PawaPoke 10 Releases 12/6/07 & Looks Amazing

Did the article say anything on possible use of the Touch Screen for anything? Hitting, stealing bases, something along those lines? This might be a game I import for Christmas.

Looks like you can use the touch screen to control base runners after a hit. Most of the time it will just be used as a field display with player attributes and scoreboard.

Yeah, the PawaPoke games have been very good and a lot of fun (with the exception of the first few on the GBC, they were too bland). The DS PawaPoke games may remind me more of the Super NES PawaPro games.

http://www.konami.jp/pawa/poke10/

Official teaser site is up. A full two and a half minute promo is also up to watch just over two months before the game actually releases. This is a very good sign that the game doesn't stink. It sure looks great in the video.

Don't worry about pitch speeds on some footage. They were throwing slow balls, which are only really used to fool bad players online or intentionally walk someone.

Pawapoke had commentary before, but they're advertising the fact that commentary is way more in depth than before. Perhaps it's PSP level.

WiFi has three options. There is an option to play against anyone in Japan(the world), a buddy list, and there's also a ranking area. You can play 3 innings or 9 innings.

Looks like Nori Nakamura's batting stance is in.

Ore Pennant will once again be in this year's version. It's basically a mixture of My Life mixed with Success, but it's only for a couple years, I think. Compare that to the 20 year My Life mode.

Overall looks like a solid title for all the old school fans. The fact that this has more features and modes could make it better than the PawaPota for the PSP.

That's pretty cool, I never have been one for more than one season mode. I just wish that there was a Situation Mode like in the early PawaPro games on the Super NES.

Official site was opened a couple days ago with a lot of info.

http://www.konami.jp/pawa/poke10/index.html

-Stats of NPB players are accurate as of the middle of September.

-Players made in Success can be used in online matches. In a great bit of news, this is how online mode will work. You choose one of the 12 NPB teams as a base team, and you can pick only 3 Success players to enter into that team for online play. This fixes the problem of people filling up teams with super Success players with 165 km/h pitches and all A position players. Not many people played like that, but it was an annoyance when you ran into someone with a team like that in DS Koshien.

-As usual, there are a ton of different modes. They really give you your money's worth.

-Card Yakyu style playing is a lot more in depth than I thought. I wouldn't play it much, but it's nice to have other options.

-Opponents in online play will be determined randomly based on your win-loss record. Of course you can also add people onto your friends list and play them like that. We need to get a JapaneseBaseball.com league up for the handful of people who are gonna buy this.

-Make sure your battery is full or you have quick access to your AC adapter, because people caught switching off their systems will get big penalties in ranking. I hope this isn't the same with connection issues.

-In addition to playing standard Pawapuro style via WiFi, you can also let the computer sim the game or play card yakyu.

This looks pretty good, I'll have to pick it up. I passed on DS Koshien based on your review, if this one is easy to get by without Japanese then I'll definately be importing it. Thanks BMZ

Some news just came out recently. This isn't confirmed, but if it's true, it's some pretty bad news.

-Players can only control batting and pitching during WiFi matches. Defense and substitutions are done by the CPU. The reason listed is so time won't be wasted when you pause the game. Every other online sports game has a time limit for substitutions, so I don't know why they can't do that.

-Games will be called after a 7 run lead.

-Rankings only show top 10 players.

Hopefully these are only for ranked matches and we can do whatever we want for matches with friends.

Any chance we'll see this in the states? I just picked up PP9 and its pretty good although nothing that different from what was in the GBA versions.

I like having the Power Pros MLB but I really want an english portable version.

I think it would sell very well here. They need to stop assuming Americans are not into this stuff.

Not gonna happen. The chances of Pawapuro making it over to the states on console form were slim enough. Pawapoke is even too cutesy for a lot of Japanese gamers. I highly doubt there's a chance for it to release in the US.

Official site has been updated with a new promotional video and a commercial.

-They show video of the new RPG style Success Mode, which looks ridiculous. It's going to add a lot of replay value to a game already overflowing with modes and mini-games.

-Now that we've heard a lot more commentary, I'm confident in saying commentary is equal to PS2 Pawapuro commentary. An amazing accomplishment on the little DS game card.

-Gameplay looks like a weird mixture of PS2(while pitching and batting) and PS1/N64(fielding and running bases). Which is pretty much the perfect combo, IMO. The extra animations in PS2 versions is ok, but they'd sometimes be awkward. I like the throws and catches in the old versions more.

