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Yakuza KIWAMI |OT| Translator's Note: "KIWAMI" means "EXTREME"

So guys, help me out.

I played Yakuza 3&4 for only a little bit and dropped it fast back then.

Now I have finished 0 and Kiwami. I love it. I understand this series now.

I guess my question is, what do I do know? Wait for Kiwami 2 or continue with 3? I have all Yakuza games bought besides 2.

I asked a similar question in page 24, and someone told me to play 4 and 5 to be ready for 6. I think I'll go back to 2 when Kiwami 2 comes out and then 3.

2 was an (excellent) standalone story, it doesn't really have much impact on future games. The Kiwami 2 stuff doesn't look like it'll change that much since the new stuff seems focused on tying into 0. So you should be safe to carry on with the series while putting 2 aside for now.

3, 4 and 5 are much more interconnected though so it would be harder to separate one out and say that it's skippable, which is complicated by the introduction of multiple playable characters.

If you are only interested in Kiryu's story then 4 isn't that essential as he's kinda there for the sake of being there, the other 3 characters are more the drivers of the main plot. However 2 of the 3 new characters from 4 return in 5. One of them is in the 'there for the sake of being there' category so it might be hard to understand why he's there without playing 4 first. The other has a much more involved plot in 5 (after having a really involved plot in 4), which might be more difficult to follow without playing 4 first.
 
I'm probably overlooking something, but any help on a side story is appreciated.
I have this boy that I took Haruka to see and I need to get him to a hospital, where is it?
 

TheBowen

Sat alone in a boggy marsh
I swear 'essence of relentless barrage' is like the most pointless heat move ability

* Be at critical health
* have climax heat mode
* enemy must also be stunned

When are these three things ever going to occur at once ? Only time I could see it being useful is in the coliseum, but if your at critics health then you probably aren't good enough to get enough hits in for stun ?

unless I'm missing something
 
My theory re: Majima is that he got inspired by Nishitani's lifestyle and decided to emulate him. His
last scenes in Zero pretty much says that much. His obsession with Kazuma is very similar to Nishitani's obsession with him in Zero, too.

That's said, I'm really not enjoying his characterization in Kiwami, especially how murderous and Joker-y he became. I can get him being a crazy unpredictable rival obsessed with Kiryu, but him casually murdering his boys over silly shit is just too much, and it makes it hard to see why Kiryu respects someone like him this much.
 

Peroroncino

Member
Ok boys and girls, I've made a montage of every single heat action in Yakuza Kiwami. Took me a while to put all of them together so I'd appreciate a watch from you Kyodais! :D

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nq_srixbH1U

Also, I challenge you to find out if I missed any heat action at all. I don't think I did, but you never know. I even managed to include some that aren't listed in the abilities menu, like this one!

Oh, and Majima fans, you may find it difficult to watch, I put him through an enormous amount of pain, haha!

There is a sub-story that is literally a Yakuza Zero quiz. I love it.

I loved that quest, so many callbacks and the
disco bit
at the end, oh man, it was awesome.
 

Chesskid1

Banned
ok i finished a hostess club (yui), s ranked

it hinted more rewards if i take her on a date and beat her

can someone tell me what it is? i'm all dated out here.
 
My theory re: Majima is that he got inspired by Nishitani's lifestyle and decided to emulate him. His
last scenes in Zero pretty much says that much. His obsession with Kazuma is very similar to Nishitani's obsession with him in Zero, too.

That's said, I'm really not enjoying his characterization in Kiwami, especially how murderous and Joker-y he became. I can get him being a crazy unpredictable rival obsessed with Kiryu, but him casually murdering his boys over silly shit is just too much, and it makes it hard to see why Kiryu respects someone like him this much.

Majima was like that in the original Yakuza 1. Kiwami didn't change his characterization on that front.
 

xviper

Member
i'm at
Chapter 8, Haruka just got kidnapped by the gangs that exploded the park, how far am i in the main stor
y ??

i finished every sub quest on the map except for the Racing and Bowling quests, is there more after i finish Chapter
8
?
 
I'm aware of that. When I said that I'm not enjoying his characterization in Kawami, I meant comparing to Zero, which was my first Yakuza game.

Strap in for the long haul then, friend. Majima is only like that in 0. The entire rest of the series has crazy Majima in it.
 

Oriel

Member
I'm aware of that. When I said that I'm not enjoying his characterization in Kawami, I meant comparing to Zero, which was my first Yakuza game.

