Gaming "That's rad!": The Yakuza Series

So I'm probably six hours into the game? I like it but I also find I can't play for super long stretches. Only an hour or so because of all the reading.

 

I recommend going with the hour at a time approach as the quality of the story is high and it's better you appreciate it than try and blitz through it all.

 

Really just sounds like a good excuse to play more mahjong if you ask me.

 

Hey, Xbone players, get in. We're doing Yakuza stuff.

 

Wow, Sony loses an exclusive.

Cue melodramatic Yakuza style Sony board meeting with Sega.

 

Eh, those titles already had PC versions, it was kind of dumb that they weren’t on Bone already.

 

Even if they weren't on PC already, I wouldn't care about Sony losing an exclusive. All I care about is the fact that more people get to experience muh weird Yakuzies games.

EDIT: I just remembered that Yakuza 1 & 2 already got Wii U versions in Japan.



So if Sega is porting Yakuza to other systems again, then Switch versions of 0, Kiwami, 2, 3,4 and 5 please.

I can tolerate not porting Kiwami 2 or 6, given that the Dragon Engine would probably turn the Switch into a grenade, and I don't fancy picking Nintendo shrapnel out of the furnishings.

 

Got my copy of Yakuza Remastered Collection.

Haven't started yet, was doing the 'download game files & instal' run.

Expecting Yakuza 3 to play quite differently compared to my first PS3 run, after having played Yakuza Zero and Kiwami 1-2.

Is also quite cool looking at that seven game series. I'm still on the fence for Judgment and Yakuza: Like A Dragon. Although the latter looks like it could be one of the most nuts RPGs ever.

 

Oh yeah, I really need to keep playing Yakuza 0.

 

So, you stopped, Solo-san?


Meanwhile, I'm on the final chapter of Yakuza 3 Remastered and it's proven to be an interesting remaster.

One of the points that stands out is the re-translation of the material - I'm reasonably certain some lines here weren't in the PS3, especially where Kanda is concerned. There's also some cutscenes and entire sequences I don't remember seeing.

They've also whacked up the number of people on-screen in Kamurcho, which does a couple of things - one, gives a better sense of being in a hectic, bus city, but also two, better obscures enemies. In the PS3 version, you could spot and avoid them, here there will be times where they blend in with the crowd. Distribution of those enemies is more even too, though the post-fight apologies never get old.

At the start, it can be frustrating due to just about every enemy having super-instant-block, even if you land a hit they can instantly re-guard again. Later this becomes lesser because you get Kazzy powered up and can pound through it, if you are suitably offensive and in Yakuza 3, there's no such thing as being too aggressive.

In comparative terms, this is the weakest of the three games because of what the series went on to do, but it's an interesting look at how the series was and also makes the case for the Kiwami versions of 1-2.

 

You’re correct that you’re seeing new things; stuff got cut in the western release of 3 and I think it’s all back owing to the retranslation. Annnnd also making me wish it made technical sense to put that collection on Switch. Sadly I suspect it doesn’t.

 

Yakuza 3 Remastered review here:
https://boards.theforce.net/threads...game-you-beat.18864661/page-111#post-56450299

Have started on Yakuza 4.

 

I stopped in a way... but it's not like I replaced it with another console game. I just haven't had time to play any console games lately. Only been playing a Fire Emblem 3DS game in bed at night. Hopefully things will get back to normal soon and I can play again. Because I was definitely enjoying it.

 

Somewhere in the ether of the Internet there will be lurking my posts on the PS3 playthrough I did of Yakuza 5. Not a lot has changed about a decade later with the game remastered for Ps4.

When and to what degree should a successful game series change? That is what this iteration of the series brings into question because the Taxi game for Kiryu? It is ****ing awful. If you are not having to avoid suicidal pedestrians, while having a conversation with the most picky passengers possible while having to carefully press the R2 trigger, to move forward at the right spreed, while, with your same thumb/hand you have o the L3 stick, you are to use the D-Pad to indicate direction you are turning and only go on green, despite the time limit clock obscuring your view of those traffic lights.... To be honest, it's more fun to just **** the taxi missions up and humiliate your bastard passengers. You still get points and XP so screw 'em.

But while its experimenting with driving is a total disaster the core gameplay is superb. It makes moves available from the start that you had to earn much later in previous games. For instance, some guy grabs you head-on and you have the heat gauge active? Piledrive his head into the ground! Then there's new heat moves like there's these bollards see? So grab a guy, place his arse above one of them and then tell him to say goodbye to his nuts, as you ram him into the top of the bollard! The fighting is a blast and the pre-fight smack talk and post-fight apology is present too, just in new form.

Of the three remasters, this is the hardest to see the improvements on because it looked so good way back when.

 

5 was where they really started to get a great handle on the mahjong engine, so it's a-okay by me. I'm always a bit torn on it vs the 6 engine because I sincerely can't figure out if I prefer the english reference corner codes or not. Sure, mahjong is for everyone and should be more accessible, but on the other hand my on-ramp was hard, what about my needs, my mahjong needs?