-A pitcher throws a 163 km/h gyroball(SHIGENO?!?!), but it doesn't hop a little bit like in Pawapuro. Looks like the gyro in Pawapoke 10 is equal to Nobi 4. The pitch speed looks great, too. That pitch looked unhittable,especially if it hits a corner.

-Can't believe I didn't notice this before, but the slider moves just like Pawapuro 11, which is a great thing.

-Looks like batters will get hit by pitch on a random basis. Pawapuro and PYS4 always failed to get realistic bean balls. DS Koshien had them, but you had to lean into them. In one shot in the promotional video, you can clearly see a wild pitch thrown and it ends up hitting a batter who didn't lean into it.

It seems like this is THE game to get until PYS5 comes out for PS3. Pawapuro 14 Ketteiban is going to be weak. They say that they listened to fans and fixed things, but where is the online support? Where are the site updates? Where are the videos? If they didn't fix anything after 13, they're completely oblivious. The only info they have out, including in Famitsu this past week, is that there's a new Success scenario with the Japanese national team. That's it. That's all they're relying on to get sales.

Pawapoke, on the other hand, is updating their official site on a regular basis. They've released two huge promotional videos, as well as the commercial. In fact, their slogan for this year's game is...

"We've made a fun yakyu game!"

"Omoshiroi yakyu game ga dekimashita!"

Which is basically Pawapoke team acknowledging the crappiness of this year's games. I'm sure they are well aware of what their co-workers at Pawapuro team(and to a lesser extent, Purosupi team) are doing with their respective franchises. It's an interesting slogan to use, and perhaps Pawapoke 10's huge leap in gameplay is a sign that this development team is ready to pick up the ball and run with it. I'm looking forward to this release.

I can't wait for this game. There will never be a great baseball game here in the USA for the DS, just by looking at the abject suck in Major League Baseball 2K7. You can keep MLB 07: The Show, I'll take PawaPoke 10 any day.

Everybody goes through slumps, and hopefully PawaPoke 10 leads to the rebirth of some truly fun PawaPro games.

Yeah, I just pre-ordered last night from National Console Support. Shipping cost 20 bucks for USPS Express, but I absolutely refuse to use UPS(Ground is 8 bucks) after all the crap they've given me in the past. Express got me PYS4 overnight from NYC to Seattle, which is pretty damn good. They also deliver on weekends for Express service.

Someone on 2ch commented about the 163 km/h gyroball in the promo video and said Fujikawa is going to look weak again. This is the way I look at it. For anyone who hasn't played Pawapoke before, the digital batting is very difficult. It's a lot tougher than PS2 digital batting. I'd compare it to PS1 or N64 Pawapuro digital batting. For this reason, the pitch speeds have to be slower than a challenging PS2 game. For WiFi play, this stresses location and pitch selection a lot more than just having a jacked up Success player. If you face someone with such a ridiculous fastball in WiFi, only the very good players will be able to hit them regularly. That is the way it should be. It's not easy to create a 160+ km/h fastball pitcher in Success, so the reward is total dominance over unskilled players, but winning over decent players won't be and shouldn't be cheap.

Now it looks like the first review of the game is out. I'm guessing it's either from a magazine or store clerk.

-The intricacy of the commentary was surprising. This basically confirms that it's PS2 level. DS cards are only around 256 megs, so that's some really good compression.

-The new 3D look has kind of a rough look on the field(as we've seen), but player animations are very smooth.

-Hit balls flew up in the air more than the reviewer expected. In my opinion, I think this is great. Homeruns were very hard to hit in DS Koshien and the latest Pawapuros have had bowling ball physics. It'll be nice to hit some homeruns. From the look of the videos, the physics seem similar to Pawapuro 11 and 12 instead of later versions. Keep in mind that digital batting is very difficult on the DS, so power batting will be more of a challenge. You're going to whiff a lot more than you're used to on analog.

-The baseball term dictionary is very in depth.

-Success is just as difficult as it's been in past Pawapokes.

-The RPG style Success is simple but fun.

-Overall, the game is very good, not mind blowing. It's a full-fledged baseball game in handheld form. About as good as it gets.

And somehow my NDS is not with me until March....

I guess I am going to miss out on all the fun...

