Family Stadium 2003

The famous Family Stadium has finally arrived on the GameCube!

JP release: 30th May 2003
EU release: N/A
NA release: N/A
Developer: Namco
Publisher: Namco
NGC Magazine Score: N/A
Mods Used: Widescreen Hack

The Family Stadium series only had one entry on the Nintendo 64 and, while Namco supported the GameCube far more, still only had one entry on the GameCube. It’s a baseball game that features extremely shiny cartoony players, in a style that’s not as exaggerated as its main rival, Power Pros Baseball.

Family Stadium seems far more difficult to play as there’s no cursor for pitching or batting. It also seems very easy to catch the ball (both for you and the computer), so the occasional home run seems to be the only way to score – the only time I got a player onto a base was when my opponent threw four no balls. It’s a functional baseball game, but doesn’t play as well as Power Pros, and has nowhere near as many features.

Fine

Batting is handled in a very traditional 16-bit manor, meaning that there is no contact zone to line up similar to most other 32-bit and beyond baseball games, the batter has to somewhat blindly anticipate where the ball may land, cross one’s fingers, swing the bat, and hope for the best. Needless to say, batting hardly ever leads to making solid contact with the ball. The batter is given a rather huge space to walk around in the batters box, yet the game requires making contact with the ball to be very strict and regulated in ones movements. Pitching is equally as frustrating, You are limited to only about 3 types of pitches and you have little to no control over where the ball lands. You often throw a ”ball” when you mean to throw a ”curve ball”.
isshokemmei_ni, GameFAQs

Remake or remaster?

There are better baseball games.

Official Ways to get the game

There’s no official way to buy Family Stadium 2003