Above average results from an average game.

User Rating: 7.1 | Gekikuukan Pro Yakyuu: At the End of the Century 1999 PS2
By rapaleeman | Review Date:
Gekikuukan Pro Baseball: The End of the Century 1999 is a baseball game developed by the great Squaresoft. I picked this game up at an import shop and though I lack any real Japanese reading skills, the game is pretty easy to figure out if you’ve played any baseball game before. The game is surprisingly complete. It has all the different modes of play that you would expect to find (season, pennant mode, etc…) and even lets you play with 10 men on the field like certain games allow in Japan. All of the rules are intact and easy to navigate to get to the action.

The graphics in the game for an early first generation PS2 game are pretty good. Some may disagree, like the Gamespot review, but they are pretty good compared to what else was out at the time. Though the game is lacking any real special effects the player models themselves look ok. The animation and presentation is the standout and you can see that a lot of time was spent into making the game look as if you were watching a game. The crowds look horrible but the stadiums are modeled accurately at least from what I’ve seen on satellite. The camera angles are dramatic and the cuts look good, but the game is long winded (isn’t baseball when you watch it on tv?).

The gameplay is where it gets tricky. Since the game tries to mimic a broadcast, there aren’t any on screen indicators so it can be a little difficult to figure out who you are controlling and where that player currently is considering the camera follows the ball. Throwing is slow and it seems every one in the outfield needs to go back to little league for some training, though the infielders bullet throws to the other bases. Interesting?

The sound is all in Japanese and hard to make out so I can’t comment on the accuracy of the announcer following the action. I will say it is kind of funny to hear random American words pop up now and then.

Overall, the game is pretty good. It is about average in terms of the grading scale, but I have had the game for five years and still come back to play even though I have MLB 2K7 currently residing in my 360. Weird how an average game can grow on you but it did and even my friends enjoy playing a game now and then. One final note, this game is from 1999, so it has Ichiro, Hideki Matsui, Kazuo Matsui, Takaeshi Saito, and a bunch of other Japanese players in the game who now reside in the MLB so if you wanted to play with them before their MLB career started with their Japanese stats this is your chance. Enjoy.
Load Comments (0)