Are you in Hong Kong right now or something? That sucks, since I thought we'd be able to play like we did with DS Koshien.

No, still in Toronto.

In fact, if I was in Hong Kong, I'd have my NDS (as my brother actually brought it back to HK with him...=_=).

So I will need to wait until March when I go back for good before I can get my hands on the thing.

I took the plunge and preordered it from Play Asia. Looks really good and online play seems to be top-notch. I might even learn a bit of Japanese so I can attempt to tinker around with the success mode, but I dunno how far that'll go.

Seriously though, Konami should be more aggressive pushing the games in the US. I barely even knew these games existed until MLB Power Pros came out, and I'm positive that this also applies to many other people who tried out that game and loved it.

Yeah, they really have nothing to lose by releasing it on the DS. There's a lot of content and translation would be a lot of work. If they ever want to release an English Pawapoke that's any good in the US, I'd volunteer to translate with a couple other guys. We're about to begin that Pawapuro 6 project soon, so that'll help open some more eyes when that is finally done. If we can edit player attributes, we could also get some attention with Japanese gamers.

Did the reviewer mention anything on the Touch Screen interface? I get the feeling that advancing runners with the stylus (or even swinging with it) would be very awkward, kind of like switching characters in Jump Superstars.

Like I mentioned a while back, touch screen will only really be used when you're managing your team. This series doesn't use touch screen as a gimmick just for the sake of using touch screen. They use it on things like menus and mini games. The actual in game baseball is used only with the main controls. Seriously, how fun would playing baseball with a stylus in your hand be? You don't need it.

Regarding that project btw, I'm going on vacation starting Saturday, so emailing me would probably be a good idea during that time :P

Also touch screen controls *could* work for baseball, but not for Pawapuro games.

If you know Namco's Netsu Sta engine, I could totally see that working with the stylus. It uses a golf style meter for pitching and there's a real focus on strike zone batting.

BTW, Pawapoke 10 supposedly got a score of 8/8/8/9 from Famitsu. That is an increase of a single point from last year's offering. This is also a significant increase in points when compared to other Pawapoke titles, but Famitsu is also more lenient now.

Ok, here is the story with WiFi matches.

Batting - Manual
Pitching - Manual
Base running - Auto
Stealing bases - Manual
Defense - Auto
Substitutions - Auto

Success players are limited to a maximum of three players, and they can only be from Pawapoke 10. No password entry players from previous games can be used.

Now, the official reason for auto substitutions is to save time that would be wasted if someone paused the game. There's a totally different reason I can think of, though. I can totally understand why they did this, and it'll only benefit legit and honorable players.

Say that you have totally jacked up Success pitchers with 100 MPH fastballs, big breaking balls, A control, and A stamina. If subs were manual, what's to keep you from just using those three guys in a relay whenever you want? Auto subs means that the computer will decide when you've had enough and which reliever should come in, hopefully cutting out possible cheap players.

But then in reality, u SHOULD be using these pitchers to win ball games. I kinda understand what u're saying.

But then if they really apply this theory, then it'll also be applied on people who're using default teams with no superhumans. But in this case the autosub could be throwing out guys that aren't supposed to be in games when the match's on the line. Which would definitely screw it more than leaving this autosub out.

And there are certain situation where different users fit different needs. Some users may want to end a game quick in the 9th with a sayonara homerun, but then there might be others who are not as comfortable with power hitting, and prefers a contact hitter instead. With autosub the user wont be able to choose what's most suitable for their playing style.

I just think this autosub could ruin the game.

I bet you'll be able to alter the way the CPU subs by using arrange or something. Who knows? You should be using all your players, anyway. In a real game, I don't think you'd be bringing out Iwase to pitch in long relief. This'll hopefully add some competition to the WiFi games, as the lower quality relievers definitely have a higher possibility of giving up runs.

Honestly, the prospect of facing three straight 160 km/h pitchers with maxed out sliders doesn't excite me. I'd rather deal with adapting my game to fit the autosubbing than deal with a cheap player like that. I know you don't have a PS3, but this is what playing MLB2K7 online is like. People will put starters in the bullpen, use closers for two innings, etc. It's not fun, even if you beat the other guy.

I think adapting to a computer manager's moves seems kind of interesting in a heated confrontation with another player. It'll definitely weed out the quality players from the pretenders. You can't tell me that someone who can get outs with Komiyama isn't the man. Hehe.

