Yakuza 4

Pretty interesting title. Compared to its previous outings this game has four protagonists, each with their own skills and playstyle. It is really cool to see such a game that only has combat as a side activity try and mix it up so much per entry.
Having so many characters they decided to up leveling speed, meaning you'll have a decked out character really fast.

I'll go over each character and their unique things:

Akiyama:
He's the first new one. Not that special compared to the rest except that he relies on kicks. His grabs are regular holds that allow for gut punches, wall kicks and throws. What makes him unique is that he has the longest regular attack chain and he can combine that with wallbounces. In this series if you bounce an enemy of a wall, they'll bounce back and enter a rebounce-state. Hit them again and they'll fall, unless they connect to a wall, in which case they bounce again. Akiyama can basically infinite-bounce enemies if you set his situations up perfectly.

Saejima:
Pretty unique character, focused on charge attacks and guarding. Can counter every attack in the game if he blocks it and has some insanely powerful Heat Actions (finishers). Also really hard to knock down.

Tanimura:
Has an omni-parry, pressing L1 will make him auto parry any attack from any direction for 1 second. Doing so will send enemies flying into each other for minor damage and it just looks sick as hell. Grabbing an enemy will allow you to also do an arm-hold, in which you have numerous options. Like you can do Grab > gut punch1 > gut punch2> arm-hold > arm-break1 > arm-break2 > finisher or other options depending on how crowded the fight is getting. Really enjoyable to toy around with.

Kiryu:
The king himself, has basically all the tools of the above cast except to the extreme. Can also Tiger Drop enemies, a move that nearly instantkills everything if you time it right (a type of parry). More a vanity character than anything else gameplay wise.

You guys ever play a Yakuza title before?

I played 2 on PS2 and little of 3.

This is the one with Kiryu as a BOSS! he even has his red aura when all the others have blue.

I’d like to play them all in release order, which will take some time when I get to it. I’d like it if Sega ported the HD release of 1&2 since they could just add the English subtitles which 1&2 already had(1 has a corny dub with Mark Hamil as Majima, prefer the sub). Since Yakuza Dead Souls is a non canon spinoff I might try that come Halloween.

I'd love the Japanese HD remasters to release here on the PS4, but I doubt it. Would be really good. I played 2 on the PS2 (cost me a rib...).

Which did you like best Gabe?

I haven’t had much experience with the series, having only played 0, but mechanically out of the main entries it’s likely my fav, but I like the look of Ishins crazy gun/sword styles(where you shoot and stab doods to death in combat and as usual they only look mildly winded and give you some change/item for your troubles).

I do like the look of Dead Souls, it’s a jank 3rd person shooter but it’s very much the sort of PS2 era type of shooter before most 3rd person shooter became solely about hiding behind cover. That’s not mentioning Kenzan, which never got released overseas despite being released at a time when Sega still supported the series here.

Kenzan and Ishin didn't get ported over for many reasons from what I've heard. The two biggest being that it leans heavily on knowledge of ancient Japan (which people don't have here) and that child prostitution is a big part of the plot - a big no-no topic in the West.

Zero has the best mechanics by a country mile yeah.