PawaMajor Release Thread

Awesome.. its almost here.. Play-asia (where im ordering it from) says its 'preparing order' so ill probably get it shipped very soon, and get it bout a week from now.
Hey BigManZam.. how the hell did u get this so soon..im guessing u live in japan???

Well ive been playing WE10 a heap.. but since its not quite what i expected (the fluidity is kinda killed by stutters n slowdown), i cant wait for this PawaMajor.
Btw.. WE9JL is a must have for footy fans

Just a few questions on the topic at hand, ie. PawaMajor:

1. how bilingual is it.. jeez id love english menus??

2. when u hit home runs etc.. into the crowd..or outta stadium.. particularly with the awesome looking major league stadiums.. is there more detail involved??? eg. hitting certain structures around the stadium..
when i look at the screens.. im like.. 'would love to hit the ball into that part of the crowd ahhahaha and see what happens..

i think in pawapuro12K, sometimes i cant tell if i actually hit the ball outta the stadium..as the ball just kinda dissapears... if that makes any sense

well hope u enjoy it.

Somethings don't turn out the way we hope. Looks like I won't be playing until tomorrow. I'll answer your questions then.

I have my connections. As far as WE10 goes, I think it's great. Of course it's not very fluid when compared to real soccer, but I guess it's all we have for now.

1. PawaMajor is not as bilingual as I'd imagined. The announcing is all Japanese and the menus are all Japanese. In fact, the Season/GM Mode is presented almost like a mix of Success Mode and My Life. There is a lot of Japanese. The menus can be very confusing. I may have to translate this week.

2. I haven't played enough to tell you about homers. Only ones I hit were with Konerko and Dye at US Cellular when I had the easy default settings. What happened there were fireworks automatically going off. The camera work has been improved, too. I'm guessing you'll be able to hit the ball into the waterfalls in KC and into the cove in SF. I've yet to see SafeCo, so I can't say whether the Hit It Here Cafe is in.

Well, I got the game. I can honestly say it feels totally different from the past few years of Pawapuro. It almost feels like a mix of Pawapuro 12 and Pawapuro 8 to me. It's like a whole different team was in charge of this. Let me run down everything I've noticed via my infamous hyphen system.

-Basically all the batting/pitching forms are new. Here are some player specific ones I've noticed so far. Of course we have Johjima, Ichiro, and Iguchi. I also saw Carl Everett, Richie Sexson, Jeremy Reed, Juan Uribe, A.J. Burnett, etc. I can't tell 100% if some of the others are generic or player specific, since I've only seen 4 teams. I also saw different forms for Otsuka, Tadano, and others. Looks like there are tons to choose from, including the old Japanese ones.

-Hockey style masks for catchers are in. Benji Molina had his when I played against the Jays.

-Not as many outstanding plays on defense as I thought, but I've only played 3 full games.

-Some stats are REALLY bad. Jim Thome has F meet, C power, and 2 arch. There will need to be some intense Success Mode sessions to get some decent player mods.

-Batting orders are messed up beyond recognition. Ichiro bats 4th by default for the Mariners, and Johjima bats 5th. Talk about some hardcore bias. Juan Uribe also bats 4th by default for the White Sox. I don't know what made them think that'd be realistic. Swisher doesn't start for Oakland, Anderson doesn't start for the White Sox, and neither does Thome. You think Konami could do some research to see what kind of a career Jim Thome has had.

-You'll hit more foul balls, because there is definitely a feeling of desperation when batting. Some of these pitchers like Harden and Burnett bring some serious heat. I gave up on control pad batting just now, because it's impossible to hit without analog.

-Lock-on batting is on by default, so if you hit too much, be sure to take that off.

-R2 button is what you use to pitch outside on purpose. I guess you use this for intentional walks, too.

-Slow balls, which used to be the default pitch, have now been replaced by the standard four seamer. You press up and R1 to use the two seamer, if your pitcher has one.

-There are default free agents in GM Mode. Some of them include Rogers Clemens, Sammy Sosa, John Franco, and Raul Mondesi. I saw earlier that Clemens and Sosa have their own pitching and batting forms. Clemens has B control and A stamina. Sosa has E meet and A power with an arch of 4.

-Practice mode in GM Mode looks great. They include little animations of your players training at wherever they are, like the batting cage.

-GM Mode is run by a point system, and you use these points to buy equipment for practice, free agents, etc. You need to keep the points up, or else the game ends.

-There are new player animations for strike outs. The MLB players definitely react in a more hostile way when they think a ball is out of the zone and called a strike. In addition, I think they took out four ball animations. Don't know why.

I'm still tweaking difficulty settings. I'm switching to analog batting with normal meet cursor. I'm also turning on the strike zones and increasing CPU batting to Powerful level. I took off lock-on batting, because I felt I could hit a homer every game with Konerko and Dye when I played my first game.

You guys can add Scott Rolen batting lead off and So Taguchi batting #4 for the Cardinals. Unbelievable. What were they thinking? The sad thing is, we won't be able to fix this all, because there are only 8 arrange team slots.

Also, Barry Bonds is listed under the fake name of Giant Gonzalez. What's worse is that his name isn't even available as an announcer call in edit. Konami really dropped the ball with this game in a lot of ways. I think the Pawapuro community is going to let them have it for some of the huge blunders they made. This is what happens when you put out way too many products and don't have the staff to make quality product possible.

I already laughed out when I was looking through stats of each team

Man, they truly need to do some more research, a lot of these stats are just plain ridiculous.

For example, everyone in the world knows that Frank Catalanotto of the Toronto Blue Jays (heck, i just went to the game last nite to see doc pitch a 4 hitter 1 run CG) cant defend. He gets subsituted almost every time when they're leading and changing into a more defensive strategy. However, in the game...he ridiculously have 14 defense and 14 avoid error, which is the same as Vernon Wells, a gold glover.

Carlos Silva, who has one of the best control in the league, has 160ish control, and there's waaaay more pitchers with higher.

A lot of it are pretty screwed, I dunno if I will have the patience to adjust many of them.