Komiyama's retired, no? hehehe

And THE SHAKE just rules, ha!

Well, even tho I am not sure how good this will turn out, I think I like the idea of not facing 3 160 max slider pitchers. U also know how I hated hitting sliders from our few matches we had.

There's a chance I can get my hand on my NDS around the time the game comes out...

I will see what I can do. If I am able to get it, then maybe we can have a few matches like before. I still remember we combined for some 35 k's or something in one of our match, hehe.

Correction on my preorder. I cancelled my NCS order and went with PlayAsia. I've ordered from PlayAsia the past couple times with great results, since I've been living in Seattle for a couple years now. PlayAsia will usually ship out games a bit earlier than store dates and is highly recommended for people on the west coast or mountain area.

I ordered from NCS just by pure habit, since I always ordered from them when I lived in Illinois. It's foolish to let the game cross the Pacific, go all the way to NYC, only to come back to Seattle. I'd still recommend them for people in the midwest and east coast. PlayAsia gets a lot of business from all around the world, so I'd rather people on the east coast order from NCS to keep them in business. It's good to have options with import stores. You never know when some game company will shut down a store's operation like Sony did with Lik-Sang.

NCS didn't list Pawapoke 10 as part of their weekly imports, but I emailed them and they said they're expecting it on Thursday. They forgot to list the game on Monday's update. I'd expect PlayAsia to ship out the game within the next two days.

PlayAsia.com has shipped out the game and people in Japan have already purchased the game with their "flying GET!" at local game stores. Here is some information I've gathered from the boards.

-WiFi matches will not have lock-on batting. Thank god.

-Apparently someone has already experienced a few instances of people chickening out when being destroyed in WiFi. This is uncalled for, since games will be called after a 7 run lead. Man up and take the loss. You'll never know if Konami will ban DS friend codes of people who routinely do this. I'm talking over 100 quits while being blown out.

-Impressions so far is that the feel of batting is much improved. Multiple people like it a lot. I'm guessing it's very similar to the PS2 Pawapuro style.

-One person says that for a DS baseball game, he's very satisfied with this. Says it's a big improvement over 8 and 9.

-Here are a few player stats...

Fukudome
Arch - 3
Meet - D(9)
Power - B(128)
Speed - C(10)
Arm - B(13)
Defense - C(10)
Error - C(10)
Popularity, Power Swing AI, Good Throw Accuracy, Base Stealer, Three Hit Batter, Injury, Mood Maker

Darvish
154 km/h
Control - C(149)
Stamina - A(172)
Slider - 4
Curve - 2
Fork - 3
Popularity, Complete Game AI, Pitches Better After 7th Inning, Fastball Life(Nobi), Escape Pitch, Strike Out

Naruse
142 km/h
Control - A(189)
Stamina - A(153)
Slider - 3
Curve - 2
Change - 5
Fastball Life, Flyball Pitcher, Good Tempo AI


In addition to this all, the official site has opened a section to ask questions to the Pawapoke team. This will be up until the end of the month and they will answer all questions. No other yakyu game has ever done this, and this just wins Pawapoke Team more points with me.

I got nothing better to do, so I'll keep updating.

-As you can probably tell from the above post, they've followed Pawapuro and went from the 1-7 contact batting scheme to the 1-15 style. This more than doubles the variety of contact batting cursor sizes.

-Someone uploaded pics of player attribute screens. There still aren't many batting and pitching forms, but it looks like they've multiplied the previous numbers of forms many times over. DS Koshien has single forms for every throwing and batting style. Pawapoke 10 looks like it may have 5 or so for each style. The differences are probably like pitching out of the stretch, winding up, moving the bat around, etc.

-Most people right now are playing Success and commenting on it. The general opinion is that it's difficult, which is pretty much what Pawapoke and old Pawapuros have always been like. The lack of complaints about gameplay lead me to believe that there are no glaring flaws with it.

-This is really funny. If you use a curse word as a name for your original breaking ball, you can't use it WiFi!

-In a bit of bad news for me, being a Lotte fanboy, Kawasaki isn't in the game. They have Johnny Kuroki, though. I'll probably end up making Kawasaki.

-Supposedly the auto defense AI has been improved significantly. This is good news for WiFi.

