Yakuza

Yeah true, and ofc Y0 and the second game dip into this as well. I’m sure that they’ve used the character being secretly Chinese/Korean plot a few times as well. I found it really interesting how they will talk about food and the Chinese/Korean way of doing things, it’s very different from what has gone before.

This is the best summon btw
https://media2.giphy.com/media/5YugAJvmcaNvIauK0I/giphy-downsized-large.gif

is it just me or does Zhao periodically go "eye of the tiger!" during battles?

I haven’t noticed this, but Nanba says something that sounds like “Tom Turkey!”

Oh I finished this btw! Fair warning if you share a console with someone else, as I do, because the end cutscenes are over an hour long and largely unskippable. This isn’t a problem in any sense except in terms of me having said “I’m just about finished, come down and you can have the ps4.” But yeah, they really went hard in that last bit, phew.

Grinding for trophies now, am not nearly levelled up enough to try True Ultimate Millennium Tower or whatever it is.

https://www.polygon.com/22424987/yakuza-rpg-turn-based-sequels-judgment-action

Not sure about this, the turn based combat was a fun novelty and made sense because of Ichiban's Dragon Quest obsession but I miss the crazy moves of previous entries.

Here's hoping this Judgement doesn't interrupt the action every 5 minutes for you to either run around defeating random gangster bosses or be reprimanded for being a coward.

ichiban is continuing as the main character, no? so it makes sense to keep that for his games

i never finished judgment but was enjoying it other than the frequent stealth/tailing segments

I loved Judgement and I am so happy to hear there’s a sequel!

I got the platinum trophy on Like A Dragon today, have no problem with the mainline series continuing in that direction.

Yeah Judgment was a good time, apart from the aforementioned Keihin mobster nuisance events. Fantastic levels of "smiling judge nods and says 'I'm going to allow this'" wackiness in the courtroom scenes

This new one apparently has large parts set in a high school, so my prediction is that Yagami-san goes undercover...as the coolest schoolboy ever

My post up there really belongs in the first response hall of shame. Wish I could delete that

Ok, so this year:

Like a Dragon: Ishin

This is a remade version of the same game that was released Japan-only in 2014

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ixRs8MX4aQ

Like a Dragon: Gaiden - The Man Who Erased His Name
(Terrible title)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8gvTDCJb0E

A new game with Kiryu, not with turn based combat.

And next year is the sequel to Like A Dragon (8?) with dual protagonists Kiryu and Kasuga.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJhqN7R_oAg

Yeah Judgment was a good time, apart from the aforementioned Keihin mobster nuisance events. Fantastic levels of "smiling judge nods and says 'I'm going to allow this'" wackiness in the courtroom scenes

This new one apparently has large parts set in a high school, so my prediction is that Yagami-san goes undercover...as the coolest schoolboy ever

yakuza games are a good time

love the turn-based combat on Like a Dragon but i'm looking forward to (eventually) getting round to Ishin and Gaiden too

bonus stage
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/08/world/asia/japan-yakuza.html

there's an episode of furuhata ninzaburo where a yakuza baseball team is a plot point

Infinite Wealth trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Q1HRYrO1Gw

God I love this goofy series, real silent film comedy energy to this cutscene.

Worried that I'll miss the walking around Japanese streets aspect but I guess I've never been to Hawaii so...

Ahhh I loved Okinawa in Y3 and I love new locations!

ohmygod i love the RPG mechanic i want it now

I've never played any of these games, and think I only have one of them (Yakuza 0?), but despite reading reviews and watching reviews and watching clips and reading descriptions, I still have no clue what any of these many, many games actually are or are about. Like, are they fighting games? Turn-based? Exploration? RPG? Is this DLC? Stand-alone game? Is it one series or two different series? More? Just the same series with a different name? Are they serialized? Are they supposed to be serious? Comedy? Just campy? All of the above, it seems. It's wild.

Yakuza in general are basically action adventure RPGs; you fight a lot of guys and there's a big epic main story, but really so much of the charm is in the sidequests and minigames. A big part of the appeal is just simulating walking around the streets of sundry Japanese cities, as said before.

This is the second in the Like A Dragon sub-franchise, which uses turn based combat as opposed to the main series which does not. It's somewhat confusing but by the standards of JRPGs it's hardly the worst offender.

The main stories are hyper complex, hyper dramatic in the tradition of yakuza cinema, but a lot of the substories are explicitly comedic.

xp please don’t start playing this series

Why not? Or are you just getting personal (for some reason)?

Well, I'd certainly say it's not a decision to be taken lightly. Once you're in, you have to live by the code, no matter what the cost. Karamucho can chew you up and spit you out, I've seen it happen a million times. Also it feels really bad when you fail at karaoke.

