Pro Spirits Baseball

[fanatic]

Wow...89 dollars to import this game...no thanks...looks amazing though

You guys could also import the older PS3 versions of the game. I haven't played anything since #5, but knowing Konami, I'm sure they've gone as far as upgrading the options menu font and pause music. Also, the outdated rosters aren't likely to bother you.

[Slumberland]

The PSP version just showed up. Expensive, but I am desperate for some hot Tokyo Yakult Swallows action.

[toonarmy]

The PSP version just showed up. Expensive, but I am desperate for some hot Tokyo Yakult Swallows action.

Impressions please. And where did you get it, and for how much?

[Slumberland]

I will definitely be posting as I put some time into it. I got it from play-asia.com for $70.

Going to take me a sec to get comfortable with the menus/options and whatnot. I've started getting really interested in the NPB this past year though, so I'm committed.

[fsquid]

I'd love to see them put English as a language into this sucker.

[toonarmy]

I will definitely be posting as I put some time into it. I got it from play-asia.com for $70.

Going to take me a sec to get comfortable with the menus/options and whatnot. I've started getting really interested in the NPB this past year though, so I'm committed.

Thanks. I noticed there is also a 3DS version of this game that has already been released. Freaking only works on Asian/Japanese 3DS though due to region lock. I would love to get it on the 3DS due to small load times and the cool 3D effect. I truly hate this region lock crap Nintendo has put on the 3DS. I hope the new PSP has no region lock. I don't understand the purpose of region locking since many games will never be released out of the region of their origin. Ah well, at least I still have my trusty PSP machines.

[fanatic]

I will definitely be posting as I put some time into it. I got it from play-asia.com for $70.

Going to take me a sec to get comfortable with the menus/options and whatnot. I've started getting really interested in the NPB this past year though, so I'm committed.

Hanshin Tigers all the way. I hear Matt Murton is tearing it up over there.

I managed to catch a Tigers game in person a while back - so much fun. At the time, Tony Tarrasco was playing right field. In between one of the innings, I yelled "Hey Tony" from about 30 rows back. He turned and tossed his warm up ball right into my outstretched arms. Of course, being a 6 foot white guy made me an easy target...

[Slumberland]

That's awesome about Tarasco. I bet that was cool for him too.

I saw a Swallows game last year and it was fascinating. They've got a lot in common with the Mets, so they're my team.

Totally sucks about 3DS region lock. As soon as someone knows of a workaround that won't brick the system, please share!

[Zlax45]

I picked up PYS 6 on Ebay for 20 bucks....excited for it to get here.

[Slumberland]

One of the main things this PSP version has done is make me a bit angry about the state of it's MLB: The Show counterpart. Pro Baseball Spirits has full presentation, excellent player faces with some real life to them, UMPIRES, and lots of atmospheric cutscenes. I mean, this game looks GOOD.

It's going to take me some time to get comfortable with options, difficulty, and in-game strategy, as the onslaught of Japanese text you're faced with is definitely intimidating. The game mechanics are easy enough to pick up (http://spiritstranslation.com is a great help), I can tell when a pitcher is tiring and manage a bullpen well enough, but the finer things like double-switching and taking advantage of special abilities (players have all sorts of quirks that effect on-field performance, like a pitcher being a notoriously slow starter, etc.) are going to be tough. Still, it's great fun, and the batting cursor feels really good.

There's a HUGE emphasis on fielding ratings, as well as day to day "condition". Most ratings are on a letter system, with the letters graphically denoting secondary positions and ability at said position over a small graphic of the field, so if you know what screen you're on, things start to make sense. Late-game defensive subs are a big part of the game, apparently.

I'm actually trying to teach myself some Japanese (with a really nice iPad app called Human Japanese as well as some Rosetta Stone), so I look forward to seeing if any of the menus and options become a bit clearer over the coming months.

I wish I had some good video of the PSP version to share. It looks really, really good.

[toonarmy]

Thanks for the impressions. Game sounds awesome. It's ashamed that they don't put English in as an option, but I fully understand why they don't. Keep the impressions coming, and if you are able to overcome the language barrier in figuring things out.

