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Yakuza Community Thread - FEEL THE HEAT!

Nice. That shows off some of the awesome features from 2 (always glad to see Komaki!) plus that Majima side story sounds pretty awesome. I'm really liking what I'm seeing so far in terms of new content and stuff that's being added in after being missing from Yakuza 6.
 
TGS day2, RGG part starts from 2:47
https://youtu.be/TFDM4npHJNA?t=2h47m3s

The loading time between the main game and arcade games is much shorter.

They show the trailer for Kiwami 2 again at the start of that. It seems like they fixed the audio issues haha

and they took down the old trailer?

Folks these Yakuza Kiwami 2 CEs on Amazon.co.jp. Which one is it? I see one thats 10,000+ JPY and another that is 12,000+

Using chrome webpage translate, the only difference I see is

"Original PlayStation 4 theme delivery"
 
Kiwami 2 looking good. Looks like there are plenty of little new areas to explore around Osaka, and yeah going by the Casino that was shown all the casino style gambling games are back. Now they just need to show more Kamuracho so that I can finally the Champion District in all its glory with the Dragon Engine!
 
While the series has always been a tourist simulator, looking at Osaka in Kiwami 2 is just dropping my fucking jaw it looks soooo fucking good and detailed and just filled to the brim with personality.
 
Yeah, it looks fantastic. Then again, I say that every generation when the engine takes a graphical leap. I'm just interested to see just how much extra there is to explore in both towns - I could see several areas in Osaka during the demos where you can explore now that were never accessible to you. That means I'm going to spend a ton of time exploring as soon as I get to Osaka in 2!

Now as we get close to release, I hope they show a couple of snippets from some of the bigger set pieces in the game just to tease. I'd love to see a little more from
Osaka Castle. I loved that area, even before the whole tigers thing! Hope to see a little more from the fighting Arena and I wouldn't mind seeing what Tojo HQ looks like in the new engine...
.

I hope we get to see more in depth gameplay demonstrations on FOTNS as well. They've shown just enough to get me super hyped, but I really want a longer demonstration now. Also confirmation on how many retro games you can get would be nice, as I'm wondering which games will realistically be included within the game?
 

robotrock

Banned
Using chrome webpage translate, the only difference I see is

"Original PlayStation 4 theme delivery"

Hmmm, guess I'll go with the cheaper one then. This is probably a very stupid purchase but as someone who just had his mind blown by Yakuza 2 I am feeling the hype too hard. Need it.
 
Hmmm, guess I'll go with the cheaper one then. This is probably a very stupid purchase but as someone who just had his mind blown by Yakuza 2 I am feeling the hype too hard. Need it.

Yea, I'm in a similar boat. Yakuza 2 easily top three games of all time for me. I really want to own a CE for it. I'd like to wait and see if we get a western CE first, but I imagine it will be harder to grab the NTSC-J CE at that point.

I also just played Yakuza 2 for the first time fairly recently. Did you play Kiwami into Y2 or are you playing them in release order?
 

Big One

Banned
Kiwami has been pretty damn good so far, but to be honest the story has been...good, but I wouldn't say nearly as good as 0's story. To be honest, I AM glad I played 0 before even touching Kiwami or Yakuza 1, because I feel like getting to know these characters in 0 allowed me to understand their roles and place in the story better.
Plus I feel like character deaths like Reina or even Dojima's would have less impact on me If I didn't already somewhat know about them from 0.

Actually the most interesting thing to me about Kiwami's story is the great flashbacks showcasing Nishiki's descent to being a glorious bastard. Actually, seeing Majima being playable in Kiwami 2 makes me wonder why they couldn't have made Nishikiyama a playable character in his own side-story, but whatever. I feel like it would've made the game much more interesting if they added this in. Also since I'm already nearing the end of the game, the shorter story than 0 is also jarring. Though for 30 bucks, this game is pretty much worth it for the price.

Either way I'm having a lot of fun and I've already ordered Yakuza 2 on Amazon. Is the jump from Kiwami to Yakuza 2 jarring in any way? Cause I looked at some gameplay footage of 2 and I was actually pretty impressed by how good it looked as a PS2 game.
 