Jim Thome was the biggest LOL of the game, his power is even lower than Scott Podsednik, who has no homer in the regular season. Thome is completely unusable

Man, I still aint done looking at the stats, and I am already getting a sense of lack of research and stuffs

I will post more after I played a few games

But so far I dun like what I see

And Sheffield's power is just like a bit above average...arch of 3 and 168 power. Even Cantu has 160ish power, and I never will think Jorge Cantu has the power Sheffield possesses.

Alrite...I will go try out the game and see.

Oh man, your making me nervous with your impressions. Taguchi batting 4th? Ichiro batting 4th? Good lord!

Pujols doesn't even have his own stance. We should learn from this game, if Konami doesn't update their site and gives us barely any info on a game, it means the game stinks. My Life mode would've made this game somewhat passable, but they don't even have that. I'm very disappointed.

Where are the videos? Where's the update? This game should've been marketed way better than this, what happened?

Wow, I'm getting more depressed by the minute reading this... I was looking forward to getting this game, but it seems like it isn't worth the trouble. I haven't really delved into the world of Success Mode and creating corrected versions of players on the normal PawaPuro games, so I'd be really hampered trying to correct some glaring mistakes by Konami...

What are the chances this game would get a Ketteiban treatment? It sounds like from a looks/gameplay standpoint things are OK... are the primary problems stemming from unrealistic stats which could potentially be recoded without significant work by the programmers?

I'll keep reading here before I make any commitments to get this game... this is really a shame... T_T

- Stevie

Did I mention Barry Bonds is white?

Looks like Mark Teixeira has 37 homers at the allstar break. Here's to an 80 homer season! Derek Jeter also got 3rd place in allstar voting, losing to Michael Young. Like that would ever happen in real life. David Ortiz didn't even make it, because there's no ballot for DH.

Konami, I'm VERY disappointed in you.

I'll keep you guys updated as to how horrific the final HR tallies are.

Unfortunately till this day the pawamajor official site didn't even have any videos nor ANY thing like they did with the previous games

heck, they didn't even talk about it much in pawapuro channel, where they update some new infos and journal entries and stuffs about progress in production and things

Played two games, one on all normal settings, the other on all hard. some of the things from it were:

-basic mechanics are pretty close to the previous ones

-i find myself hitting way more foul balls, either pulling them foul or hitting them back, usually. which is a great thing. I rarely get enuff foul balls before

-normal CPU dun really throw balls, they were like pawapuro 12. but hard CPU seems to do a bit better in that category, and those balls aint ones that u can see from far away, they're usually breaking balls that breaks outside the strike zone in the last minute.

-got a high chopper over first base that looked better than the ones from pawapuro12:keitteiban.

-there's some special homerun scene it seems. Mark Kotsay pulled a down and in fastball into the seats, and right when the bat and ball made contact, they changed camera angle, with the camera across the plate, seeing that pulled ball sails right into the stand

-basestealing on normal or hard is still a piece of cake. I stole five times in my M's/A's game (all hard)

-so far dun see any forward momentum throw after running in on a fly ball from outfield. the outfielders all seem to pause for a sec on the spot after catching the ball, even Ichiro or Vlad. Haven't gotten a taste of a sac fly yet, so I dunno if they will keep charging in if there's a runner tagging from 3rd home from a fly ball.

-changeups are waaaay more effective than previous pawapuros. The ball actually sinks a lot later, and has enuff breaks on it to catch batters. Changeups in previous pawapuros were the most useless pitch, they were soooo slow and so easy to lift it wasn't even funny. Nice to see them adjust it

-batters actually chase breaking balls that breaks outside the strike zone a lot more than before. I dun think I ever got any slider or downward breaking ball that hitters will chase and miss his swing in previous ones. But even on hard, they still will chase if u make them lose balance.

that's about it so far from gameplay

as for the modes

-u get points when u play matches or play homerun derby, and then u can use those points in the 'shop' menu to buy ballparks, uniforms, stances...etc

-those baseball cards u can buy from the shop is basically useless. All u can from those are the profile of the player (name, birthplace, age, years in the pro...etc, dun think there's any statistics). But it's done pretty badly. Some of the players aint even in their new team's uniform. All of Jays' new signings (Burnett, Ryan, Glaus, Molina...etc) were all wearing their old jerseys. Heck, Aaron Hill dun even have a pic. It's so lame I dun even want to bother buying any of those cards.

-haven't tried success mode yet, hopefully it will be good, coz I usually spend most of my time on that

-Aside from 'Great Gonzalez' with 245 power, the highest power is 214 from Derek Lee. Even Ortiz and Manny only have 201 and 203. Pujols have both AH and PH, and close to 200 power. Scott Rolen has 200 power, which is tops on the Cards' team. Ohhh, btw, Great Gonzalez is white XD~~~

-In my game the lineups are all pretty close, I dunno why BMZ's one was all screwed up. Nick Swisher did start (altho he only got C power), the batting order for M's is pretty close. Taguchi did not start.

-The US-Japanese metric system only works for ball count and pitching speed. Flying distance is still metres.

Will go play some more later and should be able to give u guys a feel of what success mode is like by then.

Maybe I got a defective copy. I hope so, because Teixiera just hit 82 homers and 222 RBIs in a season. Aramis Ramirez hit 64 homers and 172 RBIs. Basically 30 or so people in both leagues got over 220 hits.

Lol...that's just insane

lemme go and try it out right now and will report when I have the results.

Lol...simulating season mode right now...

guess who won april's player of the month in NL?

Yes, it's from St Louis...no, it's not pujols...

it's....taguchi....O_oa

7 HRs, 20 RBIs

I cant believe what I am seeing.

The great thing about So Taguchi is that he is sooooooo Taguchi.

Seems like my texeira will surpass urs

he already has 25 homers on june 1st

andruw jones has 24 for NL leader

and yay, roy halladay is 2-7 with a 6+ ERA

Season's over.

