I have decided that I'm gonna use this blog for game reviews for a bit, which, yes sounds a little out there, but here me out. I recently just started playing the Yakuza games and they're pretty great, so I wanna use this blog to detail my experience with each title up to 6, the first review, Yakuza Kiwami, goes up tomorrow. The rest though, I'm not sure, as I have to balance my personal life and interests as well with these games, speaking of which, Radio 36.5 Episode 3 has been delayed to October due to me being lazy. The plan though, is to have the games done before 2023, at least, which I know is semi-possible. This won't affect anything about the blog as I wanna take breaks between each game before diving into another one, and I'm very passionate about the research driven direction the recent posts have been taking. I want this to be something you'd enjoy reading as I've enjoyed writing and playing the games. I plan to start with Kiwami and end on 0, with the games in chronological order of release date of the original releases since all the versions I'm playing are on the PlayStation 4. I hope you all enjoy the next few posts. :)
Original Tags - games, review, video games, yakuza
Welcome to the first of 7 posts detailing my thoughts on the Yakuza games from Sega. The first entry will be detailing my thoughts behind the 2016 remake of Yakuza, or better known in Japan as Like A Dragon, originally released in 2005 on the PlayStation 2. I played this on a PlayStation 4 as I will the rest of the games.
I just beat Yakuza Kiwami, and I have a lot on my mind. This is easily without a doubt, one of the most enduring video games I have ever had the chance to play, and probably one of my favorites, of all time. There's so many ideas that go into it, whether it'd be the story, the random substories, the mini-games, etc., it's all done with a clear level of passion by whoever was developing the game, and it brightly shines as the in-game indicator for a MesuKing Card or a random locker key. It all culminates into this brilliant package that I absolutely can't stop being obsessed with it. I might as well get the negatives out of the way first, and the most obvious being the combat system. The combat system in this game is utterly awful, un-redeeming and not fun to learn or deal with. When it comes to boss fights at the end of each chapter, the difficulty is upped by 300% and it's pretty much impossible to beat, which I discovered, was on my end. I didn't realize the game actually wanted you to learn a good amount of each fighting styles around chapter 11 when I was too far in, and have been using the Brawler style all the way up to that point and got pass with it. If I learned this earlier on, it wouldn't be such a problem, but as it affects the entire game for me, I do believe it raises a problem for me as it left a negative impression for me. Words really can't describe how many times I was frustrated while playing in my 34 hour play-through, but to give rough estimate it was an hour total where I was just extremely frustrated and almost quit playing, but I'm glad I pulled through because the ending was very satisfactory. Another thing to mention is that during fights, if you're not quick enough, you can get bombarded with 3 different enemies attacking you at the same time giving you virtually no response time for anything coming at you. It's very tiring to deal with. Another thing that relates to this though is the random encounters on the street walking around Kamurocho, which by the way, is a wonderful city but I'll get to that in a bit, they're around every street and it's very annoying having to run into the same enemy every few seconds, who overall don't really add anything of note to the game. That's about as far as the negatives go, but for positives, there's a ton of them. I think the most positive aspect of the entire game is the story, it's a very strong one. The way it's written catches your attention immediately and draws you in, I won't say much on it as that would possibly delve into spoilers but it left me crying at the end of the game, which is always a good sign of a great story. I was hooked on every single second of it because every line was delivered perfectly. The voice acting is another amazing aspect of the game, as each line was delivered with some type of passion put into it, you could actually feel the emotion of whichever character was speaking, whether it'd be in game, on the streets walking around when the 47th character running at you to fight, or even the hostesses in the hostess clubs. Speaking of hostess, the scope of what you can do in this game is nothing short of incredible, there's so many substories (I will get to those in a second), and mini-games. Each mini-game is spread throughout the map, in one spot you have the Club Sega arcade, and the other karaoke. It's very easy to get wrapped into in the game as I often spent hours and hours doing various things around town (I played Bakamiti in karaoke way too many times to count) and forgot the main focus of the game at times. Most of the time the spots relates to these substories, which are also very distracting but in a good way, there were multiple times I was running around the area just to do the substories. I have a few favorable ones that I can remember, such as the one where I had to get a business man toilet paper, getting seduced than robbed which led me to unlock the casino, another one I picked up a phone off of a dead person to find a cellphone to find out someone was trying to get me, and another one was this girl looking for her purse that had an outfit for it because she was lying about her age to her boyfriend who ended up being an enemy I fought before, you get the picture. There's around 80+ in the story and it'd be wonderful to get through all of them, they're pretty fun to do. I personally spent hours trying to grind karaoke and the hostess clubs, which both I succeeded that, almost getting a perfect score in a few karaoke songs, and got rank S with both of the hostesses, Yui and Rina. The city of Kamurocho, based on the real Kabukicho district in Tokyo, is a very pretty map, with the colorful lights of the signs you pass by, and how red it is throughout. It's all pretty wonderful stuff and fits my love for cities at night, the detail in each street whether it be the trash on the sidewalks or the various street signs, it's all pretty wonderful to gawk at while playing. It's a very spacious area too, with a ton of places to walk around and I've spent many times walking around. My final point to mention about the game is the Majima Everywhere system, and all I can really say is that it's a fun way to boost stamina and fighting ability, however, it can get a little annoying. With all of that being said, Yakuza Kiwami might be one of the best games I've ever played. Its beautiful story and play style encapsulating it being perfect for what it is. The strong story and addicting style of gameplay leads you playing for hours on end, as I've spent up to 12 hours playing in one sitting. If it weren't for the combat, this game would be a perfect 5/5, but when taking that into consideration, the game is a 4.5/5.
