Konami has been very consistent with Power Pros on the Nintendo Switch. Since 2019, the company has brought mainline and non-mainline titles alike to the platform in Japan. For 2026 and 2027, they’re at it again with Powerful Pro Yakyū 2026-2027 on the platform (and the PlayStation 4). The series is celebrating 30 years of the popular Success Mode, but are the additions here enough to warrant a purchase? Let’s get into it.
Note
This year, I’ve primarily played Power Pros 2026-27 on my Nintendo Switch 2. By and large, there are little to no differences versus playing the game on the Nintendo Switch. The only real difference can be found in handheld mode on Switch 2, which I’ll touch on a little bit later in this review. Without further ado, let’s get into the review properly.
Gameplay
Gameplay remains largely unchanged year over year and that is not a bad thing. If you’re new to the series or need a refresher, the cute look of the game masks surprisingly deep gameplay. Batting puts players in control of a bat cursor with the left joystick. B is used for swings, R is used to change to a power hit and A is used for bunting. For pitching, players can select one of several pitches with the joystick/d-pad and then initiate it with the press of B and use the joystick to adjust the location. Fielding has bases assigned to the face buttons and the cut-off man assigned to R. It’s a solid gameplay system that works well and I have no problem with it being the same year after year. I can understand why some companies feel the need to change things up to an extent, but as the old adage goes, if it’s not broken, don’t fix it.
Modes
As always, Konami has delivered when it comes to modes and various in-game options for Power Pros 2026-27. Here’s what’s on offer (left to right, then down):
- Exhibition
- Success
- Penant
- Championship (online hub)
- Tournament
- Eikan Nine (high school themed)
- My Life
- My Player League
- Home Run Attack
- Power Fes
- Showdown Legend Battle
- Live Player
- Practice
- Arrange
- Live Scenario
- Live Team
The menus have been completely revamped, and I think my only real complaint with the game is that the modes are now a little more difficult to spot at a glance. Of course, once you have the cursor over the mode or option, a large depiction of the selected mode is shown on the left. I’m glad to see a bit of a change, but it took a little bit of getting used to. Generally speaking, the entire right hand side of the emblems (and the bottom one to the left) all feature online components, which is indicated by the wi-fi signal in the corner.
I won’t talk about all of these in detail, but I did want to highlight a few of these modes this year in depth. The World Baseball Classic also plays a significant role in the game this year across a variety of modes, which is part of what I want to focus on.
Success
Success Mode this year has nine different scenarios available this year, several of which are returning popular entries in the mode from past titles. As for new content, Parallel All-Stars is one of the main draws. This is basically a commemorative scenario featuring stories and characters from throughout the 30 year history of the mode.
You are first introduced to our good friend and series staple, Akio Yabe, who has suddenly decided that in lieu of baseball, he has taken up gateball (which is kind of similar to croquet) with aims to go pro. Of course, something is definitely wrong here, so to offer an explanation, a time traveler named Gabriella (or Gab-chan for short) lets you know that some kind of a rift in space time is causing some catastrophic problems all over the place, such as Yabe giving up baseball. After he snaps out of you, you are both tasked with tracking down the cause of this issue in space time by visiting the past, which are represented by past games in the series. You have 50 turns to build up your player and play through as many of these as you can. Going into additional time periods/games here require certain crystals and other collectibles that can be earned while playing. With there being quite a few time periods and conversations to go through, Parallel All-Stars is fun and will keep you coming back for quite a while.
The World Baseball Classic is represented in Success Mode this year as well. Taking on the role of an up and comer on the Japanese national team, you’ll go through training, build up relationships with other players and more. You’ll even get a chance to try your hand in the games leading up to the WBC and the tournament itself over the course of the mode. I really enjoyed this as it was great to see the real world players represented here and interacting with them was fun. Overall, Parallel All-Stars is a bit more on the light-hearted and borderline crazy side versus the somewhat more serious tone of the WBC story, so there is a little bit of something for everyone here. These coupled with all of the other scenarios on offer make for quite a bit of entertaining content to go through. Simply put, Konami nailed the 30 years anniversary of Success Mode in this game.
