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Review of PawaMajor2/MLB Power Pros

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Review of PawaMajor2/MLB Power Pros
Since I've had time to play the game for a few days now, I guess I'll go ahead and try to do a review. First off, graphics are slightly better than the first game and definitely better than Pawapuro 14. With the exception of the terrible English announcing, sound is very solid.

Gameplay is where I kinda have an issue. First big issue is no CPU walks. Even if you foul off pitches, it's very difficult to get the CPU to give up a walk. Most major league pitchers will miss their spots on occasion, so this is a big flaw. Walks are a big part of baseball.

Second, I can't quite describe it, but hitting is very different from Pawapuro. It's nearly impossible to hit for power using a normal cursor and digipad control(which is how any hardcore Pawapuro player hits). Normal cursor is very unforgiving in this series, which is why they have the lock-on feature. Maybe it's just me, but I really don't even want to humor the lock-on batting. It just seems cheap. Lock-on level 1 isn't too cheap, so it's a small gripe.

I don't know why, but defense in Pawapuro has truly degenerated in quality since 11. Seems like defense has become less responsive and more clunky like Pawapuro 8 era gameplay. 11 Ketteiban is by far the smoothest of all the games because of all the different animations and overall fluidity of the motions. PawaMajor 2 defense isn't terrible, but it's definitely not the best ever. Throws from the outfield are particularly unresponsive.

Strike zone is way too big. This leads to the first problem discussed with the lack of walks. It would be nice if there were varying strike zones with each game played.

Stats for players and accuracy of rosters are way off. It's to the point that it truly takes away from the game. No edit mode for Japanese fans is inexcusable.

There is only one story in Success Mode and it sucks. They went from making Success players way too easy to way too hard. Way to find balance, Konami. Even if you're an experienced player like myself, you'll make guys with stats around EECCD or 85 MPH D control and C stamina. Which means what? You won't be able to remake any decent players that Konami screwed up. Hurray! In all honesty, I would've rather had the super easy Success Mode.

Completely unnecessary to make Arrange teams in Season Mode cost 100,000 points(50 full games played). It's like the goal of the development team is to piss people off as much as possible. In that regard, they are succeeding in a big way.

Lastly, I'll address the big change to the series in the facial graphics. After playing for a few days, I'm really wishing for Pawapuro-kun's simple appearance back. Why? Well, the hair in this game sucks. You'll also find a lot of guys looking identical. If that's going to be the case, I'd rather just have the traditional Pawapuro-kun characters. Having facial features and hair is just another thing to worry about when you're creating or editing guys. No thanks.

Overall, I give it a score of 8 out of 10, so I guess my review isn't too far off from the Famitsu guys. If this were following Pawapuro 10 or 11, I'd give it a 7. Since it's following such terrible releases, I'm giving it an 8. There really needs to be online play after this game. This is the online era and there is no excuse for a game like this to have no online at all.

Comments
Re: Review of PawaMajor2/MLB Power Pros
[ Author: Guest: wadew | Posted: Oct 10, 2007 3:49 AM ]

I agree about hitting. I think it's harder to hit with the normal cursor because the pitches are faster and break more than they do in the NPB game.
Re: Review of PawaMajor2/MLB Power Pros
[ Author: BigManZam | Posted: Oct 10, 2007 5:18 AM | CLM Fan ]

What NPB game are you talking about? Pawapuro titles before 13 were always very fast with pitch speed. Breaking balls were a lot sharper too.
Re: Review of PawaMajor2/MLB Power Pros
[ Author: Shinigami | Posted: Oct 10, 2007 8:21 AM | FSH Fan ]

I've never quite understand the stuffs with this lock-on hitting in Pawamajor.

It doesn't get as tedious as the Pawapuro ones, the way that u can still miss even in lock-on. But then it's still a mystery why it's the default setting.
Re: Review of PawaMajor2/MLB Power Pros
[ Author: Guest: wadew | Posted: Oct 11, 2007 3:20 AM ]

What NPB game are you talking about? Pawapuro titles before 13 were always very fast with pitch speed. Breaking balls were a lot sharper too.

All I can compare MLB Power Pros to is Pawapuro 11. I've been playing 11 and MLB Power Pros on what I think are the same settings (novice difficulty, normal cursor, pitching cursor set to off in power pros) , and it's much easier to hit in Pawapuro.

