World Stadium/Walkthrough

Once you have inserted a coin into the cabinet of Namco's Japan-only 1988 arcade game, World Stadium, the text "TO START GAME: PUSH 1P OR 2P BUTTON" will appear on the screen (it was the first game from the company to allow two players to play on one credit); you will then have to press either the 1 Player Start Button or the 2 Player Start Button to proceed to the team selection screen as the game's introductory theme starts to be heard from the Yamaha YM-2151. You will then be given forty-five seconds to select one of the U&C League's twelve teams by pushing the joystick up, down, left, and right, before pressing the first button to confirm your choice - and if you had only pressed the 1 Player Start Button, you will now have to select another team for the CPU to predetermine the behaviour of, but if you pressed that 2 Player Start Button, the second player will now have to pick another team to take control of (which is too bad if the first player had chosen the team he wanted to take control of). The game will then proceed to the stadium selection screen as the timer in the top-right corner of the screen continues counting down; you will now have to select one of the game's three stadiums for your match to take place in, which all have different "personnel housing", "grounds", "Bull Temple occupants", and "breadth" specifications:

Once you have pressed the first button to confirm your choice for a second time the game will proceed to the pitcher selection screen, as the timer in the top-right corner of the screen still continues counting down; you will then have to select one of your chosen team's five pitchers (the back views of whom will be displayed upon the screen as you push your joystick up and down to highlight them), and if you had only pressed that 1 Player Start Button, the CPU will create the illusion of randomly selecting one of its team's five pitchers to predetermine the behaviour of (but it will always stop on the third one). All of the 60 pitchers' names have either the Kanji character hidari (左) or migi (右) next to them, which indicates whether they will pitch while facing to the left or right - and the first, second, and third pitchers for each team also have that orange Kanji character saki (先) next to that character, which means "destination".

Once you have pressed the first button to confirm your choice for the third and final time the game will proceed to the team lineup screen, as the song that you had been hearing from the Yamaha YM-2151 since you had pressed either the 1 or 2 Player Start Button fades out; the name of your chosen team's manager will then be displayed on the right side of its logo and under the two Kanji characters kantoku (監督), which means "director". The 96 other players' names also again have either the Kanji character hidari (左) or migi (右) next to them, but this time it indicates whether they will bat while standing on the left or right side of the catcher's plate - and the 50000-, 58000-, or 70000-strong crowd of fans will then cheer from the DAC as all eighteen players emerge and take their positions on the field of your chosen stadium. Once the applause has died out, the view will change to a shot of that stadium's scoreboard...

...as the match opening jingle is heard from the Yamaha YM-2151; the Kōrakuen Stadium's scoreboard has one small orange flag (which is bearing the image of Namco's signature character) on top of it, but the Kōshien Stadium has two. However, both the Kōrakuen and Kōshien Stadiums' scoreboards have clocks (the one on the former is manufactured by "Saiko") on them, which both start at 6:00 and advance as the match progresses, so you should see how long you can make your match last in game time if you'd selected either of those stadiums - and not only does the Mejā Stadium's scoreboard anglicise its name as "Major", but it also has the logo of Namco's secondary US distributor Atari Games on it, given that the original Pro Yakyuu Family Stadium was licensed to them when it was released in the United States as R.B.I. Baseball. An airship with a banner for "PLAY CITY CARROT" (which is an arcade in Sugamo) behind it will also fly over the scoreboard from the right side of the screen to the left whenever the view changes to a shot of it.