Well, the stats aren't quite as scary as urs...but it aint really off by that much tho

I traded for Texeira in mid-june (ya...Hilenbrand + Ted Lilly...what a trade huh ^_^;, and he ended up with 175 RBIs and 62 HRs...I suppose if he stayed in Texas he just might reach that 80 HRs mark

Oh ya, Michael Young broke Ichiro's record...with 288 hits in the season...

there were like 10ish guys from each league hitting 200+ hits

and it's weird that while there are a few teams with insane homerun numbers, there's also many team who have like no one over 20 and no 100 RBIs

Gary Sheffield finished the season with 6 homers in 150ish games.

five pitchers have an ERA under 2, and a whole bunch more under 3

The most walks one pitcher threw was....err...65 i think

Five players (Zambrano, Burnett, Santana, Harden, and forgot who) had over 300 K's...

Boston had a .3xx winning percentage, while Yankees was 2nd last in the league just a little above their rival...>__>

Tampa Bay finished 2nd in AL East...dun ask me how...I dun really know...

Jorge Cantu's all-star votes was like 5.5 mil, while A-rod got 3.3 mil...dun even talk about Jeter, I didn't even see his name in the top three. There were no allstars from either the Yankees or Bosox...

Ohh, I also managed to trade the useless Eric Hinske + a minor leaguer for Brad Lidge...

Taguchi was sooooo good that he finished second in team RBI, first in runs, and was in top 10 in NL's RBI ranking as well...batted around .300

Someone tell me how on earth can Taguchi have a Chance 5 attribute?? O_oa

These are just some of the hilarious stuffs I saw from one simulated season from season mode...I dun think I want to continue...>__>

Pretty sad. Maybe PawaMajor is a game we can only play Exhibition style with. Only thing I'm looking forward to now is My Life mode in Pawapuro 13.

There's still success mode...

but then the rest of the things are not good which actually makes it being a bit pointless playing success...

i dunno, maybe i will sell the game later if success mode fails to impress me.

only started a little bit of success...didn't had the time

but already something's bothering me...

every at-bat or pitching jam (in success mode, in non-captain mode, whenever ur character let someone on base, u will take control of him for the inning), it needs to load...something that has never happened before in pawapuro...and it's quite bothersome if u ask me, especially when u're making a batter...

another thing i have no reason y it's there is that when u get a ball in play with two or three runners on base, it will lag a little bit. Not really much, but it's easily noticable.

will try to report more on success mode within this week i suppose...but I miss ikari, tomosawa, aoki and mizuki already >__<

Aah, I see that Ichiro batting 4th Jojima batting 5th thing

It's only correct in exhibition mode. In season mode, the dumb CPU will screw everything around

Scott Rolen was batting leadoff when Taguchi was batting 4th...

Also, Ichiro was at the clean-up spot as well in the allstar game, when there's waaay more power hitters in the lineup

the best two players in simulate game - michael young and mark texeira.

So does this Japanese bias thing go into the pitchers also?

doesn't seem that way

I think Otsuka suck in this game

he's only got a V slider, and no other breaking pitches. Plus his control aint nothing special, and speed i'd say is just average or maybe a bit below average (there's a bunch of guys with B-C control and 155ish km, even some in AAA).

ohka, iriki and saitoh and whoever are there also aren't good as well. Usable i suppose, not there's no bias for them

funny thing is they just took jojima's stats right from pawapuro 12ketteiban and threw it in there. He's one of only a few players with 140-50ish power but have an arch of 4 iirc.

I just got the Gamecube version game and I can't believe it has english announcing. The play by play is a bit choppy, but just having it makes it a lot better for non-japanese players. I've only played it for 15 minutes but I think i'm gonna have a lot of fun with this game. Playing with the Yanks in a Pawapuro game is a almost 9 year dream come true.

If anyone can figure out how to change the numbers from metric to imperial, or any other options to make the game more english friendly, please let me know. I found the english announcing settings in the sound setting options.

The option to change the numbers and some other stuff from japanese/metric to english/imperial is in the bottom right of the main menu screen.

They had the english commentating back in pawapuro 10 in success mode where u can go oversea to america to train. They almost say identical stuffs.

Hmm...found another weird thing...

I just found out that lock-on batting in this game is almost completely useless.

I was playing around with success mode, and was just trying to get a grip on how this one's story and flow is, like I always do with a new pawapuro, so I bought the rookie charm item that turns ur batting into lock-on.

But I still couldn't hit homeruns at will. Seems like lock-on in pawamajor only moves cursor closer to the ball like always, but when the bat contacts the ball it doesn't always act as if it's hit right on the spot...

Dun quite know the reason why they changed it.

I would like to know if GameCube's PAWAPURO MAJOR LEAGUE (Pawamajor)will work with a freeloader in my GameCube. I want to play with this game!!!

I'm playing Season Mode with the Mariners. I simmed the first two seasons, but I'm planning on playing this next one. Everything is set to Hard, except CPU batting, which is Powerful. I use analog control with CPU pitching cursor on and my pitching cursor off. Batting cursor is set to normal.

We won our division in both 2006 and 2007, but failed to advance past the division series. Lost to the Twins in 5 games just now.

In the first year, we got a good draft order, so I got a really good outfielder(DBDCC with 3 arch) with my first pick and a sidearm starter with a 3 curve ball with my second. I also signed Sammy Sosa via free agency and used him to get Akinori Otsuka from Texas in a trade. This would pay off in a big way, because Guardado is awful and Otsuka ended up being one of the top 5 closers in the AL for the past couple years. I gave him a two seamer, just for variety.

After the first year, I ended up dropping Washburn and Beltre, since their contracts were huge and numbers were mediocre. I signed Melvin Mora from free agency to replace Belre. He's not amazing with the bat, but he costs 1/3 of a single year for Beltre.

To replace Washburn, I signed Mark Buerhle via Free Agency, as well as Jamie Wright. Both of these guys would end up winning over 16 games each for us.

For fun, I signed Hideo Nomo, but he's been pretty bad. I also turned one of the young sidearm pitchers into a submariner. I converted our rookie LF into a CF, since Raul is over at left and Reed has no bat.

In the second season, I signed Rafael Palmeiro(love those steroid guys) to be our DH for the season. He ended up being pretty lousy with only 8 homers. Richie Sexson ended up being the top HR hitter in the league with 51. I don't even wanna know how bad his contract demand will be at the end of this season.

