Home Run King for Gamecube FAQ Version 1.0 April 7, 2002 Copyright (C) 2002 by NavinRJohnson - All Rights Reserved This FAQ may not be reproduced or redistributed in part or whole without express written consent from the author. Table of Contents: 1) Revision History 2) Introduction 3) Controls & Basic Gameplay -Pitching -Fielding -Setting Fielders -Batting -Baserunning -Substitutions 4) Modes -Season -Exhibition -Home Run Derby 5) Tips/ Tricks 6) Q/A Section 1: Revision History: ============================ Version 1.0 - April 6, 2002 - Initial version. Basic coverage of controls and gameplay options, Lots of TBD remains. Section 2: Introduction: ======================== Home Run King is Sega's latest console baseball offering. Though based on the Dreamcast World Series Baseball 2K1 title, this fast-paced, high-scoring baseball game improves on its ancestor in many ways. While WSB2K1 was recognized as visually appealing, its gameplay had substantial flaws. Fielding was handled automatically by the computer, eliminating a fun and demanding aspect of the game. Baserunners advanced without tagging up on fly balls, leading to many absurd outs. WSB2K1 also used an unusual control scheme for hitting which players either loved or hated. HRK retains the great-looking graphics, improving on them a bit with the GameCube's hardware. It adds manual fielding to the mix (though auto-fielding is still an available option). Baserunning remains challenging, but the hitting interface has been simplified with button presses managing the hitter's swing. HRK is billed as an "arcade" baseball game, which leads to an expectation of a lack of realism in the game. Though home runs are plentiful on the lower difficulty settings, don't expect an NFL Blitz-style set of rule changes or "flaming batter" gimmicks to be a part of the game. HRK plays baseball straight-up. The pitcher-batter interface is well designed and leads to interesting and credible showdowns, and the dynamics of the ball and players in the parks are generally modeled realistically. Section 3: Controls =================== This section is really what got the FAQ started. I initially rented this game from my local Hollywood Video and the control information printed on the box was almost insufficient to let me play the game. I muddled through and enjoyed myself enough to buy the title, but then almost discovered an entirely different game was waiting for me when I learned how to really control the action. Pitching: ========= On the mound, you'll be presented with a set of directional arrows on the screen. They'll vary based on your pitcher's handedness and the pitches he knows, but for a rightie they'll look something like this: ^ | | | +----> |\ | \ | \ V V The arrows will be filled to their ends with red-orange color at the beginning of the game. Each arrow represents a kind of pitch. If your pitcher is strong with a particular pitch, the arrow for that pitch will be long. If he's weaker on that pitch, the arrow will be shorter. As your pitcher plays and grows fatigued, the color will drain away from each pitch. The effectiveness of a given pitch at any given time can therefore be measured by the length of the fill amount in its arrow. If your pitcher's fastball is his best pitch and has five segments in its arrow, and his slider is weaker with only three segments of length, but halfway through the sixth inning you've used your fastball to death and haven't touched your slider, you may find that you've got two colored segments in both arrows. At that point, they'll be about equally effective. So what does effective mean? Well, it refers to how controllable the pitch is for you and how hittable it is for the batter. The more effectiveness you have remaining in a pitch's arrow, the higher its velocity will be. The more effectiveness you have left the easier it will be to "paint the corners" with the pitch without having the pitch 1) fail to break for a breaking pitch or 2) miss the strike zone. So look to go for your most effective pitches in critical situations, and balance your use of all your pitches throughout your time on the mound to keep the hitter on his toes. For a right-handed pitcher, the pitch arrows mean the following: Straight up: Fastball Directly right: Slider Right and down: Curveball Straight down: Change-up (knuckle ball or fork ball for some pitchers) Left and down: Sinker For a lefty, simply flip the directions and you get the same meanings (i.e. Left and down becomes a curve, right and down becomes a sinker). So: you're on the mound. You've got the arrows up showing you which pitches your pitcher can throw and how effective each will be. Meanwhile the batter has taken several practice swings, called time out and stepped back out of the box, stepped back in, readied himself a bit more, and the cycle has repeated numerous times while you read all this. Time to let it rip. Push the left control stick (the grey one) straight up to select a fastball. You'll see the pitch selection arrows vanish and the pitcher move to the set position. And nothing else will happen. Now what? Well, you've just told your pitcher to get ready - you haven't said to pitch yet. Furthermore the pitch you selected just now is not final - you could still change to another pitch. More on that in a second. There are three speeds of pitch you can throw - hard, regular, and soft. You indicate these with Y, A, and X respectively. To pitch, you will press the selected pitch speed button twice. So let's throw that fastball. Hold the control stick straight up while you press A. This confirms that you want to indeed throw the heater- holding the stick in a different direction while pressing the pitch button would choose a different pitch at this point. (I think the purpose here is to let you somehow throw off a human opponent sitting next to you