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Review of YakyuTsuku Online

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Review of YakyuTsuku Online
http://www.yakyutsuku-online.com

So Sega released YakyuTsuku Online a little over a month ago, and I've been playing since two weeks into it's debut. For those who don't know, YakyuTsuku is shorthand for Pro Yakyu Team Wo Tsukurou!(Let's Make a Pro Baseball Team!), a management simulation game that thrived on the Saturn, Dreamcast, and PS2. The last console release was YakyuTsuku 3, which released in 2005 and got one of the highest yakyu game scores in Famitsu history(up there with the best Pawapuros and PYS3). The Tsukurou series is a popular simulation series in Japan, developed by SmileBit, which has you making not only sports teams, but also schools, businesses, champion race horses, etc. Perfect for all the micro-managers out there.

First things first, this game is heavy in Japanese. It's definitely not an option to play this when you have no Japanese knowledge. You need to know Japanese to understand what you're doing, but it's also recommended so you can chat and mail with other managers for trades and what not.

The way previous YakyuTsuku games worked was like this...

1. You're put in charge of a brand new team in NPB.

2. You choose which of the 12 teams you want to command, then you have to cut players in order to make the very low budget given. This usually means you have to cut four or five key players.

3. You're given a couple million dollars to play with, plus TV rights money. You can use this to sign a couple foreigners before July of your first year.

Now, this is how YakyuTsuku Online works...

1. You supply which is your favorite NPB team.

2. Rosters are handled in a baseball card style system. On one side of the card is a picture of the player, the other side will show attributes, 2006 stats, and current pennant stats. Each player is assigned a cost value. 1 being the lowliest of farm hand youngsters and 10 being top level aces(Kazumi Saitoh) and 5 tool superstars(Kosuke Fukudome). There is also a special "rare" distinction given to some cards. Each team is allowed to use only one rare card, if you can find one. It seems the rares are older future hall of fame types. I've only seen Kiyohara, Furuta, and Sasaoka with the rare tag. Furuta has since become a regular card.

3. You are given a choice of which one of two franchise players you want to build the team around. Since I am a Lotte fan, I was given the choice of Kazuya Fukuuura or Julio Zuleta(both with a cost of 7). Since I named my team the Makuhari Fires, I went with Zuleta.

4. After you choose your franchise player, the game supplies you with a bunch of random cards to start your roster. Most of these guys will be no name players, so in order to win in the initial Rookie Pennant, you'll need to watch your stats carefully. Depending on your level of success, you'll advance from Rookie rank to Beginner to Minor and then Major.

Pennants are just as long as NPB seasons, so the end stats will be pretty realistic. Zuleta had over 60 homers in my first pennant and won the MVP, but that was because nobody else had any aces, since they were all beginners. Now that everyone has aces in their rotation, his numbers have dropped back down to Earth.

In a single day in real life, you will play 12 games. The day starts at 7:30 AM and lasts until midnight. The games are managed by the computer, but you determine your success by who you put in the rotation, bullpen, and what your batting order and bench looks like. Batting order plays a big role, since advancing runners is one of the main themes of the game. You can't just put nothing but sluggers in your batting order, or else you'll find yourself getting 15 hits and maybe a single run. It's a very balanced and challenging system.

You can choose to watch your games "digest" style or just skip to the box score. I like watching the games because it shows me who is messing up the batting order or who isn't cutting it in the bullpen. Sometimes the numbers just aren't enough. If a batter is hitting .220 and is advancing runners and playing great defense, it could be worth more than someone batting .270 but hitting into a ton of double plays.

The games are simmed right on the spot so people can get instant gratification with the results. This is also probably why the computer handles the management and the user doesn't. That way, both parties don't have to be online in order for results to be displayed.

You earn points in games by getting hits, recording outs, striking guys out, making web gems, hitting homers, etc. You also earn extra points for winning, getting a complete game, or shutting out the opposition. These points can be used to buy new players or skills. Skills use a puzzle style system in which each player gets a grid. You put the skill blocks in those grids in order to increase attributes. The more stingy you are with the space provided, the more opportunity you have to increase that player's skill. You'll also have a chance to earn new grid blocks if that player is on the top team for a lot of the season.

Skill blocks can be merged for a small cost, and this is how you can attain super skill blocks that have the power to strengthen multiple areas. The ability to strengthen players is usually what separates the top four pennant teams from the rest of the teams.

Speaking of top four, when you finish a pennant and you're at least #4 in ranking, you'll be entered into a Championship Cup. Think of it like the baseball version of the UEFA Champions League. All the top guys from all the other leagues gather to play and see who is the best for that particular pennant season. The top handful of players will earn big points to spend.

