Digital Baller

That's the sound of freshly squeezed bagpipes on a hot summer day.
That's right, on July 16, Pro Yaykyuu Spirits 6 came out. I've been playing it a lot ever since I got it. I've been waiting for it ever since my PS2 stopped reading my PYS5 disc.
PS2? What's this primitivity that I speak of? While PYS6 came out on both PS3 and PS2, I got the PS2 version, which lacks online play, but has enough to satisfy me until the day I bite the bullet and go after the Blu-Ray version. My PS2 can play imports, but first off, what is this article about? What am I writing on, for all you English speaking readers living outside the land of the rising sun? Why should you continue reading?

Pro Yakyuu Spirits 6 is this year's installment of Konami's award-winning baseball game. This is the purest, best baseball game I've played in a long time. Perhaps since Ken Griffey Jr.'s Slugfest on N64. This game is good. Beats MLB: The Show in every category.

Now that I've got you interested, let's get on with it. Although the title (translated to Professional Baseball Spirits 6) is stereotypically Japanese by sound, I can promise you'll all be surprised for the better. I don't know what the "Spirits" part is about, but I can assure you that this game is not related to anime or funky RPGs in any way. It's baseball. The universal language.

The batting is a ton of fun in the game, and it takes skill to hit. Pitching's done better than any American game, and the fielding controls just feel natural. With the help of the excited announcers, you feel good when you play this game, especially when you hit one deep in a clutch situation. Canned homerun cutscenes a la The Show only happen when the ball is absolutely crushed. For the most part, you and the announcer wait in excited suspense to see whether your ball is going home with a fan or bouncing off the wall. And the announcer does go crazy the closer the ball gets to the boundary. It's like playing in a high-energy environment all the time, and the bagpipe bands and the fans only increase the excitement.
The best part is that you don't need to know Japanese to play the game! The menus have enough English and navigation is so simple and logical that you won't have any trouble getting into a game or starting a season right away.

That's a basic overview of what the series includes as a whole, but what's new for this year? The most exciting feature, in my opinion, is WBC mode. All 2009 World Baseball Classic teams and players are included, and you can play single game exhibitions or play through a whole WBC tournament. The players look good, too. Except for Brian Roberts on Team USA. He looks Asian, but he's not.
WBC mode is a blast. I've been wanting to be able to play PYS with MLB players, and this is as close as it gets for now. It's funny hearing the Japanese announcer try to pronounce some of the non-Japanese names

Batting stances and swings, for all NPB (top-level Japanese baseball league) players as well as international players, are dead-on accurate.


Those are the major, most noticeable changes from last year's game. On the PS2 version, it seems like graphics quality took a slight dip so they could fit all the new content on the disc. In PYS5 on PS2, the graphics were outstanding. In PYS6, they're still pretty good, especially when compared against MLB 09: The Show on PS2. The Japanese graphics blow The Show clear out of the water!

This series is clearly my favorite baseball game, and I hope to try out the PS3 version in the coming years. For those who have not played a Pro Yakyuu Spirits game yet, I'd highly recommend picking up PYS6. With the PS3 being able to play games from any region, this game is well worth the cost of importing. You can get it on play-asia.com and yesasia.com for prices around $78-90 shipped. Another alternative is to buy it on eBay. Searching Google, like always, may yield better values and greater satisfaction.

I hope I've turned you on to a great baseball game you'll be playing for years to come. One day, when Take Two's exclusive third party MLB game license runs out, hopefully, we'll all be able to experience the magic of this gameplay engine with MLB teams.