on your pitch selection... ?) As soon as you press A you'll see your pitcher start his windup and you'll see a vertical bar appear on the screen near your pitcher. It will start to fill from the bottom. Wait until it reaches its peak and then press your pitch button (in this case A) again. If you time it right, you'll see MAX appear over the bar in yellow. The pitcher will then deliver the pitch with its velocity determined by the strength bar you just filled. As soon as you have started the pitch velocity bar filling, let the control stick return to its neutral position. To control the positioning of the pitch, tip the control stick in the direction you want the ball to go. Bear in mind that the control stick is analog- the more you tilt it in a direction, the more strongly the pitch will go in that direction. Generally you'll want to tip the stick no more than 1/3 of its total range of motion in a given direction if you want to keep your pitches in the strike zone. Beware of hitting the batter - tipping the stick too far in the direction that the batter is standing will result in him getting plunked. Finally, if you have a runner on base who's taking too much of a lead you can try to pick him off. Press the B button while holding the control stick in the direction of the base (right for first, up for second, left for third) to throw to the bag. That's pitching. The rest is practice and technique (more on that later). Fielding: ========= So pitching didn't go so well and the ball's been hit. What now? Well, the computer will determine what it believes will be the best candidate fielder to go after the ball in play. The grey control stick will now control this fielder's motion. You'll see a baseball circle on the field with an ever-shrinking red halo around it. The circle represents the ball's position over the field and the size of the red halo represents its relative height (the larger the halo, the higher the ball). If this is a routine fly ball, then run your fielder under the ball (on top of the baseball circle on the field) and wait for it to come down to you. If you do this right, just before the ball lands the fielder will begin an automatic animation showing him fielding the ball and getting ready to throw it in. What if you are close to the ball but can't quite get there? Hit the A button to make a diving/ sliding/ leaping catch. You may be able to get the spectacular play or you may blow it and be out of position to continue the play. That's the risk/ reward proposition. Once you've fielded the ball, you may need to get it back into the infield to stop a baserunner. Pressing B at this point will throw the ball back in to the computer-selected cutoff man. Generally this will be to second or home. To select a specific base to throw to, push the grey control stick in the direction of a base (right for first, up for second, left for third, down for home) and press A. A note- you generally want to press the throw button slightly before the ball is actually fielded if you want your fielder to catch and immediately throw the ball in. If you delay with your fielder in pressing a throw button, he may stop and run with the ball before throwing it, delaying your throw. Setting Fielders: ================= Before the pitch, the left and right triggers can be used to move your infielders and outfielders through different defensive alignments. Left trigger changes the infield alignment, mostly useful to set your fielders up for a double play or to defend the bunt. Keep pressing left trigger to cycle through each alignment and around back to "normal". Likewise the right trigger cycles through alignments that position your outfielders to the left or right, deep or shallow. Batting: ======== Now you're at the plate. Time to find out why the game is called Home Run King. As you step into the box and take some warm-up swings, you'll see the familiar pitching arrows appear again in the middle of the strike zone box. Now you're being given the opportunity to predict the pitch you'll be hitting. Press the control stick in the direction of the kind of pitch you believe the pitcher will send your way. For the purposes of this FAQ, let's assume you pressed "up" to predict a fastball. The strike zone will now fill with a white crosshair surrounded by a blue circle. The blue circle represents your batter's contact zone. When the pitcher delivers the ball, use the control stick to move your contact zone over the spot where the pitch is coming and press a hitting button (more later on that). If you find the pitch you'll get some sort of hit. If you don't, it's a strike. Of course, if the pitch is going outside the strike zone, just lay off and don't press the swing button to take the ball. The better your batter, the larger the contact zone circle will be. Power hitters' generally are large, while pitchers' circles are often little larger than the crosshair. If you've predicted the pitch correctly, you'll see the contact circle turn orange as your cue. If it doesn't, you'll know what the coming pitch *isn't*. When the pitch is on the way you'll need to time your swing as well as set the contact zone circle into place. There's no way to really describe what the right timing looks like - you'll just need to practice. I recommend trying the Home Run Derby to learn - you'll get consistently-placed fastballs so all you have to master is your timing. You have four types of swing you can try. The A button gives you a standard swing. B squares you around to bunt. X goes for a "contact" swing, expanding your contact zone slightly in exchange for less power. Y unleashes the power swing, shrinking your contact zone but increasing your power. The power swing is definitely something to use sparingly. The dramatic reduction in your contact zone makes your hitting percentage much lower. I've found