Yakuza Series

Pretty excited for this, they even offer an empty PS3 case for Yakuza 5 with it so collectors can really have it all. Y5 never got a western physical release.

Nice! I'll wait the Steam release, but I have already played them on PS3.

Hell yeah. I love Y3.

Yeah Y3 is absolutely fantastic, never understood why it got so many hate. Think it is one of the best ones imo.

It’s my second favorite after 0. My guess is that most people don’t like the slow opening.

Started playing Yakuza 6 and I really love it. I've played every translated game in the series up to 6 and a bit of Kenzan, and I honestly think there are still no bad games in it. (Kiwami comes close). I might get some flack for this but I really liked the GoW reboot and I see a lot of thematic similarities in Y6, not just in being about raising a child but also learning that the world doesn't work the same way it did in your youth and about how violence won't always be the solution anymore. The writing is just phenomenal, especially the side quests which are way enhanced by being fully voice-acted now.

In general the immersion factor is just off the charts compared to previous games! Not having loading screens to get into locations and fights, way more dynamic movement and fight physics, the full VA and graphical fidelity, all the secret alleys and rooftops of Kamurocho, it's just a joy to explore. I think I'm about a third of the way through, so I've sampled all the minigames and such. I actually thought Yak0 was a step down compared to 5 in the minigames department because so many of them (phone girls, pocket racer, catfighting) relied on RNG. Not sure I understand Baseball management fully but the rest are pretty solid.

The combat is also not nearly as bad as people had led me to believe. It's definitely clunkier and framier than 0's, but most of the issues I'm having with it are more series issues than specific to 6. Enemies still tank hits or block randomly mid-combo, inconsistent stun states, weird grabs, generally low AI aggression on normal and lack of cancel opportunities making parries and defensive play less good than they could be. It does seem like they cut down on the number of heat moves by a lot, but those are basically just different animations with the same utilities anyway, so I'm sure it's improved in Judgement. It's certainly still a lot of fun though!

I think after 5 and Zero, we expected a lot from the combat in terms of moves and heat-actions, while 6 was very lacking in that regard. Same with the main story being a mostly rethread of Yakuza 3's tale in terms of the Yakuza gang Kiryu hangs out with imo. I didn't hate it per se, I finished it and also toyed around a lot on its Legend setting and it has a fantastic soundtrack, beautiful game too imo, especially for something as niche as Yakuza.

I will agree that the side-quests were absolutely the best in the series, without a doubt. They were the perfect mish-mash of funny, heartbreaking and dramatic, absolutely fantastic. Same with how fights dynamically happened and that Kiryu was more mobile this time around. Also really like his outfit in Nagasaki.

Regarding God of War 2018, there's a lot of good in it and you can see that the people behind it really know their stuff, but there's just too much in it I don't care for in comparison to the originals. Had it carried another name, I think I would've been more interested. Weird how that works

Glad to hear you're enjoying it though, that's important! You also played 7?

> Kiwami
The first or second one? I kind of liked Kiwami 1, but only when I just did what the game wanted from me and farmed Majima to hell and back. Once you have a fully leveled Dragon Style the game really gets better imo. Never finished K2.

I only played Kiwami 1 but I gave up about 5 hours in because I had played vanilla 1 already and I felt so weak compared to 0. Enemies were super spongey and bosses recharging health was a PAIN. I haven't played 7 but I'm really hyped for it to come out in English. I know you guys were salty bc it was turn based but I love the boldness of totally reinventing your series after 15 or so games doing a pretty similar combat system. I started playing the series in 2012 and beat about one a year (otherwise I burn out), so I'm still a bit behind and need to play Kiwami 2, FoTNS and Judgement, not to mention the PSP and history games that weren't translated. I'm SUPER hype because K2 is on PC and I wanna see this level of fidelity at 1080p 60 fps

Ha! I wouldn't say salty (yes we were), just sad to see another Action Beat'm Up series 'vanish'. I'd love to have seen this new style of gameplay in a different series i.e. Judgment or Black Panther, just not in the main series. I have lost too many great game series already haha!

K2 is pretty sweet, especially if you can appreciate Yakuza 6 considering it is basically that combat system but improved. There's more heat-actions, equipable weapons are back and it has the upside of being a remake of Yakuza 2 which had a fantastic story and soundtrack. Only thing I disliked about it was that they had to recast one VA, and that it was based on Y6's combat system which didn't do me anything. And I think I was kind of burned out on the series at the time.

FotNS was fantastic though, really enjoyed my time with that game. Haven't tried Y7 or Judgment yet. Though I will probably skip Y7 at this time.

