RBI Baseball is a baseball game that was released for the Nintendo Entertainment System in November 1988. It was originally known as Pro Yakyuu Family Stadium in Japan, though renamed to RBI Baseball. With only an MLBPA licence, it features only the U.S. team names. Several sequels were made for the NES, Sega Genesis, and Super NES.
In 2014, Major League Baseball bought the rights to the name to make their own annual baseball game. RBI Baseball 14 was released in April 2014 on XBox 360/One, PS3/4, Android, and iOS. RBI Baseball 15 is due to be released in April 2015 on XBox One, PS4, Android, iOS, and Steam.
Tropes features in the series include:
General tropes:
- American Kirby Is Hardcore: A notable cultural clash situation. RBI Baseball games had realistic-oriented graphics as soon as they were developed for 16-bit consoles. Famista, however, never stopped being cartoony even when giving their stickmen ballplayers more detail.
- Annual Title: The original series from 1993 through 1995. The revamp has done this since 2014.
- Fanfare: A short tune will play after a player hits an out-of-the-park home run.
- Colour Coded Armies: All of the teams have a palette scheme that closely resembles their official team colours.
- In Name Only: Because Tengen only got hold of the MLBPA, the teams are represented only by the city name.
- Market-Based Title: The original was a localization of Namco's Famista, but the post-NES games are unrelated.
- Product Placement: '94 has its end-of-game newspaper advertising other Tengen games, such as Davis Cup Tennis and Awesome Possum... Kicks Dr. Machino's Butt.
- Use Your Head: After an error, the victimised player will have the ball bounce off his head.
Tropes found in the first RBI Baseball game:
- Artificial Stupidity:
- It's possible to hit the ball down the line in such a way that it rests against the stands. In one-player games, this can sometimes cause the outfielder to either get stuck trying to retrieve the ball, or—when he does get it—to throw it at an angle that causes it to bounce off the stands into the crowd. The CPU doesn't bother changing its "the quickest path is a straight line" mentality, allowing plenty of time for an inside-the-park home run.
- The CPU also sticks with the same pitching rotation: the first pitcher plays four innings, the second is around for three, the third for the 8th inning only, and the last from the 9th onward. Even when their pitching deteriorates to the point where any real-life manager would yank them from the game, the computer will not make any pitching changes aside from those. This exponentially raises the chances of the player blowing the game wide open.
- Gretzky Has the Ball: Rich Gedman, Dan Heep and George Brett are all presented as right-handed batters. In real life, they were left-handed batters.
- Joke Character: Rafael Santana, Willie Randolph and Al Pedrique, among others, are players who should be substituted immediately.
- Lethal Joke Character: Pitchers all have low power and can only ever manage bloop hits at best. However, in one-player games, it is very satisfying to see them get extra-base hits or even inside-the-park home runs because the fielders are too busy chasing a slow-moving ball.
- ROM Hack: This is one of the most popular NES games to be modified because of a game editor that changes just about everything in the game.
- Shown Their Work:
- Most of the players' in-game abilities match their real selves and even their statistics. Examples include Ozzie Smith having virtually no power, having hit only 28 home runs in his career.
- This is also one of the first video games that uses accurate hand motions when the umpires make calls. It's most evident when "Safe!" is called, but if you look closely on a fair ball down the line or a home run, you can see one of the umpires pointing to fair territory or waving his finger in a circle, respectively.
