Pro Yakyuu Spirits 2014 Impressions

[Spirits Translation]

Hey guys, I downloaded the Vita version last night so for now anything I say applies strictly to that format. You can support our site by clicking through one of the links below (or the affiliate link on our home page)...

Buy PYS 2014 (PS3, Vita, PSP)

Buy Japanese PSN Yen Card (for Digital Download version)

I'll start off with a positive, I know this one is killing Gold so I'll get right to the point: Relay/Cut-offs by the 2nd baseman are fixed. I went into fielding practice and hit some deep shots in the gap with men on base. The 2nd baseman ran into the outfield and took the throw in a perfect position. Now I didn't try every scenario but at first glance it seems fixed to me.

- Ok Konami can you please stop changing the home menu? I have to create yet another version for the site. 2010 was the best because it also had English text. Oh well

- My 2 pet peeves are still in the game: Batting Practice still uses a static camera (so if you hit the ball to left or right field you can't see the ball.) :evil: It would be so easy for them to allow us to use the regular gameplay cameras so???

My other pet peeve is the lack of CPU batters hitting foul balls, this is such a big part of baseball that for some reason is missing here. No, I don't want to watch the foul ball sail into the stands for 20 seconds. Rather, I just want to get into some long-winded battles.

Onto the big one (the new Guess Pitch feature)...

Wow! I was blown away at how little time you have to react if you guess wrong! The vids I saw don't do it justice, when you're actually playing and a fastball comes in outside when you guessed inside good luck! Now on the other side of the coin when you guess right then you can look forward to getting more beach balls! So much so that I'm concerned you PS3 jocks might find it too easy. For the Vita though it's a welcome addition because you can use that extra little help because of the smaller sticks.

Guessing right is not some lame "power up" thing though, you still have to properly square up on the ball. I hit several dribblers and weak grounders when I was off just a little bit. When you do square up it feels great because the animation kicks in, you load up and rip it with more power. I tried hitting a contact swing HR but no luck yet, mostly the "correct guess" smash hits with contact swing have been line drives.

The first game I played was really well balanced (hit variety etc) and I think "Guess Pitch" is a welcome addition to the game. It actually felt a bit stale when I had no guess on...going after that meatball by guessing right is addicting. It confirmed though what I was hoping for: how it makes you work counts & get things in your favor so you can make some guesses. Just like real life when you're ahead in the count you're going to do better. Also, it brings a gambling element to the game; on a 0-2 count trust me you'll be tempted to guess.

On the pitching side Muka is right - you'll have to think twice before using your go-to location. When the CPU guesses right they really lay into it, and when they guess wrong it's cool to watch the awkward swing followed by a weak hit. I think hit variety is improved because of it. And thanks to the animations you can sometimes tell which way they were looking, and that makes you think about how you want to approach the next pitch. I don't know if I've even scratched the surface here, I mean if each CPU batter has a unique "Guess Pitch" AI which is tied to their special skills this could really be something great.

Here's some random notes:

- It looks like CPU Pitching set to Hard- is pretty much the same this year, but early results show more wild pitches outside the zone. You'll still only get a couple pitches right down the middle.

- At times there were some frame-rate hiccups, usually when pitching when the ball crosses the plate. Not a game killer, and it may be tied to the new animations or the "Live" online feature. Messages keep popping up about this "Live" thing, I need to find out how to turn it off. Remember this is Vita version I'm talking about so PS3 may be fine.

- Simming speed in between innings is slower now, apparently so you can follow the action better? I guess some will like and some will dislike this, and perhaps there is a setting to adjust.

- I see a new setting in "User Settings" and "Match Settings." I'll get Muka on that, or post images here since some of you speak Japanese now.

- The custom uniforms available in VP shop are underwhelming. I was hoping for better since you can use them in Pennant mode this year.

- The crowd noise, chants, sound effects & music is more engrossing this year. A subtle thing that I wasn't looking for, but overall I felt more into the game.

