Jikkyō Powerful Pro Yakyū 4

The Good
In-depth RPG mode seems interesting.

The Bad
CPU is far too good, language barrier very high.

The Bottom Line
Another Japanese only baseball game, this time from the long running Power Pros series, with its bobblehead style design and rather charming graphics. I am vaguely familiar with this franchise due to a baseball player in this style appearing in the great Konami Krazy Racers on GBA.

Right off the bat, this plays very much like King of Pro Baseball, aiming your bat with the analogue stick (although the cursor is much, much better) while the batter aims without a cursor. I could actually hit the ball much more, although not consistently enough to get a run.

This isn’t helped by how great the computer is at fielding. Their fielders are extremely quick, so will get to your base to get your out, and that’s if they don’t catch is outright, which is a very common occurrence. I do wish these games had more practice modes where you could practice hitting as long as you want.

One major feature of these games is one that has a bit too much text for me to keep up with: the success mode. This is a RPG-like mode where you pick choices for training and relaxing as you slowly become a successful baseball player. It was definitely an interesting mode, but one with a big translation barrier – for Japanese-speaking players, this is probably a great mode.