People have posted lots of player attributes, so in the interest of time, I'm going to shorten them.

Aoki - 3BBACBA
Ramirez - 3ABDDEC
Tanaka(Yakult) - 2DDCEC
Hayakawa - DEBED
Iwase - 146 km/h AE Slider 6 Shuuto 2
Ogino - 144 km/h CE Cutter 2 Curve 4 Fork 1
Munerin - 2BDBDCD
Seung Yeop - 4CADCCC
Hisanori - 147 km/h CA Slider 3 Curve 1 Screw 4
Fujikawa - 155 km/h(with Pawapoke equivalent of Nobi 5) BE Curve 4 Fork 3
Greisinger - 150 km/h BA Curve 2 Change 5 Shuuto 2

Where could I find player attributes? I want to see SoftBank's roster. I can imagine Arakaki's control is at either E or F, lol.

I only have stats from the few players some early purchasers were kind enough to share. Nakata of the Dragons has F control, so you can pretty much bet on Arakaki having E at best. My copy of the game just got into Alaska a few hours ago. I think I should have it some time tomorrow. Gotta love that Hong Kong to Seattle overnight shipping.

Some more news that I can remember reading on 2ch...

-Apparently there are some complaints about CPU batters getting hits easily and mistake pitches being smacked hard for anime style homers. The latter is a staple of Pawapuro, as much as I don't like it. I think the CPU batters getting hits could be because guys aren't mixing pitches and hitting the edges. To be honest, only one person made that complaint so far.

-Some people weren't aware that WiFi has auto fielding and base running, so they were pretty bummed out by that.

-Auto fielding will sometimes have the fielders make errors, but it's supposedly not in a cheap way. Like if you have Jose Fernandez out there, he's going to be more likely to bobble or throw it away than say Ibata or Araki. This'll make choosing starting lineups more important. Having someone like Furuki in the outfield could possibly cost you a run at the expense of better home run potential.

-Unlike previous Pawapoke titles, singles will bring in fast runners from second base now.

-The main thing people are talking about is how difficult Success Mode can be. One person went so far as to call it a masochistic game. I guess this should keep people from abusing Success players in WiFi. It'll probably be very difficult to make super jacked up players.

I'm sorry. Those weren't Lee's attributes. They were Yoshinobu's. I have access to all player attributes right now, but I don't have the actual game, so I can't tell you guys about gameplay and WiFi just yet. Arakaki's control is 85. If anyone wants to know any play attributes before they get their copies, let me know. So far it seems like they're pretty accurate. I don't like F meet for Soyogi, but I'm guessing they took his infield hits into account. In a bit of a surprise, Imaoka is not on the Hanshin roster. They have Shoda, but no Imaoka. Strange.

BTW, you'll have to use Pawapoke Points in order to unlock some Arrange teams, mini games, Arrange functions, etc. It'll give you something to work for. I think Pawapoke Points are won in Success, but I'm not certain.

Good old UPS sent my package to the wrong hub, so it flew over me and went all the way down to California. Looks like I won't have the game for another day. In the mean time, I'll post some pretty interesting things from the Pawapoke dictionary.

-You're two times more likely to error when you catch a ball on your weak side. That means if you're a right handed outfielder, going back and left to catch a ball is less likely to mess you up than going back and right.

-Being a left-handed batter will get you to first base just a bit faster. I never knew they emulated this in Pawapuro.

-Using a pick off move with runners on does have an effect on your stamina.

-Using a fielder at a position he's not listed at will result in him being five times more likely to error than someone who is familiar with the position.

-High arch on players with little power will result in them flying out often.

-Players with A level speed will be equal to D level in the field if their defensive level is F.

-Defensive level has an effect on how high you can jump.

-Popularity not only effects how loud the crowd responds to that player, but it also makes it so CPU managers rarely substitute them out of the game.

-Consistency ability makes it so purple condition is equal to a regular player's blue and blue condition is equal to normal condition.

-Inconsistency ability makes it so red condition is equal to regular pink condition and blue condition is equal to purple condition.

-There is a special ability that makes it so players in Pennant Mode will rarely drop in condition.

-Apparently getting hit with a pitch will make that hit batter drop his condition down to purple. Very cool! This will encourage players in WiFi to not lean into pitches. I never even thought of this. Players with Injury Prevention ability will be immune to this.

