World Class Baseball (TG16)

World Class Baseball

Platform: TurboGrafx-16 Year: 1988 Developer: Hudson Soft

For other games in the series, see Power League.

World Class Baseball is a baseball simulation game developed and published by Hudson Soft. It was originally released in Japan in 1988 as Power League along with a Sharp X68000 port.

The game offers a few modes of play; Versus Mode allows you to play with another player, Open Mode is your standard exhibition game, Pennant Mode is the main part of the game where you compete in a pennant race against the other teams, Watch Mode allows you to watch two baseball teams controlled by the computer, and Edit Mode allows you to edit player stats. The Pennant Mode also offers a password of only four characters, making it easy to save and load a player's progress.

Since the game is an early release for the TurboGrafx-16, it is nothing spectacular, and critics gave the game mixed reviews.

Screenshots

The title screen. Selecting a team. Playing a game of baseball. Almost at home base... It's a Home Run! The results.

Music

World Class Baseball shares its music with the aforementioned Sharp X68000 port, but has its audio downgraded to the TurboGrafx-16's limited C6280 sound chip. There's twelve songs, but most of them are just jingles and fanfares. The main theme is a bit lengthy, but since each game takes a long time, it can get annoying after several repeats. The overall theme of the music consists of rock, which fits the baseball theme. A few tracks like Team Select, Result, and Edit Mode even have a bit of a funk vibe to them. The main theme (Main BGM) is a fast shuffle beat, so it at least matches the pace of the action on-screen.

The music was written by Daisuke Inoue. He wrote the music in the SMF format in Performer and sent his compositions to Hudson, whose sound team implemented it into Takayuki Iwabuchi's sound driver into the game.

Recording

#	Title	Composer	Arranger	Length	Listen	Download
01	Title Screen	Daisuke Inoue	Unknown	0:19		Download
02	Team Select	Daisuke Inoue	Unknown	0:47		Download
03	Play Ball!	Daisuke Inoue	Unknown	0:02		Download
04	Main BGM	Daisuke Inoue	Unknown	2:29		Download
05	Chance BGM	Daisuke Inoue	Unknown	2:06		Download
06	Scored	Daisuke Inoue	Unknown	0:03		Download
07	Home Run	Daisuke Inoue	Unknown	0:03		Download
08	Change Side	Daisuke Inoue	Unknown	0:05		Download
09	Time	Daisuke Inoue	Unknown	0:03		Download
10	Game Set	Daisuke Inoue	Unknown	0:08		Download
11	Result	Daisuke Inoue	Unknown	1:08		Download
11	Edit Mode	Daisuke Inoue	Unknown	2:56		Download

Credits

• Ripper: Sonic of 8! (VGZ)
• Recorder: Doommaster1994
• Game Credits:
  • Uncredited Composer: Daisuke Inoue
  • Uncredited Sound Driver: Takayuki Iwabuchi
  • Unknown Arranger: Unknown

(Source: Verification from composer; Game lacks credits.)

The game does not appear to have credits, though it is unknown if beating the Pennant Mode rewards the player with a staff roll or not.

We have contacted Daisuke Inoue who confirmed composing the game's music. Toshiaki Takimoto most likely was the game's arranger; the other games that use the same version of Iwabuchi's sound driver used in this game credit Takimoto as a sound programmer; Hudson's way of crediting the arranger who converted the composers' music into the sound driver.

Game Rip

Format	Download

Ripping TurboGrafx-16 music is an arduous process that is beyond the scope of this site. The music was recorded using in_vgm for Winamp.

Audio Devices

The game uses the TurboGrafx-16's HuC6280. It uses Takayuki Iwabuchi's sound driver.

Releases

Japan Title: パワーリーグ (Power League) Platform: PC Engine Released: 1988-06-24 Publisher: Hudson Soft     Japan Title: パワーリーグ オールスターゴールドヒューカード (Power League: All Star Gold HuCard) Platform: PC Engine Released: 1988-??-?? Publisher: Hudson Soft     USA Title: World Class Baseball Platform: TurboGrafx-16 Released: 1989-??-?? Publisher: NEC

Links

• gamefaqs.gamespot.com/tg16/578600-world-class-baseball - GameFAQs.
• mobygames.com/game/turbo-grafx/world-class-baseball - MobyGames.