[Slumberland]

I made a ton of progress with this over the weekend, as far as menus and options go. The game is ridiculously easy out of the box, but next pre-set called "pro" is actually pretty good, if you like a game without walks (reminiscent of older American titles). Which means you have to go into the custom settings and start piecing together something a bit more like baseball.

On one side, you've got CPU pitching difficulty, which directly correlates on an upward curve to how much the computer will nibble (and throw balls). This guy actually graphed it out:

http://www.spiritstranslation.com/pitch_difficulty.html

Hard-Minus looks pretty good. I've played a few games on Hard and the walks are there (I recently had two consecutive walks on four pitches each) but I should probably back it down to Hard-Minus as I'm getting almost nothing over the middle. There's no variability to the umpires, everything is called very strict.

On the other end, there are several ways to make user pitching more imprecise, but the jury's still out on what's "best". You generally select location with a cursor, then press a second time to coincide with the actual release (there's a contracting circle at the aiming point that illustrates the timing). Unlike The Show, the system isn't enough to replicate pitcher innacuracy. So do you turn off the strike zone? That almost works. You can also turn off the pitching cursor altogether (the timing circle goes away too) and just time the second press off the actual release. The timing of it is easy enough that this is totally feasible. It does makes aiming a b*tch, as all you have to go on is some vague sense of how long you're pressed the left thumbstick to aim the now-invisible cursor. When you hit the corner, it's extremely satisfying. When you get hammered, you're like 'of course I got hit, I can't see what the hell I'm aiming at". Still, this has gotten me the most accurate user walks... but I haven't won a game yet using it. No-cursor pitching, when coupled with "normal" CPU hitting, seem to create something that's harder than "normal" if you know what I mean.

The real calling card of this game is that bat-shaped cursor, the sweet spot of which changes depending on handedness, situation, player condition, and special abilities (which are unfortunately lost on an English speaker). You can toggle between a power (small sweet spot) and contact (larger sweet spot) swing, and the X and O buttons map to a pull swing and opposite field swing, respectively... each with its own optimal timing window. What's cool about the cursor is that it's crazy specific. I mean, unlike The Show, where quality of contact is sometimes a mysterious product of largely hidden forces, your results here aren't mysterious at all. Get under it and pop it up. Get on top of it and hit grounders. Same goes for hitting it off the fists of the end of the bat.

It's hard.

At least once you've got the pitch speed set to at least medium, it is. Which doesn't seem that fast, but it's deceptively hard to make good contact. Keep in mind there are no check swings in this game, which is a bit of a bummer, after how well they've been integrated into The Show.

Another problem is the fielding camera. It's fine in the infield, but on balls hit to the outfield, the relatively close, top-down angle shown actually prevents you from seeing your outfielder or the landing spot until they're (rather slowly) revealed as the camera tracks upward in conjuction with the ball. You can see the direction the ball is heading via the shadow on the ground, and small yellow arrows denote the location of your fielders, but it's never quite enough information to confidently get a jump on the ball. I should look into other fielding cameras, but I believe I've read somewhere in passing that there are none available.

As an aside, did you know that Japanese starting pitchers routinely throw in the neighborhood of 130 pitches?

So I'd say the pluses are:
-Batting Cursor
-Outstanding graphics and atmosphere
-Fun fielding with excellent animations (camera problems notwithstanding)

Drawbacks include:
-Outfield camera issues
-Overly precise pitching
-Settings hell

As a dude in his mid-30's who VASTLY prefers playing things on default (as I'm not interested in basically taking the time to "co-author" a game with the developers) I was hoping to avoid this last bullet point, but a game's gotta have walks. As soon as you go down that rabbit hole, you're dealing with interlocking difficulty systems that defy simplicity, and I'm still wrestling with it. So would it make sense to say that I'm loving the game, but not exactly enjoying it yet? I'm really interested in Japanese baseball, and the brand of baseball that's being presented here feels vastly different than The Show... but I'd be very cautious about recommending it (especially with the high cost of importing). There's a lot of grass-is-greener stuff in conjunction with this game, but what Sony's given us here in the states is sort of awesome out of the box, and while its depths might be slightly shallower, we're still in a better position to appreciate them.

