Pawapuro 14

There seems to be two scenarios released so far in success mode. One is where u play as the Vulcans (teammates being yabe, rikudo, takeda, and other new faces) in the Revolution League (new league with the likes of Powerfuls, Kysers...etc). The other is a high school koshien scenario where u dun use any player, but instead act as the coach of the team and try to bring ur team all the way to the championship at koshien.

I am guessing this new scenario is mainly used for online play after u developed ur team, like how koshien DS was (to some extent). Hopefully there will be tons of variations in the players on ur team, so u wont be playing a bunch of clones when u play online...more on this mode when it comes out.

http://www.konami.jp/gs/game/pawa/14/player/index.html

this link has the players that will be on the team squad in pawapuro 14...with infos on 4 players from each team just to show everyone the stats and a small introduction. So far I've looked through the first 3 teams in pa-league - Fighters, Hawks and Lions...and their stats dun impress me. They give Kishi a 146 km/h fastball, when the guy's constantly hitting 148 and maxing at 152. Wakui's max speed is also only 144, and have some weak movements on breaking pitches, but a 180 stamina. Where as Darvish only gets a 151 stamina.

They also gave GG Satoh a D meet, whereas Hichori Morimoto, who had some 25 game hitting streak earlier this season, also only has a D.

Marines' Naruse's stats looks like he should be pitching in the farm team as well...

More later on.

2ch is starting to come out with pics and videos. A guy in Taiwan has already uploaded the FMV sequences for the opening and ending. Looks like stores released the game a couple days early, since overall sales have been weak and they need a source of profit. The next generation is shaping up to be pretty terrible, guys. I think I'm also getting older. Hehe. Old Famicom games and PC graphic adventures appeal to me more these days.

So what I can tell you from the one gameplay video I have is that Kataoka of the Lions has a new batting form, as well as Lee of the Giants, Akahoshi of the Tigers, Fernandez of the Eagles, and Woods of the Dragons(looks like it, at least). Generic stances for Tsuyoshi, Matsunaka, Murata, Yano, Araki, Kokubo, and Ohmura.

Presentation looks a lot more like Pro Yakyu Spirits with the dramatic cut scenes and instant replays. Looks like they fixed the framerate issues they had last year during those cut scenes.

This simulation was on Powerful mode, so batters did indeed swing at almost anything in the strike zone. This is realistic, but I hope you can have a good gameplay experience with it.

This should make Shinigami happy. People are reporting that Success Mode is very difficult. They're ending up with G, E, and F rank attributes even after winning it all. As long as it's not all A the first time playing through, I'm happy.

I should be able to give first hand impressions tomorrow.

In case anyone wanna take a look at the video...it's on youtube

http://youtube.com/watch?v=abRnQ9xrRno

They finally gave Kyuji a nobi5....which was something people were ranting about for the past 2 yrs.

Pennant mode seems to be nothing new...as shown from the official site...same scouting system...same trainings...if they dun fix up the slow simulating speed from 13, I am not going to even touch pennant mode.

Mylife is more or less the same....with different girlfriends and some new events I suppose. The main thing about mylife mode in 14 is that they have a new scenario where u're a player in ur final year of ur career before retiring, and u have 5 different goals which u need to achieve during the season before u retire. How fun this' gonna be, I have no idea.

All other modes more or less stays the same.

In the Wii version, there is a mode where u can play with ur mii's. From the look in the promotion video, it doesn't seem that fun, although better than wiisports' baseball...but heck, that thing had no aspects of baseball other than hit and pitch. At least in this u need to use ur nunchuk with ur wiimote to run...how much is it gonna affect the speed, who knows...it could act like the L-R tab from before.

Regarding BZM's post, hopefully the success mode will be hard and challenging but respectable...I dun like the sound of winning it all and having a F ranked player. And hopefully they reduces the luck factor involved in the 2 previous success modes.

Also it seems like they're going back to the 'equip items for better training rate' rather than increasing ur stats permanently. I found from pawamajor and pawapuro 13 that this function is very irritating and makes it even easier to get all A's.