I'm off today so will be playing as much as possible. Hit me up if you have any question.

[Knight165]

Thanks for the impressions ST!

Bummer about the foul balls....but everything else sounds great!

M.K.
Knight165

[simgamer0005]

Thanks for the impressions ST. Lack of CPU foul balls is something I never really thought about but come to think about it is true. Though I could have sworn I've seen a few foul ball popups by the CPU and even deep home-run looking balls that went foul, but not too many if any grounders foul. Have you tried all the CPU hitting difficulty settings?

Is there the ability to be hit by a pitch this year? That was missing in PYS 13 right? The guess pitch thing sounds interesting, especially since I use the digital cursor movement option. I "guess pitch" location manually in PYS 13 at times moving the cursor to an area especially when I'm ahead in the count, but this sounds different. Can you turn this guess pitch feature off if you want to?

[Manny_Shevitz]

Quote: Originally Posted by simgamer0005

Thanks for the impressions ST. Lack of CPU foul balls is something I never really thought about but come to think about it is true. Though I could have sworn I've seen a few foul ball popups by the CPU and even deep home-run looking balls that went foul, but not too many if any grounders foul. Have you tried all the CPU hitting difficulty settings? Is there the ability to be hit by a pitch this year? That was missing in PYS 13 right? The guess pitch thing sounds interesting, especially since I use the digital cursor movement option. I "guess pitch" location manually in PYS 13 at times moving the cursor to an area especially when I'm ahead in the count, but this sounds different. Can you turn this guess pitch feature off if you want to?

You will occasionally see foul balls by the CPU, but they are much rarer than they should be. I'm hoping Vern isn't saying that this is even worse in 2014, but just that Konami still haven't properly addressed it. It really is the PYS series' biggest weakness, as far as I'm concerned.

Getting hit by a pitch isn't completely missing from '13, but it happens so rarely that it might as well be. In my full Tigers season, in which I have played every single game, I think I have been hit by pitches a whopping 2 times. And I know some people claim to have never been hit by a pitch in '13.

[simgamer0005]

Quote: Originally Posted by Manny_Shevitz

You will occasionally see foul balls by the CPU, but they are much rarer than they should be. I'm hoping Vern isn't saying that this is even worse in 2014, but just that Konami still haven't properly addressed it. It really is the PYS series' biggest weakness, as far as I'm concerned. Getting hit by a pitch isn't completely missing from '13, but it happens so rarely that it might as well be. In my full Tigers season, in which I have played every single game, I think I have been hit by pitches a whopping 2 times. And I know some people claim to have never been hit by a pitch in '13.

Question for ya : what was the last PYS game where getting hit by a pitch and CPU foul balls were more frequent?

I haven't seen a hit by pitch in PYS 2013 at all, and I've thrown to the maximum inside to test this, curving inside, etc and the ball would just go through the player as the player would do his "getting out of the way" animation. That's interesting that you said you got hit by a twice, I didn't even realize that was possible in PYS 13. Maybe you can get hit by a pitch by the CPU pitcher but you can't hit CPU batters? (is that possible?)

The CPU foul balls are something I never really thought about to be honest, but now that he mentioned it, it's definitely another thing on the short list of things that can be improved about PYS. That should happen more, but at the same time we might not be testing every single CPU hitting difficulty level and all options, where maybe that could happen more. I can't help but think in older versions of PYS the CPU fouled more balls off and hit by pitches were more possible. I'll have to go back and test this.

Back when I played PYS on the PS2, you know, I didn't notice a single bug because the game was so immersive and it seemed such a perfect simulation of baseball. But then again I wasn't really studying the game as extensively as we do now.

