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Yakuza Community Thread - FEEL THE HEAT!

IrishNinja

Member
demos have expiration dates now? ugh

So at the recent Winter WonFes, GSC showed off the prototype for the upcoming Majima figure:

irsmIwL.jpg


Looks pretty good. hope the final version turns out great (plan to buy him and Kiryu).

oh man, i already ordered kazzy-chan but looks like he'll have a friend!
 
I finally beat Yakuza 2 a few weeks ago, and I can finally understand the love for Kaoru and the game's storyline in general. Geez, I can't believe I was willing to skip out on this game if I couldn't find it. I wish Kaoru came back, damn it! Her and Kiryu were so good together!

Ryuji really was the best villain in the Yakuza series, but I must admit something I'm really ashamed of.
On the final fight, I had to switch to Easy. This was the first time I've done this in any Yakuza game, and I feel like a dirty ninja dog. :( It was just too much. The final QTE took me by surprise and when I lost on Normal, you have no idea how much I raged...
 

Card Boy

Banned
I don't like the 4 character approach in Yakuza 4. I think 3 characters would of being fine, fuck Tanimura is boring as shit. Really liked Saejima and Akiyama though. Kiryu is always a cool mofo.
 

IrishNinja

Member
damn, guess i understand why Tanimura never came back around, haha...his storyline was interesting & honestly could've been done better, but i came around to his fighting style

really just felt like he was i the shadow of Akiyama's awesomeness, i thought
 

Card Boy

Banned
I wont lie, i'm enjoying Yakuza: Dead Souls at the moment. Not nearly as bad as the Meta makes it out to be. I have literally spent like 10 hours on Part 1 alone with Akiyama. Now playing as Majima. I love how they have brought back Goda for this.
 
I wont lie, i'm enjoying Yakuza: Dead Souls at the moment. Not nearly as bad as the Meta makes it out to be. I have literally spent like 10 hours on Part 1 alone with Akiyama. Now playing as Majima. I love how they have brought back Goda for this.

Majima and Goda are the highlights of the game for me. I just wish the controls and frame rate were better, as it makes later parts of the game fairly frustrating. Its fairly repetitive as well, but still has all the Yakuza trimmings that keep me coming back for more! (I've spent 130 hours on the Japanese and Euro versions so far, and I still want to aim for a few more of the difficulty based trophies.)
 

Sgblues

Member
Yeah Dead Souls isn't a bad game but as Yakuza games goes, it is often at the bottom of most people's list, the team was focused on making Binary Domain as their newest game for a new engine and they had leftover assets from Y4 and the updated model of Ryuji Goda, so they decided to do one last game on the Magical V-Engine, which they used for Kenzan to Y4 before wanting to switch to the new engine which Binary Domain was the first game was for before making Y5 later on.

Personally I like it being a shooter and mixing things up for the series, and if it have better controls and played without the occasional slowdown when things get crowded then it would have been great. But I would have also liked if it played like the regular games, well I mean it kinda does that when
you start off as Kiryu
but if the whole game was like that it would have been cool as well since heat actions could have been more brutal to the zombies, they could have given it a bit of a Dead Rising 1 vibe to go along with its Left 4 Dead one.
 

cj_iwakura

Member
Is anyone interested in helping with this? He doesn't have a GAF account, but if you have Steam, I'll put you in touch with him.

Right now we have the Japanese version of Yakuza 3 (Ryu ga Gotoku 3) working with the script from the English version.
That means all the cut stuff like product placement, Hostess Clubs, Shogi, Sidequests etc are all working, but are in Japanese.
Most of the game is in English though thanks to porting the script, right now we need two things.
Translator or multiple translators, preferably someone that played RGG3 so he can point the script changes that were made to English version (like toned down racism).
And a programmer willing to help us with adding VWF (Variable Width Font).
Here's a screenshot of how what we have looks in practice (note the lack of VWF):
ck1tr7.png
 
Sounds like an awesome idea for a project... I was pretty blown away when I played my Japanese copy of RGG3, had no idea how much side stuff they butchered when they ported it across to English territories until that point. That stunt of Sega's still annoys me to this day. On the brighter side I was pleased that 5 was unscathed, even with some of the very Japanese stuff that was in that game (the comedy routine making it in untouched surprised me for sure).
 
Finally beat Yakuza 5 last night. Played through the entire 1-5 series between December and now.

Awesome series. I'm feeling a void right now because few games I've played can touch the quality of writing in these games. Really excited for Zero early next year.

Is Dead Souls worth looking in to at all? It looks okay but the framerate issues look kind of painful. If the writing is up to par I could deal with it, though.

