Collection essentials #202: Ken Griffey Jr. Presents Major League Baseball (SNES)

Nintendo acquired the Seattle Mariners MLB franchise in 1992, so it’s not too surprising that they would publish this game on their console featuring a player for the team who was perhaps the brightest star in the whole sport from that era. This game was developed by Software Creations, which is perhaps surprising because they’re from the UK where baseball isn’t popular, and they made what is possibly the best baseball game out of many on the console.


KGJPMLB has all the real MLB teams from the era, and the players are based on the real players, too, but they did not get the MLBPA license so they weren’t able to use their actual names. So every player in the game except Griffey has a fake name. And it’s rather amusing how the developers went about naming the players, because each team has a theme to the fake names of their players. These included teams full of names of singers, actors, authors, presidents, and many more. The game lets you edit the players’ names, so if someone wants to take the time to change all the names of the players to what they actually are in real life, they may do so. As you can see, the previous owner of my copy did so, as Roger Clemens has his real name.


The presentation of the game is a little cartoony, with characters being rather animated and sometimes designed with fairly unrealistic body proportions, but purposefully so for style. The music and sound effects complement the vibe the game’s trying to give. Gameplay is fast-paced and fun, and there are various modes depending on what experience you’re going for, and you can play a whole 162-game season or one much shorter if that’s what you prefer. 


Unfortunately I never played this game growing up. I would have been really into it if I had. But being what is probably the best baseball game on my favorite console, this has to be an essential even though I don’t really have a personal history with it. Plus, it came with a free Ken Griffey, Jr. baseball card, which is darn cool!

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