Ichiro qualified for free agency, and I didn't have the money to sign him to a huge 3 year deal. I had to let him go and instead got Vernon Wells. Soon after, I traded Wells and 10,000 points(10 million dollars) to the Phillies for Ichiro. Oh yeah! Sadly, a lot of quality pitchers left for FA. Most of them were way too expensive to buy back. We lost Buerhle, Pineiro, and J.C. Romero. I replaced those guys with Bruce Chen and a few other lesser known, but fully capable pitchers.

The big move I made, and hopefully it'll translate to a pennant is at DH. I wanted to get Mike Piazza, but he wouldn't accept a deal, so I got some random power outfielder with no defense. I saw David Ortiz was up for FA, but he resigned with the Cubs. I didn't want to give up, since DH has been pretty weak for us. I ended up offering our A power DH with a ton of cash for Ortiz, and we got him.

BTW, here are some cool things I've seen. There are more ground rule doubles now. Only time I ever had a ground rule double in Pawapuro was with Shiroishi, when he hit it over the centerfield wall at Jingu. I've had a handful of them here in PawaMajor, and I've also seen one that went over foul territory. I also hit a homer into a cool area for the first time. I hit a ball into the pool at Chase Field, and it was VERY satisfying.

I got PawaMajor yesterday (5/11). I've only played the game for a few hours, and here are my intial impressions.

Overall, I'm ecstatic.

Pressing the "Triangle" button lets you view players' individual attributes during a game!!! I love this. At a crucial point in one of my first exhibition matches, I paused the game, went into my line-up menus, and I was able to compare my current batter's clutch hitting and "vs. lefties" abilities with those of my bench players. This is soooo cool.

The other thing that jumped out at me was that Lock-On hitting is now the Default meet cursor setting. "Hmmm...are the gamemakers trying to tell me something?," I wondered.

After experimenting in exhibition games and in practice mode, here's what I've come up with. Bear in mind that this is all subject to change since these are just initial impressions.

Not only is Lock-On hitting now the Default setting, Lock-On hitting is not nearly as easy to hit with as in previous Pawapuros. When I was learning the game on Pawapuro 11 Chou Ketteiban, I used Lock-On batting briefly. But it quickly became much too easy. I switched to Normal batting and never looked back...until now.

**Lock-On batting works best with the CPU's mit cursor turned OFF. Normal batting works best with the CPU's mit cursor turned ON.

Here are my current settings:

CPU Running POWERFUL
CPU Fielding POWERFUL
CPU Batting POWERFUL
CPU Pitching POWERFUL

Human Meet Cursor LOCK-ON
CPU Meet Cursor NORMAL
(I don't know if the CPU's Meet Cursor setting makes a difference.)

Analog batting.

Fielding cursor ON for me, OFF for the CPU.

Human Mit/Pitch Cursor ON
CPU Mit/Pitch Cursor OFF

Now I've never played with CPU Pitching set to POWERFUL before. But in PawaMajor, with Lock-On Hitting and with the CPU mit/pitch cursor OFF, it feels pretty good to me.

I played as the Yankees against the Royals with these settings. I wound up with 8 runs off of about 15 hits, the CPU had 3 runs off of about 8 hits - pretty believable for a Yankees-Royals game. Each team hit 3 HRs - this seems a bit high, but it does happen (especially in MLB). A-Rod hit 2 HRs and a Triple. Yes, a triple! Thank God triples are back!

I also played an All-Star game with similar settings. Both pitchers were over-powering, and I wound up winning 1-0 off of a Tehada solo shot.

Bean balls are in the game too. I've seen David Ortiz get hit in the shin.

Derek Jeter calls time every time he steps into the box, nice touch.

I saw this one really cool new camera angle during post-game highlights. Bobby Abreau ripped a single past the leaping shortstop to left center. The camera angle truly gave you a sense of just how close the shortstop had come to snagging that line drive. I've only seen this once though.

I'm noticing more crazily-colored bats. Pawapuro 11 Chou Ketteiban had a bunch too, but 12 and 12 Ketteiban did not. I'm glad they've returned.

Finally, I noticed that on the cover of the game box it says, "Produced by Hiroshi Tanibuchi." Could this be signicant?

Is there anyway to change the difficulty in-season? The options for some of settings get blurred out once the season starts. I was hoping there would be a option similar to the one in My Life mode in PP12 that allows you to adjust it as you get better.

Hi there,
First off, thanks to you guys and this site for introducing me to this fantastic pawapuro series - alot of my aussie mates (who like myself know little about baseball and baseball videogames) love this game.

Now.. ive finally got to play pawamajor, and im not going into the details like stats etc, as im quite clueless on the game of baseball. I just want a realistic game in terms of gameplay, animation (movement of ball and players), and controls of batting, pitching and fielding.

What i love about this pawamajor are the heaps of stadiums, and unlike pawapuro12K (only other version ive played) there is so much detail to where a ball can be hit. It seems now u can see exactly where the ball ball lands when u hit a homer.. eg top tear or iinto various structures.. in a pool as mentioned eariler or into a cafe etc.. its just AWESOME!!!

Now i dont want to put a negative spin on this game, but when i compare it to pawapuro12K (which i played right after playing about 1 hour of pawamajor) there are a couple of things that make me like pawapuro12K better:

1.Dont know if u guys noticed.. when batting.. the cursor on pawapuro12K is so much more senitive (and hence more useful) than on pawamajor... ie. lets say i have the big hitting cursor (to hit a homer) on... a slight movement of the analog control will make a slight movement on the cursor when playing pawapuro12K. But.. when playing pawamajor.. slight movements on the analog stick have no effect on the cursor... wierd.. initially i thought it was my controller... for me makes hitting in pawapuro12K so much more enjoyable... just wish it had the same stadiums as pawamajor so i could enjoy the aftermath..

