Yakuza/Like A Dragon Series Discussion Thread

[Zloth]

No chance of a very recent Restore Point?

Nah. I don't think I would trust a restore point to bring back just one file anyway.

Check the game's save folder, maybe the previous one is changed to .BAK and not deleted until next so-called save.

I did, once I found it! Searching on that was really weird. First, Google returned some site saying they are in AppData\Local. I found a folder there, but it was empty. Another search then said it was in the Steam user data. Again, an empty folder. Another refinement to the search pointed to AppData\LocalLow. Nothing at all there. Finally, a search said AppData\Roaming. That had it!

Clearly, my efforts to get the gaming industry to decide on a place to put game saves has failed in a pretty epic way. I wish E3 was still around, if I could sell T-shirts there at cost, I bet we would have our standard inside of 5 years!

Guess reviews didn't mention this glaring weakness, did they?

Uhhhhhh.... dunno. Didn't look. Mine will certainly have it!

My sympathies. having experienced something similar to the point of game ending disaster, it hurts when it happens. Normally i don't rely on autosaves especially if i start a new game or multiple people are playing as i'm never too sure how the autosaving for a game works. Sometimes it makes multiple autosaves, sometimes its just one shared by all. Normally i use main saves and autosaves as a fall back mechanism if i don't save often enough or a convenient save game point to an event.

Yep, that's the way to treat them in this game. I watched the auto-saves more carefully, and the game makes them a LOT. However, it only has one of them. (Unlike Horizon: Forbidden West, which spoiled me.)

The other problem is the loading screen. When you select Continue, it shows you all your save games, but it highlights whatever is under the pointer, NOT the latest save. The saves show the autosave on top, then the other saves in save-slot order. When you first see the save list, your mouse pointer is where the Continue menu option was, which means you will highlight the highest numbered save slot. It doesn't matter if that slot is the newest or not. You either need to never overwrite old saves or you need to hunt through those saves to find the newest one.

That's pretty poor design. It isn't terrible once you understand what's going on but, sheesh, who would ever want to see their saves in the save slot number order!?

Edit: OH! I just noticed there's a sort option on the loading screen, so you can sort it by date if you want. (And you do.)

 

[Brian Boru]

I don't think I would trust a restore point to bring back just one file anyway

Yeah, that was a dumb suggestion, RP saves only system files, not your data files.

 

[Zloth]

OK, Yakuza redeemed itself pretty fast. Some of the side quests try to pull on the heartstrings before they've earned the right, but it mostly works.

 

[Zloth]

There's a weird thing going on with the difficulty. The game is locked on "normal" difficulty, which is really pretty easy. Not quite Yakuza 4 easy, but still too easy IMHO. You can't change it until you finish the game once, too. The game does have different power levels in different parts of the city, so you can still get killed fast if you wander too far from where you are supposed to be or if you take the main quest too fast but, as long as you play sanely, you'll hardly need to worry about defeat.

On the other hand, the death penalty is really harsh: half of your cash vanishes if Ichiban falls. (This is one of those games where other party members can die but, if the main character goes down, you lose.) So, if you do manage to get yourself killed, it HURTS! And the game's quick auto-save makes sure it sticks. You'll have to remember to make manual saves. which isn't a trivial thing in a game where most of the enemies are so easy.

There is a way to mitigate this by putting money in ATM machines. Unfortunately, those machines are rare. I've only seen one in the main city so far! And it sure isn't in the pawn shop where you're most likely to sell stuff that makes you rich. Also, if you want to buy something expensive, you're going to need to find that ATM, get the money out, then go back to the store again. Ugh. It's better to make manual saves and just re-load, IMHO.

 

[neogunhero]

Reading Zloths posts will get me ready for Like A Dragon when I get to that game. I don’t think Yakuza 0 has auto saves, so I’m pretty used to manually saving every 10 minutes or so. The thing about the save files sorting is quite poor design though.