The YakyuTsuku team will host tournaments from time to time in the Exhibition area and the top teams will get a chance to take home a few thousand points for participating. Most of these have a 250 team limit, but the bigger ones will have a 1000 team limit. The sign up date is usually a day before the tournament, and spots fill up pretty fast. Think of it like getting a concert ticket.

Another feature making it into YakyuTsuku from the PS2 version is Team Color. If your team has a specific look to the roster, you'll attain a Team Color. Each team is allowed to use two of these and they will increase attributes. Some of these I've seen have been for an all Japanese pitching staff, fireballers, zigzag batting order(LRLRLR...), etc. These will also greatly strengthen your team.

You can trade players of equal cost with other managers. You can only make two trade offers per day, though. Most trades are meaningless, unless you're really hurting in a specific position or are looking to attain a team color. Everyone is going to hold onto the most effective players.

There is a posting system in which you can make bids for 8 top level players. It seems foolish, though. The best players will go for 15,000 to 20,000 points, which is basically a successful pennant worth of points. For the same price, you can probably get 15-20 players. What's more, you could use that money to turn your current roster into all-stars. Even if you get the player, you have to deal with the cost management, since there is a limit to the total cost of your team. As you progress, that limit increases, though.

You can play against other people between pennant games in Exhibition. You can also bet between 100 to 5000 points in this mode. There's also an option to play against regular NPB teams just to test how your roster does.

Communication is a breeze in this game. There's a chat box on the main screen and different colored text differentiate what the source of conversation is. White represents speech to everyone online, green is for trade offers, yellow is for fans of your favorite team(usually only during actual NPB games), blue is for group chats, purple is for exhibition, and red is private messaging. You can PM anyone by right clicking their name. There's also a message board community, though participation is a bit weak. Buddy lists and mail are also available.

Sound is alright, I guess. I've had the sound turned off since the first week. There's no commentary or anything, so what's the point?

Graphics is probably the #1 weak point for this game. All the players have generic faces and there are less individual player motions than the PS2 game. A lot of guys have generic animations, though Sega has updated Zuleta and Micheal with individual motions that weren't there in the beginning. There is going to be a big update later this month and another one for winter, so we'll see how those go down. I have a feeling my Takeshi Yamasaki is going to be amazing when this month's update goes down.

Maintenance is only two hours a week, always while most people are at work or eating lunch.

Pricing is 980 yen a month, which is around $8.50 US. Downloading of the actual software is free. Price could be lower, since it's not like the graphics are super amazing or the game is ridiculously deep. On the plus side, it's a decent yakyu title in a year that hasn't had much since PYS4. You can sit down at the computer and look forward to results everyday. It's basically an 8 dollar title, because you'll usually be able to tell whether you love it or hate it in that month of time. I'm going to be continuing to play it for at least another month. I want to see what the big update will be like, plus I'm tops in the pennant race right now.

If you're a yakyu nerd and know Japanese, go for it. The community is great and the game really rewards people who put in work with stats.
Comments
Re: Review of YakyuTsuku Online
[ Author: BigManZam | Posted: Sep 8, 2007 9:02 AM | CLM Fan ]

Also like to add that condition and battery compatibility play a large part in whether you win games. Condition changes everyday, so if you have a starter who can barely win with the best condition, it'd be wise to switch him out. Once sent down, starters will be locked out from coming back up until the next day starts. Every other player is free to come up and down whenever you want, though.

Battery compatibility is something I'm just discovering. I didn't really give it much thought before, but I think I'm going to be finding myself switching catchers a bit. For example, Kaz Ishii works very well with Atsuya Furuta, but Furuta doesn't work well with a couple Dragons bullpen guys I have. Yoshikazu Kura works decently with everyone, but he's not amazing with any one pitcher. My backup is the Giants' Ken Katoh, since I have a ton of Giants pitchers on my staff right now. When Kura or Furuta get hits late in the game, I want to use a pinch runner. That one run can mean a lot in this game, and stolen bases are huge in order to avoid double plays. It's imperative that backup catchers have good relationships with the bullpen, if you choose to use one. There are no in game injuries, so you don't need a backup catcher, but you'll really want to pinch run for those slow catchers in a tight game.

Seems like batting orders need to be switched around in order to get the most out of your players, since condition plays a way bigger role than I thought. This is probably another thing that separates the top players from the rest of the crowd.
Re: Review of YakyuTsuku Online
[ Author: BigManZam | Posted: Sep 13, 2007 10:10 PM | CLM Fan ]

More additions. The big update that happened a couple days ago was just in preparation for the new cycle that happens after the World Tournament. Each month is treated like a cycle, since that's the payment period. This is how it breaks down.