2.Check out the throwing.. pitching.. flyballs.. all ball movement in pawamajor.... then play pawapuro12K... pawapuro12K is so much more smoother and fluid... hence the ball phyics look so much better in pawapuru12K. Also pawamajor has quite a bit of slowdown or lag... i think mainly due to the detailed stadiums... im guessing its time for next generation power.

for me.. a ball playing sport has to be seamless and very fluid... so i have to be honest, both of the 2 points ive made kinda lead me toward enjoying pawapuro12K more... i know im a rookie haha but u cant deny that pawamajor is not nearly as smooth as pawapuro12K.

oh well.. ill play both versions.. one for fluidity and great batting sensitivity (controller wise) and the other for its great stadiums and cool teams.

cheers,
steve

Just a quick thought...

Maybe the Pawamajor gamemakers designed this game so that most, or all, of the OBVIOUS steroid suspects don't do very well over the course of a season?!

Again, just a thought.

Sometimes in reality it IS not always that smooth, coz players gotta get a grip on the ball before they throw. pawapuro 12 was kinda too smooth sometimes for me.

The new pick up ball motion by the fielders is a nice addition too.

I have to agree with the slight movement on cursor tho. It's as if the cursor is more stiff now, and kinda harder to make slight adjustment. But right now u can still pull a ball foul even if it's waaay out of the bat cursor, so maybe they did it to make more foul balls, which was a big problem before.

Ball/Strike ratio seems better right now.

I still think they should add in a lock-on batting like previous games, maybe they can leave this lock-on version, but adding one like the previous games would be better too imo. It's good for newbie for them to learn to control the cursor imo.

Maybe I got too used to pawapuro 12's powerful CPU batting, right now it seems pretty easy to get people out. Curveball breaking inside on the batter's hands is SOOO effective. And they swing and miss a lot more on changeups. The fact they actually chases pitch makes it a lot more fun as well. Before u almost always gotta throw a strike to get a K (other than high fastball outside strike-zone on powerswing batters, or high fork/changeup on a 2 strike count).

There's some nice adjustment they made.

But the lagging when bases loaded kinda bothers me.

ALERT.

Forget what I've said about the default Lock-On Batting Cursor. Its still way too easy.

I'm currently experimenting with the Normal and Assisted batting cursors. I'll post my findings and opinions soon.

Shinigami, I agree that even on POWERFUL Cpu Hitting that it often seems easy to retire hitters. I'm considering venturing into uncharted territory - i.e. bumping Cpu Hitting up to those two mythical/untouchable HIGH LEVELS. We'll see...

Also since the Lock-On Battting Cursor is now OUT, forget what I said about bumping the CPU Pitching up.

I feel like such a "tool shed." I might've confused the Lock-On Batting Cursor with the Assisted Batting Cursor. Anyway, I apologize.

And again, I'm currently experimenting with the Normal and Assisted Batting Cursors. Expect a report shortly.

Another thought...

I agree with Steve B that the Analog controls feel a bit sluggish. Observe both the batting and mit/pitch cursors' reactions to Analog commands, and it becomes obvious.

Its a lot like trying to play Winning Eleven/Pro Evolution with the Analog stick.

So I'm beginning to believe that PawaMajor is intended to be played with the D-Pad!

Again, just a thought...

Hey there,
Just to clear things up.. when i said pawamajor wasnt as fluid.. im not talking about how quickly the fielder picks up ball and throws.. because i actually like how no in pawamajor the player first gets the ball in his hands properly before throwing..hence slight delay....

but what i was talking about was fluidity in terms of how ball moves through the air.. first play pawamajor for a few games.. then go to pawapuro12K.. ull notice how much smoother this is in pawapuro12K... even the pitching ball looks smoother through the air...very interesting..

Hi there,
Hey one thing i love.. been playing a fair bit of pawamajor homerun derby.. just to check out the many stadiums.. TRUELY AMAZING!!!

A few couple of the stadiums have a small swimming pool.. and there a small 'ball dunking in water' animation when u hit in these areas... very nice..

There are also a couple of stadiums where the bay is up against the ground.. and so you can hit the ball into the sea.. how awesome is this

Another stadium has trams/buses moving around the back street.. i hit one flush hahaha

there are people who used to sail their boat into those bay area in SF to catch balls that 'great gonzalez' hit into the water.

If its not too much trouble, could you guys post your PawaMajor difficulty settings. I'm having difficulty settling on some.

Not to sound negative, but I'm becoming more dissatisfied with PawaMajor each time I play it.

Its as if in order fit all of those teams and cool stadiums into the game, they had to cut corners on the batter-pitcher interface's fluidity. Now I don't mind a bit of slowdown here and there. Winning Eleven has successfully dealt with slowdown for years. But to allow the batter-pitcher interface to become this choppy...I'm not sure I can continue playing this game. And I'll be crushed if I have to hang this one up because this was one of my most eagerly-anticipated games of the year.

Again, I'd love to see your difficulty settings.

Oh and finally, is anyone out there playing PawaMajor on GameCube? I believe most of us are playing it on PS2. Does anyone know if the GameCube version suffers from the same choppiness/slowdown problems?

I have the GC version and I don't have any slowdown problems. The PSP Pawapuro Portable that I have has slowdown. But that's only in the field not the pitcher/batter interface.

I also haven't noticed any slowdown problems on the GC version.

Any chance someone will make a translation guide or FAQ?

the gamecube version is fine I think.

I have a question..how do you change the options in season mode? even if i start a new season, the computers difficulty settings are blacked out so i cant adjust them. Where do I go to change them?

You can not change them. You have to restart in order to change settings. Yeah, I know.

Oops. Sorry. Didn't see the restart pennant thing. You gotta select the right option when you pick your team. It basically says, "Do you want to start Pennant right away?" Choosing the right option gives you the ability to change all the options before the season starts.

About the choppiness.. its exactly what i meant when i said the fluidity had suffered in this pawamajor version.

I was refering more to fielding rather than batting-pitching. Mind u.. when i play pawapuro12K, there is a noticable difference in all departements.. ie. ball movement through the air is smoother in all aspects of the game including pitching batting etc. Its not a huge difference, but definately noticable.
The thing that annoys me is the major slowdown when there are 2 or 3 bases full... i think it may have to do with the stadiums.