Man oh man did I grind this weekend. Over the past three days I only played a handful of hours but they were all grinding out Real Estate Royale. So far I’ve defeated the first three of the Five Billionaires and currently working on defeating the Gambling King, which is coming soon since I am at little over 50% shares there. I’ve S-Ranked every propriety in the Leisure and Electronics Districts, with only two or three more to go in the Pleasure District. I’ve also spent tons of CP to max out the business character progress, unlocking the highest tier that makes payout collections take significantly less time to complete. So I will start my payouts, go play a 3 frame game of bowling, maybe grab a bite to eat, fight a few dudes, then by the time I get back all my money is waiting to be collected. It’s so nice how quick it takes.

Right now I’ve just got to wait until payouts are ready before going to acquire more Gambling district properties. After that you’ve got the Media King, and whoever oversees the Five Billionaires. The storyline for this real estate portion of the game is actually very nicely fleshed out and it stays interesting as you go on. I like how each Billionaire has a challenge for you when you reach 60% acquisition: play a game with them and if you win you get 10% bonus shares, if you lose the game then you lose 10% of your shares. Leisure King has you battle him in Karaoke, Electronics King had you battle on an old racing arcade game, and Pleasure King challenged you to see who can get a date on the Telephone Club mini game the fastest. I never played the telephone game before so I lost that one but immediately made it all back haha. Gambling King for sure will have you gamble somehow which I will definitely lose to, and Media King might have me dance battle him? We’ll see as I get further along.

@Zloth I just finished the radio postcard substory. The Hercules Gloves you get from finishing it had actually proven very useful. I’ve been using Beast Style mainly so it’s great for grappling and throwing enemies. That substory was also perfect for grinding out my properties since I can just enter and exit the building over and over and it progressed the story haha.

 

[Zloth]

Like a Dragon is, thankfully, starting to get a little more difficult. I finally found a boss I had to use dial-a-friend to get through. It also seemed particularly appropriate to have the characters dressed up for their jobs for the battles on Labor Day! (Though I'm not so sure 'night queen' is a union job.)

I still haven't figured out what I'm doing with the management game, though. There are 8 pages of instructions, and they are largely useless. The shareholder meeting seems unwinnable, at least at this early date. I have to hire somebody additional just to cover all four spots and everyone is way too weak to really do much convincing for the really angry guy. Then having the 4th guy to pay kill profits in the business proper! I've found some people to hire but, at least so far, they've got practically no skill at all and training doesn't help. Gotta find more guides, I guess, or maybe I just have to wait until later chapters before I get started.

 

[Zloth]

OK, got the management game figured out. Getting through the initial challenge rewards you with a whole new character that joins your party!

 

[neogunhero]

Still on Chapter 10 in Yakuza 0 seriously grinding out Real Estate Royale. Currently I’ve defeated 4 of the 5 Billionaires, with the last one, Media King, at about 84% when I quit last night. My eyes were feeling very heavy, couldn’t bring myself to finish the rest of it last night but it’s been biting at me all day today. Can’t wait to see where the story ends up. Gonna post a spoiler below:

Spoiler

After the shadowy figure who controls the Five Billionaires sends the Media King out to defend himself against me, he calls in a new person. Turns out it’s Yamanoi, the guy who starts the real estate business with you. After that the cutscene ends. Really curious if I’m gonna end up having to beat the absolute bricks out of Yamanoi for going behind my back this whole time.

I am making a ton of money from this but it’s starting to get a bit tedious. I’m ready to fully S-Rank all properties and not have to worry about investing and swapping staff so much. At this point all my 100%’d districts just have Managers and I don’t care if their score is below 0, which does affects total payout, but only marginally, especially since the first 3 districts only pay out less than 100mil Yen each time. The last two are the biggest money makers for sure.