you're better off working your swing position on a normal swing in general, unless you've correctly predicted the pitch type and you can get right on top of the ball. The crosshair in the hitting circle is key to understanding the kind of hit you'll get. If the ball comes in above the crosshair, you'll be getting the bat under the ball and lofting it into a fly ball. Under the crosshair means the bat comes over and slaps a grounder. Left and right of the crosshair, in combination with whether your swing was early or late, governs the left to right spread of where the hit will go. If you predict a type of pitch other than a fastball you'll see the contact zone stretch into an oval of some sort. This represents the breaking motion you should expect from the pitch. Baserunning: ============ The left and right triggers control baserunners. Pressing left trigger until it moves in to the "click" position tells all baserunners to advance, while the right trigger pulled in to the "click" tells all baserunners to retreat. Holding the stick toward a base and using the triggers directs your command to only the selected baserunner. You can lead off a base by pulling lightly on the left trigger to inch your runner away from the bag. Watch the pickoff throw and get back quickly with right trigger, or try to steal by pulling in until the trigger clicks. Your baserunners will start to advance immediately when the ball is hit - fly or grounder. If you see that you've hit a fly and that it's likely to be caught for an out, you should immediately hit right trigger to cause your baserunners to return and tag up - otherwise they'll be tagged out on the basepaths. Substitutions: ============== Press Start to pause the game, then choose Substitution from the circular menu. Use the control stick to select the player you want to pull, then press A. You'll get a list of players you can substitute. Pick the player from the list and press A again to execute the swap or B to cancel. You'll see a bar under each player's name. This represents the player's fatigue level. Fatigued players will of course perform less well. For pitchers, their starting fatigue level when you bring them in will determine the starting effectiveness of their pitches, so check your relievers' fatigue level before you decide which to bring in. Section 4: Gameplay Modes: ========================== Exhibition: =========== Pick two teams and go at it. You can choose the game length, stadium, time of day, and weather. Choosing Quick Start instead of Exhibition will allow the computer to make all these selections for you. One thing you'll notice in exhibition mode is a running score tally at the bottom of the screen. Good plays (strikeouts, home runs, etc.) increase your score while bad plays (being struck out, giving up runs, etc.) decrement your score. At the end of the game you're offered the chance to save your high score. Season: ======= Pick a single team and play a season. You can determine the length of the season to play. The game point score from Exhibition mode is not kept here. You'll be walked through the season day by day and offered the chance to play or simulate your team's game for each day of the season. You'll also see the other teams' schedules and game results for the day. Be sure to save your game (34 blocks) periodically. Home Run Derby: =============== Pick your batters and swing away. You'll play through several rounds of home run hitting, being scored on length and average. Section 5: Tips and Tricks: =========================== Weather: Rain is the weather choice that seems to make the biggest difference in the gameplay. In an outdoor stadium, rain makes grounders die quickly in the field, slowed down by the water on the grass and dirt. Getting hits becomes much more difficult. Combine this with a strong wind blowing in to keep the number of fly hits down and you can end up with a tight, low-scoring game. Wind: The wind indicator in the upper right corner of the screen can have a substantial impact on the game. The color of the indicator is important to read. If it's a blue or green color, the wind is soft enough to have no effect. Yellow, orange, and red, however, indicate a wind strong enough to influence fly balls. You'll notice in a windy game that getting under a fly ball to field it becomes more challenging, as the ball will drift with the wind before coming down. Alternate Uniforms: In Exhibition mode, pressing on the left and right triggers while selecting teams will allow you to select the teams' alternate uniforms for the game. In season mode, the computer determines when to pull out the special unis. Fielding: As pointed out in the fielding section above, you'll want to press the throw button just an instant before you catch the ball in order to quickly whip the ball into the infield - otherwise you may find your fielder running with the ball and holding it much too long for you to make the play. Section 6: Q/A: =============== Franchise Mode: Does the game have a franchise mode? No. Season mode lets you play a basic season and manage your roster, but no traditional franchise mode. Season mode doesn't track an exhaustive array of statistics. Game option sliders: Can I control the different aspects of the game? Yes - there are a number of control sliders that let you do everything including turning auto-fielding off and on. (to be filled out further in later versions of the FAQ) Worth playing: Sum it up- is the game fun? Is it worth renting/ buying? Of course Your Mileage May Vary, but I'd say Yes. It's definitely worth a rent, and after you've played a couple of games you may find that you want to plunk down your cash for a permanent copy. The gameplay is both challenging and exciting, and the pace is excellent. HRK is one of the most fun baseball titles I've played. --Kraonn, April 7 2002