About we10... i think, for me, this is the biggest problem... ie. the slowdowns. Watch any free kick into the box.. or towards goals, the ball will slow down dramatically mid air... heaps compared to we9JL. Also there is the stuttering that occurs when a whistle is blown.. this occurs more as the game progresses..so u probably wont notice it early on.. but for a ball game, of any sort, to have the smallest amount of slowdown is a big problem - ruins the momentum factor which really is why ball games are so good to watch... including baseball.

all i can say.. is bring on the new generation systems.. im hangin for the ps3, so then the programmers cant just say its the hardware's fault..but infact its the coder's fault.

Hope you're rich. Personally, I can't wait for Wii. The ability to make your own batting forms with the remote control batting is too cool. I do a mean Ichiro impersonation.

MikeyRay1, Trunks, and chris,

Thanks for your replies about the GameCube version.

You guys say that the GameCube version seems fine and that you're not noticing any slowdown.

But how does the smoothness/fluidity of GameCube PawaMajor's Analog Batting Cursor compare with earlier Pawapuro versions? I'm asking about the Analog Batting Cursor in particular because its the one aspect of the PS2 version that I cannot accept - its just too lousy.

I also play Pawapuro 11 Chou Ketteiban and 12 Ketteiban for PS2, and their Analog Batting Cursors feel so much more sensitive/precise/smooth/fluid than PS2 PawaMajor's.

So are you GameCube guys saying that there is ABSOLUTELY NO DIFFERENCE in how the Anaolog Batting Cursor moves in PawaMajor compared to Pawapuro 11 or 12? I'm wondering if the GameCube version is superior.

Steve B,

I've noticed the stuttering in Winning Eleven 10 too. The next-gen versions cannot come soon enough.

Hooray!

The official PawaMajor site has been updated!

http://www.konami.jp/gs/game/pawa/major/index.html

The first four items in the Mode Introduction section appear to discuss:

1. The new Strike Zone.
2. The new Meet Cursor, something to do with Power Hitting.
3. The new Meet Cursor, more information.
4. The new Digital option for the Analog stick.

Could someone translate, or just give me the gist of these four items? I've already tried using my translation program, but to no avail. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Through my tinkering/experimenting, I'm beginning to think that batting with the Analog stick set to Digital might be the way to go.

it's nothing special

1. Strike zone is larger than before

2. Depending on the batter's condition, the power-swing cursor will be larger or smaller. So if the power hitters are good condition, then they will be able to hit homeruns easier.

3. U can still hit the ball if it's outside ur batting cursor

4. On digital u can use both the stick and d-pad. It's mainly for people who are used to hit with d-pad but prefers fielding with analog stick.

These updates aint really too good if u ask me. They had like very little info on the different modes, unlike the official site before. Also it's out days after the game's released, so most people already know about the different modes and stuffs.

I suppose they focused too hard to sell MLB to the audiences, thus making other aspects with less detail There's actually just two success mode scenario it seems, and each team got only like one specific characters, while the others + the coach are all the same people. There also seems to be less event as well. And the guts system is WAAAYYYYY too easy to make strong players.

More on success mode later.

Sis-Boom-Bah, Sis-Boom-Bah, DIGITAL, DIGITAL, Rah, Rah, Rah!

Good PawaMajor settings to follow...

I believe I have them now. And its probably not what you expected...

Has anyone else been using these?

CPU Running: POWERFUL
CPU Defense: POWERFUL
CPU Batting: POWERFUL
CPU Pitching: HARD (CPU seems to throw more Balls.)

1P Meet Cursor: LOCK-ON/ CPU Meet Cursor: LOCK-ON
1P Cursor: DIGITAL (GREEN)/CPU Cursor: unchangeable
1P Fielding Cursor: ON/ CPU Fielding Cursor: OFF
1P Mit Cursor: ON/ CPU Mit Cursor: ON
1P Pitch Display: ON/ CPU Pitch Display: ON
1P Strike Zone: ON/ CPU Strike Zone: ON
1P Smiley Faces: Mixed/ CPU Smiley Faces: Mixed

Combining LOCK-ON and DIGITAL seems crucial. You still bat and pitch with the Analog stick, but it has a completely different "feel" when set to DIGITAL.

And if you find hitting too easy on these settings, try turning the CPU's Mit Cursor OFF.

I'm really enjoying PawaMajor with these settings. It has a completely different "feel" than earlier Pawapuros.

Another cool thing I noticed: Jason Varitek made a sliding, feet-first catch of a pop-foul at the backstop. During Varitek's next at-bat, his smiley face went up to bouncing PINK. So making a great defensive play can actually improve your offensive performance.

I've been on an emotional rollercoaster since getting this game. I was initially elated/ecstatic at the prospect of playing Pawapuro with MLB players. But my excitement quickly turned to dispair when I realized that PawaMajor did not play like the earlier Pawapuros to which I'd become accustomed. But after experimenting with the difficulty settings, I'm happy again...for now anyway.

The change of condition is a new system integrated from pawapuro 12. If u make a fine play or hit well or pitch well, ur condition will go up and therefore perform better. And in pawamajor it seems it's even easier to change their condition than pawapuro 12.

However, I usually turn it off...coz for pitchers it becomes pretty annoying...especially when u're playing on powerful CPU batting. Even if it's easier, u're still gonna get hit.

I tried a few games on exhibition when i first got the game, and remember a few times when I was pitching a scoreless or 1-run game until like the 4th or 5th inning, but giving up around 7 or so hits, and already my pitcher's condition went down to worst.

It just seems that they change too easily...and once u move down, I haven't seen any players recovering and moving back up to normal conditions even if they do well after it.

I dun really like it, so I usually just turn it off.

But if u get to the 'norinori' condition, which is a jumping smilie face, that condition is even better than the top condition pink face we used to see in previous pawapuros.

I agree that it seems easier to change players' conditions in PawaMajor. But I like the way the system has been implemented into PawaMajor.

So the bouncing face is called, "norinori"?