Also! Is Ryu Ga Gotoku Ishin worth importing for someone who doesn't know Japanese? Seems like a pretty hard no but I figured I'd ask anyway.
 
Finally beat Yakuza 5 last night. Played through the entire 1-5 series between December and now.

Awesome series. I'm feeling a void right now because few games I've played can touch the quality of writing in these games. Really excited for Zero early next year.

Is Dead Souls worth looking in to at all? It looks okay but the framerate issues look kind of painful. If the writing is up to par I could deal with it, though.

Also! Is Ryu Ga Gotoku Ishin worth importing for someone who doesn't know Japanese? Seems like a pretty hard no but I figured I'd ask anyway.

Ishin (and Kenzan!) are both well worth importing. Both have FAQ's available to get you through the story sections and the gameplay on both are excellent, Kenzan! especially is still pretty much the best game in the series for me.

Dead Souls is still worth a go if you can get it cheap. Frame Rate does suck at times, but it has all the usual stuff you'd expect from a Yakuza game. Writing wise I think its worth it for Majima's part alone, his hostess club missions and interactions with Daigo are hilarious.
 

Card Boy

Banned
Dead Souls makes me wish they brought back Goda back for real. There is almost the makings of a legit story after Yakuza 2 there until the zombie stuff.
 

LAM09

Member
Managed to pick up 3 a few weeks ago and recently completed it. The orphanage becomes tedious after a bit, but I enjoyed the main story. Nice to see the improvements they've made since then (started with 4, played 5 over Christmas and now 3).

Can't wait to hear more about Y6 and give an eventual demo a ago.
 

Sakura

Member
Played through Kiwami last week and enjoyed it quite a bit.
I've since been trying to play through the HD version of the second game, but it's just so terrible in comparison. Need to move through it though so I can get to the PS3 games...
 

Sgblues

Member
Yeah it can be jarring going from the ps3 games to the ps2 ones since most people started with Y3 or Y4 and are used to the features, combat and overall feel in the later games.
 

dreamfall

Member
I don't know why, but I think I like going back to Premium Adventure mode in Yakuza 4 the most. Loaded it up today for the first time in awhile, and I just got hit with so much nostalgia. THE TOJO 4EVA.
 

Sgblues

Member
Yeah I've played the most out of premium adventure mode in Y2, Kenzan Y4, Y5, Ishin and Zero with Zero being the most since because I'm usually playing Outrun or Space Harrier or dancing at Maharaja.
 
I probably spent the most time in Ishin's Premium Adventure mode. That's mainly thanks to that boring grind for the last few weapons (that last battle dungeon mission is carved into my brain for all time) and also just doing the boring menial tasks to finish off the completion list.

I'm so glad 0 really fixed up the completion list, 100%ing that game was way more fun. Getting all the weapons/materials was still a bit of a pain though...

I spent loads of time in 5's Premium Adventure mode as well, but that's just down to there being so many things to do in 5 (and to be fair, it was probably my favourite 100% for the series so far).

I was going to clear my PS4 backlog before starting Kiwami but at this rate its going to take me 100+ hours alone to finish Warriors Orochi 3! I'll probably finish of getting all the medals in Star Fox 0 and dive into Kiwami, I'm really looking forward to replaying the story of the first game again.
 
So I've finally started Ryu Ga Gotoku Kiwami today. I'm loving it so far, its so great to play an extended version of the original game. Especially as it looks and controls so much better.

I'm just having issues with certain heat moves at the beginning of the game - namely the "Double Head Crash" heat move for the Thug style. According to everything I've read, your supposed to be in your red heat state (which I've unlocked), grab one enemy and then press triangle as your standing next to another enemy and you'll do a heat move where you smash one enemy into the other. However when I try that I pull off a different move instead... Any suggestions?
 

Sgblues

Member
Yeah the double head crash is when the red heat, grab an enemy, close to another enemy and wait for them to attack and press triangle, its basically a counter and can do it in Dojima style as well.


Glad you're enjoying the game so far.
 
Yeah the double head crash is when the red heat, grab an enemy, close to another enemy and wait for them to attack and press triangle, its basically a counter and can do it in Dojima style as well.


Glad you're enjoying the game so far.

Thanks for the info. I was being too impatient and not waiting for the second enemy to attack. Thankfully I lucked out and got that heat move when I was doing the funeral brawl in chapter 3!

