Choujin - Ultra Baseball (or Baseball Simulator 1000 outside Japan) is one of those NES sports games that starts off feeling familiar—until suddenly your pitcher starts throwing fireballs or your batter smacks a homer so hard it leaves a crater in the outfield. At first glance, it's got all the basics: lineups, pitching mechanics, even a season mode. But then you unlock the "Ultra" teams and things get ridiculous in the best way.

I remember picking the standard teams for my first game, thinking it was just another baseball sim. Then my friend picked an Ultra team and started launching curveballs that literally curved mid-air like a boomerang. That’s when I realized this wasn’t your grandpa’s baseball game. The power-ups are chaotic but weirdly balanced—like yeah, you can summon a tornado to scatter fielders, but the other guy might have a batter who swings a sword instead of a bat. It’s baseball if someone spiked the Gatorade with anime logic.

Still holds up if you’re into retro sports games with a twist. Just don’t expect to take it seriously once the UFOs start stealing fly balls.