Every day I wake up and think "maybe I'll reinstall Yakuza 0 and actually finish it" and maybe today is the day I'll actually do it.

You should definitely do this

Yakuza 0 is the best one

"Like a Dragon" actually is the main series now rather than a spinoff, the name change was just to bring it more in line with what it's always been called in Japan

At least, that's their story right now. Maybe the "Kiryu is James Bond" spinoff will become the undisputed main event of the series

Haha, well I guess it's mostly semantics, but I think since they're games with a different protagonist and combat system than the original series entries and the former protagonist and mechanics are still featured in upcoming games I think referring to them as a spin-off is the less confusing explanation for a newbie no matter what Ryu Ga Gotoku says.

There is a new Kiryu game coming out soon right?!

So the original “Yakuza” in English, Like A Dragon in Japan is the Kiryu series. Like A Dragon in English (no idea what it’s called in Japanese, might just have a subtitle) with Ichiban and the rpg mechanics. The Judgement series is the same type of gameplay as the Kiryu series, all of these are set in the same universe.

ETA: November! And going back to Osaka!

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Like_a_Dragon_Gaiden

0 was my first and I’ll always love it the most for the following reasons:

- the dual protagonists
- the absolute thrill of ripping through a building beating up a load of guys while the soundtrack blasts this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WKq57ibDXc
- the disco minigame which frankly I am amazing at
- cabaret club!!!
- just being like, ok I know you’re in grave danger or whatever but it’s time for me to hang out in a bar playing drunk darts and then go play Outrun at the arcade for two hours
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yhe7rcDUTeI
- the tonal shifts from grave to brutal to ludicrous and none of it feels wrong, it just is
- https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ErRoPAmW4AEO2Qw?format=jpg&name=small

Otm

There has never been better song to crack skulls to than Reign

Also the cast of mocapped Yakuza movie guys who play the various grizzled bosses are fantastic

Tired: off-grid secret agent Kiryu
Wired: calm ponytail Majima

xp that sewer brawl is one of my favourite fights in the whole series

KkyuzEHHHHHHHH

Don’t forget the king
https://thumbs.gfycat.com/AnnualCaringBat-size_restricted.gif

Loves a round of golf

Need to dive back into 4. What a great series

The only ones I haven't played are the first two (plus Kiwami) and 5.

Of the ones I've played they're all my favourite except the dumb zombie shooter one.

I actually really like Dead Souls for the sheer chaos but fuck me those mechanics are near unplayable.

And this too ofc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDUNsKo_gvg

The end of the baseball regular season has left me with more time, so time to start doing things like gaming again. To this end: Ishin.

My better half: why are you selling all your cooking?
Me: I need to pay off debt
My better half: debt?
Me: see this kid? Her parents died and left her with a ton of debt so I am repaying it on her behalf so she doesn’t get sold into child sex slavery
Mbh: 🙃

But! Fun game. Am very happy you can play koi-koi but either I’m getting old and bad at it (no) or the computer you play against is more ruthless that before. Damn. Still great at mahjong though.

Storyline? Uh…yeah.

Solid fun time game experience, biggest issue is that I don’t really like the brawler fighting style so much.

I got a bug so the child slavers didn't ask me to pay anything until long after I beat the main game and had tons of money to burn.

Nice! I have 80% of the debt paid off even though I cannot work out the exact timing to stop over seasoning my dishes.

Oh also, the fishing grind sucks. The fishing mechanic itself is fine, but fuck me, I don’t want to be out on the shoreline trying to catch multiple porcupine fish.

Am I right in understanding there may be a cabaret mechanic at play here?

How do you mean? That the fishing works with a cabaret mechanic, or that there's a cabaret in the game?

i only realised or remembered last night that the next Like a Dragon is gonna be centred in Hawaii and that makes me disappointed

xp the latter, sorry, I realised that was a messy post as soon as I made it

Yeah, walking around Hawaii is less enticing than walking around Japan for sure.

gyac, there's a karaoke place and a couple of gambling spots, also a dancing place but I wouldn't call it a cabaret...I think that's it.

They could make the next Like A Dragon game at the bottom of the ocean and I'd still play it to see my main man Ichiba Kasuga again. Hawaii section of Persona 5 was alright, could be great. I'm sure there'll be multiple trips back to Kamurocho/Isezaki Ijincho throughout

Oh I’ve done the dancing place it’s total shit :(

NV, did you like Y3? If it’s anything like the Okinawa vibe I’ll be very happy indeed. I can already tell you that their Kabukichō is ridiculously accurate.

i haven't played Y3 yet tbh

i'm sure everything will be groovy because it's Yakuza so of course it will but i assume like most fans of the franchise i'm in it for the cartoon satirical takes on Japan, not the boring old USA

Hawaii has a large nikkei population, no? It makes a lot of sense as a location.