Kiwami has been pretty damn good so far, but to be honest the story has been...good, but I wouldn't say nearly as good as 0's story. To be honest, I AM glad I played 0 before even touching Kiwami or Yakuza 1, because I feel like getting to know these characters in 0 allowed me to understand their roles and place in the story better.
Plus I feel like character deaths like Reina or even Dojima's would have less impact on me If I didn't already somewhat know about them from 0.

Actually the most interesting thing to me about Kiwami's story is the great flashbacks showcasing Nishiki's descent to being a glorious bastard. Actually, seeing Majima being playable in Kiwami 2 makes me wonder why they couldn't have made Nishikiyama a playable character in his own side-story, but whatever. I feel like it would've made the game much more interesting if they added this in. Also since I'm already nearing the end of the game, the shorter story than 0 is also jarring. Though for 30 bucks, this game is pretty much worth it for the price.

Either way I'm having a lot of fun and I've already ordered Yakuza 2 on Amazon. Is the jump from Kiwami to Yakuza 2 jarring in any way? Cause I looked at some gameplay footage of 2 and I was actually pretty impressed by how good it looked as a PS2 game.

Kiwami 1 was a low budget game built on asset resuse and was developed alongside Yakuza 6. So they probably didn't have enough resources to do a playable Nishiki section. It'd have been nice but not essential, I feel the cutscenes suffice, they are well done and fill in the story nicely (the last one is particularly heavy).

2's main issues going from later games is the graphics and the load times. If you can look past those you'll be fine, the games combat is vastly improved over the original game and the story itself is still top notch as you'd expect. Side content isn't anywhere near as extensive as newer games but it still has a few mini games and many side stories. The only issue with the side stories is that you can miss/fail some which prevent you from accessing other side stories, meaning you'll miss out on facing Amon. But that's only an issue if your going for 100%, if your playing just for the story you'll be absolutely fine.
 

Big One

Banned
Kiwami 1 was a low budget game built on asset resuse and was developed alongside Yakuza 6. So they probably didn't have enough resources to do a playable Nishiki section. It'd have been nice but not essential, I feel the cutscenes suffice, they are well done and fill in the story nicely (the last one is particularly heavy).

2's main issues going from later games is the graphics and the load times. If you can look past those you'll be fine, the games combat is vastly improved over the original game and the story itself is still top notch as you'd expect. Side content isn't anywhere near as extensive as newer games but it still has a few mini games and many side stories. The only issue with the side stories is that you can miss/fail some which prevent you from accessing other side stories, meaning you'll miss out on facing Amon. But that's only an issue if your going for 100%, if your playing just for the story you'll be absolutely fine.
I can look past both. The main concern is the gameplay, but looking at videos the gameplay really doesn't look all that different. And yeah I'm playing these games primarily for the storyline, lol.

I'm ok with a lighter game in side-content. Between Yakuza 0 and Kiwami I'm kind of exhausted on doing side content atm. I'm probably going to more or less play the next few Yakuza games focusing on the story with some dabbling into the side content here-and-there. Though the Yakuza 6 side-content looks to be pretty impressive and worth exploring in of itself, so I'm looking forward to that in March next year.
 
In terms of 2's content, there are some awesome side stories worth tracking down - the "fake Kiryu" story is entertaining and is one of the higher budget side stories in 2 (i.e. it actually has proper cutscenes and voice acting, not just text boxes) plus the host side stories are really entertaining, and it puts a nice different spin on the hostess club formula.

Speaking of which though, you may want to skip most of the hostesses in Yakuza 2. There are just too many of them. My estimate places them at around 7-10 hostesses that you can romance, which is at least 5 too many in my opinion, that stuff got really monotonous the more you did it! The hostess club management (which is different to how 0 handled it) is pretty awesome as well.

But yeah focusing on the story is the better choice if you'll be playing them back to back (especially 5, that one has a shit ton of side stuff if your going for 100%!). Its part of the reason I avoid playing the games back to back, I love doing all the side stuff but I'd go mad if I were to try and clear them all like that one after another!
 

robotrock

Banned
Yea, I'm in a similar boat. Yakuza 2 easily top three games of all time for me. I really want to own a CE for it. I'd like to wait and see if we get a western CE first, but I imagine it will be harder to grab the NTSC-J CE at that point.

