News: a careful look at two recent sport games announcements

June 07, 2005, 03:45 PM

by chazumaru, via Spike/Konami -
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FiPro Returns has been recently announced on PS2, and PawaPocket Koushien has been confirmed in the latest Famitsu. Two announcements that the regular IC reader might not have really felt connected to, yet are interesting to comment on nonetheless, for a few reasons.

The FiPro (Fire Pro Wrestling) series is a long succession of unlicensed (in terms of character names) 2D technical wrestling games from Human (and when Human died, Spike) that have been haunting japanese consoles for over fifteen years, gaining cult status through some decent 32bit iterations, and reaching it's peek with the excellent Fire Pro Wrestling D on the Dreamcast (arguably the most technical 2D fighter on the system). It's sequel Fire Pro Wrestling Z on the PS2 was announced as the very last episode of the series, for Spike (which is really barely more than a dozen people) would thereafter proceed to 3D licensed wrestling simulations with their critically acclaimed King of Colosseum series. It seems FiPro fans have complained enough for Spike to go back on their word and now produce FiPro Returns, once again for the PS2 - an improved version of their 2D unlicensed maverick, featuring new special effects, new edit features, new deadly techniques and wrestlers from older versions. An interesting move when sports games being licensed & full 3D have become more obvious than Mario jumping on turtles.

Now about PawaPocket, the portable subseries of Pawapuro, which you all heard about a while ago (the Konami Week 2005 was there to put that right). A new episode is confirmed on the Nintendo DS, which is interesting because that will allow PawaPocket Koushien to become the first online Konami game on the system. It will also allow the game to benefit from the trademark "cross-shaped 4 buttons layout" gameplay of the regular PawaPuro series, where each button targets a base as anyone could guess. But more importantly, PawaPocket Koushien focuses on the Koushien, as it's name suggests. The Koushien is a ritual summer event followed by millions of Japanese each year, where High School baseball teams battle for national supremacy in the Hanshin Koushien Stadium (in Nishinomiya, near Kobe). This might mean that, because of the "original image" of the DS or because of the peculiar demographic some of it's games attract, Konami felt complied or eager to try a different approach than the usual japanese baseball league formula. But more importantly, this might also be a cautious first move towards a diversification of PawaPuro on other grounds... such as Major League Baseball (were a deal to be made with current exclusive rights' owner Take2, obviously). This would be a strong but understandable change in Konami's policy concerning the PawaPuro series, as the local championship's popularity suffers greatly from the successful exodus of japanese stars to MLB in recent years.