Yakuza

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.

the Hawaii bit in Persona 5 is just a long cut scene where not much happens tbf

Oh btw the fishing mechanics in Y3 are truly cursed, I was wrestling a tuna out of the deep sea for like five straight minutes at one point and that was after I got good at it.

i get why Hawaii makes sense and i'm sure it'll get an excellent Like a Dragon spin put on it, i'm just less excited for wandering around there because i'm a sad weeb

ooh, as if by magic

Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth / PlayStation 5 / Sega / 2024 pic.twitter.com/8yqF3bUhYE

— Cool Box Art (@CoolBoxArt) October 4, 2023

They’ll probably do at least one Japanese city tbf and you’ll be able to travel there instantly just like you can from Okinawa to Tokyo in 3. I’ve really enjoyed each new locale introduced tbh, they do a great job of making them feel distinct and memorable.

oh and my boy Joel was telling me last night the antagonist in Infinite Wealth is some kind of vtuber so let the lols begin

yeah they've said there will be some Japanese locations too

I looked up infinite wealth on Wikipedia and I’m not sure about those plot points mentioned lads
https://i.postimg.cc/tThnrwBP/IMG-6958.jpg

i'm gonna have to play Like a Dragon again before this drops in a futile effort to remember all the plots twists i'll inevitably keep forgetting

- chocolate business
- the power of friendship
- coin locker baby
- sticky tissue disposal
- failed punch perm

They were missing the classic Yakuza trope “secretly Chinese” but more then made up for it with HE COULD WALK ALL ALONG

they nearly went with "secretly Korean" tho iirc

also in every Yakuza ever: "the bad and hated Omi Alliance"

Yeah Secretly Korean is up there but I think Secretly Chinese has more lineage. Did you ever watch classic C4 series Utopia? If so the reveal that Anya isn’t Russian in the last episode of s1 made me SHRIEK irl. I’m such a sucker for these sloppy plot points.

i haven't seen it but i read the spoiler anyway :D

- ambiguously gay
- unambiguously gay, actually played entirely seriously (this applies to antagonists in at least two games)
- does Kiryu know how to use his dick? He seems very naive
- cut to shot outside love hotel yes

xp it’s pure magic, she’s this minor helpless Russian woman in the other episodes and then in e6 she drops the accent in a key scene and is actually a posh English woman - history’s true villains as we know - and there’s absolutely no hint of it beforehand and it’s incredible

tbh i'm still not certain what Kiryu gets up to in those love hotels