. It’s silly and lighthearted, but it isn’t quite the near parody of baseball that Baseball Stars 2 is, and it’s certainly more grounded than the sci-fi Super Baseball 2020.

Unfortunately, they hadn’t quite figured out some things yet. Batting isn’t all that different (it mostly comes down to timing your swing and placing your barrel on the ball), but pitching is far less expressive. You just can’t quite do as much in Stars 1 as its sequel. Fielding is also much fussier, and the game is plagued with dinky little infield hits and cheap-feeling things like that as a result. Those ways it’s worse unfortunately make it really difficult to recommend when two great options are right there.

On the plus side, one thing this game did grant me was the opportunity to win a championship game with two outs in the bottom of the ninth. I really couldn’t believe it happened, but here’s the video. I popped the fuck off at this alone in my house lol.