I got the game for PS2, and let me tell you my opinion of the game in plain English: it is garbage. Don't get this game. It is the same s*** as 13, it is impossible to strike anyone out because they all have the batting eyes of god, any pitch that is a borderline ball won't be swung at, and any pitch that is a strike WILL be hit 90% of the time. If you are pitching, and you want your at-bat to be over? Just throw a strike to the COM hitter. I have tried hard, very hard, and hardest, the AI behavior is all the same. This is complete bulls***. The hitting is fun, I will give the game that, the breaking balls seem to have changed and now the breaks come later than usual so it is a lot harder to tell, but again, the sh***y pitching ruins the game and there's no way in hell I will be playing a pennant mode with this broken ass piece of game. F*** YOU, KONAMI, Go to hell.
[Edited by: BigManZam on Jul 17, 2007 10:19 PM]

While I agree with you and share your feelings, the next post with childish cursing will not be published. That goes for everyone responding in this thread. I'll chime in later with my complete thoughts.

Okay, so I am now playing against MEDIUM computer batters and I can strike people out...but I am also winning every game because I am pretty much shutting them out every single game so this is pointless. I really don't understand why they decided to completely mess up the AI and ruin this whole series. Anyone got the Wii version? Any chance the programming is different for that game and the AI is better?

Ok, here are my impressions finally. I got to play the game for a while. Overall, I'd say that it's a very small improvement over 13 Ketteiban, but nowhere close to the quality of 12 and previous. It was best for all of us to not have high expectations, since it took a very long time for pictures and video to show up on the internet. This was probably the only Pawapuro title I've ever not been excited for. When you get burned so much, it's kind of foolish to expect anything better.

Alright, here is a list of good and bad things.

Good

1. Nice number of pitching and batting forms. Maa-kun looks great. Even minor players like Arime and Aoki(Carp) are represented. The downside here is that guys who switched to no wind-up this season still have a wind-up. This shouldn't bother 95% of readers here.

2. Batting is challenging using analog control.

3. Ball physics are fixed from Pawapuro 13. The ball doesn't weigh 10,000 tons.

4. New difficulty level between hard and powerful.

5. Nice touch to have Julio Zuleta's jaw guard on his helmet.

Bad

1. Success Mode isn't easy, but it also isn't very fun. You'd think that the whole scenario would be interesting, but it's poorly executed. Seems like they rushed it. Haven't tried the manager mode, since I've read that it is very long.

2. CPU still swings and connects on anything in the strike zone. Rarely chases pitches out of the zone. Pitching is a chore. Not fun.

3. CPU never strikes out.

4. No Scenario Mode.

5. My Life Mode still has the ugly 3D presentation.

6. Batting with digital control is impossible.

Overall it feels like they messed with the game too much with 13, and their programmers aren't good enough to go back. I really have no idea what they're doing. Konami have pretty much lost any support I ever had for them. Is it just me or is programmer morale down on all fronts?

Guys, I got the Wii version and it seems to be more playable than the PS2 version. My pennant setting is "hard" for COM batting, and "Very hard" for everything else. I am using the Eagles in support of the underdogs and rookie sensation Tanaka. Anyway, I notice that COM do take more strikes, especially if you wrap a backdoor slider, a good amount of times the COM will actually take the pitch. Although I only struck out 3 batters in 7 innings in my first game with Iwakuma (I believe that's his name), I did get 2 strikes to a lot of the hitters. In my 2nd game, I was using a guy called Aoyama (I think), his stats aren't too hot with a 138 kmph fastball, but get this, I struck out 3 batters in 3 innings before getting KO'ed in the 4th due to a bunch of walks and errors (this is the Eagles afterall). I think the key to make COM take strikes is to throw a lot of balls and walk some hitters once in a while. Of course I am speaking for Hard difficulty only, I tried to switch it on Very Hard or Powerful and the computer first strike swinging syndrome is back in full force. But the Wii version is worth it if only for the Wiimote Power mode. The batting is really fun, but the pitching is a complete crap. My Mii in the game turned out to be a Catcher/2B/SS with BFDCC stats. My girlfriend turned out to be a Pitcher and I think a 2B, she has a fastball, curve, and shoot. Good stuff.