I’ve also been trying to learn all Beast style and Rush style moves by doing the training. I’ve become bored of all the side activities and ready to play as Majima again but I need to fully finish Real Estate Royale before progressing in the story. Speaking of the story…

Currently I’m supposed to go sleep in a homeless camp after returning to Kamurocho. The entire Dojima family is on the streets looking for me, so basically for the past 15 hours of gameplay spend on Chapter 10, I’ve been fighting an increased amount of goons everywhere I go. Note to anyone wanting to play this game, do NOT grind Real Estate Royale on Chapter 10. The story leads up to more yakuza roaming the streets than any other chapter, so more random fighting encounters while you are running around purchasing property and looking to spend time in between payouts. It’s been very annoying but overall didn’t bother me too much. Maybe just a bit. Also, this has been the longest day ever in the game, I was supposed to go to sleep at the homeless camp like 15 hours ago lol.

I was trying to get the achievement where once you 100% an area, someone in the street will light your cigarette for you. I spent maybe 20 minutes running around town trying to find specific NPCs who look like they will do it. I kept idling for 15 seconds, and Kiryu will pull out a cig and light it himself. I was getting very frustrated. Turns out, it only happens at night. Chapter 10 takes place during the day. I was a bit annoyed to say the least.

Once I’m fully through with Real Estate Royale, I may stick around a bit longer to collect a few more payouts and complete some side stories. However this means S-ranking all properties, and for Media King district, this will take a while even with the most expensive advisors. Still got a few hours here before moving on in the main story.

 

[Zloth]

Wow, I only got one or two of the Five Stars before I moved on!

That extra party member you can get in Like a Dragon is definitely extra. Whenever there's a cutscene, she's completely forgotten! Ichiban even announced that "it's just the three of us" when she was the 4th member of the party.

 

[neogunhero]

Fully finished the storyline for the Five Billionaires and now I don’t know what to do haha. I spend between 20-30 hours in game grinding the real estate activity out. I defeated all the billionaires, finished the story, and now all I have left is 100%ing Media King’s district. All I have left is to keep investing in those properties. I want to get to S-Rank on all of those properties but some of them are going to take a few more payouts to complete so I need to wait around in Chapter 10 a little longer before moving on.

Currently sitting somewhere around 6 Billion Yen, so maybe my dreams of getting to 500 Billion will come true soon, but on the other hand I’m ready to get moving on in the story. I’m thinking about just grinding out the rest of the story then moving onto Kiwami. I’ve played almost nothing but Yakuza 0 for the past month haha.

I would estimate the rest of the story will take me somewhere around 10 more hours to finish. I believe there are 17 chapters total. I love this game but I’m burning myself out on it, even with breaks in between. I’ve taken a day or two off from playing at least once a week, but still starting to get a bit burnt out. I don’t want to quit though so I need to grind out the story.

I won’t be putting the same effort into Majima’s cabaret clubs. The general principle is the same, you run a business and make a crazy amount of money and you need to manage your staff to earn the most returns, just instead of real estate, you run a hostess club as Majima. These side activities are a lot of fun and you do make a stupid amount of money, but at this point I really don’t know what else to spend my money on. I’ve got enough upgrades unlocked to safely beat the game. Maybe Majima needs a few more unlocks but I really don’t want to grind for money when playing as him.

I really just want to start Kiwami already…

 

[Zloth]

Maybe Majima needs a few more unlocks but I really don’t want to grind for money when playing as him.

There's no need to - you can pass money between the characters. You're already waaaay past the point of what's needed to win the game!

 

[neogunhero]

There's no need to - you can pass money between the characters. You're already waaaay past the point of what's needed to win the game!

Currently the rich guy won’t let me send over more than 100 million to Majima until I upgrade his cabaret business more. I really don’t want to do that but I think 100 mil would be more than enough for me to beat the game haha. My dopamine receptors have been having too much fun watching my money go up.

 

[Zloth]

Possible spoiler for Yakuza: Like a Dragon. Not for the story, though, just one of the stranger enemies.

Like a Dragon has a repeatable dungeon in the stunningly spacious sewer system. I went in soon after it opened up and barely made it to the escape ladder before getting trounced. Last night, I went in again several chapters later and had a much easier time.