It's more a case of Zero fucking with Majima's character more than anything. His crazy persona is his "default"; not the quiet, stoic, reserved character who's hobbies included resolving crosswords and discussing Japanese taxation policy in a wine bar!

Edit: and Zero was also my first Yakuza game so seeing this new Majima is certainly quite odd, but I can understand the complete 180 in behavious given all the mental shit Majima went through.
 

DJMicLuv

Member
Majima is a funny bugger. When I first played Y1 back in 'the day' I couldn't get a grip on whether Majima was a good guy or a bad guy.

I don't think it was until Y2 that I started to get a handle on what his motivations are and by Y5 I generally loved the character. There's a lot more character progression in Y4/5 - some of which occurs before Y0 and between 0 and 1 - which also help give him a more sympathetic character.

Bottom line is, modern Majima loves a proper old fashioned slobber-knocker and Kiryu-chan is the only one (at least by Y2) that Majima enjoys fighting and feels that there is any challenge in. As I remember it by Y3 Majima - who I'd like to point out is only a secondary, hardly featured, character in most of the series bar Y0, 4 & 5 - respects Kiryu well enough to help him out here and there.

Before Y0 was released he was more of a cult fan favourite than a main pro/antagonist. The change in his character from 0 to 1 must feel jarring for newcomers to the series, but by Y5 you'll understand him a lot better and find that Y0 isn't such a shocking portrayal of young Majima. Y0 almost feels like a full Majima origin story more than a Kiryu one. Majima in Y1 is punk and dangerous but, after Y5 & 0 in particular, we know how much of an affected and necessary 'front' that is.
 
Strap in for the long haul then, friend. Majima is only like that in 0. The entire rest of the series has crazy Majima in it.

It's more a case of Zero fucking with Majima's character more than anything. His crazy persona is his "default"; not the quiet, stoic, reserved character who's hobbies included resolving crosswords and discussing Japanese taxation policy in a wine bar!

Edit: and Zero was also my first Yakuza game so seeing this new Majima is certainly quite odd, but I can understand the complete 180 in behavious given all the mental shit Majima went through.

I think that Zero actually did a decent job in hinting of what he'll become. His interactions with Nishitani and the last few scenes of Zero explains most of his character in Kiwami.

As I mentioned in ny first post, the part that really bugs me is how murderous he is. Especially
that he went through Zero without killing anyone, and his boss was super certain that Majima is unable to kill to the degree he built his entire plan on it.
So seeing him killing his boys for shits and giggles here is just jaring. It feels like there's a missing link in this regard, who was his first kill, even?

I know that it must be annoying for the series veterans how us newcomers are complaining about a characterization they know and loved for more than a decade now. It's just that Zero's Majima has become one of my favorite character of all time and I really loved his arc and was super ready for him going batshit insane in Kiwami, but it feels like stuff is missing and it really bothers me.

The fact that 4 and 5 dive more into his past is encouraging, though. Hope I'll get explanations there.
 
I think that Zero actually did a decent job in hinting of what he'll become. His interactions with Nishitani and the last few scenes of Zero explains most of his character in Kiwami.

As I mentioned in ny first post, the part that really bugs me is how murderous he is. Especially
that he went through Zero without killing anyone, and his boss was super certain that Majima is unable to kill to the degree he built his entire plan on it.
So seeing him killing his boys for shits and giggles here is just jaring. It feels like there's a missing link in this regard, who was his first kill, even?

I know that it must be annoying for the series veterans how us newcomers are complaining about a characterization they know and loved for more than a decade now. It's just that Zero's Majima has become one of my favorite character of all time and I really loved his arc and was super ready for him going batshit insane in Kiwami, but it feels like stuff is missing and it really bothers me.

The fact that 4 and 5 dive more into his past is encouraging, though. Hope I'll get explanations there.

He
saw his friends die and was jist like "they were crazy bastards and had fun so screw morals, I'm just gonna run wild"
 
Really really minor thing that's bugging me. You know on the top right corner of the screen that has X button to do Action? It's highlighted in red, which is the color of the O button instead of blue like in previous games (and red is the color used in the Japanese originals). I know it's a super minor thing to nitpick, but I've the urge to press the circle button a few times.
 

hamchan

Member
Loving this remake so far.

It also reminded me that although I loved the absurdity of the focus on huge amounts of money in 0, it did make the random battles feel redundant since it was much better to skip all of them since it was a slow way to get money.