I also just played Yakuza 2 for the first time fairly recently. Did you play Kiwami into Y2 or are you playing them in release order?

My order of playthrough is wild: 0>4>5>Kiwami>2>3 (which I'm still currently playing).

dunno if I'll go Ishin or Dead Souls next. probably need to take a bit of a break actually.
 
Actually the most interesting thing to me about Kiwami's story is the great flashbacks showcasing Nishiki's descent to being a glorious bastard.

I'm not sure if I would have thought much of the story had I played Kiwami back in the day. Nishiki I think would've felt like a stereotype without having his personality and his relationship with Kiryu fleshed out in Zero. He feels a bit more like an anime/JRPG character in 1. Having played Zero first, I at least already had an emotional connection with his story and it was easier to feel empathy for him as he went insane, even if the whole thing was over the top.

I think Zero is the best thing that ever happened to this series, for a number of reasons.
 

IrishNinja

Member
still taking my time through kiwamis (hurricane fucked my game time right up) but man, the amount of nishki story is so great - this really is the definitive version of this game, so happy to see this story stuff bridged
 

YesManKablaam

Neo Member
Oh goddamn, Chapter 9 on Legend in Kiwami. The sheer frustration of haviing to go back and redo the entire battle sequence. Hopefully I can crack it soon.
 

Gacha-pin

Member
TGS day3 3:40~4:47
https://youtu.be/R085pZ_Z5nU?t=3h40m

This one is funny. VAs are dubbing while they are playing the game themselves :)
Lol @ toilet mini game. As usual, Kiryu tries hard as much as possible on anything.
FYI, this toilet game exists in real life called Toylets produced by sega
http://toylets.sega.jp/


@Famitsu boothe 0:40:00~1:25:00 this one is showing clan creator mostly
https://youtu.be/vITlzqsBOgg?t=40m

Majima's stats are maxed out from the beginning.

Be my baby dude detected!!
vXW1y9j.jpg

spoiler tag here just in case. Some character from 0 will return in kiwami 2
Yuki (in 18 years later) is coming back
 
It's kinda amazing how Takaya Kuroda can look like a hippie at one event, the most badass gangster at another event and just a regular dude at another. But it all works because he has the voice of a God.

Also yay at GARY BUSTAH HOOLLLLLMMEEEESSS getting more screen time.
 
Wait, they are bringing
Yuki
back as well? Awesome, this is shaping up to be even better than I'd hoped. The extra mini games they showed off look fun, I love how they continue to take Sega games (even the strange ones like the toilet game) and put them in Yakuza. Adds an extra layer of authenticity to the game world, plus its strange enough that it feels right at home in the game world.

Kiwami 2 and Hokuto LEs preordered.

Worth it.

Where did you pre order the Hokuto LE? I want to import it but last I heard Amazon wasn't shipping them internationally (which is odd as I had no issues pre ordering Kiwami 2 a month back).
 
Is "running girl" an actual thing in Japan? Some parts of Harukas chapter in Y5 are creepy af. How old is she supposed to be? 15? Im surprised some of this stuff made localization
 

Past

Member
So is no one going to talk about how Makoto hasn’t aged at all after 20 years? Even her hairstyle is the same...
 
Kiryu looks like he aged backwards for 6. Seeing Makoto look the same doesn't really bother me though granted I'd not twigged on that fact until it was mentioned here.
 

robotrock

Banned
Credits rolling on Yakuza 3.

I can't believe I played through six Yakuza games this year after completely ignoring the series forever. Wild!
 
Doesn't Kiryu wear the same suit from Yakuza 1 thru Yakuza 5? They even make fun of his fashion sense in 0.

He'll be buried in that suit... He's still wearing it in 6. Though I do quite like his getup when he goes to Hiroshima - he loses the jacket and has his shirt sleeves rolled up. Looks pretty badass.

Now that TGS is pretty much over I'm wondering when we'll hear more info about FOTNS, RGG Online and Shin RGG... Kiwami 2 is definitely the game they are focusing on at the moment with it due out in a couple of months and its looks mighty fine so far, but I'm eager to see them show more details on the other games.

