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Yakuza 0. 1/24/17 Less than a month to go. Let's make a difference.
- Thread starter Jimrpg
- Start date
Noisepurge
Member
Not the intro and endings, arent those just licensed stuff like Yakuza 3 intro track from Eikichi Yazawa that was cut from the western release.
goldenpp72
Member
Bought Zero, hope it's worth it. First time I buy the series new 
I think my list is
Yakuza 4
Yakuza 5
Kenzan
Yakuza 3
Yakuza 2
Yakuza (It's just so outdated, I need kiwami)
Dead Souls
So far
Edit: wait, changed my mind, 3, over 2
ewww
2 > 4 > 1 > 5 > 3
Noisepurge
Member
List thread!
2-1-4-3-5
(DeadSouls-Kenzan-Ishin-Panthers)
2-1-4-3-5
(DeadSouls-Kenzan-Ishin-Panthers)
Haha, wow, a very different list. Just shows that every game is good, since every game has its fans
davidwhangchoi
Member
give 3 more credit, oneida =D
Haha, wow, a very different list. Just shows that every gane is good, since every game has its fans
You liked 5 more than 2 though? that surprises me a lot.
make me! <3
List thread!
2-1-4-3-5
(DeadSouls-Kenzan-Ishin-Panthers)
Wait, you liked DeadSouls more than all other spin offs?
I loved the characters, returning ones from 4 too
davidwhangchoi
Member
i challenge you to a dual in virtua fighter 5 in yakuza 6 when it releases in the west on ps4 pro!!!
deal! i'll let you pick my character.
AnkiRendan
Member
My ranking is:
Yakuza 2
Yakuza 4
Yakuza 5
Yakuza 3
Yakuza Dead Souls
I've never played Yakuza 1. Yakuza Dead Souls was a mistake.
Yakuza 2
Yakuza 4
Yakuza 5
Yakuza 3
Yakuza Dead Souls
I've never played Yakuza 1. Yakuza Dead Souls was a mistake.
davidwhangchoi
Member
you're on!
contrast to many, i really liked 3. maybe i'm a sucker for kind hearted stories to start. the 24th can't come soon enough =)
SkylineRKR
Member
I like 3.
The orphanage was a chore, but I loved how the story concluded and thought Mine was a rather cool character.
The orphanage was a chore, but I loved how the story concluded and thought Mine was a rather cool character.
Danny Dudekisser
I paid good money for this Dynex!
I remember a side quest in 3 where one of the kids in the orphanage liked this girl, and the Dragon of Dojima was totally gonna hook him up. So you pick out some sick fashion for him, and he wears like all these clothes with an American flag on them and sunglasses, and he crashes and burns.
Them feels.
Them feels.
SpikedGunner
Member
Not necessarily, stuff like Reign is fine, it's just any song done by an outside artist (usually a popular Japanese musician) like Eikichi Yazawa (3), Zeebra (4), Kyosuke Himuro (5), and now Shōnan no Kaze (0) is usually a cost-cutting localization measure.
Speaking of Reign, why wasn't that used as the replacement song for the opening video? could they not time it right?
MOST songs yes, however, Yakuza (in Japan) tends to also include songs as openings/endings/inserts from outside artists like those that I mentioned above.
I should make note that when the Yakuza 5 OST was released (digitally in Japan-only), the first volume included the theme done by Himuro (under the Gospel of Judas or something) along with an additional separate album with insert songs from Himuro featured in the game. The separate album was taken down and the first volume was updated removing the theme a while back, even before the localization of 5 was ever announced.
It happens, just a part of licensing and contracts that can sometimes plague a game.
...wait, they kept Crimson/Kurenai? I thought it was going to get cut since it and Bubble were done by Shonan no Kaze. That is incredibly weird considering what usually happens in Yakuza localization.
bishopcruz
Member
If this is true it gives me hope that Sobo might get kept for Yakuza 6. That song really has to stay, even from the bit I played in that demo, it is perfect.
Easy Allies seem to have special permission to do an early look video (it's spoiler free).