You have three pennants that last 10 days each. The last day of the month is the day long World Tournament in which you play 11 games against people close to your level. The players who win the most with the best margin of runs scored and runs given up will face off in a best 8 tournament. The tournament ends really late into the night and the next day is the start of the new cycle.

You keep your ranking and player cards, but your cost limit drops from around 135-150 to around 70-90, so it's an all new challenge. When you buy a new player card, that card can be used for two months before it vanishes and you'll have to hope you can buy a new one if you wish to continue. If you buy a card of a player you already have, the only benefit is that the card will automatically have his condition boosted to maximum. This happens fairly often once you've bought over 200 cards.

Exhibition Mode has a new system in the NPC Mode(play against computer AI). If you beat all 12 NPB teams, you earn 3000 points. If you beat Kiyoshi Nakahata's all star team of NPB players, you earn 3000 points. If you beat the winner of the first World Tournament, you get 1000 points.

Guys in chat are talking about an update to player stats in a few hours, but I haven't read about it anywhere. Should be interesting to see how my Yamasaki and Hayakawa turn out. I worry about my Toyoda and Naoyuki Shimizu, though. I really should've made trades for Naruse and Rhodes, since I was anticipating updated stats.

I've been wondering why we've been seeing a lot more newbies lately. Looks like Japanese(by way of Korea) online gaming site Hangame is partnering with Sega and having a two week free trial for both YakyuTsuku and SakaTsuku. If you can read your way through registering and downloading the software, I say go for it.

http://announce.hangame.co.jp/hgj/event/ge/200709a/

Bit of a tip for guys thinking of starting, don't underestimate defense. I don't think it's that big of a deal in the outfield, but infield is important. I used Rick Short at second and we didn't turn many double plays at all. I also used Tanoue of the Hawks at catcher and gave up like 20 hits.
Re: Review of YakyuTsuku Online
[ Author: BigManZam | Posted: Sep 15, 2007 12:16 PM | CLM Fan ]

I have one major gripe with the game so far. The server will kick you off once every two days or so, and when it does that, you can't sign back in for another 5 minutes or so. For some reason, they take the process of logging out very seriously.

Also, today saw everyone on the Hank Aaron server get booted and completely locked out from signing on again. It's been more than two hours since that happened. Sega posted that they're working on it, but it's just really awkward. I guess these are the kinds of things that happen when you're playing an online community based game. At least it's not as much crap as Warhawk is having.
Re: Review of YakyuTsuku Online
[ Author: BigManZam | Posted: Sep 15, 2007 4:23 PM | CLM Fan ]

And as of midnight PST, Hank Aaron server is still down. Sega is updating the situation every two hours or so, but all they're doing is apologizing for not having the situation fixed. Not good at all. I could understand having things down for an hour or so, but it's going to be six hours soon. Let me mention that this is a pay service and Sega began a big free trial and gained lots of press just a couple days ago. Hopefully all the newbies signed up for the brand new Nolan Ryan server like the game advised them to.
Re: Review of YakyuTsuku Online
[ Author: BigManZam | Posted: Sep 16, 2007 12:55 AM | CLM Fan ]

All in all, the server was down for eight hours. As an act of contrition, Sega gave everyone on the Aaron server a few thousand points and 800 more if you logged in before the server died.

Big piece of advice for making batting orders. If you're going to be away from the computer for a while, make the number of lefties and righties fairly balanced in the order. I was wondering why some of my guys were doing so horribly sometimes and going 3 for 3 or 4 for 4 every once in a while. Changing batting orders for righty and lefty starters is very important. You can even have weaker players in there, as long as their condition is good and they bat from the correct side of the plate. I've raised my pennant rank from 11th to 5th within half a day while doing this. You're going to knock out starters and get huge innings.

You figure out an opponent's projected starter by going to his profile page and looking at his lineup. I saw a guy had Shimoyanagi starting, who is pretty much an ace level pitcher. If I used my current order, which had lefties all over the middle of the lineup, I'd probably lose. Instead, since I stacked it with righties, we barely beat him. Playing the numbers like this will reduce the number of Ks you give up and you will also see your team hitting the ball a lot harder. It seems like Julio Zuleta can only get solid singles against righties, but absolutely punishes lefty pitching.

If you can't adjust orders all the time, just assume the opponent is going to send out a righty pitcher. Don't make it all righty, though, because a decent lefty will probably shut you out.

The keys to winning in this game seem to be...