Now that the exp system is back I'm enjoying fighting these battles again.
 
I think that Zero actually did a decent job in hinting of what he'll become. His interactions with Nishitani and the last few scenes of Zero explains most of his character in Kiwami.

As I mentioned in ny first post, the part that really bugs me is how murderous he is. Especially
that he went through Zero without killing anyone, and his boss was super certain that Majima is unable to kill to the degree he built his entire plan on it.
So seeing him killing his boys for shits and giggles here is just jaring. It feels like there's a missing link in this regard, who was his first kill, even?

I know that it must be annoying for the series veterans how us newcomers are complaining about a characterization they know and loved for more than a decade now. It's just that Zero's Majima has become one of my favorite character of all time and I really loved his arc and was super ready for him going batshit insane in Kiwami, but it feels like stuff is missing and it really bothers me.

The fact that 4 and 5 dive more into his past is encouraging, though. Hope I'll get explanations there.

There's always been a huge distinction in the series about killing yakuza vs killing civilians. At least, Kiryu makes that distinction and harps on it regularly. So, Majima taking out his boys is a little different from what went down in 0, because
Makoto was a civilian and a completely innocent and helpless one, at that. And there was the issue of her being pretty much entirely dependent on him almost right away, which is far more sentimental and hard to deal with than a gaggle of punks who put on fancy suits and like to think they're more important than they are.

And that's actually fairly consistent with Majima's character for most (all? someone with a better memory than me can correct me) of the series. You really don't see him going after civilians, but yakuza are fair game.

If you're looking for something deeper beyond that to be explained to you in 4 and/or 5, though, prepare to be disappointed. Like someone else here said, this is an issue of 0 screwing the pooch on his characterization and turning him into someone who he never was and selling new fans on a character who never existed.

Way more jarring for me, rather than the murder thing, was how 0 Majima was so ridiculously respectful of women, though. Because uh. In 5 it's revealed that
he used to beat his wife
so it's like lol what the fuck are we expected to buy the shit he's selling in 0?
 

Opa-Pa

Member
Did anyone take not of in which episode Majima becomes available again? I pretty much started to do story quests again juat to have Majima Everywhere back lol.

Way more jarring for me, rather than the murder thing, was how 0 Majima was so ridiculously respectful of women, though. Because uh. In 5 it's revealed that
he used to beat his wife
so it's like lol what the fuck are we expected to buy the shit he's selling in 0?

Huh, I don't remember that detail from 5 at all. When is it implied?

Also, this isn't in response to you, but anyway. Majima's violence isn't really contradictory with his character in 0 because when he makes up his current persona, it's implied that the entire point of it is to not let anyone treat him like shit again and pretty much act like a yakuza to be feared. And his superiors in 0 make it very clear that being able to perform a hit is something any Yakuza should he ready for, so it's not weird at all that he'd force himself to embrace violence as a whole on top of acting like a maniac.
 
Did anyone take not of in which episode Majima becomes available again? I pretty much started to do story quests again juat to have Majima Everywhere back lol.



Huh, I don't remember that detail from 5 at all. When is it implied?

He
slapped his wife one time after she had an abortion without him knowing and then immediately left her because he was ashamed he hit her
iirc
 

wamberz1

Member
If he's on a break he'll by up by the park near purgatory have a smoke. If he's not available because of a sub mission or story mission taking place where he is you'll get an email. If you have neither than he's around.

It's real weird to me just because I couldn't stop running into him to the point where I was tired of doing the same fight over and over again.
Checked the park, he's not there. Also checked my email and nada. Checked the north side of the map and saw nothing resembling cones or construction (That was intractable).

I'm pretty sure I'm being barred by the stupid SHINE encounter, which I can't get to activate no matter what I do. I've left my game on for hours and hours, come back and all I get is Rina.

Only at chapter 6 so I'm seriously starting to consider restarting the game.
 
He
slapped his wife one time after she had an abortion without him knowing and then immediately left her because he was ashamed he hit her
iirc

No,
he left her because he said he didn't want to fuck up her life because she was an idol. Park says that the post-abortion thing was the "first time" that he hit her, implying that it happened more than just the one time.
 
I might have missed something, but I can't exploit when an enemy glows and regens their health. I think I'm supposed to use a heat move on them with the corresponding colour, but I don't get any prompts and I can't really grab them.
What am I doing wrong?
 