Unfortunately it also confirms what I feared and knew would happen, that they replace the awesome theme song "Bubble" with a generic ass rock song
Unfortunately it also confirms what I feared and knew would happen, that they replace the awesome theme song "Bubble" with a generic ass rock song
Peroroncino
Member
Easy Allies seem to have special permission to do an early look video (it's spoiler free).
Unfortunately it also confirms what I feared and knew would happen, that they replace the awesome theme song "Bubble" with a generic ass rock song
If it was switched only during the intro then it's no biggie for me, usually songs like this I listen to on YT anyway, Yakuza intros are way too spoilery for me.
btw. this song is really effin' awesome!
It used to play in the game itself, at around 5:30 in that Easy Allies video. That's meant as an introduction to Kamurocho of that time and it's soooo much better with Bubble playing.
D
Deleted member 471617
Unconfirmed Member
Quick question -
Never played Yakuza so I watched a gameplay walkthrough for Zero and when fighting, I noticed that the lead character's hands/arms are glowing when fighting. Is this in general for the entire game, a special ability or an upgrade that you can ignore?
Just curious as to why his hands/arms are glowing when fighting. Thanks.
Never played Yakuza so I watched a gameplay walkthrough for Zero and when fighting, I noticed that the lead character's hands/arms are glowing when fighting. Is this in general for the entire game, a special ability or an upgrade that you can ignore?
Just curious as to why his hands/arms are glowing when fighting. Thanks.
Eolz
Member
Easy Allies seem to have special permission to do an early look video (it's spoiler free).
also confirms what I feared and knew would happen, that they replace the awesome theme song "Bubble" with a generic ass rock song Unfortunately it
That ending was hilarious.
Shame for the opening, but it's not that bad.
It means you can use a special attack (via triangle button).
that is "heat"
it builds as you do damage and taunt your opponent
you can spend small amounts of it by sidestepping or save it up to a full bar, at which point you gain access to heat attacks
there are many many different heat attacks and discovering them is part of the fun
It's called a "Heat Action". When you have "heat" you can release the crazy finishing moves that you've probably seen in gifs and vids. If you find it off-putting or that it interferes with the grounded and realistic depiction of red-light Tokyo, I'm sorry to say that it's part of the fighting mechanic and can't be turned off
Please don't let it put you off trying the game though.
Peroroncino
Member
I see it's scrapped in game, fuck, now this hurts, intro before hitting new game I could understand but in-game stuff? Nah man. :/
What's the reason for it though?
Acquiescence
Member
2>3>4>5>1
2 is a masterpiece. Definitive Yakuza.
3 has a lovely chilled opening and a satisfying plot. Nice transition to a new gen too.
4 introduced multiple protagonists and ran with it.
5 starts off well, but the story gets very silly about halfway through (and not in a good way). Game is also way too long and bloated.
1 was ruined by an awful western dub that you can't avoid unless you understand Japanese.
2 is a masterpiece. Definitive Yakuza.
3 has a lovely chilled opening and a satisfying plot. Nice transition to a new gen too.
4 introduced multiple protagonists and ran with it.
5 starts off well, but the story gets very silly about halfway through (and not in a good way). Game is also way too long and bloated.
1 was ruined by an awful western dub that you can't avoid unless you understand Japanese.
Series rating from someone who has played them all from scratch in the past 12 months.
0 > 4 > 6 > 2 > 5 > 3 > 1 (Kiwami)
Ishin > Kenzan > Dead Souls
0 was my first Yakuza game I saw through to completion, and remains my favourite after having just beaten all 10 games (Y6 was really enjoyable!). All of the main games are absolutely worth playing, and each one adds something new and unique to the mix.
0 > 4 > 6 > 2 > 5 > 3 > 1 (Kiwami)
Ishin > Kenzan > Dead Souls
0 was my first Yakuza game I saw through to completion, and remains my favourite after having just beaten all 10 games (Y6 was really enjoyable!). All of the main games are absolutely worth playing, and each one adds something new and unique to the mix.
D
Deleted member 471617
Unconfirmed Member
It's called a "Heat Action". When you have "heat" you can release the crazy finishing moves that you've probably seen in gifs and vids. If you find it off-putting or that it interferes with the grounded and realistic depiction of red-light Tokyo, I'm sorry to say that it's part of the fighting mechanic and can't be turned off
Okay guys. I get it. Kind of like building up a rage meter or something to that affect. Thanks guys.