I played 0 earlier this year and really enjoyed it though I think something with the combat and I didn't quite click sometimes with certain styles and certain enemies, though it may have just been a me thing more than it was the game thing. I did play it twice and my opinion improved the second time (I had previously thought the staggering + super armor was really bad, but experimenting changed my mind a bit, esp. on bosses).

How does 0 differ from other games in the series in terms of combat options and how enemies work in correlation to them in your all's experience? And any thoughts on the series' combat as a whole (building up heat and creating heat actions) with pros/cons?

Yakuza combat takes a while to click, once you get into its meter-managment and that the goal is to do the most appropriate Heat Action at the right time it gets really fun to sort of stear enemies into your trap.

Zero does have the most combat options. Especially with Kiryu having access to the Quick Change Clothes that allow for style-switching combos. It also has the beast Heat-Bar system, in that you get a lot of bonus moves and speed upgrades if the meter is full, rewarding not getting hit and making you think twice about spending all your meter on a heat-action.

Yakuza Kiwami is basically the same but enemies are way, way, way more agressive and with way more auto-dodge moves and super armour to border on the ludicurous.

Yakuza 3 is the hardest imo, with extremely tough, agressive and defensive enemies.

Yakuza 4 and 5 are piss easy, but have more playable characters.

6 is trash imo, so is K2, though I know others would disagree.

Yakuza is funny in how every game has the same *basic* controls but the underlying mechanics change how everything feels. I've not played 4, 5 and 6 but I've played the PS2 Yakuzas in addition to the Kiwamis. Of what I played, everything was enjoyable but you really have to find what makes them click.

Playing Yakuza 3 on hard made it my favorite so far. On the surface it can seem like Zero and the Kiwamis, which came later, are more advanced, but it feels so much tighter to play. So much so that I want to replay the other games on legendary difficulty because I think it wouldn't be as hard.

In Y3, at least on Hard, enemies block so much it's MUCH more important to get behind them, as well as to grab knocked down enemies to keep your assault up rather than just kicking them once. There's also the "bound" mechanic which sort of existed in the other games but is officially mentioned here and feels really consistent once you know about it (it's essentially wall and ground bounces). In fact I plan on playing 0 again because I know it's possible to do those there, but I don't remember it being possible to use them to extend combos like in 3 or if they're only good for heat actions.

I liked Kiwami 2. It's sort of the exact opposite. Combat is much looser, more inconsistent and jankier, but I still enjoyed it. It helps that I discovered some probably unintentional tech with charged attacks, was able to get parries consistently and also I like the idea of enemies ragdolling on a knockdown state.

3 has the best fights and difficulty for sure. 4 and 5 are my favorite with the multiple protagonists and options, but difficulty is barely there. If bounding is in 0, I have never seen anyone doing it like they did in 3, 4 and 5.

I know for a fact that bounding exists in some form because there's one heat action that requires a ground bounce. But I don't know if there's anything else you can do off a ground bounce. It's one of majima's, and it returns in Kiwami's as part of Kiryu's dragon style

Really glad to see some Yakuza 3 love going on here. The game gets shit on a lot for its bonkers plot and "orphanage Kiryu", but I really enjoyed the title.

> bound mechanic
Yakuza Zero has wall bounces a plenty, especially with Kiryu, even made a video about that ages ago (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rA1wtbYwXgU). Ground-bounces are really rare in Zero though, IIRC Kiryu only has one in Dragon Style and Majima only has one in Breaker Style.

This is what I mean when I say bounding combos, you could pull of these kind of long combos all the time in 3,4,5 with most characters. I have seen nothing like it in 0, maybe I am not sure what to search.
I just miss being able to use wall and ground to come up with very intersting combos, much like a fighting game with knowledge you could decimate enemies in corners.

Oh that type of stuff, no that's completely gone in Zero IIRC.

The bound "state" is definitely still in Zero, but the most you can do is the combo you showed in that clip, or majima's specific ground bounce heat action, but the closest thing to any sort of extended combo is some of Breaker Style's spinning kicks, but there's too much endlag on the finishers to keep it going.

But since the mechanic itself is still there, I feel like they probably did their best to nerf it. Probably didn't fit with what they were going for in Zero, and then dragon engine just doesn't have it at all.

Picked up the ps4 collection. Holy god yakuza 3 is ungodly difficult on hard new game.
I found no iteming the pre tiger drop bosses next to impossible. The first foreigner fight is just insane.
Wish the later games were half as difficult as this game. Though it borders on unfair at times, things like getting behind enemies for combos and the magically 180 flip and start guarding.

