Yes, Hokuto Shinken does have a bartending branch. It's too late for those drink germs. They're already dead.*
Story Mode
- After Kenshiro wins his freedom, Xsana goes to congratulate him while Jagre still doesn't trust him. She then tells Jagre to tour the city for Ken, to his obvious frustration.
- When Ken and Jagre arrives to the cathedral, and Jagre explains the backstory of his and Xsana's life, Ken assumes he loves her, causing Jagre to go into Suspiciously Specific Denial.
- Once Ken decides to investigate the Cursed Village, Jagre, who prior to this calls Ken his partner, tries to weasel his way out of going. Xsana then throws back Jagre's own words at him before ordering him to head out with Ken, much to Jagre's frustration.
- One mook in the story claims to have learned "Hokey-dough Shitcan" from Jagi and proclaims: "I'll become the new Fister of the North Star". last words before Kenshiro fisted him.
- Before that, another mook decides, having known what happens to those who pick a fight with Kenshiro, to be the Only Sane Man and not fight him.
- Targa proves to be one hell of a Silent Snarker when Jagi tells him to kill Rei and Airi. He gives a gesture that speaks "Um, where are they?" pointing at the likely-dead henchmen and siblings missing.
- Jagi sets a puzzle for Kenshiro where he must deduce which of the 4 Jagi's are the real Jagi, and not a hostage forced to take part in this. Pick the wrong Jagi and Kenshiro will confidently declare that they're the the true Jagi...then proceed to deck an innocent civilian in the face knocking them out with Kenshiro basically going "oh...my mistake" and moves on like nothing happened. Rei even mocks your deductive skills when you accuse any of the other remaining Jagi's.
- Jagi in general just owns every scene he's in due to how ridiculously over the top he is. It also helps that he has the same voice actor as Goro Majima. You'll honestly be sad to see him go when he dies because you won't get any more of his craziness.
- If you equip the Kiryu skin and turn on English voices, Kenshiro still wears the skin in cinematic cutscenes, allowing you to unofficially give Kiryu a hilariously unfitting English voice.
Substories
- A sidequest has Ken encounter an Eden committee chairmen and his followers who abhors violence. The chairman attempts to talk to a thug threatening a woman, who gets beat down, prompting Ken to save his skin.
- And then in the second encounter, a thug attempts to steal a child's bag of money to buy his sick mother food. Just as Ken is about to intervene, the chairman interrupts him, and tell him to "use his mouth" to the thug (as in talk to him). Predictably, this fails, prompting Ken to save his ass again.
- One mission has Kenshiro helping a master shoulderpad craftsman. Yes, there is a man whose chosen vocation in life is making shoulder pads. And let’s be honest, business has been good for the man.
- During the quest, which involves trying to lure out a Serial Killer who targets shoulder pad wearers, thus ruining the craftsman's business, Ken is made twice to stand in one spot as a decoy to lure the perpetrator out. At one point he's shown lying flat on his back on the ground, in utter boredom at having to wait while nothing is happening.
- One bar substory sees Jagre walk in for a drink, and then ask for advice "for a friend" who is interested in dating a girl he likes (who is totally not Xsana).Rusty Nail Bar Owner: I suppose your friend is a virgin, then?
Jagre: Wh-wh-who're you callin' a virgin, dammit!?
Kenshiro: Your friend.
Jagre: Shit. Right. My friend. - Another bar substory has Xsana visit the Rusty Nail, and as Ken and the owner finds out the hard way, she cannot handle her own drunkiness and gets aggressive. When she walks out, two thugs mack on her until Ken has to intervene. After he defeats them, Xsana passes out on the street, and admits she likes drinking after recovering. She then asks for another drink to with both the bar owner and Ken saying "No. No. No." The very next bar substory has Lyra visit the Rusty Nail...Xsana: Oh, a fight?! Hell yeah! Kick him in the dick, Kenshiro!
- And both women, after Ken tells them they drank too much and should take it easy, angrily leave and tells Ken and the barkeep to put it on Jagre's tab.
- One more bar substory has Hans the old man having a falling out with his daughter getting married in the heat of the moment, before the nukes were detonated. The bartender states a similar instinct in that whenever he imagines if someone breaks his cocktail glasses, he gets a sudden urge to rip their throat out. Considering what Kenshiro does for stirring drinks...Kenshiro: (...I should be very, very careful with these glasses.)
