Jikkyō Powerful Pro Yakyū series

Jikkyō Powerful Pro Yakyū 13 PlayStation 2 Japanese boxart

Jikkyō Powerful Pro Yakyū (Japanese: 実況パワフルプロ野球 Hepburn: Jikkyō Pawafuru Puro Yakyū, lit. "Live Powerful Pro Baseball"), also known simply as Power Pro or Pawapuro to non-Japanese speakers, is a traditionally Japan-only baseball video game series created by Konami. It is known for its big-headed characters, and addictive arcade-style gameplay. It is long running in Japan, starting out in 1994 for the Super Famicom. The game has also appeared on the Sega Saturn (from 1995 to 1997), the PlayStation (from 1995 to 2003), the Nintendo 64 (1997 to 2001), the PlayStation 2 (from 2002 to 2009), the Dreamcast, the Nintendo GameCube (from 2002 to 2006), PlayStation 3 (since 2010) as well as the PlayStation Portable and Wii (since 2007). The series is within its 15th iteration on home consoles. It is one of the long-lasting titles in Japan with most number of game entries, like Winning Eleven/PES Series (also from Konami), Super Robot Wars Series (Banpresto), and Final Fantasy Series (Square Enix)

The series has also released a spinoff on handheld systems since 1999 under the title Power Pro-kun Pocket, with versions for the Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance, and Nintendo DS. The series originally designed as being the side-story of Success mode of main series, but eventually developing on its own.

On May 12, 2006, a version of Power Pro was released featuring Major League Baseball players, under the title Jikkyō Powerful Major League (MLB Power Pros for American version). The Power Pro series has featured online play since its tenth incarnation on the PS2 and its eighth handheld version on the Nintendo DS (which utilises the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection service). A version of Power Pro was announced for the PlayStation 3, first shown at the Tokyo Game Show in 2005, but it would take another five years for the series to reach the PS3, with the system instead getting Power Pro's sister series, Professional Baseball Spirits for the interim. On August 3, 2007, an American release of the series was announced for both the PlayStation 2 and the Wii.[1] The game, titled MLB Power Pros, was published by 2K Sports,[1] and features a Success Mode set within Major League Baseball.[1]

On July 13, 2009, Konami released a version for the iOS dubbed Power Pros Touch (パワフルプロ野球 Touch lit. "Pawapuro Touch").[2]

The most distinctive feature of the Power Pro series is its odd depiction of characters. The basic design of the Power Pro baseball player (collectively known as "Pawapurokun") is a short figure with an excessively wide head, lacking a mouth, nose, ears with expression being mainly in the eyebrows. Pawapurokun are somewhat similar to the character Rayman, in that they do not have legs and thus their feet are not connected to their body. Pawapurokun do have arms and hands, however, their hands are fingerless and bear more resemblance to a sphere than a human hand. The Power Pro series has used this comic design for every single one of its games.

Main Developments in the Series

This is the major system development in the main series (as well as information of seasons series and MLB Power Pros series), some minor development, such as player's ability, are not included in the development

Pawapuro '94

Pawapuro 3

Pawapuro 4

Pawapuro 7

Pawapuro 8

Pawapuro 9

Pawapuro 10

Pawapuro 11

Pawapuro 12

Jikkyō Powerful Major League

Pawapuro 13

Pawapuro 14/Wii

Jikkyō Powerful Major League 2 (MLB Power Pros)

Pawapuro 2009/NEXT

Released for the 15th Anniversary of the Power Pro universe. Also, numbered versions are abolished since '94. And different unique contents (apart than control and console feature differences) are firstly featured in different versions.

The Success Mode

The Success Mode is the game's most compelling feature , combining role-playing game and life simulation games elements with the baseball sport. The basic objective is to train a generic Pawapurokun to become a professional baseball player. The Pawapurokun starts out with low stats, but often ends up being far better than any of the real professional players included in the game. Generally, Pawapurokun begins as an amateur player (ranging from high school, college or company player) who must become a professional in a certain period (usually three years). The Success Mode takes only about 2 hours to complete, but creating a good player requires an extraordinary amount of skill and luck, giving the game almost infinite replay value. Various random events will affect the growth of your player, for example, getting a girlfriend will allow you to regain motivation easily and receive presents (which drastically improve your player's stats) on your birthday. The amount of stress caused, and number of Pawapurokuns killed off in the Success Mode can be very large, as someone can spend hours carefully training a Pawapurokun, only to see him become severely injured in a car accident, ending any chance of his becoming a good player. "All A's" Pawapurokuns (characters that have all of their stats in the highest range) are particularly sought after, since you can transfer Pawapurokuns from one memory card to the other using a password, and use them in exhibition games (It is noted that password have different formats between Sony and Nintendo side, which means you cannot transfer a password from PS2/PSP to a GC/Wii/NDS/GBA Pawapuro installments, and vice versa). Often a cheat device such as Action Replay is used to generate incredibly strong Pawapurokuns, and several fansites (such as mlbppworld.com) offer to create customized Pawapurokuns in exchange for voting for the site in a web ranking. As Success mode is the most popular major part of the Pawapuro Series, thus there are no ability editing mode in Pawapuro series. (except American installment's MLB Power Pros) which become one of the regular element in other sport games. The plot as well as the storyline of the Success Mode has a profound effect on the game's popularity, as many users would rather replay older Pawapuro games that have good Success Modes than buy a newer installment that has new data and improved gameplay, but a bad Success Mode.