Licensing would be my only guess. Not sure though. I hope to god Sega didn't take it out in an attempt to cater more to western audiences (highly doubt that, think we're past that).
Hah, I knew I forgot something about my criticism of 1! Definitely prefer Yakuza games with Japanese voices and English subtitles. All this positive praise of 0 has me very excited, and we get Resident Evil 7 and Nioh within the same few weeks? Great start to the year.
Zaraki_Kenpachi
Member
Bought 3 and 4 today...
davidwhangchoi
Member
YOOOO nice man!
?????? damn wanted to play this
kuroneko0509
Member
problem with kiwami is that it's just a refresh and doesn't often much new aside from story updates. but it's a good follow up for folks new to the series after zero.
for folks that have been playing since the dawn of yakuza, kiwami is pretty eh, but if you're new, you'll enjoy its continuation from zero.
yakuza 1/kiwami is one of the best games in the franchise. don't worry.
My Yakuza Rankings
1. Yakuza 4 - Best story, first time with multiple characters which dramatically improved the game's pacing as there was something new to play with every 5 hours or so. Huge reiteration of Kamurocho with more areas. Tons of side quests and mini games.
2. Yakuza 1 - Awesome story that is Kazuma's most personal and still is in a long line of games. It probably hasn't aged well considering there are random battles that are hard to avoid and load times before every battle. But the concept and the core structure of the game is still there and hasn't changed too much.
3. Yakuza 3 - The game starts way too slow but the second half is fantastic. Its the first Yakuza in HD which means the mahjong is hell of a lot easier to play now amongst many things that HD was able to improve.
4. Yakuza 2 - Playing this in 2008 when the Xbox 360 and PS3 had already been out for about 2 years was a huge step back and might have jaded my opinion. It was a good game, but almost everything I liked about Yakuza 1 had changed, principally the story was not as personal this time around and I wasn't as invested as the first game. I DO need to go back and play it again and I'd love a Yakuza 2: Kiwami to be able to do so.
5. Yakuza 5 - Half of this game is really great, and the other half is not. It didn't help that they pushed the PS3 so hard that performance was really lagging at times. Some risky choices did not pay off, for example I think Part 3 should have been entirely Akiyama. Haruka's part should have been an optional side character because her section went for far too long. Is there anyone that enjoyed Saejima's dream sequence?
Great impressions, thanks! I haven't kept up with the Japanese Yakuza 0 release so this is all new to me.
In terms of the bolded, I am really curious how reviewers are going to critique that part of the game. I mean those two things have been in every Yakuza game. Would it be fair to critique a B-tier game like Deadly Premonition in the same way as GTA V? I don't know! I don't know if its a budget issue that they can't have more cutscenes or if its just a choice made by the director. It feels jarring to Western audiences because we're so used to AAA games that don't do this. I am guessing its probably a budget and time thing and its just way easier to do dialogue boxes. Having to do 10-15 hours of cutscenes would just take the Yakuza team way longer. But they must obviously be aware of it because Yakuza 6 is pretty much all cutscenes.
The second bolded part is again a problem with Yakuza games and will probably get criticised by most reviewers. Since Yakuza 2, they have become longer and have dragged on with more unnecessary dialogue than it really needs. Yakuza 1 in that respect is really great, almost no unnecessary dialogue if I recall or maybe it was just helped by the English VA which I really liked. So they could easily cut out like 15-20% of the dialogue and the game would not lose anything.
1. Yakuza 4 - Best story, first time with multiple characters which dramatically improved the game's pacing as there was something new to play with every 5 hours or so. Huge reiteration of Kamurocho with more areas. Tons of side quests and mini games.
2. Yakuza 1 - Awesome story that is Kazuma's most personal and still is in a long line of games. It probably hasn't aged well considering there are random battles that are hard to avoid and load times before every battle. But the concept and the core structure of the game is still there and hasn't changed too much.
3. Yakuza 3 - The game starts way too slow but the second half is fantastic. Its the first Yakuza in HD which means the mahjong is hell of a lot easier to play now amongst many things that HD was able to improve.
