This is a site about Pro Yakyu (Japanese Baseball), not about who the next player to go over to MLB is. It's a community of Pro Yakyu fans who have come together to share their knowledge and opinions with the world. It's a place to follow teams and individuals playing baseball in Japan (and Asia), and to learn about Japanese (and Asian) culture through baseball.
It is my sincere hope that once you learn a bit about what we're about here that you will join the community of contributors.
Michael Westbay
(aka westbaystars)
Founder
PYS4
Pros - Fatigue system, starting rotation, bullpen management, missions
Cons - Laughable fictional players(draft, gaijin), easy player development, only 5 years, poor trade system, CPU management of player numbers, uninspired offseason mode(way too easy to get players), players never get injured
Pawapuro
Pros - 10 years long, many offseason options(FA are difficult to obtain, can send prospect overseas, etc.), draft scouting, realistic trades with automatic number assignments, realistic rookies and gaijin, challenging player development, ability to hire coaches, realistic injuries in realistic situations including random injuries after games, ability to sign players coming back from the majors
Cons - Difficulty can't be changed once you begin, no missions, no in depth fatigue system
My opinion is that PYS4 Pennant is only good for playing a single year and Pawapuro is good for many years. The bad gaijin and rookies in PYS4 really kills any replay value for me. They all have no gloves and all use the same boring generic batting stance. Their faces also use the Spirits Mode editor, so they look terrible, too. Offseason is so bad that I could sign Kuroda as a free agent with no problems at all. In Pawapuro, you'd have to give him crazy incentives not to go overseas. Overall it feels like the people behind Pennant in PYS4 just didn't care about a lot of things. It feels like laziness took over in a lot of areas. There's really no excuse for a player to use the number of an existing player after a trade is made. There's no excuse for using the same batting stance and accessories for every fictional player.
I still feel that Pawapuro 11 Ketteiban is the best overall yakyu game experience, if you know Japanese. The physics and AI are on point and it has enough of the modern features of My Life and Pennant to keep you playing for years(and unfortunately, we've been forced to). The only downside is that it was released before interleague, so you're going to be playing the same 5 teams over and over for 130-140 games per season. There's also no playoffs for the Central League.
Let's recap the modern Pawapuro series, though...
Pawapuro 10: Great game, but My Life isn't quite as refined as it will be the next year.
Pawapuro 11: Builds upon the greatness of Pawapuro 10, but adds a ton of new defensive animations. Success Mode with the Japanese National Team is also probably the best Success scenario of the past few years.
Pawapuro 12: Messes around with physics way too much. Received a ton of complaints about the CPU hitting too many homers. You can also strike out almost anyone if you throw a high fastball.
Pawapuro 13: A complete joke. The downgrade 12 made on 11 is multiplied about 1000 times with this. Possibly the worst Pawapuro ever made. Many hardcore yakyu game fans think the series turned into a 100% anime otaku game from this point on. Seems to be the influence of director Toyama, who took over since Pawapuro 12. He's allegedly a huge anime otaku.