Took two tries to win a game (there is no season mode) against the CPU, winning on a walk off home run against LA, so I guess that would make it about an hour to beat as a game takes a little under a half hour to play.
It is nice that it has 26 teams to choose from -- one representing each team in the MLB at the time, broken up into the appropriate leagues. From the half dozen or so games I played, it never chose an opponent from the opposite league. It also has a Home Run Derby mode where it grooves 20 pitches. Unsurprisingly, there is only 1 stadium, which I think was pretty much a given in 1987.
There are a number of drawbacks that keep this from being a good game, relegating it to the average pile:
Fielders move ridiculously slowly, to where the first baseman can't even catch a low popup that lands what would be about 15 feet in front of first base. There is no real point in playing on the mode where you manually field because of this.
I did get thrown out at 1B on a grounder to CF. Um, yeah.
Way too easy to hit HRs.
You can only change pitchers at the beginning of the inning.
You cannot pinch hit for a pitcher, presumably because that would make a backup fielder the replacement pitcher.
If you don't make a selection in the pinch hitter selection screen in the couple seconds it gives you, it automatically kicks you back to the gameplay, needing to restart the process.
Either I couldn't pick up on it or it's pretty much impossible to determine what's a ball or strike.
The CPU baserunning AI is awful, as its runners will keep advancing on a fly ball until it's caught, making it an automatic double play on a high pop out.
And a minor nitpick, but the pitcher's mound disappears when it shows the entire field.
I'd imagine, as with just about all games with multiplayer, that it would be a much better experience playing against a human. All in all, it's a decent game. Definitely not Great. From what I remember of playing Reggie Jackson Baseball, Great Baseball is the better of the two SMS baseball games I've played (I'm not sure if there are any others on the system). I won't be knocking this off my backlog just yet, since I want to play something resembling a season, keeping stats as I go -- there's no way to have standings with just one person playing, since it doesn't have a CPU vs. CPU option, so I would just see what kind of stats my team ends up with, as well as a W-L record.
