Yakyuu Kakutou League-Man (Japan, set 2)

Arcade Video game published 31 years ago:

Yakyuu Kakutou League-Man (c) 1993 Irem.

Yakyuu Kakutou League-Man is an abstract, horizontally-scrolling beat-em-up for in which up to four players control a team of robotic baseball-star ninjas who must fight their way through a variety of levels, defeating the game's many enemies.

The object of the game is to recover a number of artifacts stolen from the Baseball Hall of Fame, a task prescribed to them by the Commissioner of Baseball. Each stage takes place in several parts of the United States, with a boss character appears at the end of each stage.

The game's enemies are themed entirely around the sport of Baseball; taking the form of Baseballs, Catcher's mitts, bats etc. The game also allows players to perform combos, throws and dash attacks against multiple enemies. When a player's health bar flashes red, more moves can be performed as long as the player does not restore or completely lose health.

Health restoring food and drink items appear throughout the game, as well as throwable weapon pick-ups, including baseballs and shuriken. Occasionally players will find a pink heart, collecting this summons cheerleaders who either damage all on-screen enemies or drop a large amount of food.

The four characters of Yakyuu Kakutou League-Man and their traits are:

* Captain Jose - Head of the team and technician. Well-balanced and a good choice for beginners.

* Twinbats Ryno - Very fast and wields two bats, but is the weakest of the four.

* Beanball Roger - He is a powerful buster, but not as fast as others.

* Stick Straw - A long-reach hitter, making him the best choice for long-range moves.

- TECHNICAL -

Irem M-92 system hardware

Main CPU : V33 (@ 9 Mhz), V30 (@ 7.15909 Mhz)
Sound Chips : Yamaha YM2151 (@ 3.579545 Mhz), GA20 (@ 3.579545 Mhz)

Screen orientation : Horizontal
Video resolution : 320 x 240 pixels
Screen refresh : 60.00 Hz
Palette colors : 2048

Players : 4
Control : 8-way joystick
Buttons : 2

- TRIVIA -

The title of this game translates from Japanese as 'Baseball Hand-to-Hand Fighting League-Man'.

This game is known in US as "Ninja Baseball BatMan".

Irem America opened its U.S. office in 1988 in Redmond, Washington, headed up by Frank Ballouz (founder of FABTEK, a thriving video kit company and former North American publisher of several arcades by Seibu Kaihatsu and TAD Corp.) and National Sales Manager Drew Maniscalco. During this time, Drew created the Ninja Baseball Bat Man video game concept (including the English title, plot and characters) and licensed it to Irem America in 1991. To illustrate the characters' sketches, Drew hired Gottlieb's well-known pinball artist, Gordon Morison.

Drew's concept came up after he read the top grossing films during its time in a USA Today newspaper. One was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the other was one of the Batman films (possibly Batman Returns). After that, he started creating his own superhero influenced by what he saw in the USA Today newspaper. During the development of his concept, he liked the word NINJA, because of it sounding mysterious to him. He gave the protagonists baseball bats and baseballs as their main weapons, as well as dressing them in baseball uniforms, because both the sport baseball was quite popular nationally in Japan, and Drew is also a baseball fan. Drew thought the baseball bat idea was also probably an influence from the 1973 film Walking Tall. The word MAN in the title comes from Joe Don Baker who starred in the film, while he was a man. He later created the concept for the other characters such as enemies. To illustrate the characters' sketches, Drew hired Gottlieb's well-known pinball artist, Gordon Morison.

Drew's original gameplay ideas for the video game was for a 1-player, adventure-based, platform game similar to Nintendo's "Super Mario Bros.". However, due to the very successful game sales of several 4-player games (most of them being beat 'em ups), Drew added 3-players in an effort to compete with the 4-player games. While the title and characters were Drew's concept, Irem Japan programmed the arcade game, and modified the look of its prototype. Drew did not mind it being different, as he was thrilled about it being programmed by them.

During the development of the 2-player platform version, the two main characters were named Willie and Mickey, named after Drew's two favorite baseball players of his childhood, Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle.

During the development of the 4-player beat 'em up version, the prototype names of the four main characters were Captain Jeff (red), Nunchaks Sugar (green), Hammer' Eddy (yellow) and Naginata Jimmy (blue). Drew later came up with the final names of the four protagonists that are currently used in the finished version today, which the names are references to the four baseball stars during the arcade game's release: Jose Canseco (red), Ryne Sandberg (green), Roger Clemens (yellow) and Darryl Strawberry (blue). In Japan, they were named after their colors.

A year after its concept was created and a year before it was released, despite it being interesting in his opinion, Drew left the company in 1992 and moved to Data East USA. Because of that, he was unable to market nor manage any other input related to the game.

An ad for "Mahou Keibitai Ganhooki" appears on the first stage, another Irem game.

- STAFF -

Planner: Chinta
Graphic designers: Kon. Kitakichine, Nob, Sefuhaso, Unyanya, Dama
Programmers: Andrew Whiskey, Mc.Hama Amuse_Light, Hiro
Sound effects: Aiai
Sound programmers: Hayashi Sho, Jitta