The pitchers seem to throw more changeups and less breaking balls. Plus there are more 'mistake' pitches that come right down the middle. I can score about 10-15 runs in 3 innings using those settings in Pawapuro. With MLB Power Pros it's more like 1-3 runs.
Re: Review of PawaMajor2/MLB Power Pros
[ Author: BigManZam | Posted: Oct 11, 2007 5:49 AM | CLM Fan ]

11 isn't as good as the Chou Ketteiban from that year, but I agree with you on the mistake pitches. I played a season with Kintetsu and hit about 20 homers with Masahiro Abe just with mistake pitches alone. The other guys didn't hit so ridiculously well, though. Must've just been luck to get that many mistake pitches. I'd also hit like crazy if I didn't create my own routine with taking pitches and used analog control instead of digital. I really like the balance of the older Pawapuro titles, so check out the old school thread.
Re: Review of PawaMajor2/MLB Power Pros
[ Author: Shinigami | Posted: Oct 11, 2007 9:05 AM | FSH Fan ]

Mistake pitches do seem to fly A LOT more in 11 and 12 than the newer Pawapuros. Heck, I actually grounded into a double play on a mistake pitch, I DIDN'T know how that could've happened.

If u're getting way too many runs, then why dun u change ur settings to make it better?

I was playing a few games on 11K just now, and in the 3 games I played, I scored 3, 6 and 1 runs. I think it's just fine if u tweak it a little with the settings.

As for the settings, I'm doing all Powerful except Tsuyoi batting. No mit for both side, no strikezone.
Re: Review of PawaMajor2/MLB Power Pros
[ Author: Guest | Posted: Oct 12, 2007 6:45 AM ]

I may pick this game up. I've never played a PP game but I love PYS4, despite all of BMZ's quibbles, and it would rock to play an MLB game that actually has decent gameplay for once.
Re: Review of PawaMajor2/MLB Power Pros
[ Author: NiGHTS | Posted: Oct 13, 2007 2:40 AM | TYS Fan ]

I amjust happy that this game even came to NA. I've been enjoying the imports, but I've only played exhibiton simply because of the language barrier. So I am happy now to have the opportunity to play arrange mode and other modes as well.

I like the hair myself. Some players they got spot on like David Ortiz and Kevin Youkilis and some of them are way off....But they should at least have the option next time to set all players to pawapuro-kun if wanted.

Sadly this game will probably not sell well....its really too bad.
Re: Review of PawaMajor2/MLB Power Pros
[ Author: BigManZam | Posted: Oct 13, 2007 6:16 AM | CLM Fan ]

I don't know about not selling. There has been a lot of word of mouth advertising and it seems like all the major game sites like GameTrailers, IGN, and Gamespot are running MLB Power Pros banners.
Re: Review of PawaMajor2/MLB Power Pros
[ Author: NiGHTS | Posted: Oct 16, 2007 12:58 AM | TYS Fan ]

Are there published sales stats for the game? I'm not saying I don't want it to be successful, I'd love to have all PawaPuro games brought over.

I will agree with you though BigManZam on the pitching. CPU Pitchers almost always throw strikes, its ridiculous.
Re: Review of PawaMajor2/MLB Power Pros
[ Author: NiGHTS | Posted: Oct 16, 2007 1:01 AM | TYS Fan ]

Oh I forgot to mention too that I can't stand how Zambrano looks on the cubs, he's has slants for eyes....And Schilling looks like he's 75! Konami don't waste time making Pawapuro-kuns with hair and facial expressions when they don't reflect the player!

Will give them props for the Okajima head bob pitching animation though!
Re: Review of PawaMajor2/MLB Power Pros
[ Author: Guest: Skinz | Posted: Oct 26, 2007 1:06 AM ]

Man, I give up.....The stats are too horrendous to enjoy the game.

On top of that, there is no walks whatsoever in this game. I'm done.....back to Pro Yakyuu for me.
Re: Review of PawaMajor2/MLB Power Pros
[ Author: BigManZam | Posted: Oct 27, 2007 4:03 PM | CLM Fan ]

Yeah, I haven't played it in a while now. It's better than Pawapuro 13 and 14, but I knew that the entertainment wouldn't last. I was reading a Winning Eleven board, since PES 2008 released in Europe. It was scary how similar some of the comments were to our board. They were complaining about Konami ruining the series and how it used to be so good. Pretty crazy. All you had to do was substitute the names and you have the same arguments.
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