-Intimidator ability makes it so the opposing pitcher will use up an extra 2 stamina points against you in your at bat. In addition, his control will go -10 for the batter before you. This is very cool, because it reflects a pitcher freaking out when he sees you in the batter's circle. The negative stamina points also reflects the amount of stress you bring into his life. Hehe.

-Slap hitter ability makes it so you rarely foul pitches off, but it's easier to get hits. Has no effect if you hit for power or have purple condition.

-Multi-hit batter ability will result in your meet going up +2 and power +5. Has no effect with purple condition.

-Patient batter ability will give you +2 meet after two strikes. No good with purple.

-Average hitter ability makes it so your hits have very little trajectory. Poor contact on a pitch can also result in bloopers. This is why players in past titles with this ability had very few homers and lots of RBIs. Iguchi and Tani in Pawapuro 11 come to mind. Has no effect with power swing or purple condition.

-Power hitter is the exact opposite of that.

-Low ball hitter ability will give you +15 power on any power swing on the lower half of the strike zone. High ball hitter is the exact opposite.

-Bases loaded batter ability results in +2 meet and +10 power. Purple=no.

-Sayonara ability results in +20 power in walk off situations.

-Ibushigin(sorry, I have no idea how to translate in American terms) results in your batter getting average hitter with slap hitter. The game has to be at least in the 7th inning with no runners on and the score has to be tied or maximum behind by 2 runs. Yes, this is a very elaborate ability. Not many people have it.

-Pinch hitter ability results in +2 meet and +10 power. Purple cancels it out. In fact, just assume 95% of these are cancelled out if you have purple condition.

-Back to back hitter ability gives you +2 meet if the previous batter got a hit.

-Rally hitter ability gives you +2 meet and +15 power if your team is losing after the 6th inning.

-First pitch hitter gives you +2 meet before the first strike is thrown.

-Strike out batter reduces your meet -4 if you get 2 strikes on you.

-Chance maker results in +2 meet if there are no runners on.

-Mood(circle) results in all players getting +5 power if that player gets in the game. On the flip side of that, if you have Mood(triangle) all players will have -10 power even if that player is on the bench. Ouch.

-Chance batters get +2 meet and +5 power with runners in scoring position. A step above that one is +3 meet and +10 power. Bad chance batters get -2 meet and -5 power.

-Vs. Lefty batters will get +2 meet and +5 power if they are right handed batters. If it's a lefty with the ability, his power won't increase. With a regular lefty batter, power goes down -15 against lefty relievers. All the more reason to use your bullpen wisely. I had no idea it had an effect on power. The jacked up version of this gets +3 meet and +10 power. A poor Vs. Lefty batter gets -2 meet and -10 power.

-Body tackle ability makes it so there is a 50/50 chance of the catcher dropping the ball on a play at the plate. Block ability makes it 100% in the catcher's favor.

-Defensive master ability cancels out the Error attribute and gives you +1 in defense. You also climb the wall faster, I believe. Don't hold me to that one. I'll believe a fence climb when I see it.

-Laser beam makes it so you throw a low trajectory high speed throw to home plate. You can do it from any angle or style if you have at least 12 arm strength, but any lower than that and you need to have a running start before you catch the ball.

-Fighting spirit ability makes it so the opposing pitchers throw more mistake pitches than usual. It's easier to psyche them out. This is a new ability that is part of the "Super Special Attribute" group exclusive to Pawapoke 10. You can only use one per player.

-Can't quite translate it, but there is a new ability that makes the opposing pitcher use up 3 times more stamina than he usually will.

-New "godspeed" ability that increases your speed +2...even if you already have a max of 15. That is some manga speed right there. Dokaben!

-New ability that gives you +30 power.

-New ability that drops all breaking balls the opposing pitcher has 2 levels.

-Kire(sharp break) ability actually makes breaking balls break later than usual. With at least red condition, the level of your breaking balls will go up +1. There is also a version that is the exact opposite.

-Gyroball ability in this game is different. If you give up a couple hits in a row on fastballs, you'll throw the gyro. It's basically like Nobi in that the pitch looks a lot faster than the listed speed. This has to be an ode to the anime/manga Major, as one of the pitchers goes crazy after giving up a few hits and throws gyros towards the end of the game. It's a novelty ability.

-With escape pitch ability, your chances of throwing a mistake pitch right down the middle is 1 in 8. Meatball pitch ability has a ratio of 1 in 2.