- Pagin' Dr. Ken has Ken being hired by a nurse due to the clinic being heavy with people needing to see a doctor. However, a set of thugs arrives who are clearly just looking to loot all the meds they can, and one of them claims to have a headache. Ken, the man that he is, quips "It must be a case of terminal stupidity". And as he's about to get to work, Ken, stoic that he is, cracks jokes about how the "doctor is in."
- Hina has a substory that involves her overcoming her clumsiness. Lyra wonders if Ken used Hokuto Shinken to which he denies.
- Another has her wanting more sexiness at the Cabaret club. The camera zooms onto Lyra's breasts and Hina's lack thereof.Lyra: Is there a hidden channeling point that'll make her boobs bigger?
Kenshiro: ...not that I'm aware of.
Hina: Hmph! A girl's chest isn't the only thing that makes her sexy!
- Another has her wanting more sexiness at the Cabaret club. The camera zooms onto Lyra's breasts and Hina's lack thereof.
- One sidestory, "Liquid Courage" is set at the Rusty Nail and has a nervous customer order two Southern Cross Metropolises, one for himself and one for a young lady with dark blue hair. After mixing the second one, Ken goes to give it to her...but notices now two others have sat next to her and he can't remember which one the guy ordered the drink for. For laughs, not only is one of them an older lady with darker, shorter hair, the other is Jagre. And you can choose to serve it to any one of them. And given the crux of the story is how serving such a drink is basically "love at first sight..."
- The second part of the substory has the lady order a Sugar Aurin for the same nervous guy, and the Rusty Nail barkeep tells Ken that it means "I want to know you better." When Ken serves the drink, however, he can instead choose to say it means "I wont to know the weather"...or "I want to kill you, bastard."
- A substory involves a little boy and his butler who was looking for some meat to make burgers with. When Ken defeats a thug's men who attempts to rip him off, the butler tells him that they need to cut the meat. Ken decides to use Hundred Fist Rush to make the patties.
- Then, at the end of the quest, the boy decides he's going to open his own meat business one day...and he asks Ken to teach him the Hundred Fist Rush so he can make hamburger patties the same way Ken did. Both Ken and the boy's butler agree that a knife would be safer for him to use.
Combat and activities
- Kenshiro's way of mixing the drink as a bartender.
*in the same stoic tone* Shaka shaka shaka shaka— *goes hyper speed* shakashakashakashakashaka—- What makes it more hilarious is he has a Battle Aura while doing this and said hyper speed makes his voice go full high-pitched. Also before it goes hyper speed, he's using the same tone with Kiryu's baritone for what is essentially Saying Sound Effects Out Loud. The contrast itself is its own level of hilarity. The English version is no slouch either, with a Large Ham opening of "SHAAAAAAKE shakeshakeshakeshakeshakeshakeshake—".
- He also has an alternate voice sample for the shaker where he goes Hokuto Hyakuretsu SHAKU~!/Hokuto Hundred SHAKE Rush!'
- And then here's him making use of an ice pick.
Gari gari gari—garigarigarigarigarigarigarigarigarigarigari—/CHIIIIIIP chipchipchipchipchipchipchipchip—- And another one, this time stirring a drink.Guru guru guru—guruguruguruguruguruguruguruguruguruguruguru—/MIIIIIIX mixmixmixmixmixmixmixmixmixmix—
- The same trailer that shows off Kenshiro's "Shaka shaka shaka", noted above, also reveals what appears to be the equivalent of the batting center of other Yakuza games: An arena where Kenshiro hits people on motorbikes with a steel I-beam as they drive right at him. Hitting a "Home Run" causes the hapless victim to fly so far they become A Twinkle in the Sky, completing the Big Dipper star alignment there (and for your information, it's also the shape of Kenshiro's famous seven scars on the chest).
- Some of the food names Kenshiro could produce from those bartender jobs can be punnily hilarious. For instance, the drink he made from the aforementioned "Shaka shaka shaka" is called "Hide-Bloody Mary"... and actually trying to make a pun out of the death screams of any Mooks he could come across: "HIDEBU!!"note Unfortunately, unlike the list below, the English version of the drink above didn't contain such punny joke ("Bloodstained Mary")
- Quite a few of the English dub names for the various drinks carry over the puns from the Japanese version.