Spoiler

One of the enemies gave me a huge shock, though: an Invested Vagabond. He was roughly my level but, when I attacked him, my attacks all did 1 point of damage. At this stage of the game, attacks even weak attacks were doing 100 damage! I glance at the clock, an hour to bedtime. I put some attack-up powers on my folks and defense down on him. One point per attack. Maybe I should pop some popcorn??

But wait, I've only hit it a few times and the HP bar is already down about 20%. Sneaky devs! It must only have about 50hp! Just keep wailing on it with the free attacks and keep everyone's HP up, no problem! It went down in just a few minutes. And he was worth MASSIVE XP! Ten times what a story mission rewarded!

 

[Zloth]

YIKES! I had heard rumors of a difficulty spike in chapter 12. The enemies around town got stronger, but it wasn't that bad. Once you manage to collect enough money, you get sent to another town. The enemies there were a bit stronger than the ones back home but, again, not really that bad. Then you need to run through a little dungeon with easy enemies that are easy to avoid until you get to the end and... OMG!! Double boss fight! And one of the bosses makes duplicates of himself!?

Before this, I rarely did the call-a-friend (hence all the free options) and never bothered with first aid kits or the stronger healing options. This time, I was hitting all of them hard and tagging out characters as well. Even then, it took a good 40 minutes to defeat them! It obviously spoils who the enemies are, but this is a good video to see how fights play out (nsfw). Very long fights, anyway - most take under a minute.

 

[Johnway]

Speaking of yakuza i saw Like a Dragon: Ishin! is at its loweset price yet at 13.13 or 15.01 at gamesplanet and i'm mighty tempted. but at the same time... I feel like i can wait. I'm not in any position to play this one anytime soon (maybe years?) but the deal is mighty tempting. It just feels like its going onto humble choice or something and by the time i do play it, its going to be even cheaper.

Must.resist.

Once i finish costume quest, 2, i'll play yakuza 4 should take me up to mid november

 

[Brian Boru]

Must.resist.

Patience!

It's a virtue, doncha know?

 

[Johnway]

Patience!

It's a virtue, doncha know?

The plan is to wait, i mean, i still have some of the older yakuza games/spin offs to buy. namely the judgement series. But christ almighty thats taking its sweet time to drop in price. I want the Judgement collection which include both games AND the DLC and its still around the High 30 mark. Seen it cheaper at 25.99 and wasn't exactly thrilled by the price as i could get the main games for 10/15 respectively.

Once i finish the other yakuza games i've got, we'll review the situation. Unless the price drops or it falls into a humble choice/bundle then we'll review.

 

[Zloth]

It's getting difficult to keep up!

View: https://youtu.be/GCmDF0NqZQc?si=u-cr1hFvssPgU8Ve

 

[Frindis]

It's not Black Flag Remastered, but I'll take it!

 

[Brian Boru]

It's getting difficult to keep up!

Isn't it? I just did a quick price search for Johnway, but backed off pretty sharpish when I saw the screens of titles—none of which had 'Judgement' in their name

 

[Zloth]

There are just a couple of those so far. They stick closer to the "old" Yakuza series by not having turn-based combat.

Save 70% on Judgment on Steam

Fight for the truth and uncover the twisted crime running deep beneath the surface of Tokyo. In this legal thriller , the balance between justice and mercy teeters on the edge.

store.steampowered.com

Save 70% on Lost Judgment on Steam

When a police officer discloses the murder of the student teacher who bullied his son to suicide, the twisted secrets of a Yokohama, high school bleed out. Nothing, in this case, is black and white.

store.steampowered.com

 

[Brian Boru]

Ah… I was assuming Yakuza would be in the name—silly me

Judgment
Historical low: $10.67 -73% at GameBillet 9/19/2024

Lost Judgment
Historical low: $16.01 -73% at GameBillet 9/19/2024

The Judgment Collection
Historical low: $33.84 -66% at GameBillet 3/14/2024

So nothing new there for Johnway—Patience it is!

 

[Slasken]

I think the Judgment games are both excellent. Played them both last year.

 

[Slasken]

how to download?

Just hit install on Steam

 

[Brian Boru]

how to download?

Where did you buy it?