11 minutes of Prospi PV detailed
I’ve got nothing else going on this week, but the new trailer released for Pro Yakyuu Spirits 2024-2025 (coming out now on October 17th after last week’s delay) was really exciting. So let’s break it down. The video is linked above.
The look
The graphics continue to look incredible in each trailer Konami has put out. There was some concern about over-hype after the first teaser. It wouldn’t be the first time a game had to tune down the fidelity as the game got closer to release. But we’re pretty close to release now and the footage still looks better than any existing baseball game. My personal favorite touch from this video was the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it dent in the outfield wall from a line drive double:
The trailer has a ton of gorgeous close-up shots whirling around their player models and zooming in on their faces. I’m sure there will be some of that in the interstitials between gameplay. But in a way, the more impressive thing is the glimpses we get of normal gameplay, which also look incredible:
The sound
The trailer briefly mentions voice synthesis A.I. used for the commentary audio. I’m not fluent enough to be able to judge the quality, but it’s an interesting idea. A.I. is generally a dirty word on the internet, but this sounds like a pretty good use case for it: generating a huge vocabulary for a video game baseball commentator that sounds human enough.
That would still be taking some amount of paid work away from baseball voice talent, I suppose, if their voice can be synthesized into saying the thousands of different names and phrases involved instead of having to record them all. But I feel bad about the sheer amount of labor that must be necessary to get Boog Sciambi to read every major and minor leaguer’s name out in different tones for a game. At some point, and with the right regulations around compensating the voice talent, using A.I. for this specific case might make sense.
The music throughout the trailer is also a lot of fun. It’s sort of a jazz fusion soundtrack that wouldn’t sound too out of place in a Gran Turismo game.
Later on in the trailer during the Star Player section, it’s also shown that you can choose old BGMs from previous games in the series and control which menus they should play in.
Here’s the main menu from the trailer, run through Google Translate for ya. Most of these modes get covered in detail later in the trailer, so moving right along.
Pennant Race
For whatever reason, the opening slides for each mode are in full English. If only one could dream…
The main announcement for Pennant Race (AKA Season or Franchise mode) is the mode goes on forever. Unlimited years of play.
Another announcement here is the little contact quality graphic on the right side on the screenshot above. Similar to The Show, it gives a description of the contact quality along with the exit velocity and launch angle. These are good to have now that they’ve become pretty well-known metrics in the real game, though I’m not amazing at converting km/h to mph in my head still.
There are also these two guys wishing Sugimoto a happy birthday during his home run:
The trailer then shows off the ability to create and design your own team and stick it in the Pennant Race mode alongside all the real NPB teams. Their example gameplay seems to include an Oakland Athletics team that got fed up with Sacramento and moved to Japan:
The trailer shows off the Draft gameplay (some day I’ll need to read and better understand how the new NPB draft works…) and configuration options for the Pennant Race mode.
Star Player
This is the mode where you control a single player (real-life or create-a-player) day-by-day, a little like Road to the Show. You control your player throughout their games, and get little missions from your manager (the example in the trailer is “hit a home run in this at-bat”).
You increase your player’s “star level” as you play, earning money to shop and dress up Munetaka Murakami in a suit, apparently:
Player customization gets shown off, with the most impressive part being the stance editor. You’re not just choosing from a set of pre-made batting or pitching stances. You’re able to control the degree to which the player’s hands are held from their body and things like that.
There are also dating sim elements, with a small roster of actual-photo ladies to talk to:
Hakkyu no Kiseki
Hakkyu no Kiseki (“White ball miracle”) is a high school management mode, very similar to Eikan Nine in Pawapuro. Unlike Eikan Nine, you can choose to control your own team directly if you’d like, instead of just coaching.
My favorite tidbit: The effective hitting area is different for the metal bats than for wooden ones. Wooden bats have an ellipsis of effective hitting zone, whereas metal ones have a larger rectangle with a line at the absolute sweet spot:
myBallpark
This is an online gacha mode, like Diamond Dynasty, but focused around developing a team and its ballpark. Collect players, develop your team infrastructure, and pit them in simulations against other players on the web. Lots of numbers goin’ up.
The price, release date, and preorder bonus
This slide shows the new release date and the price. The price is 9,790 yen ($69) for the standard edition and 14,850 yen ($105) for the digital deluxe edition. There is no price difference between the PS5 and Steam versions, despite them being positioned as if they are on the slide.
The physical preorder bonus is this special sleeve cover with photos of Shohei Ohtani on the front and back. If you’re late to the party, Pawapuro had the same thing with an Ohtani-ful preorder sleeve and it’s constantly available on auction sites for reasonable prices.
Preordering digitally will get you some free-to-play gubbins for the mobile game, Pro Yakyuu Spirits A. And for 2024-2025, you get items to sign Ohtani for your Pennant Race team as well as a random other current MLB player from Japan (chosen from this list: Imanaga, Kikuchi, Seiya Suzuki, Senga, Darvish, Fujinami, Maeda, Yuki Matsui, Yamamoto, and Yoshida).