Mario Baseball (series)

"Lets-a play ball! Woo-hoo!"

- Mario

The Mario Baseball series is a spin-off series of the Mario series that revolves around the concept of baseball. Only two games have been released to date, the first one, Mario Superstar Baseball for the Nintendo GameCube, and the second one, Mario Super Sluggers for the Wii. Unlike previous spinoffs, the player could recruit people via completing scout missions to get enough scout flags to recruit the player on one of the four opposite teams. Another unique feature is chemistry, which effects how well the player's teammates cooperate. Even though there are only two baseball games, this series features more playable characters than any other kind of spinoff in the Mario series.

Mario Superstar Baseball
"Let's Play Baseball!"

- Mario Superstar Baseball

Mario Superstar Baseball was the first installment in the Mario Baseball series. It featured a total of thirty-two playable characters, six of which could be unlocked; these characters were divided into four different groups.The groups were balance, technique, speed, and power. The game also featured three characters from the Donkey Kong series: Donkey Kong, Diddy Kong, and Dixie Kong. The game also had a unique feature called 'Chemistry'. Chemistry was the relationship status found between the team captain and its players. The better the chemistry between the characters, the better that team will likely perform. Should a team have bad chemistry, they may perform poorly in the game. Six mini-games were also featured in the game, one of which was unlockable.

Mario Super Sluggers
"We love Baseball!"

- Mario Super Sluggers

Mario Super Sluggers is the second and most recent installment to the Mario Baseball series; it was released for the Wii in 2008 in Japan and North America; however, no release dates have been announced for the European and Australian regions for unknown reasons.The game takes place in the Baseball Kingdom. The game featured a total of forty-one playable characters. Nine more than the original. All of the previous game's characters were reunited in the sequel, and they were all default. The nine new ones must be unlocked. There were a total of nine stadiums to play in, four of which had to be unlocked; each stadium, unlockables included, had their own unique mini-game for the player to engage in. The game also featured many cutscenes, each of which told a story to give the game a more involved aspect of gameplay.The Challenge Mode was changed from going around playing other teams to recruiting players by clearing special missions for more of a RPG feel. This game can switch between day and night. This is useful because Bowser Jr. Playroom can only be played in during the day and Luigi's Mansion and Bowser's Castle can only be played in at night.

Chemistry
A unique feature in the Mario baseball series is chemistry, which decides how well the teams play. For example Mario and Luigi have good chemistry so when they throw a ball at each other it travels fast. An example of bad chemistry is Mario and Bowser: if they throw to one another, the ball moves slowly and off course. If two characters have no chemistry, like Mario and Diddy Kong, the ball would fly at normal speed. In Exhibition mode of Mario Superstar Baseball, when the players are selecting who the want on the team, there will be cicles on the side. For example if the captain was Mario and the player picked Peach for their team, many cicles would appear on the side. But if they then added Bowser, the number of circles would drop. The maximum number of cicles is five. The number of circles sometimes effects the name of the team. For example a team led by Mario with five circles would be called the Mario Fireballs.

Star Skills
A new feature in these games are the ability to use a Star Skill. Star Skills can be activated either while pitching or while batting. Anyone in this game can use a Star Skill, but a team captain's Star Skill is superior to a sub-character's Star Skill. Team Captains have mostly different Star Skills, however, captains that usually pair with each other (Mario and Luigi, Peach and Daisy) have similar Star Skills. The amount of Star Skills that can be used is represented by five Team Stars in a meter. The amount of starting Team Stars depend on the sub-characters' chemistry with the team captain.

Star Skills can be replenished by hitting ball park features. They can also be replenished by striking a player out or making a batter reach a base safely when the words, "Star Chance!" appear. Team captains use up one Team Star, sub-characters use up one Team Star, and captains as members use up two Team Stars.

They return in Mario Super Sluggers, however some characters now have different star skills. Such as Luigi. The window at the bottom that shows star skills is different.