On a general note about heat - I'm looking at the upgrade grids and I can't get a definitive answer on this as of yet - but is there a certain thing I need to be leveling up so that I don't lose as much heat when I get hit? As when I get knocked down or hit by an enemy I lose tons of heat at the moment. I remember in past games you could upgrade yourself to reduce the loss, but I can't find the corresponding sphere on the grids for this as of yet.


Progress wise I've just got back to Kamuracho and can finally, freely explore the game world. So of course I've wasted loads of time so far doing everything except actually progressing the main story! I met
officer Majima
which was a laugh. Going back to the pocket league place brought back some awesome memories, I love how they took the time to add shout outs to RGG0 in this game.


Content wise I'm really impressed so far at how much extra/tweaked is in the game compared to the original RGG. All the Nishiki segments so far have been great, plus the additions/changes to both major cutscenes and levels is a nice surprise
Such as adding a little flashback segment with Yumi, adding a section in the funeral level where you are trying to get past the guard to meet Kazuma, and if I'm not mistaken the Goji Rokaku side mission is longer compared to the original PS2 side mission.
. I really didn't expect to see that much added/changed. Oh, and not to mention mostly the combat is better thanks to having lock on that actually works.


However the combat isn't perfect - I'm a tad annoyed that they decided to completely nerf the Dragon of Dojima fighting style. Its pretty useless right now, as in it deals no damage and has next to no attacks. I know you greatly improve it by fighting Majima, which I'll be doing lots of, but I loved that fighting style in 0 and was hoping to use it immediately in Kiwami but that's not really been the case since its so damn weak.
 

Sgblues

Member
Hahaha
once you fully power the dragon of dojima style up, prepare to destroy lifebars and anything that stands in your way, no other style would come close to the sheer amount of damage you would be dishing out with the tiger drop and heat moves, plus Kiryu can get a damage bonus at flashing health unlocked to do even more damage. It really puts the extreme in the title to the limit and cements itself as Kiryu's strongest style, course Y6 "could" change that maybe.
 
Hahaha
once you fully power the dragon of dojima style up, prepare to destroy lifebars and anything that stands in your way, no other style would come close to the sheer amount of damage you would be dishing out with the tiger drop and heat moves, plus Kiryu can get a damage bonus at flashing health unlocked to do even more damage. It really puts the extreme in the title to the limit and cements itself as Kiryu's strongest style, course Y6 "could" change that maybe.

Sweet :) Can't wait to upgrade that then. Also, glad to see the game on hard mode isn't as easy as say Yakuza 5. Its still not as hard as Yakuza 1-3, but I'm glad there is at least some challenge to be had in this game!
 
Okay, I've spent around 16 hours on Kiwami now, just finished chapter 5...

So far this game has met expectations in many ways. Its technically everything I wanted from a Yakuza 1 remake however there are a few little things that really bug me the more I play (bear in mind I'm playing on hard mode):

The main one - and this argument goes for 0, Kiwami, Ishin and from what I played of the demo of 6 is that I hate moves that require a certain number of heat bars, require you to be in a certain heat gear, or be in (red) heat state. Some moves make sense (like getting defensive buffs or weapon buffs) but there are some things - like certain moves for the destroyer fighting style (the one where you are basically a walking tank) and throw counters in the thug fighting style that really have no business requiring heat gauges to use - especially in this game where you can lose all of your heat gauge in one single (strong) hit from an enemy or a boss. Makes them completely useless. Plus needing red heat to activate certain heat moves that never required a full heat bar before also sucks, though I've found that's been less of a problem so far.

Also, one of the big additions to the game - the Majima Anywhere system can get a bit annoying at times. He really does stalk you everywhere - and so far I've probably fought him 20+ times so far, he starts off fairly easy but when he starts using some of his different fighting styles he becomes a right pain to fight (as blocking his slugger, Mad Dog or dancer styles is practically impossible as two are weapon based and one breaks your guard frequently. If it weren't for the boxer fighting style I'd really be struggling against him. Him not really flinching when certain attacks land from the boxer style means he'll counter you frequently and you'll probably take quite a bit of damage...

I feel they could have dialed back on Majima a bit, surely he's an amazing source for XP (I'm getting an insane amount from just beating him once!) but the more I play, the more I avoid him unless I really want to unlock a specific move. And since my Dojima style is still fairly weak, I don't really have a choice in ignoring him too much else it'll never level up.

That said, all in all its still way better than the original game content and controls wise (not sure I'll ever really be able to return to that game) and I do appreciate the game at least putting up a fight difficulty wise (Yakuza 4 especially was painful in that regard, with enemies almost never attacking...)
 

oneida

Cock Strain, Lifetime Warranty
trying to 100% these games is a terrible experience that I'd recommend to no one, under any circumstances
 

Sgblues

Member
Its too late for me on that front, since I've 100% all of them and some twice.