[Manny_Shevitz]

Quote: Originally Posted by simgamer0005

Question for ya : what was the last PYS game where getting hit by a pitch and CPU foul balls were more frequent? I haven't seen a hit by pitch in PYS 2013 at all, and I've thrown to the maximum inside to test this, curving inside, etc and the ball would just go through the player as the player would do his "getting out of the way" animation. That's interesting that you said you got hit by a twice, I didn't even realize that was possible in PYS 13. Maybe you can get hit by a pitch by the CPU pitcher but you can't hit CPU batters? (is that possible?) The CPU foul balls are something I never really thought about to be honest, but now that he mentioned it, it's definitely another thing on the short list of things that can be improved about PYS. That should happen more, but at the same time we might not be testing every single CPU hitting difficulty level and all options, where maybe that could happen more. I can't help but think in older versions of PYS the CPU fouled more balls off and hit by pitches were more possible. I'll have to go back and test this. Back when I played PYS on the PS2, you know, I didn't notice a single bug because the game was so immersive and it seemed such a perfect simulation of baseball. But then again I wasn't really studying the game as extensively as we do now.

As far as I can remember, the foul ball issue has been consistently the same at least since I started playing PYS, which was the 2010 version. I haven't noticed any kind of steady improvement or decline in the number of foul balls hit by the CPU.

The last version I remember where getting hit by a pitch was fairly common was 2011. It seemed to get toned down a bit in 2012, and has virtually disappeared from 2013. But like I said, I've seen it happen in 2013, so it is definitely possible. I don't recall ever being able to hit a CPU batter in 2013, so that might not be possible. I'm not sure.

[lhslancers]

Quote: Originally Posted by simgamer0005

Question for ya : what was the last PYS game where getting hit by a pitch and CPU foul balls were more frequent? I haven't seen a hit by pitch in PYS 2013 at all, and I've thrown to the maximum inside to test this, curving inside, etc and the ball would just go through the player as the player would do his "getting out of the way" animation. That's interesting that you said you got hit by a twice, I didn't even realize that was possible in PYS 13. Maybe you can get hit by a pitch by the CPU pitcher but you can't hit CPU batters? (is that possible?) The CPU foul balls are something I never really thought about to be honest, but now that he mentioned it, it's definitely another thing on the short list of things that can be improved about PYS. That should happen more, but at the same time we might not be testing every single CPU hitting difficulty level and all options, where maybe that could happen more. I can't help but think in older versions of PYS the CPU fouled more balls off and hit by pitches were more possible. I'll have to go back and test this. Back when I played PYS on the PS2, you know, I didn't notice a single bug because the game was so immersive and it seemed such a perfect simulation of baseball. But then again I wasn't really studying the game as extensively as we do now.

4 had its share of foul balls and they followed them right into the stands. The camera was a bit wonky but hey. So glad to see relays have been addressed. Waiting on my PS3 version. Hopefully it shows up sometime next week.

[pgoodyO]

Foul Balls and HBPs:

In PYS foul balls by the CPU are a rarity because they extend at-bats, and longer at-bats mean longer play times for games. Something Konami knows that its "main fans" i.e. japanese players, don't want.

HBPs are also a rarity because of how the game is played in Japan. Its is very much frowned upon. When a pitcher hits a batter in an NPB game it almost stops the game because its such a surprise and completely unintended. If you ever watch a NPB game pitchers will go out of their way to apologize for hitting a batter. You will see them bow and tip their cap in resignation for failing to pitch the ball over the plate. Also I think its NPBs influence over Konami. Remember way back when when Madden had the ambulance come onto the field to cart off injured players. Well the NFL said thats not how we want the digital version of our game to be represented. I feel as if the NPB said something similar to Konami regarding HBPs. However if you ever look at simmed stats or stats at the end of a season HBPs are very accurately obtained.

And just to elaborate a little more on the HBPs, since around the mid 90s the MLB HBP leader is usually sitting at the low to mid 20s in total HBPs for a season, whereas the leader in NPB HBPs is around low to mid teens... Granted the MLB does play almost 20 more games...