For FOTNS I just want to get more info on the mini games - for the retro games I'd love to know how many games are included. Is it just 1? Or are there several to find (they've only showed one off so far, but the initial info posted here made it sound like several console/arcade games would be in).
Plus I'd just like more info on the combat, from what has been shown so far it looks like your standard Yakuza fare, but it'd be nice to see some more heat moves, combo moves and upgrades (to get an idea on how fleshed out your moves list can get). Guessing we won't get much info on this one before the end of the year, as with Kiwami due out in December I'm guessing they'll go into overdrive once its out, I guess we'll see loads of it from there on out. But with the releases being fairly close together I hope that we get some info before then, else they'd be leaving it pretty late to promote the game?

For RGG Online, I'd just like to understand more about its gameplay. It looked kinda interesting from the snippet shown, and I do really like the art, so I do kinda hope this game isn't too bad. Plus I'd just like to hear more about the story, as the premise for this (and presumably Shin RGG) sounds cool. I'm guessing we'll get more info on Shin RGG around this time next year, I think with FOTNS launching in earlier 2018 we stand a chance of getting the next mainline Yakuza game by next December in Japan.
 
Doesn't Kiryu wear the same suit from Yakuza 1 thru Yakuza 5? They even make fun of his fashion sense in 0.

It's a real shame we can't switch costume until premium mode :/ And even then there aren't many choices.
I still like the suit but some variety can't hurt
 

Desmond

Member
I'm annoyed his demo outfit from 6 never made it in.

Watching the TGS coverage now. Did I mishear or did the confirm that we'll be taking charge of Osaka's hostess club again?
Gravure photography looks hilarious too. It seems as though they spent most of 6s development time on getting the engine working, and now with that in place, they can add more content into Kiwami 2.


@above not really. I don't rememeber any BS driving sequences or anything haha.
 
Question for Shadowman16 or anyone who's played Y6.

Is the game actually difficult on hard?

Yeah, its challenging, maybe not super hard but compared to 4 and 5? Much harder!

Especially in story missions there are points where you go up against tons of enemies at once, and they don't pull their punches. Normal fights aren't too bad. Enemies are aggressive enough but don't have huge health bars so you can finish them off quick enough if you use a couple of decent damaging combo's. Though enemies do love to block in this game, and unlike past Yakuza's you get "knocked" out of your combo if the enemy blocks a hit of it which can sometimes get annoying. Looking at the demo of Kiwami 2, they've toned this side of things down.

So yeah, it has some degree of difficulty to it, hard to say where it ranks in the grand scheme of things since I didn't personally think Kiwami on hard was all that bad, yet looking at the OT I seem to be in the minority on that!

I'm annoyed his demo outfit from 6 never made it in.

Watching the TGS coverage now. Did I mishear or did the confirm that we'll be taking charge of Osaka's hostess club again?
Gravure photography looks hilarious too. It seems as though they spent most of 6s development time on getting the engine working, and now with that in place, they can add more content into Kiwami 2.


@above not really. I don't rememeber any BS driving sequences or anything haha.

I'm surprised at the lack of the demo outfit as well. I thought it was a shoe in for a DLC pack but it never happened. At least we got
Ono Michi
though. That whole series of side stories were pure gold.

Not sure about the hostess club management though. Be strange if Kiryu were to manage one in Osaka when you consider that Yakuza 2 actually did have hostess club management as a pretty big side story. As long as they keep that in I'll be happy, but its the Kiryu Host side missions I really want back. That was a nice spin on the formula.

And yeah, its clear 6 suffered from the engine still being worked on. Things look much better in 6 - from the additional combat options to far more content.
 

Gacha-pin

Member
Day 3. Main part is discussing about voice acting in Hokuto ga Gotoku...
https://youtu.be/JtI6g4UaZbY?t=32m

and some Kiwami 2 gameplay by unknow comedian. He spoiled a big secret in his gameplay
Kinryu ramen tastes awful...Sega will lost a sponsor lol


Now that TGS is pretty much over I'm wondering when we'll hear more info about FOTNS, RGG Online and Shin RGG... Kiwami 2 is definitely the game they are focusing on at the moment with it due out in a couple of months and its looks mighty fine so far, but I'm eager to see them show more details on the other games.

