Keeping RBI Baseball Alive

The old NES game lives on

Keeping RBI Baseball Alive

If you were a kid in the late 1980s, you certainly remember this NES baseball game:

RBI Baseball might not have been the best NES baseball game (I think Baseball Stars was actually better), but it certainly was the most influential. Its release in Japan as Pro Baseball: Family Stadium (プロ野球ファミリースタジアム) in late 1986 was a massive moment in the history of arcade style baseball video games. Every single game that has come afterwards has been influenced by its general style.

When I was a kid, of course, I never really thought of RBI Baseball as a “sim” on the same level as something like APBA. However, with the benefit of a few decades of hindsight, I can see the comparison.

And, fortunately, there is a community keeping the old game alive.

You can find a ton of different modifications for the game, including modifications that allow for 30 teams (the original only had 10 teams, mostly because the Famicom original game included only the 10 NPB teams). Some of the updated files on this page include the complete 2003 season, numerous “best of the decades” versions going back to the 70s, and an all time greatest player version.

There are also some really cool versions on Baron Gaming, including the 1943 Negro Leagues, the full 1986 MLB season, and full MLB sasons stretching from 2015 to 2024. That site also includes “heritage collection” files, featuring teams from seasons such as 1927 and 1961 (though it seems those files only have 10 teams each).

I haven’t played through a lot of these, though I have poked around enough to know that a lot of unrealistic aspects of the original game have been updated. I’m not sure if this technically counts as a “sim” or not, but we’re actually getting pretty close with the original game. And, even if it’s not a “sim,” it’s still baseball, and it’s still a ton of fun.

Give it a try!