Opa-Pa

Member
I might have missed something, but I can't exploit when an enemy glows and regens their health. I think I'm supposed to use a heat move on them with the corresponding colour, but I don't get any prompts and I can't really grab them.
What am I doing wrong?

Those are kiwami moves and they have to be manually unlocked as every other skill. They're in the soul board.
 
I might have missed something, but I can't exploit when an enemy glows and regens their health. I think I'm supposed to use a heat move on them with the corresponding colour, but I don't get any prompts and I can't really grab them.
What am I doing wrong?

You have to buy the corresponding move for 3 EXP
 

alt27

Member
I might have missed something, but I can't exploit when an enemy glows and regens their health. I think I'm supposed to use a heat move on them with the corresponding colour, but I don't get any prompts and I can't really grab them.
What am I doing wrong?

You have to match the mode and have heat bars available, then you just press triangle in front of them.

If they glow red your a bit fucked as you probably wont have that perk unlocked yet on dragon mode, so just keep hitting them.

edit - ah yes as Inteerface pointed out - buy the ability first!
 
You have to match the mode and have heat bars available, then you just press triangle in front of them.

If they glow red your a bit fucked as you probably wont have that perk unlocked yet on dragon mode, so just keep hitting them.

edit - ah yes as Inteerface pointed out - buy the ability first!

Ah, that makes sense. Thanks!
 

Skulldead

Member
I'm happy i listen to you about hard mode, buy heal item, a lot ! They really made a well job balancing on that one so far . I don't know if this is only on hard mode, but healing item seem to have been nerf a lot, i mean i have to use to 2 royal x to fully heal without any body upgrade.
 

Jimrpg

Member
Majima is 20 years older between Zero and Kiwami. Just because Kiryu doesn't change persona doesn't mean others characters have to do the same. It's interesting because so much crazy shit goes on around Kiryu but his demeanor is more or less the same.

Also Yakuza 1 was written a long time ago, and I think in Zero they wanted to show a different side of Majima that we don't normally get to see, one the player can sympathize with more easily. Anyhow, the story was great in Zero. I would be more concerned if there were continuity issues with Kiryu rather than Majima.
 
Just finished the game and that ending sequence was amazing. Kiryu and the Yakuza series are fast becoming one of my favorite characters/series.
 
Well finished and going to do a legend-run.

Overall:

Y0> Y2> Y4> YKIWAMI> Y5> Y3

-- bonus --

Music (why not lol):

Y0> Y5> Y2> YKIWAMI> Y3> Y4

I don't really need a kiwami 2 remake.
And 6 is mostly said being really bad so I think I'm done with the series after my legend-run with YKIWAMI.
 
Okay now I get what you guys were talking about when you said the combat feels off. It's the balancing of enemies that is really making the combat feel like that.

It's like they added instant style switching and then they realized that "shit, now the game is gonna be a cakewalk, what should we do?" and the things that they came up with ended-up just being mostly frustrating.

Enemies now punch/kick right through your combo. Even when you are attacking a normal punk, at times they just snap out of your combo and start attacking you back, without much (if any) visual indication. This gets extremely frustrating when you are surrounded by a lot of people.

Besides enemies snapping out of your combos, they are now much more active in defense situations as well. A lot of times you will have problem landing a clean hit since either they are keeping very very competent guards that won't break easily (and even when they do, by the time you have recovered from your attack animation, they are probably regained their guard, or worse they are attacking you) or they are just evading all over the place. In some situations when there are many enemies around you, they'll just surround and stun-lock you into combos from all sides at the same time which could quickly result in your death.

The window of opportunity for preforming a heat move has been made smaller too. You are sure that you are gonna do a heat move but just as you press the triangle button, the window for using that move has been closed. This was never problem in Y0 since the game was balanced much better.

And the sub-bosses with Kiwami heat moves, while may seem like a good idea on paper, are more like a headache in execution. They just get really repetitive and frustrating later on, when you encounter them over and over again.

Now add to all of that, the fact that they've made enemies much more aggressive and it's no wonder that the game just feels off.

The thing that happened with this game, is that Zero was clearly made and balanced around giving you the ability to almost finish the game with just using one style (think DMC3). With Kiwami they added the ability to switch between styles instantly (think DMC4), but the combat and enemies of Zero clearly weren't made with that system in mind (imagine throwing DMC3 enemies into DMC4), so they had to make them tougher and they choose to do it in ways that makes the combat feel unfair.
 
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