1. Make sure infield defense is somewhat tight.

2. Everyone in the batting order must be at least normal level in advancing runners.

3. You need to have a catcher who is decent with all starters, as well as setup and closer.

4. Use skill points to strengthen weaker players, so you can have the edge when all teams have low cost limits.

5. Be Bobby Valentine and specialize the orders against lefties and righties. Unfortunately, the game doesn't have lefty and righty order specifics, so the order needs to be changed with every game. Hopefully, they fix this.

6. Never use batters below level 60 in batting from 3-6 in the order. Also never use purple level condition players. Try to avoid using blue level, unless they are the Ogasawaras and Kurodas of the world.
Re: Review of YakyuTsuku Online
[ Author: BigManZam | Posted: Sep 21, 2007 4:03 PM | CLM Fan ]

I'd like to correct my comments on "rare" cards. There are rare and regular versions of certain veteran players like Sasaoka, Kiyohara, Furuta, Tatsunami, etc. The difference is that the rare cards can be upgraded with skill blocks, but the results will basically be double what a regular card would get. So if you have a block that increases batting by 3 points, a rare card would be increased by 6 points. The point being that a well upgraded rare card will basically reflect what that particular player was at his prime, and you can also have some amazing players for fairly low cost charged to your overall cost budget.

This game takes a lot of patience. I find myself cursing a lot more than usual when I give up big innings in this game. There are times when your batting order will beat up a pitcher for a lot of runs and some games when you struggle to even get two hits in an inning. Very frustrating. You just have to hope that you can get decent cards, hopefully players who have some pop in their bat(70+ power). If you don't have a few power batters, runs will be very hard to come by. It's difficult to string together lots of hits on some of these aces.
Re: Review of YakyuTsuku Online
[ Author: BigManZam | Posted: Sep 22, 2007 1:04 PM | CLM Fan ]

Sorry for the constant updates for the very few who are interested in this game. I'm literally learning new things about this game every other day, so I feel I have to update this thread.

According to the official YakyuTsuku Online Wiki(URL at bottom), I've figured out why I'm hitting so sporadically. Ok, so this is what you have to do in order to hit decently.

1. Have a good "tsunagari" or advancing of runners. I recommend almost all in the red zone. I'll explain how to do this later.

2. Don't use many people with bad condition. This changes on a day to day basis.

3. Don't expect attributes to always mean a batter will hit no matter what. Pay attention to their actual performance. I've had instances where a terrible batter, Masato Watanabe, ended up hitting over .300 with 4 homers and 20 RBIs for a stretch of the season. I've also had Kentaro Sekimoto at top condition only bat .220, despite batting well for me in the past with the same players around him at the same spot in the order. This is very important. If you see batters struggling to get hits, time to experiment with other options.

Now, this is how you increase both tsunagari and compatibility between the battery. First off, both work identically, so this info works for both equally. Battery obviously means the relation between catcher and pitcher. With batting order, your players will respond to whoever bats next to them in the order. Once you get to #9, it snakes back to #1. That make sense at all?

1. Obviously, whether the players play with each other on the same team in real life will have the biggest effect.

2. The players have the same skill block grid pattern. This usually refers to what kind of player that person is. Speedsters have certain grid patterns, power hitters, rookies, etc.

3. If players are the same age, it will slightly help.

4. If they share the same blood type. A lot of foreigners don't have a blood type registered, so they'll sometimes be hard to work in the order.

5. If they come from the same prefecture of Japan or same foreign country.

Take this for example. Here is my batting order right now. All guys except for Kokubo have high condition and I've been winning by some big margins.

1. Shingo Kawabata(Yakult/20/Osaka/O)
2. Yoshinori Ogata(Carp/29/Hokkaido/O)
3. Go Kida(Carp/28/Fukuoka/B)
4. Wei-tsu Lin(Hanshin/28/Taiwan/B)
5. Benny Agbayani(Lotte/36/America/?)
6. Adam Hyzdu(Softbank/36/America/?)
7. Hiroki Kokubo(Softbank/36/Wakayama/AB)
8. Akihito Fujii(Rakuten/31/Osaka/AB)
9. Ryutarou(Rakuten/31/Osaka/AB)

Now you see all the linking there? Needless to say, that middle of the order is absolutely amazing. Try it out for yourself.

http://www22.atwiki.jp/hondadream04/
Re: Review of YakyuTsuku Online
[ Author: BigManZam | Posted: Oct 16, 2007 7:33 PM | CLM Fan ]

Well, after playing for a couple months and not even checking my games for the past few weeks, I've decided to cancel my membership to YakyuTsuku Online. It's an OK time waster for a month or so, but it's really not nearly as in depth or fun as YakyuTsuku 3(which is what I wanted when I first joined). There's really nowhere to go after you've attained Major level ranking. There's no incentive to keep playing.
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