In Pawapuro 14, it is available to become a coach instead of Pawapurokun, leading a high school team to Koshien Champion, it is somewhat an alternate way to create a large amount of Pawapurokuns in the same time. The mode does not require any skill in pitching, catching nor batting on their own, but require planning and tactics skill like other sport-manager game. Later, 14 Kettei-ban firstly features enhancing current NPB players, and placing them as original players.

The main background of Pawapurokun in various installments are below:

For Managers:

Through the background of the story and events of the series usually have connection with the sequel and the pre-sequel (which also gives conflicts, which sometimes major character returns to university or company), but may not be in the same chronological order. For example, 7 is actually the sequel of the events in 9, and 11 is the sequel of 7. But 13 is actually the story paralleling to 10, in which the previous characters appeared. The only exception is Yabe Akio, the original outfielder who appeared in every installment of main series (since 4) who will always be the Pawapuro-kun's first partner no matter what (in which he appeared wearing Nippon-Ham Fighters (now the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters) uniform in the openings in 7, 8 and 9). Currently Konami should have set the main storyline in the sequence of 9 (P3) -> 7 -> 13 -> 10 -> 11 -> 12 -> 14.

In the early series before 10, major characters are spread into different real NPB teams, after the installment 10, four original teams (Powerfuls, Keysers, Cathands, and Yanks) were formed in Pacific League and Central League to room original characters, in which some minor characters would stay in the real teams and being opponents. Two more teams, Vulcans and Busters were added in 14 and formed the fictional third league "Revolutional League" with the prior 4 original teams, according to storyline of 14, the league participated in Japan Series in its fourth year since establishment. Other than team formations, the major regulations of NPB are kept (including the playoff system introduced in 2007 season), only having a shorter Pennant span, in order to keep the gametime under three hours. (Except Pawapuro 9, 10 and 99' which there are more complete matches, or particular mode in 11, 13, 14). Usually players are not needed (and not permitted to) play all innings unless player involves it, being a captain in final stages of the success mode, or the success mode itself does not give status point in practices.

Due to the possibility of copyright conflict towards MLB (particularly before the release of the MLB series after Pawapuro 12), the American League system in NPB series is called the UBL (Possibly named as USA Baseball League) in NPB series, which are composed by three grades: Single Star, Double Stars, and the top-ranked Regular League, similar to the AA, AAA, and MLB system in the real world. Such naming were continued to use in 13 and 14 even the MLB series released, and it is believed to continue to use to make story connections to the other NPB installments since some players are set in the UBL. Currently MLB series' success modes did not feature as a position of MLB player yet (but AAA players in MLB Power Pros 2008).

For another remarks, there are numbers of female players appeared in the series with some of them have remarkable performances. At least four female players in main series have gone through Koshien and turned Pro (through one is never seen as being released later).

Since the 7th installment, usually the opening sequences gives some clues of the storyline of the success mode, especially for the 9th and 10th installments while professional players are only given a very brief cameos, Success Mode characters filled the major parts in the openings.

Sub-series usually featured independent scenarios (or even not featuring success mode), the most renowned one was in the 99' installment, which there has a mode called "Mekkou-Tou", which consecutive battles with all the original teams appeared in the past success mode (whenever appears in main-series, Power Pro Kun Pocket series, or even appeared in the later series), it is still one of the legendary modes that the later series didn't revive.

The Power Pro Kun Pocket series, rather than focusing on real-life baseball worlds, many fantasy elements were added in the series. Since the second installment, two success modes were placed in each installments, while the normal success mode usually featured high-school or professional baseball (unlike main series, fantasy elements are usually mixed in the series), the second success, called "Inner Success" mode, usually placed the Power Pro Kun in the various worlds, varying from the Medieval Ages, ancient times, and to future worlds. Fantasy elements are very uncommon in the main series, but Konami did it in 8, which the (optional) final battle is versus aneroid players which legendary players' data were inserted.

Mylife mode

Due to the great success of success mode, Konami have someway extended to another game mode called Mylife since Pawapuro 10, which can use created player (or using an NPB player, even creating a player at place) to play in the NPB, with another series of events, through there are no more characters from success mode appears in it. The difficulty will change according to your performance in the game.

The known mode in Mylife mode are:

Note: If you choose Yakult Swallows' catcher Atsuya Furuta as your player in the Mylife mode in 13 or 14, playing manager duties are added. However, maximum playtime is reduced to two years. (Atsuya was a playing manager in 2006 and 2007 season, he retired in 2007)

MLB version did not feature Mylife mode until the 2008 installment, in which it is known as MLB Life mode.

