Nintendo and baseball don't seem to blend together like other things should, like peanut butter and jelly or me and liquor anytime a company function is held. They've had their tries before, with the Ken Griffey Jr. games for SNES and N64, their early Baseball game for the NES, and the cancelled Pennant Chase project they had cooking for so long. They were always thwarted by the competition, the likes of 2K Games and their superb MLB 2k5 game or even the unlicensed copies of RBI Baseball back on the NES. But, at last, the streak is broken, and Nintendo has a good baseball game. Sure, it's a default win, since they've dumped their entire library of Mario characters into it, but Mario Superstar Baseball thankfully offers much more than just a familiar face.

As stated, the game throws Mario, several of his friends, a few foes, and a couple of surprise faces into a baseball game, where teams can be selected and then take to the field. There's simple Exhibition play to jump into, but the real meat and potatoes of Mario Superstar Baseball lies beneath the top mode. There's a huge Challenge Mode where you basically take a character and walk them through a role-playing style set-up of the season, building up individual skills and setting yourself up for dramatic (well, Super Mario dramatic) face-offs against teams. It's a great mode all its own, although the Mario Golf GBA touring mode still has it slightly beat in terms of depth. It's still nice to see in a baseball game, though, without an ounce of tobacco anywhere in sight.

Along with that, the game screams multiplayer support. And when I say it screams it, I mean it climbs up to the nearest mountain and lets the whole community know it out loud, over and over again. Along with being able to take on some friends in the game's exhibition mode, there's also a series of mini-games that you can take part in. There's some hitting games, where you have to try to score so many home runs or hit particular spots on the field, as well as pitching games, where you have to run the ball through so many tiles without hitting the dreaded Bowser spots and getting points yanked away. These games are set up for up to four players, and the more the merries. Then there's also the Toy Box, an individual mini-game that's a delight all its own, with tiles all over the field with rewards ranging from coins to multipliers. Of course, the highest count wins, so aim high and watch out for the fielders.

I was surprised to find out that Camelot, Nintendo's usual company for handling sports franchises, didn't take the development helm this time. Instead, it was Namco, whom, if I'm not mistaken, dominated the company long ago with RBI. Ah, well, bygones are bygones, as the Sega and Nintendo relationship previously proved, and here the junction between the house of Mario and the house of Pac-Man proves solid. Namco even went as far as to throw in an old-school Super Mario likeness in the loading screens, lathering the taste of Nintendo even more into the product. I liked those.

Now let's talk about the gameplay, which is kind of a balance between good and evil. I'll first talk about the good, in terms of the hitting and the pitching. Pitching doesn't have any fancy meters or accuracy bars, but rather a simple "hold down the button and make your pitch stronger" system. You can also aim using the analog stick, or modify your pitches by holding it in a certain direction. It's set for all ages, really, and it works really well, allowing you to get change-ups and fast balls going around without going through a frustrating system over and over again. Likewise, batting works on a similar front, where you can work up a power swing simply by holding down the button just a bit longer than normal, then releasing at the right time. It takes a little practice to get hits off, but once you settle in, they pop out to the field like clockwork.

I wish I could say the same with the fielding and running game. Here's where the evil steps onto the field in Mario Superstar Baseball. The fielding seems a bit too sluggish for its own good, with runners that can't pick up the pace fast enough as you try to guide them to the ideal spot. Furthermore, base running is a bit complicated, and very hard to master. Both of these can really become a pain in a game against the computer, as they plow you with their ferocious skills while you have to deal with your slight inferiority. Bummer. In multiplayer, though, the field is evened, so you have that going for you.

As far as presentation, I noticed a couple of slight flaws in each department. Graphics-wise, the game runs very smoothly and looks like a contender, with decent animations, great field views, and the whole Nintendo-esque color scheme in full effect. However, some replays show a bit of sloppiness that could've easily been cleaned up in testing. In sound, the game delivers with an energetic (if somewhat bland) soundtrack and bouncy character voices that match up each of the personalities, like Donkey Kong and his growling as he strikes a ball out of the park with his boxing glove (his idea of a bat, I guess). However, the announcer sounds unexcited by the whole ordeal, and a bit out of place.

One other flaw I thought I would note is the fact that Mario Superstar Baseball has a limited roster. Sure, it's got a number of teams to choose from, but there's only so many characters from the Nintendo universe at hand. Nintendo still had access to the MLB license for this year, so wouldn't it have been a little bit interesting to mix them in with Nintendo characters and allow for some expansion? I mean, Derek Jeter wouldn't stand a chance against Waluigi, now would he? I guess we'll never know.

But the game is Mario Superstar Baseball and not MLB Superstar Baseball With Mario, so I guess you have to accept it for what it is. Personally, the game could've been a real superstar with some touch-ups here and there, but I'll still accept it with the fact that the multiplayer and mini-games are loaded up like a big, fat burrito piling out of a Taco Bell drive-thru window and weighing down the car as you load it in. Its presentation is mostly solid as well, and Mario/baseball fans will appreciate the Challenge mode. So it's not quite a home run, so what? The last time I checked, there wasn't anything really wrong with a solid double. Or maybe even a triple, depending on Donkey Kong's range.