Darvish the Prospi champion
Naturally I follow San Diego Padres pitcher Yu Darvish on Twitter. Even though this requires me to see some surprisingly horny ads for Darvish-branded water bottles and protein snacks. But it’s all worth it for the times he tells a random fan to eat fried chicken until he dies, or in this case, when he lets the world know he is a king among gamers.
Pro Yakyuu Spirits A is a smartphone version of Konami’s Prospi baseball game series, and it’s unbelievably popular and lucrative. Which is kind of a shame, because I’d like a PS5 version of the game some day, but it’s hard to see that happening when the mobile game makes hundreds of millions of dollars a year.
Anyway, Yu Darvish participated in a tournament for real-life players in the Japanese Central League (even though he’s never pitched in the Central League, but whatever) and he crushed it. With a 101-39 record, Darvish took the tournament and made me wonder for just a second if he’s spending enough time practicing his 15 different pitches for next season.
Everything’s in Japanese, but you can see Darvish talk about his team on his YouTube here, and a previous Darvish tweet about his player collection in the game has 3.5 million views on Twitter.
I played Prospi A on my YouTube a while back. It runs well and is easy to pick up and play, but sure is full of free-to-play junk. Here’s to Darvish putting another few thousand dollars in Konami’s corporate bank account.
Random game of the week – Baseball Fighter
Sadly not a game all about baseball brawls. Baseball Fighter came out for the Famicom in 1991, after the Super Famicom had already been in stores in Japan for nearly a year. For an 8-bit title, it’s pretty impressive how the camera smoothly scrolls from behind the batter to show the fielders without cutting away to a totally separate angle.
YouTube Viewing Guide
- MLB 11 The Show (PS2) Gameplay – Even well after the series had moved onto the PS3, MLB The Show kept churning out quality PS2 versions like this one. Just a nice-looking game.
- MLB Power Pros 2008 (PS2) Success Mode, Part 1 – I’ve started a playthrough of the story / life sim mode from MLB Power Pros 2008. Come join the GreenApples in America’s minor league system as we learn whether our hero will earn the love of his childhood crush Lucy.