Yakuza/Like A Dragon Series Discussion Thread

[neogunhero]

Haven’t played any Yakuza 0 in over a week, got a bit burnt out after finishing all of Real Estate Royale. I think I’ll get back into this week because I do want to finish the story.

Judgement on sale was so tempting. Entirely different storyline with no recurring characters AFAIK so no need to play through the Yakuza series to understand the story. It look great but most people say Lost Judgement is better, so that’s just another game.

Still though, as Brian puts it, patience is a virtue, and I must play the Yakuza games I already have. Looking forward to starting Kiwami after beating 0.

 

[Frindis]

I admit it, I'm a dirdy Yakuza!

 

[Johnway]

As most of you guys know i've started playing Yakuza 4, still early days as i'm still at chapter 4(?) and despite that we're still sort of in tutorial mode, but enough for a first impression.

its nice to return back to kamurocho and the real highlight is probably the underground subway/carpark area. its nice to see that part fleshed out, even if its a bit limited.

Unlike the previous games, we get to play as 4 different characters (not sure how it plays out but we'll see). So far its been a walk in a park with no encounter reducing my health to danger levels. The enemies are way too passive, but then again the bosses are the main heavy hitters that do that damage and we've not meet one yet. Maybe that guy at the hostess bar, but meh.

Speaking of hostess bar, i haven't gone through any of the subgames but i did walk into sega world and... yeah... i'm disappointed. That rubbish shooting game is back and we have the claw machines. Will ignore that for now. But more worrying is the hostess game, i've not gone through it completely (thats part of the main story line) and its looking like the same dull management from the previous game.

Will keep playing and go from there.

 

[Zloth]

That UFO game is in every Yakuza I've ever played. For whatever reason, the physics model really impresses me. I still have an awful time getting any prizes, but at least it feels like an accurately done sleezy carnival game. It's so real, I whacked my computer with a broom in Yakzua 2!

Like A Dragon is starting to wrap up. All worries about being way to easy are gone now. I've also switched from English voice acting back to Japanese. The English is well done, but hearing different voice actors for the Old Guard's voices was freaking me out.

 

[Johnway]

Plodding along Yakuza 4, we're on the second act and playing with the second character now. So far its been a familar, if a little bland experience. The combat side of things is a bit mixed atm. Outside of the main story missions, the combat is far too easy. During the main missions its a bit more lively but on the flip side bosses can be extremely cheap when it comes to attacks.

The hostess minigame makes its return and yeah, i'm looking at a guide to maximize various stats. No shame as its BS and tedious. The other minigames don't really excite me tbh which is a shame as i'm not sure why or how yakuza kwami 2 grabbed me and Y3 did not.

Storywise its still got me interested so i can keep playing.

 

[Zloth]

I finished Like a Dragon last night. It was pretty good, but I'm starting to get impatient with the series. Other than the graphics being marginally better and the addition of English voice acting, the game still feels very much like the earlier games' engine.

The turn-based combat is a pretty cool system. It isn't totally turn based! When you first meet enemies, they start out roughly where they were outside of combat: so, probably clumped together on a sidewalk or in a part of a room. If you just sit there without doing anything, they will amble around, slowly surrounding your party. By that time, an AoE attack is probably only going to hit one or two of them. If you're quick, though, you can get them all with a single attack - possibly wiping out the entire spawn! There's a handy little shortcut system to quickly select powers that I really should have learned earlier.

The start to this game was terribly slow. There's almost nothing to do but watch the story unfold for the first couple of chapters, and hardly any more in the third. It's really chapter 5 when the background story is all set, the job system is introduced, and you can really start playing the game properly. Even then, it's Yakuza-4 easy for a few chapters, sloooowly getting more difficult as the game progresses. (Then you get nailed by a difficulty spike in chapter 12.) When you start playing the game for the first time though, make some popcorn. A big bowl of it, not just one bag.

I definitely loved Ichiban's "gamer brain!" When you see enemies wandering around on the street, they look like drunks, hoodlums, gangers, and so on. When the attack starts, though, they all change into more fantastic versions of themselves. So do members of your party... sometimes, depending on the costume you pick for them.

 

[Frindis]

I just started on Chapter 3. Been learning some more combat moves, made friends with the VHS sex tape guy, and earned a few bucks playing poker. Poker is relaxing, but the AI's playing seems slightly lobotomized, raising until the limit of re-raising with just a par of 2's.

