» Press START and the following options appear:

EXHIBITION
Play a regulation game that won't require an extensive time commitment. Five options are available as follows:

1P vs COM
1P vs 2P
1P & COM vs COM
1P & 2P vs COM
COM vs COM

TUTORIAL
Learn the controls, nuances, ways, and means of Pro Baseball Spirits 4. A total of 11 lessons are available which are broken up into three pitching tutorials, four batting tutorials, two fielding tutorials, and two running tutorials. When you complete each tutorial, you'll receive VP points.

HOMERUN COMPETITION
Do your best to smack pitches out of the park with hearty swings. Choose a team, select a stadium, and then go to town with your bat. If you chain together homers, you'll earn commendations and VP points. If you string together 10 combos, you'll earn 136 VP points thanks to the multiplier effect. Each session is allowed 10 pitches and 10 swings.

STRIKE PITCH
Take the pitcher's mound and throw pitches so that they're spotted on a numeric keyboard that's overlaid in front of the catcher. Do your best to throw the pitch at each number. If you hit numbers consecutively, you're awarded combos and VP points. You're allowed 8 pitches per session and if you hit all the numbers on the keypad without missing or hitting the center, you'll earn 26 VP points. You can also aim at the space between two numbers and knock both numbers out with one pitch if your control is good. If you're able to hit 2 numbers with 1 pitch, you'll earn a bonus ball.

PENNANT RACE
Play a full season with the ultimate goal of winning the pennant. You will pitch, field, and bat in all capacities. When other teams are playing, the results of their games are shown on the right side of a calendar which runs down the week's games and the winners/losers. When it's your turn to play, you take control of the players on your team and do the batting, pitching, and fielding

MVP
Choose a team and then a player from 12 possible choices and then play pennant mode. If you're a pitcher, all you do is pitch and the team fields for you with their AI and programming. If a ball is blooped in front of the mound, you can rush up to grab it to help the team out. Occasionally, you'll be called upon to do a little bit of batting when it's your turn. Your job is to pitch. If you choose to play as a catcher, you'll be crouched at all times and catch the pitches from the vantage point of a catcher. You will move a cursor around to indicate to the pitcher where you want him to throw and he'll spot you appropriately. Between innings, you don't bat unless it's your turn up and the game sort of plays by itself until it's time to catch again. Same thing with the hitters where your only job is hitting. The available players to use are: PITCHERS: Asami Kenta, Isoyama Hiroki, Honda Kiyohito, Fukasawa Ken, Tojo Daiki, and Matsubara Haruki. BATTERS: Kojima Daisuke, Asami Yuhta, Tateno Syogo, Sakamaki Kenjiro. CATCHERS: Makabe Yuhki, Asakura Tohru.

SPIRITS
Select a camp in Okinawa, Kagoshima, or two locked areas and then select a team. Create a custom player and then play a card-based game of baseball where pitching cards, training cards, technique cards, and other cards are used to enhance players with new skills.

TRIAL
- Fielding Beginner - 20 simple exercises that test your fielding abilities in the infield such as fielding a grounder and throwing it to first base, covering first base to take a throw, covering third base, executing a double play, fielding a line drive, catching a pop-up, and so on and so forth. After the infield exercises, you'll work some outfield catches as well for balls that are hit high and drop.

- Fielding Middle - Somewhat more complicated fielding exercises where you have to run backwards to catch a ball, fielding a high hopper and getting a lead runner out, throwing a man out at home, performing a diving stop, feeding the second baseman so that he executes a double play, assisting a double play, catching a pop-up foul, catching a shallow fly ball, and so on. If you complete all 20 exercises in Fielding Middle, you'll earn 1500 VP points.

- Fielding Expert - Outfield antics where you run around catching shallow but soaring fly balls, smokers that drop just behind the infield, covering a base, performing an overhead catch, feeding the second baseman, and catching other tricky shots that require quick judgment calls and execution. If you complete all 20 exercises in Fielding Expert, you'll earn 2000 VP points.

- Running Beginner - 10 running exercises where you head for second base by pressing the TRIANGLE button and then stop there by pressing the CIRCLE button, scoot back to first base when an infield fly is caught by pushing to the left and pressing TRIANGLE, advancing to second base on a bunt, stealing a base on a slow pitcher, scoring from second base on an outfield fly, etc. If you complete all ten exercises, you earn 1000 VP points.

- Running Expert - 20 running exercises of more difficult assignment. Steal bases, run back to first base on a caught infield grounder, do some smart base running from second to third base, scoring from third base on a bunt, etc. The 19th exercise is tricky because you have to steal third base from second and your timing has to be perfect to execute it properly. It took us about 20 tries before we got the timing right this morning. You'll earn 2000 VP points if you complete them all.

- 100 Knock Challenge - 100 quick and simple fielding exercises that are rattled off in quick succession. The game keeps track of your successful fielding on a counter located on the upper left corner of the screen. There are 100 exercises total

After finishing each Trial run, you're prompted to save your progress and achievement to memory card.

TRAINING
Hone your skills in Batting, Pitching and Fielding exercises.

VP SHOP
Use earned VP points to purchase items and player data.

UTILITY
Arrange and Trade, View Player's Ability, Copy Player, Delete Player, Create Song, Copy Song, User Settings, Sound Settings, Player's Password, Load or Save. A player password that has been created in the PS2 version of Powerful Pro Baseball 13 may be transferred to Pro Baseball Spirits 4 by using the "Player's Password" feature.

» The game system uses the same one that Konami developed for the popular Jikkyou Powerful Pro Baseball series where batters swing with a little bat or ball outline inside a spotting area that's grid-based and broken up into 9 squares. When facing a pitch, move the L-analog to match up the bat outline with the incoming ball to hit it by pressing the CROSS or CIRCLE button.

» The pitching involves pressing the X button, spotting the pitch with the cursor, and then when the ball leaves your arm a blue cursor will converge on the target. When the blue circle becomes smaller, press and hold the X button again to maintain its accuracy and control. The smaller the blue circle is on the target, the more precise the pitch. If you don't press and hold the X button when the pitch leaves the pitcher's arm, it may go wild.

» The tics of the players are realistic with little shakes, motions, and other movements that actual baseball players exhibit. We haven't seen any scratching yet however.

» Snippets of baseball trivia are shown on the NOW LOADING screen.

» When a ball is in play and your team is on the field, the base throw buttons are as follows:

SQUARE - Throw to First Base
CROSS - Throw to Second Base
CIRCLE - Throw to Third Base
TRIANGLE - Throw to Home Base

» When a ball is popped up or sailing into the outfield, you'll know where to stand to catch it by looking for the red circle on either the overhead map or on the actual field itself. Plant yourself on that spot and the catch is automatic when the ball drops.

» Your runner can stand about 7 steps away from a base before drawing a throw from the pitcher.

» The Yankees kicked off their season opener on Monday of this week and they sunk the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. The day was warm and the crowd was what we'd described as "New Yawk Friendly" where everyone's your buddy but still somewhat impersonal... which is fine. On the downside, hot dogs were priced at $4.25 each and the traffic after the game was monstrous. We also noticed that the harried drivers leaving the stadium area were no longer buddy-buddy with each other.
 

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