But I wouldn't have it any other way hahaha.
 
100%ing the games are dead fun for me, Its part of the experience for me. I never just play the games for the story anymore, I play each to 100% them. I like to experience everything each game has to offer - I'm always discovering new things that I end up really enjoying.
Learning the mini games in and out over the years has made them more fun for me - as Mahjong has gone from an impossibility to something I look forward to in each sequel (and I keep learning and improving so things become more fun and easy as I go).

Only parts of 100%ing any of the games so far that has been less than stellar have been the completion list for Ishin (which can get mind numbingly boring at times) and the fighting arena for 5 (its great fun once, not so much fun for the fourth time!).

Speaking of fighting arena, I'm up to chapter 10 on Kiwami and have been doing the fighting arena and Komaki challenges. I've found the weapons based arena tournament dead good for grinding out some PP to afford the Komaki move scrolls. I've gotten over 8000PP on my last two tournaments and only need another 10,000 to get the last one.
The last Komaki challenge I did was pretty damn hard though - it involved fighting four really aggressive heavy enemies that all attack at once. Turns out some heat drinks are the best thing to use - landing the first two heat moves KO the first two enemies real quick, which evens things out a bit. I've also powered up the speed of the Dojima fighting style to make things work further in my favour. Its still not perfect, but its finally a viable fighting style to use in battles. That said thanks to the upgrades I've used on the other three styles they are really good in battles now.

Otherwise I've managed to almost hit the 75% mark on completion. Still got a fair bit of gambling left to do but I believe I've managed to finish the arcade game (I'm so glad that turned out better than cat fighting), pocket racing is done (and is so damn awesome, and the new side stories associated with it rocked as well) and I've eaten/drank most of the food/drink (and is it me, or are the drink bottles even more detailed than in 0? Its really well done).

Onto more Majima fights next I think... I need to improve that part of my completion list.
 

oneida

Cock Strain, Lifetime Warranty
i don't see how anyone could legitimately enjoy completing all the food lists. it's soooo tedious. I've made a point to never use healing items and to instead always hit restaurants and nevertheless at the end of every part i find myself forcing combat encounters that are so piss easy that I've set the controller down and literally:
1) made and ate a sandwich
2) used the bathroom (#2)
3) played something else
without dying, just so that i can get my health low enough that i can MAYBE check off three menu items in one visit.
 
Eat worms. Seriously, eating worms reduces your health so if you need to decrease your health that much then eat worms. Or in Kiwami (not sure about other entries) you can buy a drink from the drug store that severely decreases your health.
Or, up the difficulty. I've eaten all the food in Kiwami and I'm only on chapter 10, just got a few more drinks to drink. Majima and aggressive enemies mean I always need to heal.

Drinks wise if your running into issues where your too drunk to be served, either drink some coffee (found in convenience stores) or use the legendary hangover cure (sold in convenience and drug stores) and your good to go.

I liked the food and drink stuff though - the later games put more of an effort in what with the nice photos for the food and attention to detail in the bottles, labels and dialogue for all the drinks. 6 looks to improve the photo's etc. for the food much more so I look forward to doing the lists all over again.
 

oneida

Cock Strain, Lifetime Warranty
completing the drink lists isn't great, but at least in that case you get something interesting to read. i personally get no gratification from checking off the food lists when all i get is a picture and saejima saying some variation of "just how i like it!"

it literary just feels like checking off items on a list with none of the rewarding characteristics of the side missions or mini games.

I'll try the worms trick, thanks
 

Sgblues

Member
Yeah eating fishing bait reduced your hp so it is great at filling up on food easier, then they introduced ipecac at the pharmacies which is even better(and to be honest less gross than eating worms haha), for the newer games(ishin to Kiwami) they gave you the ability to eat without being full which allowed you to clear out food lists super quick. Drinks on the other hand had to come down to using coffee or the legendary drinker of Ryukyu which is sold at the pharmacies but its not in every game so, load up on Boss Coffee™ and take one after every drink.
 
Had a decent evening on Kiwami. Managed to unlock the final arena battle and complete all of Komaki's training. The tiger drop counter is insanely overpowered, its so good against S rank Majima battles - really speeds things up in that regard!

Speaking of Majima, I've managed to clear quite a few more parts of the Majima Anyway system and ranked him up to S rank. Not many things left to unlock now, if anything it'll just take a little while to grind out the requirements for that part of the completion list (mainly just fighting certain styles of Majima in random encounters).
Speaking of which - does anyone know if Majima disappears after you SSS rank him? or does he continue walking the streets in Premium Adventure mode?
 