 

[Johnway]

yakuza 5, still playing as Saejima and just bumming around finishing some of the sub stories. I've finished the rookie fighter sub game twice. Not exactly the most riveting distraction as you spend more time watching and you gain very little besides a fighting partner for the arena. The only thing i haven't done is perhaps finishing the mining challenge. i need to get an upgraded pick axe and finding that wood for the upgraded pick is proving rather tricky. No idea where i can buy it tbh.

I think i'm pretty much on the verge of act 3 now as i just need to meet majima and get some answers.


The multi character idea i'm a bit conflicted. the problem is that i don't get to spend enough time with each character to develop or flesh out challenges. if there is any unfinished business, i can't move on until perhaps after i've beaten the game. in which case i'm done with it.

 

[Zloth]

Wait, so you are expecting to get some sensible answers from THIS guy, @Johnway?

Spoiler: Yakuza 2 spoiler (and naughty language in Japanese with English subtitles)

View: https://youtu.be/uWrGqn4-_PA


Amazing how exciting the old bomb defusal trope can be even with 80+ seconds left on the timer.

 

[Johnway]

Wait, so you are expecting to get some sensible answers from THIS guy, @Johnway?

Spoiler: Yakuza 2 spoiler (and naughty language in Japanese with English subtitles)

View: https://youtu.be/uWrGqn4-_PA


Amazing how exciting the old bomb defusal trope can be even with 80+ seconds left on the timer.

honestly its going to end in fisticuffs. Saejima got screwed over by majima so saejima took the rap killing 18 people and sat on death row for 25 years whilst majima went on to start his own criminal family and got rich. Although from the back story it looks like Majima were practically brothers in crime. So we'll see.

 

[Johnway]

well that ended predictably for Act 2, majima wasn't too tough even if he was annoyingly fast and bounced around like a silver pinball. We're now onrto Act 3 with a new character and i've encountered my toughest foe yet: mahjong. Didn't even give me the choice to play rookie games, so i forked out money to move on. Practically skint. yeah i could have bought the fake silver plates for 100 a piece, but just didn't feel right. So i forked out the money just to make sure there were no surprises.

 

[Johnway]

Act 4 and we're finally to Kazuma Kiryu's part of the game. Surprisingly its gone ahead with a breakneck pace that i don't even get a chance to do any of the substory content at all. But it seems to have stablized a bit so hopefully i can and get some stuff sorted.

The story unsurprisingly is (again) an unpredictable mess of double crosses, betrayals, double agents and double/triple bluffs as all the villians come out of the wood work as the grand scheme comes to fruition. Interestingly, the story seems to revolve around yakuza's 1 ending's minor events leading up to events in Yakuza 4. Clever stuff i guess, but a more annoying aspect is that one of the ultimate villian's appears near the end as opposed to being a clear and present threat, someone just gets wheeled out near the end of act 3 and you've had no dealings whatsoever with that person.

Combat wise, again very easy, but there has been some tough encounters and much of it, again is with bosses who seem to just recover when you're smashing them in with combos. They kinda of do things that you can't and thats galling (they're not playing by the game's mechanics) and i detest that. It kinda reminds me of Dawn of war DC with the Tau faction, YOU can only pick one end tech tree, the AI can pick both and thensome. its BS. The hard parts were during the early stages when you have limited resources, skills and health to fight bosses.


the other bit of yakuza bit of news is the lowest price for Like a dragon: ishin for just under £12 honestly a tempting deal, but on the flip side i feel that this game is going to either go into humble bundle choice or i'm seeing a discount of another deal...

must.resist.again....

 

[Zloth]

Yakuza Boss: So, I was putting the beat down on that 'Dragon of Dojima' guy, and you know what? I beat him! HARD! Yeah, he did his Stamina Royal thing and came back from near death to full health a couple of times, but I still smashed his face on my knee. And then... POOF! Time warps! I find myself at the start of the fight, saying the same things! I still beat him, though, maybe even a little faster than the first time.

And then.... POOF AGAIN! Yet again the fight starts over, only this time, about 5 seconds in, everything freezes. Neither of us can move! I hear a few clicking sounds, and then I swear I start hearing the voice of some guy, I think he was speaking in English. He went on for a while, and then I could hear me and Kiryu shouting at each other, just like the start of the battles.

I thought I was going Majima-class-crazy for sure, and then I heard something beyond crazy. There was an advertisement right in the middle of our fight!! If I was going crazy, then Toyota has figured out how to capitalize on psychotic breaks! Forget it! I'm not going nuts; this is some sort of supernatural capitalism!!