Live Scenario
Live Scenario, the mode that offers a variety of missions to alter or keep the results of real world games, is also back for Power Pros 2026-27. This is mostly on par with what was on offer in 2024-2025 and other past titles, however as with Success, a special World Baseball Classic set of games are also available. The WBC section doesn’t offer ALL of the games from the tournament, but rather all of the games that team Japan played and then games from final stages of tournament. I’m not quite sure what I was expecting, but given that all of the teams are available, including all of the real world players, I’m a little disappointed that Konami didn’t include more scenarios. When it’s all said and done, the WBC section features nine games with 18 scenarios, and the regular Live Scenario has all of the games from the season including the Climax Series, Nippon Series and All-Star Games. The mode is easy to jump into and play in short bursts and still remains one of my favorite in the game.
Customization is also possible here allowing players to create, upload and share their own scenarios. Given that this is all user based, the possibilities are almost endless. For example, I found a fun scenario based on Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani’s confrontation in the 2023 WBC final at bat. I’m not really one for creating these kind of things, but it awesome that the community has a way to add to the game in meaningful ways.
Showdown Legend Battle
Brought back once again this year, Showdown Legend Battle is also getting in on the WBC. While the last Power Pro titles offered showdowns against legendary players from NPB’s past, this year offers team Japan legends that really shined during their time in past World Baseball Classic tournaments. If you’re unfamiliar, you start off with three different blocks of games to choose from ranging in difficulty. These each offer five players that need to be defeated before you can take on one of the WBC legend players. You have a certain number of tries to do this (indicated by the on screen hearts). Clearing these blocks can offer additional buffs, hearts and more on your journey to complete a run by taking out 50 opponents.
When it boils down it, Legend Battle is another way to create a player that can be used in other modes of the game, but in a much more interesting way. The shortening of the gauntlet from 100 (from Power Pros 2024-25) to 50 is also a welcome addition. I honestly felt that the 100 was just too much, so it was great to see this change.
English Language Support & Legend Teams
Not to intentionally be the bearer of bad news, but Power Pros 2026-2027 does not feature English support at all - the game is entirely in Japanese. It’s a shame considering that Konami’s sister baseball series, Pro Baseball Spirit, is getting English support with this year’s game, but I digress.
One of the only other complaints I have with this year’s version has to do with the “Legend” teams. In Power Pros 2024-25, teams composed of legendary players from NPB’s history were available as part of the package. This year, these teams are locked behind paid DLC. It would have been nice to see these included, but given that so much is already on offer, I can kind of forgive this. Even with that said, I don’t see any good reason as to why more uniforms, especially classic ones, are not available. Oh well.
Visuals, Audio & Performance
Things haven’t changed too much visually or on the audio front with Power Pros since it launched on the Switch back in 2019. Character models look sharp, the stadiums are great representations of their real life counterparts and the crowds animate well and look good. It’s not perfect, though. Signs, logos and team emblems tend to look a bit lower resolution than everything else, but I can look past this. In terms of performance, the Power Pros series has always run at a stable, high framerate of right around 60 frames per second and the same holds true here. There are very rare occasions when the game might chug a little bit, but this is never during gameplay and mostly limited to cutscenes.
Playing in handheld mode on the Nintendo Switch 2 with Handheld Mode Boost enabled really makes a difference. If you’re using a Switch 1, the game is limited to 720p, which is fine, but things look a noticeably better on the Switch 2 in handheld. Character models look sharper, locations look better and the game just pops more. Some might be a bit disappointed that a proper Switch 2 version isn’t here, but Konami moves at their own pace with their baseball series (both Power Pros and Pro Spirit). Maybe next time, and even then, I’m not sure that it’s necessary. If the Switch 1 is still a viable platform when 2028 rolls around, we may very well see another version there. If you look at the PlayStation release of the series, Konami hasn’t been in any hurry to get the a native PlayStation 5 version of the game out anytime soon either, as they still deliver the series as a PS4 title.
Conclusion
Power Pros 2026-2027 is another solid entry into the series and does a great job at giving Success Mode a proper celebration. Even outside of the celebratory version of that mode, the game has an enormous amount of content on offer. Pennant, My Life, Eikan Nine, Live Scenario, customization tools - I can keep going. You can easily sink dozens of hours into the game. If you're in the market for a baseball game with something a bit different, Power Pros 2026-2027 is worth checking out.
Final Score: 9.0
by Danny Bivens
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