[toonarmy]

Awesome impressions. I actually like the idea of not many walks so the default on that aspect would be fine with me. Game continues to sound very amazing.

[Slumberland]

I actually like the idea of not many walks so the default on that aspect would be fine with me.

Fascinating! What makes you feel that way? If I could get used to that, the default "Pro" level would be a-ok... which would be awesome because the game seems well-tuned with those settings, at least as far as general difficulty and challenge.

[toonarmy]

I actually like the idea of not many walks so the default on that aspect would be fine with me.

Fascinating! What makes you feel that way? If I could get used to that, the default "Pro" level would be a-ok... which would be awesome because the game seems well-tuned with those settings, at least as far as general difficulty and challenge.

I like to play full seasons of my sports games and baseball has so many games to begin with that I am annoyed by a crap-ton of pitches in baseball games that drag them out. I just want to get to the action in baseball video games. I know that walks are an important part of baseball, but the lack of of a realistic number of them in a video game suits me just fine. I can see how a lack of walks would annoy the heck out of people who want complete accuracy and savor the cat and mouse game between pitcher and hitter.

[Slumberland]

You might love this then... the action just zooms along.

I started a season on the default pro settings and am going to let it ride and see what happens. There was a walk apiece in my first game, and that was with the two aces going... so things may even open up a bit on the back end of the rotations without me having to tinker.

[toonarmy]

Sounds good. What are the stats like -- you hitting for a pretty realistic avg, are there too many homers, etc.?

[Slumberland]

I'll let you know as the season progresses and some stats accrue... it's definitely not homer-happy. There's a small ball feel to everything that seems appropriate for the NPB.

It's funny coming across Americans in the game that I didn't know were over there. Look, there's Craig Brazell! And his teammate Matt Murton! And what's this? Brian Bannister?

[Slumberland]

They should call this Ground Ball Simulator 2011, 'cause I cannot get ANYTHING going!

Six games in, I've scored a total of 2 runs. You know how in The Show, you sort of get swept up in tides that sometimes go against you, sometimes for you? There's none of that invisible hand here. Everything is laid bare. My failure to hit is 100% my inability to line up the cursor properly with the incoming pitch.

I did have 10 hits in one game, but only one run. I get a couple people on, I get nervous, and before I know it it's a 4-6-3.

I've learned the symbols for lefty/righty, so I'm finally doing matchups properly. And while Japanese pitchers seem to have higher pitch counts, I keep taking it way too far and injuring my starters.

Have I mentioned that this is a PSP game, and that not only is there a fully realized home plate umpire, but there are first and third base coaches as well? What do they know over there that SCEA is unable to replicate?

[Slumberland]

3 wins, 5 losses, and 2 draws so far in my season. Hitting better as of late, and had a very satisfying win over the Chunichi Dragons where I came back from a 3-1 deficit scoring in the 9th scoring two runs off the closer, then broke it open in the 12th inning for a 7-3 victory.

More and more of the game reveals itself over time. There are automatic lineups that factor in daily condition, and you can choose between a lineup that balances hitting and defense, or one that skews towards offense at the expense of defense.

Still no home runs for me in this season, though I've given up my share. Hopefully they'll come.

[toonarmy]

Appreciate the continued impressions!

[Zeppo]

3 wins, 5 losses, and 2 draws so far in my season. Hitting better as of late, and had a very satisfying win over the Chunichi Dragons where I came back from a 3-1 deficit scoring in the 9th scoring two runs off the closer, then broke it open in the 12th inning for a 7-3 victory.

2 draws, but then you had a 12 inning game also? I'm confusticated!

[Slumberland]

"Unlike North American baseball, Japanese baseball games may end in a tie. If the score is tied after nine innings of play, up to three additional innings will be played. If there is no winner after 12 innings, the game is declared a draw, except in the postseason, where games that are tied after 15 innings must be replayed." -Wikipediaz

[Slumberland]

My surging Swallows have won four in a row to improve to 10-8-2, good for third place in the Central League. I even hit my first two homers of the season with Norichika Aoki in back to back games. Loving this game!

[toonarmy]

Any updated impressions, Slumberland?