The Gyroball within Powerful Pro Yakyu

The Power Pro series raised some controversy in Japan with its use of the term "Gyroball", a term made popular by Japanese pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka when he signed with the Boston Red Sox. The Gyroball appears not as a pitch usable in a baseball game, but as one of the special abilities assigned to particular pitchers. In Pawapuro, pitchers that have the Gyroball ability get increased velocity on their fastball, which is completely different from the actual definition of a Gyroball (a pitch with a spin resembling that of a slider). Power Pro and other baseball manga (which also give misinterpretations of the Gyroball) have given the impression that the Gyroball is an all-powerful strike out pitch, which it is not. Several professional pitchers (including classic players) are given this ability in the game, but Daisuke Matsuzaka is not given the Gyroball ability in any of the game's installments. Daisuke does not appear in Pawapuro 14 as he was transferred via Posting system to Boston Red Sox, through two-seam ball which made closer to his pitching is added in this installment. It is expected Daisuke will return as an Seibu OB somedays (through Daisuke's official password has been released in MLB Power Pros 2), but his ability changes is still unknown at this moment.

Games in the series

Below is a rough list of the games within the Power Pro series. Basically can de divided into certain categories below.

Main Series: Ending with only number suffixs (except '94, the first series), most major system amendments (including success mode) are placed in the main series. Number series are not used after 15.

Season Series: A PlayStation exclusive series, ending with suffix in year number, it is mainly an alternate installment of the main series which is installed in Super Famicom and PlayStation 2. This series has been merged to the main series as the PlayStation had stopped being manufactured. Since 1998, two installments are released every year, one normal version in the start of the season, and one named Kettei-ban(Post-Season version), with the latter have statistic (and sometime involving player transfers) update that reflects his performance in the season. This has become one of the tradition of Konami even after this has been merged in the main series, much like the Winning Eleven series with a more frequently update. Ketten-ban version is cancelled in 15 (But they used on Pro Baseball Spirits instead). However, year series are revived after that.

MLB Power Pro Series: The only series that is officially released in America, it features MLB series instead of traditional Japanese NPB series, through Japanese version is also available. See the MLB Power Pros entry for further details.

It is noted that passwords cannot be used on same installments with different manufacturer's machine (Sony/Nintendo has their own password format). Passwords of Power Pros (Japanese version) cannot be used on American version either.

Main Series

Game Release date Platform
Jikkyou Powerful Pro Baseball '94 11 March 1994 Super Famicom
Jikkyou Powerful Pro Baseball 2 24 February 1995 Super Famicom
Jikkyou Powerful Pro Baseball 3 29 February 1996 Super Famicom
Jikkyou Powerful Pro Baseball '97 Spring 20 March 1997 Super Famicom
Jikkyō Powerful Pro Yakyū 4 14 March 1997 Nintendo 64
Jikkyou Powerful Pro Baseball 5 26 March 1998 Nintendo 64
Jikkyou Powerful Pro Baseball 6 25 March 1999 Nintendo 64
Jikkyou Powerful Pro Baseball 7 6 July 2000 PlayStation 2
Ketteihan Jikkyou Powerful Pro Baseball 21 December 2000 PlayStation 2
Jikkyou Powerful Pro Baseball 8 30 August 2001 PlayStation 2
Jikkyou Powerful 8 Ketteihan Baseball 20 December 2001 PlayStation 2
Jikkyou Powerful Pro Baseball 9 18 July 2002 PlayStation 2, Nintendo GameCube
9 Ketteihan Jikkyou Powerful Pro Baseball 19 December 2002 PlayStation 2, Nintendo GameCube
Jikkyou Powerful Pro Baseball 10 17 July 2003 PlayStation 2, Nintendo GameCube
10 powerful ultra-professional baseball play-by-play Ketteihan 2003 Memorial 18 December 2003 PlayStation 2, Nintendo GameCube
Jikkyou Powerful Pro Baseball 11 15 July 2004 PlayStation 2, Nintendo GameCube
Jikkyou Powerful ultra-11 Ketteihan baseball 16 December 2004 PlayStation 2, Nintendo GameCube
Jikkyou Powerful Pro Baseball 12 14 July 2005 PlayStation 2, Nintendo GameCube
Ketteiban 12 Jikkyou Powerful Pro Baseball 15 December 2005 PlayStation 2, Nintendo GameCube
Jikkyou Powerful Pro Baseball 13 13 July 2006 PlayStation 2
Ketteihan Jikkyou Powerful Pro Baseball 14 December 2006 PlayStation 2
Jikkyou Powerful Pro Baseball 14 19 July 2007 PlayStation 2
Jikkyou Powerful 14 Ketteihan baseball 20 December 2007 PlayStation 2
Jikkyou Powerful Pro Baseball 15 24 July 2008 PlayStation 2, Nintendo Wii
Jikkyou Powerful Pro Baseball 2016 4 April 2016 PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3. PlayStation Vita

Consumer Series

Arcade Series

PC Series

Play Online Series

Mobile Phones

Card Game

Other Appearances

References

  1. 1 2 3 Kohler, Chris (2007-08-03). "2K Sports, Konami Team Up For Kawaii Major League Baseball". Game|Life. Retrieved 2007-08-03.
  2. ↑ "Konami's Power Pros Touch Now Available on App Store". IGN. 2009-07-16. Retrieved 2009-07-24.
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