Well, with an arcade cabinet with TONS of games in my basement, I knew I’d find crazy stuff. But… I mean, just look at this game’s title… you know it’s gonna be weird. Just seeing the title in the frontend, I knew I had to try it out, and I wasn’t disappointed.

So read on for the first game in my Arcade Center posts.


What is this game about?
Some… Guy… stole Babe Ruth’s golden Baseball equipment. And it’s up to the Ninja Baseball BatMan to get them back before they get used for… evil… I guess. So the Ninja Baseball BatMan leave on their quest through the US to find the golden equipment.

As with a LOT of games at the arcade at the time (this one was released in 1993) this is a beat ‘em up. Fight a bunch of cronies until you get to the final boss of the level. Rinse and repeat until you beat the final boss of the game.

This game sets itself appart from most beat ‘em ups though, due to the insanity going on in the game.

Enemies range from baseballs with arms and legs, to baseball bats, to cute doggies with guns, to airplanes, to giants made out of balls, to playing cards and a bunch of other crazy shit. There’s lots of enemy variety, and the game just keeps on getting wackier as you go on. Everything tries to kill you really, and there’s always some weird stuff going on.

The gameplay is awesome. Very fast-paced. You have a choice of 4 characters, each with unique special and normal moves. The difficulty is pretty good, ranging from “Pretty Easy” during the first level, and escalating to “Stupidly hard” fast enough. If you’re playing that at the arcade(if you can actually find it…), you can find yourself wasting a ton of quarters. Special moves, of course, take a bit of your lifebar so you must be careful. The boss fights are very insane too, with unexpected attacks and weird patterns, they’re no walk in the park. There’s a bit of variety too, with some stages that include driving segments. There’s a few items in the game, mostly health pickups (which you’ll definitely need), but the most notable is the “Pink” heart (a heart with “Pink” written on it). This calls the Ninja Baseball Batman cheerleading squad, doing big attacks or powering you up. Awesome stuff.

The graphics… Well, the screenshots don’t do them justice. Seeing it animated it just badass. Incredibly colorful, great animation, some funny and weird animations, smooth graphics all around, great crazy style, this is one of the better looking beat ‘em ups out there.

Overall, Ninja Baseball BatMan is a great game, and it barely ever got recognition(I only heard about it when I found it in the MAME roms pack), but if you find it, at least put in a few quarters in and try it out. I’d be all for a Ninja Baseball BatMan 2 game if IREM were up for it…

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