Yes, the bouncing face is called 'norinori' condition, whereas the grey crawling face that drops u even lower than worst condition, is called 'damedame' condition. In 12 it only changes to this two, so either u perform very well and goes into the norinori gear, or u perform so badly that u drop to the damedame condition.

I personally liked it more in pawapuro 12. However because of 12's powerful CPU batting, it was hard not to give up hits, so it became even more annoying back then to try to keep ur pitcher just at his normal condition. So I basically turned it off all the time.

Ok, I suppose I can talk about success mode to a fair amount by now. So I guess I will give some brief insights on it.

Firstly, I think pawamajor's success mode is pretty unbalance. It was already a bit unbalance in 12 bcoz there were no practices to increase 'skill' (which is essential for pitchers to increase control), which made increase control a little hard, altho usually u should gain sufficient 'skill' point from other practices. In pawamajor, it is really hard to gain 'spirit' points. In the past there was always a practice just to increase spirit points, now they changed that to a guts practice, which gives u only like 4-5 spirit points per practice as compared to 15-25 before.

These spirit points are important to increase 'avoid error' stat, and also most attributes requires great amount of spirit points. Due to this dumb thing it's sooo hard to give ur character much attributes, unless u dun increase ur 'avoid error' stat and concentrate on giving ur character special attributes.

In pawamajor, there are equipments in shops that increases ur stats, unlike previous ones that just give u bonus when practicing. And these stuffs are all pretty cheap, due to the amount of money u make consistently from ur team's salary, u can basically buy something for every parts and still have tons of money left to buy other items. And with a bat or glove (depending on whether u're a batter/pitcher), u will be able to add power/control/stamina + special attributes to it if u perform well in games. Makes it soo much easier to get stuffs to A, bcoz u dun need as many points to do it, u can get to B13, and then with equipments, can bump it to A14 or even A15, and can use the points on other stuffs.

Also, if u successfully get clear it and get signed with a major league team at the end, u can even have that bat/glove on sell at the store for the characters in the future. I already have a bat that gives meet +1, power +5 and average hitter attribute. So I can buy this and use the points needed for average hitter somewhere else from now on. Which also makes the game a lot easier with the extra bonus u get.

Let's talk about the town. Thank god they took out the powerful town from 12. That one...while it can be awesome if u are patient to set up all buildings in the right way, it's pretty annoying. They kinda went back to the previous one.

There's basically 3 stuffs that will change in this town...and it wont affect that much if u dun do it properly. There's a pizza restaurant that is useful when u're playing the samurai mode (more on that later), a shop that sells equipments and items, and as the story continues, u will get more stuffs to buy.

And then there's dr naomi's clinic - a place where u can invite new items to sell in the shop, and also dr naomi will learn new techniques to help u (e.g. if u work part-time there, u will find some paperworks by "Dr. D", and from that point on dr naomi will be able to perform the dangerous yet delicious operation that people always love, or if u went to her for counselling bcoz u're skipping too many practices (it's a bad status attribute that randomly comes at the start), she will slowly learn to counsell people on it and eventually will master it and be able to take off bad status for u).

While in the past there's always like 3-4 scenarios, this one only have 2 - The American Dream scenario and The Samurai Training scenario. Other than being able to learn a few more pitches (sinking fastball, slurve, and something i dun remember), I'd probably say American Dream is a worthless scenario. There's nothing real special about American Dream scenario. In samurai scenario, u get more salary to buy ur meals every day. By eating these meals, u will increase 3 bars - 'heart', 'skill', and 'life'. Different foods (these foods comes from the pizza restaurant, the more parttime u work there, u will be able to invent new menus to put into ur meal schedule), will give u different level of increase in these three bars. When these bar reaches the top, heart will give u a guts point for 3 straight week, skill will give u sense o (10% cheaper to increase/learn stats/attributes) for 3 weeks, and life will recover ur stamina for 3 straight weeks, then the bar goes to zero and goes back up again from more eating. Other than these three bars and more salary bcoz of the need to buy food, samurai and american dream are basically the same. And while in samurai scenario u will be able to make onigiri urself when u sleep, and also fly back to Japan during the new year and learn urself special attribute, there's really nothing special about american dream other than being able to learn those thee breaking pitches. And also if u dun eat expensive food (which doesn't really make much difference, u just dun raise ur bar as fast), u will for sure end up with more money to spend than the salary they give u in american dream. The effects from the three bars is just tooooo useful.

The story is pretty weak if u ask me, for both scenario u can choose to start with either of the 5 teams in the league - powerfuls, knights, golems, snakes and blackjacks. Each team have one specific character only, and all other characters just follows u around, and 80% will make ur team weaker than it should've been. Mostly due to a character called Marky, who's the closer, I've seen soooo many times the dude blow games in the end, it's pretty annoying. But he follows u around, and u're basically stuck with watching ur opponent come from behind in the 9th to win, unless u're the captain and choose not to use Marky. Story is basically the same for every team, and the differences between each team is really pretty small it doesn't make much of a difference.

alrite, i guess i will stop at this for now.

I wish I could play Success, but my Japanese is probably still not good enough. Drat.

Can somebody tell me if GameCube's Pawapuro Major League works with a freeloader? Thanks.

In which menu do you turn off the condition change?

I plan on posting some PawaMajor translation guides within the next few days.

IIRC it should be the the bottom right option in the general setting menu after selecting ur teams (the place where u change day/night games, innings...etc)

the name for that option is:

メンタルシステム

hope u can see the fonts without any problems.

Thanks for the help!

Are there different camera settings? Pitcher view, etc. If so, where is the menu for it please.

Anyone know where I can see screen shots and gameplay videos of this game? This game looks interesting and cool.

Was kinda bored today and played a bit of pawamajor...

without much effort, i was able to make some crazy monster in success mode...

162 km/h
Control 181
Stamina 156
Two-seam 2
Split Finger 5
H Slider 2
H Shuuto 3
a bunch of attributes

yes, i made this pitcher without any effort at all. Guts system is just too broken...