Sgblues

Member
Told ya the damage was extreme, also yes Majima would continue to patrol around, hide in stuff and be in those fights with the random thugs as well even when walking around with Haruka, but the beads of good fortune would stop him from attacking you unless you take it off.

Akiyama's True Suicide training missions can DIAF. Running while having grenades chucked at you? Nope.

Also add the fact enemies have crazy tracking on their attacks so they are very accurate, just like those molotov zombies in Dead Souls.
 
Told ya the damage was extreme, also yes Majima would continue to patrol around, hide in stuff and be in those fights with the random thugs as well even when walking around with Haruka, but the beads of good fortune would stop him from attacking you unless you take it off.

Ah, great news. Just thinking of my completion list, I have a feeling that I'll hit SSS rank before finishing all the requirements. Good to know.

And yeah, extreme damage for sure! I might have to use it sparingly against some late bosses, else it'll totally break the difficulty in my favour! At least it makes Majima encounters quicker as he's got like 4-5 health bars now. Not sure if I can power it up further, as I have a load more S-SSS rank unlocks to get from Majima, I imagine it'll be ridiculous once its completely upgraded.
 
So feeding back into the whole 100%ing discussion earlier, after playing some more Kiwami tonight I've got to ask the question - are they making gambling requirements worse or is it just me?

They've been changing them subtly in 0 and Kiwami - in old games basically your goal is to get so many chips etc. over time. Its just a matter of patience, luck and skill and that's the way I loved it.

0 upped the ante in some respects by forcing you to bet way more money, but that was in keeping with the theme of the game. However it also forced you to technically make a profit before the points counted - so if you played some Odds n Evens you needed to profit - meaning you only had points added to your total if you earned more than you lost. Which was a bit annoying for some games that were mainly about luck, but I put up with it. Made the Japanese style gambling games less fun as I just played a round and quit out no matter the result, as it was much easier that way banking a profit instead of just sitting back and playing several rounds for the fun of it.

Kiwami does a similar thing but manages to make it more frustrating still - see when you finish a round of gambling in 0 and your points are added to your total if you made a profit - the money is added to your completion total and that is set in stone. If you don't make a profit then you just lose the physical money you bet in that match. No harm no foul since money is thrown at you in that game (literally at points!)
Kiwami instead doesn't freeze your total, instead detracting points from your completion total if you have a few bad matches, so it kills off the fun of the matches because it instead forces you to play a bit, quit, save/load depending if you've won/lost money and continue. It just kills the vibe for me, I always enjoyed playing the gambling stuff to sit back and relax, but now that's not possible for most of the games. Cheat items returning helps a tiny amount but even in stuff like Roulette you can only get around 2/3 of the total you need by doing the old Zero jewel trick - the rest is literally up to luck.

Ok, moan over! On the bright side at least I've only got Poker to go for the Casino gambling (still got the Japanese gambling stuff to do afterwards). The rest of the completion list goes well, finished off Darts and Billiards today along with maxing out all four fighting styles - to be fair after getting the Komaki counters the only grind I had to do for Majima was waiting for him to appear dressed as a dancer, as I got so powerful fighting him was a non issue! I'm up to chapter 11 now, the end is in sight :( Oh well, I'll still have the SSS Haruka and ultimate challenges stuff to do (and the challenges cannot be worse than the ones in the original Yakuza unless you still have to clear Lau's entire level without getting hit!)
 

Sgblues

Member
Yeah a bit of save scamming goes for the casino gambling games now if you wanna keep the momentum going. For me its play, hope to win big and if I do, save and keep playing and if I start losing just reload my save and since you could save anywhere that's not in a battle or battle area which makes it easier than running back and forth to a save point but in general I do really well at them to not reload saves much.

The Japanese gambling games were no problem except for Mahjong and dealing with Yui who, is the hostess at Jewel and loves Mahjong and is always constantly an opponent you play against at the parlour. For me she either declares riichi or double riichi right off the bat or has a hand ready and gets you with ron or last tile ron, which was pretty frustrating trying to get hands to win for the cp requirements. For making points to buy the weapons and armor with in the gambling den I played Cho-han though its all 50-50 and can be risky if you decide to keep playing against the house to rack up points and Chinchirorin which was better but how many chips you went with decided how many your opponents would have(eg: go with 1000, everyone would have 1000 also) with Koi Koi rounding it a bit.
 
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