Yakuza series

After a lot of grinding for both job levels and stat boosters, I finally beat the True Final Millennium Tower!

I gotta hurry up and get there so I know how hard it is.

So it's been a while, let me tell you how dumb the Secret of Onomichi is.

The Yamato MKII was built with illicit Yakuza money after the war ended. That kind of scandal would basically mean the end of Japan's government. Its basically government corruption on an ABSURD scale, building an insanely expensive battleship that was even bigger than the largest battleship in the world, during a time when the very CONCEPT of the battleship was fast becoming obsolete (in favor of aircraft carriers), for no other reason than to satisfy some misguided notion of Japanese pride after losing an entire generation of Japanese youth in a largely pointless war with the United States.

Kurusu rose to power entirely by blackmailing Daidoji and several other people working for him over the existence of Yamato MKII for decades, with no signs that this stalemate could be broken by Daijoji or anyone else. So Kurusu intentionally gives up his own leverage by murdering everyone he was already blackmailing into complicity, which is the only reason this part of the plot exists. Half of his plan works against the other half of his plan.

Worse that all of that bullshit, THE problm with the Secret is that it has nothing at all to do with Kiryu or Haruka outside of Tsuneo Iwami being a sociopathic fuckwit who involved both of them for no reason. And the fact that they chose this to do this governmental plot twist shit instead of further developing Kiryu and Haruka's relationship in Kiryu's last game is stupid as fuck. For some undefined reason, Nagoshi feels the need to continually up the stakes in Yakuza games when the exact opposite was needed for Kiryu's last game.

And the sand thing is, if it had JUST been a fucking Metal Gear Iwami planned to use against the Tojo or the rest of Japan it would have been just dumb fun enough for me to forgive it.

Edited by VeryMelon on Dec 21st 2020 at 1:27:43 PM

I'm starting my journey through Yakuza and i already like how much of a genuine nice guy Kiryu is.

Honestly half of the strength of Yakuza is the protagonists being loveabkle,. whether that be Kiryu, Majima, or more recently Ichiban.

Theyre people you actually want to root for.

I think Kiryu is a really good example of how to do a "moral paragon" type of protagonist from what I played of 0. The whole story is built around the contrast of his unflinching willingness to follow his ideals, even at great personal cost, to the other characters who are more cynical, self-serving or otherwise flawed.

How was Judgements guy?

That, and the bizarre situations he gets in in some substories are a great way to bounce off his Stern personality.

He's pretty cool too, more of a detective compared to Kiryu or Ichiban.

Edited by Demongodofchaos2 on Dec 28th 2020 at 10:43:44 AM

Yagami is great after having to deal with Kiryu for so long.

I haven't played Judgement or watched enough to judge.

But what I've seen of Y7 makes me love Ichiban. This feels like a game where the main protag is an utter twat and the game agrees with you on that. That's a lot more sincerity than I've seen so far in games.

the best way to describe Ichiban is he;s reverse kiryu. Warm and goofy and wears his heart on his sleeve, but piss him off and the interior is nothing but stoic pissed off brotherly rage.

Yagami, to sum him up, is pretty much Phoenix Wright from Apollo Justice but less mellow.

Ichiban is perfect because if he was a teenager with blue hair in a High Fantasy setting he'd be insufferable.

But he only acts like he's a teenager with blue hair in a High Fantasy setting when he's actually a fortysomething dude in modern Japan stuck in a crime drama.

Man, I am sick and tired of the Keihin Gang causing chaos in town. Yagami is interrogating one of the main antagonists right now Kim-san, you can wait.

Once I found out the requirements to actually stop the Keihin Gangs attacks I just noped the fuck out. Easily the worst part of Judgment.

You need to complete all of the contacts. Hope you know how to play Mahjong well, because one of them runs a parlor. Oh, and you have to won with her special house rules...

All Yakuza players live in fear of one thing. And that is the sinister shadow of Mahjong.

Oh that's fine. I can buy infinite Nine Gates Tiles to complete Yurika's Friendship with.

Edited by VeryMelon on Jan 2nd 2021 at 12:01:24 PM

Kim is the most evil character in Judgment because of how he’s the only reason that gang wants you dead.

I finished Yurika's Friendship. The annoying part was resetting until I had the Wareme, but the rest can be bruteforced with Nine Gates Tiles.

Beat Judgement. It's one of my favorite game in the franchise! A neatly packed story with a few slow burns but nothing detrimental to the overall quality like the previous games, fun and varied combat thanks to style switching coming back and Yagami having so many unique Heat Moves, good and likeable cast of characters, great villains that put all the antagonists from 4-6 to shame, and all the standard side content like minigames and substories that enrich the rest of the experience.

Having played Yakuza 0-6 and now this, I personally rank the titles as 0 = Judgement > 2 > 5 > 4 > 1 > 3 > 6. Judgement deserves to stand as high as it does in my heart.

I know triple posting should be avoided, but it's been over a week and I need to just say that Chapter 13 of Like a Dragon floored me. It is THE BEST 3rd act plot twist in any Yakuza game period, and such a massive course correction from 6 that it gave me whiplash.

Finished Like a Dragon. Yeah this is definitely up there with one of the best Yakuza games. I thought I wouldn’t like it that much because of the switch of gameplay from beat’m up to turn based RPG, but it grew on me and made appreciate all the creative things it does with that change. So yeah I finally caught up with the Yakuza series and can’t wait for the next one.

Spoilers for Like a Dragon: Also a side note, the creator of Yakuza has stated that he didn’t want Kiryu to be as a guest character in Tekken or any other character that includes women because he doesn’t hit women. This is further proven with how when I was fighting against Kiryu and I had Saeko on my team Kiryu wouldn’t lay a finger on her. However, that didn’t happen when I was fighting against Goro and Taiga: they had not problem hitting Saeko.

So technically speaking, wouldn’t that make Majima eligible for fighting games with women in them?

I'm wanting to enjoy Like A Dragon, but the changes are hitting me exactly how I feared they would: now its an RPG and I need to be in that kind of gaming mood.

On the upside: that really just means I need to put it down for a bit until the mood strikes.

Overall, while I don't like the combat system I am still positive about the game. I love Kasuga. He's like a big dopey golden retriever of a character. The ehh... of the combat system is outweighed when the sheer Yakuza-ness reassert itself. From a supervillain looking professor telling me that I "gotta dispatch 'em all!" or races that are Mario Kart all the way down to the little hop before you try to power slide, this is still Yakuza.

Christ Almighty trying to complete every Food/Drink item in Yakuza 3 Remaster really makes me appreciate the later games more about this. I've finally found the best method was to stockpile 200+ bait and 50+ Legendary Drinker of Ryukyu in my item box for later, then eat one food/drink items after eating one piece of bait.

Hey, all. Just started the Yakuza series myself. I saw a stream of someone playing Like a Dragon, I came in at the end of the game so I already saw that, but I decided to look closer at the series. Currently in chapter 2 of Yakuza 0, just got the Beast Style, and enjoying the game so far.

Also picked up Like a Dragon itself along with Kiwami and Kiwami 2 since they're on discount on Humble Bundle for the next couple days (LAD starting at $45, Zero & Kiwami at $5, and Kiwami 2 at $7.50).