-Low ball pitchers get +15 control if they throw in the bottom half of the strike zone.

-Heavy ball pitchers reduce the opposing batters' power by -15 when they throw fastballs. The exact opposite gives opposing batters +15 power.

-Intimidator pitchers bring the batters' meet down -1 and power -10.

-Hothead ability comes into play when you have at least 1 stamina remaining and have given up no more than 2 earned runs. Opposing batters will have power reduced -6 and unlike Heavy Ball ability, breaking balls also have an effect.

-Strike out pitchers have an increase of +1 in velocity and breaking balls when they get 2 strikes on a batter. Doesn't work if the pitcher also has Kire ability.

-Full count ability increases control +20 when the count is full.

-Vs. power batter ability only comes into play when the opposing batter has at least 140 power and/or 12 meet. Control goes up +10 and velocity +2.

-Shiriagari is a distinctly Japanese ability, as Japan has a lot more complete games than in the states. Only works with starters. The 4th inning will see an increase of +8 control and +1 velocity. The 7th inning will see an increase of +16 control and +2 velocity.

-Slow starter can work with both starters and relievers. Control will go down -8 and velocity -1 until the 4th inning.

-Vs. pinch pitchers have +10 control and +1 velocity with runners in scoring position. Reverse for poor pinch pitchers.

-Choke artist pitchers will see -20 control and -2 velocity in the 5th inning and the final inning when their team is winning. They use 1 extra stamina point than usual per pitch. Only works with starters.

-Short fuse pitchers will keep their velocity up when getting hit hard(stars floating around their heads), but their control goes down -10.

-Four ball pitchers get -20 control when they give up 3 balls.

-Pitchers who are poor with runners on will lose -15 control and -2 velocity. They also use up 1 extra stamina point per pitch as long as runners are on.

-Vs. lefty pitchers will go +2 velocity and +1 on breaking balls. Poor vs. lefty pitchers will lose -2 velocity, but breaking balls will see no change.

-Winning pitchers will increase their batters' power +10 as long as the team is losing. Losing pitchers will have opposing batters' power increase +10 when winning.

-Pitchers with strong mentality(utaretsuyoi) will refrain from getting stars around their heads even if they give up a few hits in a row. There is also an attribute that is the exact opposite.

-Popular pitchers are the exact same as popular batters. CPU managers will be hesitant to take them out of the game.

-Quick(circle) pitchers cancel out runners with base stealing ability. Quick(triangle) makes it so every base runner has the same potential as a talented base stealer.

-Relief ace AI is different from nakatsugi(basically Japanese for relief) ace AI. Nakatsugi aces are more likely to pitch in the middle of the game and relief ace would be your setup man. Relief ace is less likely to come out of the game if his stamina is low or he's getting hit hard.

-Iron arm ability gives you +5 velocity. This is a "super special ability", as well as the rest I'll list here.

-Fireballer ability reduces opposing batters' power by -20.

-Ability that makes the pitcher's stamina consumption drop by half. Yuki Saitoh, anyone?

-"Curse" ability that drops all opposing runners' speed by -2.

-"Drive" ability that makes pitchers not get phased at all in any situation. Drops opposing batters' meet by -3.

-Throwing slow balls definitely uses up less stamina than regular pitches, so use those at all times when you're walking someone.

Ok, that was tiring, but that was pretty much all the valid information to be found in the Pawapoke dictionary. There was a ton of info I never even knew. Good stuff.

Pennant Mode seems kinda worthless, since the DS has a weak AI, I guess. A lot of weird stats came up after simulating a full season. Like Ohtonari has a 1.56 ERA with 11 wins and 1 loss. Four players had an ERA under 2.00 in the PL, including Kaneko of the Buffaloes with a 1.09 ERA. Simulated ERA is definitely too low. Most wins were 15 by Arakaki and Kaneko, so that is good. Most Ks was 169 by Naruse. Darvish and Sugiuchi both got 200 innings. Top batting average was .282 by Rick Short, so that is messed up. Most homers is 34 by Yamasaki, then 5 players with homers in the 20s. Nobody with 100 RBIs. Stolen base numbers look decent, though Honda got 57 to top the league. It's a nice distraction, but not a selling point of the game. Sim speed is nice and fast, though the Buffaloes won a lot more than I'd like to see. They were top 3 for the entire season. CL rankings were accurate.