I seen people create all A + 255 power...

and the bat/mit bug at the end of the game makes it even easier to be strong...

while it's fun to see a troop of monsters, it also kinda take out the fun of the success mode where u would need to be perfect to get some very very good players. In my final two games (president cup), this character when simulated threw a 3-hitter against pawafurus, and then against Padres in the final, he threw a perfect game with 12 K's...-__-||||

Shinigami,

This is a shot in the dark, but would you be willing to make Bonds and Thome? Or if you don't feel like doing it, do you know of any websites with PawaMajor passwords? (I'm assume PawaMajor still uses a password system, although I haven't checked.)

Again if you don't feel like it, I understand. But you helped me out with Nishioka and Imae passwords a while back, and I hope you feel like helping again.

I'm sure others out there would love to play with a Bonds with correct name and skin tone, and with a Thome with ratings that better reflect his entire career and not just his disasterous last season.

And if Success mode is as unbalanced/easy as you say, wouldn't it be fairly easy to create these two guys?

I actually have a Jim Thome who's like this yr's Jim Thome, he was my first character in this success mode. But I was fooling around with stuffs, and ended up making him unable to get to the major league ranks, so he did not have a password.

As for bonds, i dunno how well i can make him, since he IS a little hard i suppose, with the insane power.

I will see if i have time these 2 days to do it or not...if not then u gotta wait for over 2 months, as I will be on vacation, and wont have my PS2 and game with me.

Two month vacation? Dang!

That's the luxury I will have for the final time of my life - summer vacation XD~~~

After this, I probably wont see any break this long, HA.

So I am gonna enjoy every last minute of it, woohoo.

Thought I'd share a great PawaMajor game I just had.

I've set up a League in which I'm the Cardinals and I play every other National League Central team once.

I lost 2-0 to Pittsburgh in Game 1. And Jason Marquis either took the loss or got a no-decision.

In Game 2 against Houston, I was losing 7-1. I was looking to make a comeback, so I was pinch-hitting and running quite a bit.

At some point, it actually made sense to put in pitcher Jason Marquis as pinch-hitter or runner. Marquis has decent batting ability (he hit .310 with a homer and a triple last year), and he has a "C" in running speed (I'm not sure how accurate this is).

I kept Marquis in the game, and he actually pitched pretty well for a few innings. I made a monster comeback from that 7-1 deficit, including scoring 5 runs in the 9th - and Marquis wound up getting the win! ...the very same pitcher from the previous game!

Taguchi was "Soooooo" Taguchi, going 4 for 4 with a homerun. But Pujols got Game MVP for getting the go-ahead R.B.I. with a 3-run homer in the 9th.

It was just one of those games that reminds why I like Pawapuro so much.

PawaMajor impresses me more and more each time I play it. I know some of you guys had issues with the simulation statistics, but when it comes to gameplay -this game does many things better than previous Pawapuros.

**But you can't play it like previous Pawapuros! PawaMajor requires its own unique settings and has its own unique "feel." What I find so brilliant about this is that I can still play Pawapuro 11 Chou Ketteiban with NORMAL and ANALOG batting, but then I can pop in PawaMajor and have completely different experiece with LOCK-ON and DIGITAL batting. Somehow, NORMAL//ANALOG has more of a Japanese flavor and LOCK-ON//DIGITAL has more of an American flavor.

Well, I think you're one of the minority. On this one site that compiles a bunch of user submitted reviews, the average Pawapuro game gets a ranking of around C or so. PawaMajor so far has an F ranking after 20 or so reviews.

Hi i live in japan and have a PS2 from America and i got pawapro on my cell phone and haven't stopped playing it i went all over today trying to find diffrent games i almost considered buying a japanese ps2 but i can't spend that much money on a system just for one game. I was wondering being here if there was anything i could do so i could play one of the new pawapro games i would prefer the japanese pro league instead of the new pawamajor, and i was wondering if anyone had the psp version and how it was cause i was considering also buying a psp. thank you

BigManZam,

PawaMajor initially frustrated me. I bet a lot of those "F" Reviewers did exactly what I did when I first got PawaMajor.

I popped in the game, and played it on the Default settings - Lock-On meet cursor and Analog cursor movement, I believe. But hitting homeruns is too easy on these settings.

So then I tried playing PawaMajor with my Pawapuro 11 and 12 settings - Normal meet cursor and Analog movement. But I didn't like this combo either. PawaMajor's meet cursor is too herky-jerky when set to Analog.

At this point, I was upset. I had been so buttered up for this game and the stadiums looked amazing, yet I couldn't seem to find good, fun settings.

I began experimenting in Practice Mode. And I soon discovered that the option to Digitally move the meet cursor with the Left Analog stick was added for a reason. Digital cursor movement with the Left Analog stick works beautifully in PawaMajor, in my opinion. True, it gives this game a completely different feel than other Pawapuros. But I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing.

I wonder how many of those "F" Reviewers have played PawaMajor with Lock-On batting and Digital cursor movement. Because I don't see how anyone could give this game an "F" after playing it on these settings.

At amazon.co.jp, PawaMajor has an overall rating of 3 1/2 stars based on 27 reviews.

Sangubashi,

Here's one of my earlier posts from another thread:

You could either mod your PS2, or you could use plastic pieces with a boot disc such as "slide card" or "twist tool."

Personally, I'm just not comfortable with openning my consoles and tinkering with their circuit boards.

So I use a "slide card" on my original, thicker PS2 and a "twist tool" on my newer, Slim-Line PS2.

A word of caution though, the "twist tool" "tool C" is a bit tricky to install. You'll need good lighting, a tiny screwdriver, and plenty of patience to correctly install it. But the "twist tool" is only necessary if you have a V13 or V14 Slim-Line PS2. If you have V12 Slim-Line or below, then you can use the more basic plastic parts (their name escapes me).

If you have an older/fatter PS2, then the "slide card" would be a piece of cake to install. You'll still need a tiny screwdriver, but the process is much less difficult.

Check out the following sites:

http://www.modchip.com/ps2/

http://www.twisttool.com/product_info.php/products_id/71

The official PawaMajor website has been updated again. The MLB Column and the Creator's Column both have new additions.

http://www.konami.jp/gs/game/pawa/major/index.html