Anyway, time unfreezes and suddenly Kiryu seems to know every move I'm going to make. I hit him a few times, but he never even needed to use that Stamina Royal stuff.

 

[neogunhero]

I’ve been slacking on Yakuza 0, haven’t played in weeks, but I promised myself I will finish it. I will make time for it eventually.

How do you guys feel about the Pirate Yakuza game? Worth a preorder or purchase at launch? It seems really interesting for sure, and I’m curious how the new gameplay elements like ship combat will play out. It’s kind of crazy how fast RGG churns out games, it almost makes you wonder if the crunch is unbearable or if it’s non-existent because they’re just that good.

 

[Johnway]

I’ve been slacking on Yakuza 0, haven’t played in weeks, but I promised myself I will finish it. I will make time for it eventually.

How do you guys feel about the Pirate Yakuza game? Worth a preorder or purchase at launch? It seems really interesting for sure, and I’m curious how the new gameplay elements like ship combat will play out. It’s kind of crazy how fast RGG churns out games, it almost makes you wonder if the crunch is unbearable or if it’s non-existent because they’re just that good.

It reminds me of Black flag. Way too similar to black flag. i think i'll wait a bit and decide. Of course, thats my strategy for all games. Don't buy them on release.

 

[Zloth]

Worth a preorder or purchase at launch?

Looks like it builds on the story in Infinite Wealth, so I'll need to play that before buying the pirate thing. I can only do one Yakuza per year - even then I'm burning out a little.

 

[Johnway]

39 hours in and i'm on the final show down. Currently we're just finishing any last bits of business before i go into the final battle.

Act 4 with kazuma was pretty good. Plenty of fighting involved. The main sub quest is taking on the gangs. Fun, to bash them, but it takes a while for them to all appear, but on the flip side we got to fight the joker and also for the final boss Guy fawkes. Main story wise, it does seem to move very quickly yet again as you can simply run to the final fight at the construction side and just move on. The fight up the construction site is jolly entertaining and got the fighting bladder going.

Story wise its just double, triple, quadruple betrayals. There was one plot hole that got me rolling my eyes/shaking my head. Why does no one frisk enemies for weapons? it just comes across as bloody stupid. You took the time to tie the person up, but not search them for a weapon? could have pulled it out sooner and saved lives ffs.

 

[Johnway]

Still playing Yakuza 4, i've tried to finish off any outstanding business or last few substories etc. So i have completed Hostess maker and just like in Y3 its utterly boring and tedious and to complete it properly i'm expected to do it three times as well. i was finishing saejima's fighter maker challenge and i maanged to get all 5 fighters finished. On the whole not too difficult, but the 4th fighter is absolutely rubbish and brings all the negative elements of that mode to the forefront. i also finished all the fights in the arena and the final fight is absolute BS and i only one by the skin of my teeth. Now i have to do it with Kazuma as well...

Or... sod it, i'll finish the last mission and cross yakuza off as finished.

 

[Johnway]

after 46 hrs, i've completed Yakuza 4 (interestingly 46% of the game) overall enjoyable to play. Personally i though the flow of the game was a bit all over the place, playing 4 characters results in a lot of content locked off until the end in which case it just becomes busy work/tick box as opposed to riveting or progressive.

Take the hostess maker if you skip though akiyama's act you won't be able to play it until act 5/finale which makes the mode even more tedious and that means hostess story mode locked off for long periods. To top if off getting exp can be a bit tricky, especially when i can't use the arena to grind for money/exp.

main mission wise, its alright. Enjoyable combat etc. But the finale is a bit weak, compared to the penultimate battle up the construction site against the entire ueno clan was far more exciting and epic. instead, we get 4 boss fights, sure the last one against an squad of police special forces was cool, but i suspect it would have been annoying. Mercifully, i had unlocked the bullet proof samurai armor and made the fight trivial and a leisurely final battle.

i could probably keep playing, but i think we're done here. Its not like i'm going to play the game again tbh.

 

[ExtraWildGames]

Aw Yakuza. A bit of a mixed, but enjoyable bag for me. I'm a big action game fan, and honestly Yakuza has some pretty fun combat (when it's not bullshit hyper armor and guard break boss extravaganzas). Definitely am a fan of the series and characters. Really hoping Yakuza Pirate is good.