Ore No Pennant looks pretty nice because you can strengthen Success players if you make enough money in that mode. Success is still getting reports of big time difficulty, so you'll probably need to venture into Ore No Pennant.

Pitching forms basically consist of regular wind ups, from the stretch, old school wind up(Paul Byrd style), and leg kick style. Each style has around 7 styles. Underhand has 4 styles and then there's the Nomo style tornado form.

Batting forms just have different generic hand positions with additional wiggling of the bat. Open stances have been mixed with standard style. There are two generic crouching stances. There are single forms for old school Ichiro style, leg kick style, and Nori Nakamura style.

I'll have a translation FAQ for menus up tonight.

What are Matsunaka and Tsuyoshi Wada's attributes? If the game is accurate to the middle of the season, I can imagine that Matsunaka's attributes are terrible.

Matsunaka
4 EBEEEE
Chance 2, Head Sliding, Patience, Injury 2, Chance Maker

Wada
146 km/h
BA
Slider - 4
Fork - 3
Change - 1
Popularity, Release O, Light Pitches(ball flies easily)

Those are Matsunaka's worst stats since....like forever (probably since his first season as a regular). Also Wada's stats are the worst since 11K when he was a rookie.

Can't imagine Wada without nobi 4.

Btw, I am scheduled to get my NDS and the game on Wednesday. If I somehow find a way to fix my long broken wireless router...then maybe we can hook up sometimes and have a game or two.

Will notify u guys when I get the stuffs ready.

Matsunaka deserves the bad stats. He's washed up. It's like watching a great power hitter lose his stuff in Pennant Mode. Soon he'll be G meet C power.

I watched that video on YouTube again of him and Zuleta hitting over 40 homers together. It's like looking at a completely different player. He had this lightning fast uppercut swing and could hit ANY pitch out of the massive Fukuoka Dome. You know Softbank is just hating themselves for signing him to such a long term deal. That slight loss in bat speed makes all the difference in the world.

Hit me up when you wanna play. I'm finding the actual baseball in this game a lot more appealing now that I've played a few more games. The best thing is that I hit a mistake pitch right down the middle with Teppei and it didn't go like 130m. It only traveled 100m, so it's pretty realistic there. I wish Pawapuro would've been like that years ago.

It is sad to see Matsunaka with such terrible stats. I played PawaPoke 6 (Daiei's last gasp before SoftBank bought the team), and seeing Matsunaka now is sad, like you said.

Will you be able to get a FAQ up soon on GameFaqs? I hate to keep on asking you for player stats, especially since I'm most likely going to get the game for Christmas. I just want to see how offensively inept SoftBank is (with the exception of Kawasaki and Ohmura).

Ask me for player stats whenever you want. It's easier than writing them all down for like less than 5 people to be interested in. I'm not going to make a FAQ if there is no interest in the game. There are only two other people on this board who bought the game and they both have a solid grasp of Japanese. It's kinda pointless for me to waste my time making a FAQ. Anyway, if you can read Japanese, I have a site you can look at.

Softbank Roster

Still waiting on my copy... impressions sound pretty good overall, so assuming I get by the language barrier this should be a fun game

I have a couple more gripes to add. When playing in a game, there are way too many pitches that get away from you and too many hit by pitches. They went from having no HBP to having way too many.

Hey, I recently got into this series after playing the MLB Power Pros game. I've since snagged the Dreamcast edition of Power Pros and just got Power Pro Kun Pocket 10 this week.

I seem to be having a problem connecting to the WiFi service, it keeps giving me an error message when I try to go online. Since my understanding of Japanese is very minimal, I'm not sure what exactly the problem is.

Anyone else having/had this problem?

The game will not let you go online until you set up your wifi team. From the main menu, click the second option on the right, then the top option in the next menu. The big purple section with 'Wi-Fi' on it is what you're looking for. From there, choose a team, set it up the way you like (the pictures should be self-explanatory for the 4 different operations, though you may need to experiment to do anything from there) and press the purple button on the bottom, hit the left option, and you're good to go. If you need your friend code, just go online once, then go to the red option in the wi-fi menu and hit the last option in the next menu. Also FYI, the middle option lets you enter friend codes of others, and the top option lets you manage your friends.

Hope this helps.