 

I am now through the godawful abomination that was the hunting section of Yakuza 5.

On my first PS3 playthrough, I did more of that terrible section but this time? Did not give a ****. Oh, there's a hunter trapped on the mountain? Shouldn't have gone up, should he? **** him. There's a demon bear on the loose? **** that too. There's some other **** to be done? What part of 'like I give a ****' do you yokels not get?

To give them some credit though, this is where my memory of having fun playing Saejima comes from, not its predecessor, because in this one? They power him up big time right from the start - you can boot people in the face with a size 15 boot. You can throw someone onto the ground so hard they bounce four feet and - once you have the heat move unlocked, bounce them high in the air, clothesline them on the way back down and, just to make them extra dead, slam them headfirst into the ground! And then there is the classic that never goes out of fashion - smashing the crap out of goons with a motorbike! Yes, you read that right.

Unfortunately, after the prologue it falters with a talk-to-random-people-to-progress mission, but at least there's no ****ing Saito in this game. In fact, if anything, I quite like Deputy Warden Kosuka. The game recovers after that with a big brawl that's a lot of fun and then it goes wonky. By rights, a snowmobile ought to be epic except the controls are fudgy, your view is compromised and it just never really realises its ambitions. One thing I noticed this time around - the punch-up with Yama-roshi, a demon, bullet-immune, immortal bear, felt easier, as if it had been tweaked.

Talking of changes, forgot to say how Kazzy's chapters went. The second half of Kazzy's section has the long battles that are the series' highlight, these are epic affairs where you tear through numerous enemies, using whatever weaponry you want. But the big difference this time around is I had the Bounding Throw technique worked out! Before I never cracked it but this time? It amps up an already insane fighting system when, after punching a guy in the face three times, followed by a heavy blow you then grab and throw the guy into his colleagues! It gives you a crazy level of initiative and control in the fights while looking so damn flash. Which meant the final big brawl was a sustained run of glorious utter chaos!

 

Back to Yakuza 5 and I finished the combo of Akiyama and Haruka and then was lumbered with Shinada.

Is he that bad a character? Not really but the story is built around baseball, which I don't care about, and his best abilities ae around weapon, but in the main story missions the game too often contrives to deny him those. Did you know if you drop a baseball bat it shatters on impact? They do here. Despite this, once you get him powered up he works well enough.

After Shinada's tale you get back to Kiryu. Here I tried the upgrade fight with the Komakis. It was **** years ago on the PS3 original and here? It's still ****. The problem is it combines the worst aspects of the combat into one terrible combination:

• Camera ****ery? Check.
  
• Unblockable combos? Check.
  
• Super-speed and dodging? Check.
  
• Blocked from using heat moves? Check.
  
• Infinite, unbreakable block? Check.
  
• No way to win except by cheese methods? Check.

Which it then makes worse by having the fight be against two such enemies, which the fight system simply isn't designed for. Normal speed multiple enemies? You can spread out and then deal with, doesn't work here. One big boss with minions? Again, can be strategised, but this one? No. What happens is you try and attack one target, who has super block and while you do that, the other one hits you. Try to go after the other instead? Same result. Sure, spamming the Dragon Rage option a Kiryu and quaffing heat recovery items like there's no tomorrow works but it feels.... dishonourable, even though your enemies have none!

Did do it but I'm sufficiently deterred from trying it for the others. Plus a Lv20 character will be able to annihilate everyone they fight anyway.

The rest of it? Pretty damn cool. Fighting other enemies only emphasises just how nerfed your own ability and how amped up your enemies were in that fight. The online advice for it? "Use a shotgun" - yes, seriously.

 

The idea of a RPG turn-based combat system for the next Yakuza game was always going to be a tough sell, but it is now looking gloriously bonkers:

 

Fuuuuuu......

Nov is going to be brutal this year.

 

Hadn't found this info until now:

Sega also revealed that, similar to Xbox Series X's Smart Delivery offering, fans who purchase Like a Dragon on PS4 will receive a free upgrade to the PS5 version. Get a look at an all-new trailer below: In addition, the publisher shared its plans for the English dub.22 Jul 2020
https://www.playstationlifestyle.net/2020/07/22/yakuza-like-a-dragon-ps5-release-date-west/

 

Welp, since I finished Ghost of Tsushima this morning and the Destiny expansion was pushed back to November, I now have time to return to Yakuza 0. Played about an hour this morning

 

That's rad.

 

So just as a general thought.... I am loving Yakuza 0, but I am guessing because I am playing these chronologically and this is my first Yakuza games, I am probably missing a lot of fan service moments... Right? Don't spoil it or anything, just nod or give me the signal

But yeah, I am in Chapter 5 now and really digging it. Finally am getting into this game at a level where I want to play it daily.

 

Not really, not that I recall - maybe they were too subtle for me to notice.

Zero, K1, K2 and 3 work very well as a quartet.