The game pulls no punches, but as a result is also just so much fun to play for me. Also helps you do some sidecontent as you'll need a lot of XP to be able to hold your own later-on. The boss early on with the knuckles also really doesn't fuck around.

Knuckles guy isn't too bad, just an annoying small arena. First knife phase I found a decent bait loop. Also you can throw him, pick him up and combo his back. The knuckle phase is a bit random, the only strat I found was good spacing to get his final combo hit, then he is vulnerable for a full combo from the front. One wrong move though and he hits hard as hell.

The foreigner was just pure chaos, a literal gangbang nightmare. I think if i had leveled up different ways it would have been a bit easier, re guard is fantastic to have but i never got it.
I hate that it doesn't show what is next in the level ups.

On the knuckle phase hard mode I found a pretty good AI manipulation. He'll always break out of a grab immediately and then attack, and you have enough time to dodge around him and hit from behind.

In general, earlygame Y3 Hard is getting behind enemies as much as possible. Dodging around when you can, getting face-up knockdowns then restanding them, etc.

I wish I knew of some good videos of high level Y3 play that was on new game hard, everything I could find is NG+.

The channel that posted the Mikami interview recently did a Nagoshi inteview, in that he said he never intended for the series to be hard. He wants anyone to be able to beat them. Explains the extreme lack of difficulty in most later titles.

I am playing yakuza 5 and I cannot figure out a combo for Kiryu to capitalize on a komaki parry.
In 3 and 4 you can parry, get behind, then combo into shoulder charge into bound combo, ground heat etc.
In 5 they flip around and guard before I can even land one rush combo finisher.
Anyone have knowledge on this?

How are you getting behind them? It might be easier if you do a komaki dodge strike before starting your rush combo.

Bought the remaster collection and started Y3 a couple of days ago after finishing with Judgement. Ditto on the hard difficulty; so far my feelings are a mix of "wow, this feels pretty satisfying to play" and "wow, this is driving me up the fucking wall" lol.
The fact that even the basic mooks will just block you for days from the front makes it feel good when you finally open them up, but then it drives me insane when I'm fighting like 5 of them + a miniboss who just refuses to stop attacking for even a moment. Did the haunted locker substory today and I was at a loss as to how I was supposed to handle the second fight with exactly that enemy setup; even on the run where I succeeded, I don't really know what I was doing better other than using grabs more often (when I wasn't accidentally picking up weapons I didn't want instead). It seems so easy to get run down and wombo'd in this game since enemies can bounce you off walls and the like as well.
It has a fun core and I like how de-emphasized heat actions seem so far so I'm happy to continue and hope that I get a better hold on it, though.

Hey Cryo! Good to see you again mate! How've you been, good I hope?

> Y3 HARD
I feel it of course gets a lot easier once you get more points to unlock better abilities. Using the enviroment, smart meter management and grabs from behind tend to help, but it is rough. That fight you mentioned is really brutal too.

The downside imo is if you don't invest too much, you can really lock yourself up. There's a boss in the endgame that auto-blocks and can only be countered, if you don't have a counter the only other way to damage him is through chip damage with certain specials which takes ages.

Also, after Y3 you might think Hard is too brutal, while Y4's Hard Mode is about as difficult as Y3's Easy, they really nerfed the series since.

> heat actions
It mostly promotes varying them up, as they 'stale' after subsequent use. This goes for 'type' by the way, so using different 'against grounded enemies' heat moves still stales iirc. Using meter when you need it for that high damage output is really sweet.

Have fun!

Hey Roy. I'm doing well, all things considered. Hope it's the same for you. Nice to see this place still ticking over.

> Environment, meter management, grabs
I've been getting into the habit of using grabs a lot more often than I did in Judgement - J is probably gonna be my reference for a lot of comparisons since it's the most recent Yakuza-style game I've beaten - since they seem to be the easiest way to open enemies up. I don't think I've grabbed from behind at all yet, though, I should start messing around with that.
As for the environment, I see that wall-bouncing is very much a thing in this game (mostly because I've been bounced by enemies on more than one occasion already); I've pulled off a few basic hits from doing it so far but nothing really deliberate. Interesting thing that I don't think I ever did in J so it's cool to see.

> Heat actions
I vaguely remember the damage decay from playing 0 but I thought it was limited to individual actions, I'll keep in mind that it's type-dictated here. I read that you can't disable heat actions here by holding in L2, that's unfortunate but it is an older game, I suppose.

Having fun is the plan; so far, so good. Thanks for the tips.