Power Pro-kun Pocket 5 is a 2003 Baseball simulator + dating sim + turn-based RPG developed by Diamond Head and published by Konami for the Game Boy Advance. It introduced the My Pennant mode, in which you can enter your custom characters to see if you can win an entire year-long season without getting fired.
There's also a training mode for checking out the controls and the performance of each character. In the Outer Success for this game as well as some of the later ones, it is used as a mandatory minigame for earning reputation.
Outer Success Mode: Oogami Moles Edition
Yusaku Kosugi is a star player who just beat the Oogami Moles team. While dashing away from reporters, he crashes face-first into a disgruntled player from Moles, "Hero 5". When he comes to, Yusaku finds the crash somehow switched their bodies, and that Hero 5 has no intention of setting things right. Now in a terribly unfit body and surrounded by people he doesn't know, can Yusaku make his way to the top again?Inner Success Mode: Sengoku Ninja Edition
In the Sengoku period, the Daimyo's daughter Norika claims she really wants a Baseball Doll. Ninjas from all over the country scramble to eradicate each other and make the perfect Doll to earn Norika's favour.This game features the following tropes:
- Bittersweet Ending: Yusaku makes his way to championship in Hero 5's body, but to his dismay Hero 5 canonically does not perform as well and is eventually fired and sent off to Happiness Island.
- Call-Back:
- The Outer Success is given the alternate name of "Drill Moles 2", after the main scenario in the second game.
- The This Is a Work of Fiction disclaimer is brought back with the same illustration it had in 2, and becomes a series' staple.
- The staff roll for Oogami Moles shows what Bonda was up to between 2 and 5. It also canonises the fight he and Hero 2 had.
- The Cameo: Hero 2 is seen from behind in the staff roll's recap.
- Continuing is Painful:
- If you get a Game Over you'll be forced to start over from the beginning. You can reset, but the game punishes that with stat losses and will eventually just erase your save file.
- Regarding My Pennant mode, you can only enter each character in it once and if you get fired you cannot continue. Your character won't get deleted or anything, though. You can still reset if you lose, but just once and with a penalty. Those rules apply for the rest of the series.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: The Training Camp in this game uses a music track from Jikkyou Powerful Pro Yakyuu 10 Chou Ketteiban - 2003 Memorial that is replaced in the next game. The DS Pawapokes use another track from that same game instead.
- Featureless Protagonist: By virtue of being a ninja, Hero 5B slighty downplays the trope by being the first Pawapuro-kun who wears an unique costume.
- "Freaky Friday" Flip: The whole premise. It is possible to get Yusaku and Hero 5 switched back, but this only leads to terrible outcomes because of the hedonist lifestyle led by Hero 5 under his new identity. Canonically this doesn't happen and Yusaku becomes successful as Hero 5 while Hero 5 screws up everything and gets sent off to Happiness Island as a slave.
- Game Within a Game:
- The Gradius minigame is presented in-universe as a game one of the protagonist's teammates owns.
- The RPG scenario in this game unlocks after clearing the first scenario once.
- Game-Breaking Bug: Pawapoke 5 was first released with a critical save corruption bug that made the whole thing unplayable if it ever happened. Several other glitches were also fixed in later printings of the game.
- Gotta Kill 'Em All: As you progress through Sengoku Ninja you must destroy the two clans opposing you and claim all their territories.
- Hard Mode Perks: The Fire Dragon and Moonlight stories in Sengoku Ninja are harder than the first but let you build a better character for the Baseball gameplay.
- Hello, [Insert Name Here]: You start out by giving Hero 5 a name and his role on the Moles team. And then you find you're going to play as another guy in Hero 5's body.
- Inventory Management Puzzle: In Sengoku Ninja you get 30 slots to insert stat increasers and perks into your Baseball Doll. Same thing as the inventory from 3.
- It's a Wonderful Failure:
- It is possible for one of the love interests, Megumi Hoshino, to be murdered by a stalker. Cue the episodic graveyard scene with a regretful Yusaku mourning her.
- The Mania ending shows Yusaku as an obese shut-in surrounded by figurines.
- Failing Pennant mode brings up a screen with the depressed protagonist crying against a wall in an alleyway.
- The standard game over for Sengoku Ninja shows Hero 5B and Bonda lying in defeat with shuriken comically sticking out of their heads. The alternate one is much more dramatic: it shows them looking depressed as their faction's castle burns to the ground.
- If 100 or more teammates die in Sengoku Ninja, the protagonist will be tormented by ghosts in his sleep during the epilogue.
- Multiple Endings: There are several possible outcomes for the story.
- New Game Plus:
- Starting from here, you can enter your characters in Pennant mode... but the mode isn't quite fun just yet. CPU auto-play until your turn at batting is too slow even at fast-foward and you cannot increase your stats any further.
- Sengoku Ninja unlocks the other two sides of the story after the player clears it.
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Nintendo Hard: You only get one life to clear the Gradius minigame. During Oogami Moles, you must at least get a certain amount of points to clear its sidequest. - Permadeath: Don't let non-generic teammates die in Sengoku Ninja.
- Relationship Values: This was the first Pawapoke to make earning the team manager's approval after successful pitching/batting training and matches a mandatory goal.
- The Rival: Hero 5 in Yusaku's body is the main antagonist.
- Schrödinger's Player Character: When setting up Hero 5B in Sengoku Ninja, you choose which out of three factions he belongs to, though in the beginning only the Water Tiger clan is available. The unlockable Fire Dragon and Moonlight clans' stories also have a higher difficulty level.
- Stalker with a Crush: Megumi's story involves Yusaku trying to protect her from a middle-aged stalker who can either kidnap or murder her on the bad endings.
- Status Effects: The Mania status once again threatens to ruin your playthroughs.
- Unexpected Gameplay Change: You are required to clear 3 different minigames to increase the Relationship Values between you and your teammates.
- A Winner Is You: Get all epilogues for one extra illustration featuring Hero 5 and Bonda and another featuring the entire cast.