Southern Cross MetropolisDuel on the BeachShining Shot of DeathYuria EternalHokuto Hundred Proof RushYou Are Already DrunkInebriation of Souls - What makes it more hilarious is he has a Battle Aura while doing this and said hyper speed makes his voice go full high-pitched. Also before it goes hyper speed, he's using the same tone with Kiryu's baritone for what is essentially Saying Sound Effects Out Loud. The contrast itself is its own level of hilarity. The English version is no slouch either,
- Death Cries provide an amusing reward for players who are adept at Perfect Channeling.SHITBALLS!
SHITBIRD!
MOTHER FU-
I REGRET EVERYTHING! - This game retains Yakuza 0's overdramatic animations for starting arcade games. You may never look at Kenshiro the same way again after seeing him throw a leg into the air before mounting the Super Hang-On motorcycle.
- With the English dub, we also have Kenshiro giving cheesy one-liners before starting each game.
"Eat my dust!...OutRun!"
"Your invasion ends here!...Space Harrier!""Let's ride... Hang-On!""I'll show you the power of Hokuto Shinken! - There's another commercial to promote this game featuring a Kenshiro wannabe in a real world. It's hilarious in its own way.
- In the dance mini-game when you temp as a doctor, Ken will start pressing pressure points rhythmically, all the while the mooks explode when they get in the way. If you complete the minigame perfectly, Ken will do a hilarious pose while pointing upwards. For a stoic character like him, this is amusing.
- The Death Batting minigame is already amusing, but the English dub kicks up the hilarity when, upon hitting a home run, Kenshiro shouts at the top of his lungs:"FOOOOOOORRRRRRRRRE!!!"
- While Kenshiro has a variety of ways to kill people with just his fists. He can pry the flamethrower from a mook and just burn the mook to death with even a move named for it..."'Time to take out the trash'"
- Some moves themselves can give quite a Black Comedy as well, such as Twin Execution, where he grabs a mook in front of him, dodge the one from behind, grab the second mook, and smack their heads together.
- Killing an enemy with a special technique will have them die with comic-sized death yell. But if they ever produced the signature "HIDEBU!"... Kenshiro can pick it up as a bludgeon. And it's somehow mightier than his fists.
- Remember Nugget, the pet chicken/financial manager from Yakuza 0? He's back as free DLC! Somehow he survived the nuclear war and, if found by Kenshiro, grants the Golden Egg Destiny Talisman (complete with cut-in art by Tetsuo Hara and a chicken clucking voice clip) that gives you a random amount of free money! Even after real estate becomes a distant memory from a bygone era, he's still making you a pretty penny!
- Sometimes the screams of the enemies Kenshiro kills (the text that appears when they scream) can become physical objects that Kenishiro can then pick up and use as bludgeoning weapons. To quote Jim Sterling:Jim Sterling: Yes. Kenshiro is so good at hitting people he can hit people to death with the screams of people he's already hit to death. God damn, I fucking love this game!
- One of the vendors in the bazaar sells a health-recovery food item called Mohawk Surprise, and its description says it's so spicy it'll make you "yell like a thug." There's a warning label attached, too: "Do not eat within earshot of Kenshiro." Maybe the manufacturers were afraid the eater who get ATATATATA-ed by Ken?
- When Kenshiro defeats Superboss Amon, Amon yells "Nagoshi!" instead of "Hidebu!" when he dies. Toshihiro Nagoshi was the director of the Like a Dragon series at the time of release, making Amon's death cry a bit of Self-Deprecation - as if Amon is cursing out his creator for getting him killed for real.
Meta
- Kaiji Tang, the previous English voice of Kenshiro in the first Ken's Rage, tweeted Robbie Daymond the day the game was released to congratulate him. His choice of words is absolutely hilarious. Even better is Daymond's response:Let we never meet again! The manliness would be too much to contain!
- This becomes even more Hilarious in Hindsight in light of the dub of Yakuza: Like a Dragon confirms that both voice actors did indeed return as playable characters, with the former as Ichiban and the latter Ken as Zhao, and they even get a karaoke song together as well; said Karaoke song has them dressed up as Metal Rockers and wouldn't be too out of place in the franchise, and this job is also available as DLC!
- Really, just the fact that this is a Like a Dragon game dressed as Fist of the North Star. And it works well.