For FOTNS I just want to get more info on the mini games - for the retro games I'd love to know how many games are included. Is it just 1? Or are there several to find (they've only showed one off so far, but the initial info posted here made it sound like several console/arcade games would be in).
Plus I'd just like more info on the combat, from what has been shown so far it looks like your standard Yakuza fare, but it'd be nice to see some more heat moves, combo moves and upgrades (to get an idea on how fleshed out your moves list can get). Guessing we won't get much info on this one before the end of the year, as with Kiwami due out in December I'm guessing they'll go into overdrive once its out, I guess we'll see loads of it from there on out. But with the releases being fairly close together I hope that we get some info before then, else they'd be leaving it pretty late to promote the game?

For RGG Online, I'd just like to understand more about its gameplay. It looked kinda interesting from the snippet shown, and I do really like the art, so I do kinda hope this game isn't too bad. Plus I'd just like to hear more about the story, as the premise for this (and presumably Shin RGG) sounds cool. I'm guessing we'll get more info on Shin RGG around this time next year, I think with FOTNS launching in earlier 2018 we stand a chance of getting the next mainline Yakuza game by next December in Japan.

Yokoyama said RGG studio will be able to talk about a new RGG for console by this time next year. He aussred you can get into the new console game without any problems even if you don't play RGG online hinting the oversea players.

Other than that, we probablly see a long version trailer the day after tomorrow.
 
Day 3. Main part is discussing about voice acting in Hokuto ga Gotoku...
https://youtu.be/JtI6g4UaZbY?t=32m

and some Kiwami 2 gameplay by unknow comedian. He spoiled a big secret in his gameplay
Kinryu ramen tastes awful...Sega will lost a sponsor lol




Yokoyama said RGG studio will be able to talk about a new RGG for console by this time next year. He aussred you can get into the new console game without any problems even if you don't play RGG online hinting the oversea players.

Other than that, we probablly see a long version trailer the day after tomorrow.
Good to hear about the next RGG console game. Thought that'd be the case but honestly wasn't 100% sure until I saw that FOTNS was due out so soon in Japan.

Also glad to hear that we are probably getting a long trailer for Kiwami 2, any chance we'll get one focusing on story, and another focusing on gameplay/side activities like past Yakuza trailers? Or maybe that one will come later.

Also, any word what they were playing Kiwami 2 on? (PS4 base or PS4 Pro?). Just wondering as even though it was just a demo, I didn't see any screen tearing. Just wondering if they'd managed to at least resolve that on the base console (I still saw some frame rate drops, mainly on the day 1 recap footage).
 

Jimrpg

Member
Yokoyama said RGG studio will be able to talk about a new RGG for console by this time next year. He aussred you can get into the new console game without any problems even if you don't play RGG online hinting the oversea players.

Ah that's awesome. Between now and then, there's 3 Yakuza Dev games that I'm interested in anyway - Yakuza 6, Kiwami 2 and Like a North Star. That's plenty for me.

The only thing left for them to do is to say the two magic letters
PC
. They have literally answered all my wishes at this point. It'll happen if these games sell well enough in the west but I don't think they need to do it if their audience is specifically in Japan.

I don't need a PC port personally, but I would love for another audience to try these type of games.
 
PC makes sense. I'd hope there is some sort of market for the games on PC, as other ports of Sega games have done well enough that I think they should at least look at getting 0 or Kiwami onto Steam. Price them competitively and I'd hope they do well. More sales would only be a good thing! Plus if it meant getting 6 or Kiwami 2 at 60FPS one day then that'd be awesome as well.

Wishful thinking but a Switch release would be nice. Mainly because I'm loving my Switch at the moment and just having the mini games etc. on the go would be awesome stuff. The Vita had a pretty cool companion app for Ishin and 0 that kinda did that, flesh out that idea and I'd be sold. But I see them moving more toward the Dragon Engine and I don't believe they'd manage to get that running on a Switch when 6 had enough issues with a normal PS4!
 
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