4. Yakuza 2 - Playing this in 2008 when the Xbox 360 and PS3 had already been out for about 2 years was a huge step back and might have jaded my opinion. It was a good game, but almost everything I liked about Yakuza 1 had changed, principally the story was not as personal this time around and I wasn't as invested as the first game. I DO need to go back and play it again and I'd love a Yakuza 2: Kiwami to be able to do so.
5. Yakuza 5 - Half of this game is really great, and the other half is not. It didn't help that they pushed the PS3 so hard that performance was really lagging at times. Some risky choices did not pay off, for example I think Part 3 should have been entirely Akiyama. Haruka's part should have been an optional side character because her section went for far too long. Is there anyone that enjoyed Saejima's dream sequence?
Great impressions, thanks! I haven't kept up with the Japanese Yakuza 0 release so this is all new to me.
In terms of the bolded, I am really curious how reviewers are going to critique that part of the game. I mean those two things have been in every Yakuza game. Would it be fair to critique a B-tier game like Deadly Premonition in the same way as GTA V? I don't know! I don't know if its a budget issue that they can't have more cutscenes or if its just a choice made by the director. It feels jarring to Western audiences because we're so used to AAA games that don't do this. I am guessing its probably a budget and time thing and its just way easier to do dialogue boxes. Having to do 10-15 hours of cutscenes would just take the Yakuza team way longer. But they must obviously be aware of it because Yakuza 6 is pretty much all cutscenes.
The second bolded part is again a problem with Yakuza games and will probably get criticised by most reviewers. Since Yakuza 2, they have become longer and have dragged on with more unnecessary dialogue than it really needs. Yakuza 1 in that respect is really great, almost no unnecessary dialogue if I recall or maybe it was just helped by the English VA which I really liked. So they could easily cut out like 15-20% of the dialogue and the game would not lose anything.
Awesome work. That's my internet reading for the day!
Dang thats a crazy amount of Yakuza in one year!
Hm well for me it goes.
5 > 2 > 3 > Ishin > 4 > Kenzan > 1 > Dead Souls.
Yeah I had a blast with Kazuma and Haruka, had some of my favourite tracks in the series, most boss fights and the extra content was all my jam.
I greatly lean on more Kazuma gameplay though so 0 will probably take the cake when it releases.
5 > 2 > 3 > Ishin > 4 > Kenzan > 1 > Dead Souls.
Yeah I had a blast with Kazuma and Haruka, had some of my favourite tracks in the series, most boss fights and the extra content was all my jam.
I greatly lean on more Kazuma gameplay though so 0 will probably take the cake when it releases.
Kiwami isn't a terrible game at all, and I really enjoyed the Majima Anywhere feature (at first anyway), but I really don't rate the story. This is at least partly due to how horribly they bastardise two of my favourite characters from Zero. Fuck the characters and their motivations in Kiwami.
Maybe this one is just a unique criticism due to playing Zero as my first Yakuza game and loving the heck out of it.
Not like this it hasn't. Sure there's been cutscenes into dialog progression scenes but Yakuza Zero adds these really weird scenes that aren't lip synced but the back grounds are animated and are washed out. I believe it's an intentional artistic direction to differentiate specific memories as important but it's awkward as hell. I've played all the Yakua games aside from 6 and that's not in any other titles. It's not a big thing but it's a bit off-putting.
Man I replayed Y1 and the VA after so many other games drove me nuts it was so wooden. It also had a lot of 'Find Haruka again' moments. Remember finding dog food because she wouldn't move otherwise? I'm in chapter 8 and so far there's a lot of moments where introduction to side content drags out the story but so far the plot moves forward at a better clip despite how long it is than some of the other titles. Not as many boss battles so far. The pacing is still slow compared to games that are constantly moving forward but there's less that feels like filler compared to 5.
TheDarkKnight774
Member
Easy Allies seem to have special permission to do an early look video (it's spoiler free).
Unfortunately it also confirms what I feared and knew would happen, that they replace the awesome theme song "Bubble" with a generic ass rock song
Now on YouTube.
https://youtu.be/uDTSzM94qt0