The movie adaptation too is pretty great, wonderful performers, almost perfect writing, and great pacing. However, the changes they made of trying to condense this movie into 2 hours is really strange, they made some choices that makes no sense like starting the movie on the mission where you have to find dog food, and having no build-up towards the ends so it didn't have much of an impact. But for being directed by the legend Takashi Miike, it has his signature style and comedy which makes up for the weird choices. 4/5.
P.S. I would've gotten this post out yesterday but I wanted to review the movie too as I didn't know about it until the day I started this post.
Original Tags - game reviews, games, japanese movie, like a dragon, takashi miike, video games, yakuza, yakuza kiwami
I have decided not to write a detailed review for Yakuza Kiwami 2 outright because I found it to be very similar to Yakuza Kiwami outside of the story and there's not really much I can or could say about it. Don't fret though, as it'll be apart of the Yakuza 3 review, which I thought would fit best. I'm currently going through Yakuza 3 right now so be on the lookout for the review in the next few weeks, as long as real life doesn't intervene. I'm hoping to have more to say than the last few games, but that can wait for the review. Alright, I'll see you guys in the next post. Until next time, peace!
Original Tags - game review, games, update, video games, yakuza, yakuza 3, yakuza kiwami 2
It's been a hot minute, hasn't it? I'm sorry about that, I meant to write this post way sooner but I have been busy doing nothing but contemplating and playing Yakuza 4. I was originally going to make a solely dedicated post about Kiwami 2 at first but unfortunately I just could not find enough ground to form a post, as a lot of that game I shared the same opinions with the first Kiwami, outside of story and combat. Kiwami 2's story is a direct continuation of the first one, and it's very good to say the least. It's obviously not as impactful or engaging as the first one, but for being a sequel to one of my most favorite stories, it did a phenomenal job. I noticed a lot of improvements such as the ability to walk into buildings without loading screens and transiting into battles seamlessly, which improved speed a bunch and overall made the experience much better in comparison to Kiwami. Another thing that vastly improved from Kiwami is that the combat in this game is much better and smoother to control, to the point where I believe this is possibly the best way for the games. The fighting is straight to the point, as you only have one form instead of 4 like in 0 and Kiwami, and it's a blast to control. I never got bored pulling the same combinations as each one of them feel like they have a purpose, and they all look cool too. Though, I've noticed is that the number of random enemies is the same although they added an indicator as to where they are and if they noticed you, which was very helpful when it came to avoiding them, though a lot of the random encounters felt like something as they helped me grind up. I noticed the difficulty in this game wasn't as bad outside of the fights with the main villain, Ryuji Goda, some of the fights went from the hardest in the entire game to practically nothing the next boss fight, it was so jarring. There was one fight that seemed pretty impossible though it was 5 minutes max and easily one of the easiest fights too. The only fight with real problems is the very final one in which if you don't time the attack right, you can lose the fight just like that. The additions in this game are absolutely wonderful too. The ability to watch the DVDs you purchased or the large chunk of mini-games such as the photo-booth one or Virtua Fighter, there's a lot more that's not coming to mind though I loved them just as much. That's all I really have to say about this game, as everything else I feel the same as I did from Kiwami, though I must add the cutscenes look a bit off, instead they were in engine as opposed to pre-rendered in Kiwami and they look a little worse, not bad by any means but there is a very noticeable downgrade in quality.
Yakuza 3 is a weird game. Not for its' content mind you, but the way it plays out. This game is most noticeable as it was the first HD Yakuza game and most importantly, to my heart, the addition of the best Yakuza mini-game to exist, Karaoke. Other than that, it's a typical Yakuza, and it follows a pattern once you get past the first few chapters. The story in this game is really interesting, though I was not as invested as I wanted to be. I wanted to care about what was going on outside of the orphanage although nothing about it really caught my attention, and when it did, I was not really that into it. It's a real shame considering a lot of the story seems really interesting, and I was having a lot of fun playing each chapter. The combat in this one is where I believe this one perfected itself, there's no flaws in it whatsoever and it was a blast just getting into random fights, though there's a problem with those I'll get into soon with. One addition though, I found to be one of my favorites, were revelations. It's a no-brainer why I would love a concept like this, having to take photos for a blog in order to learn new moves, I'm a blogger, it's easy to put 2 in 2 together for that, and the character they bought along for it, Mack, was absolutely a blast, all of his dialogue and his emails all had a sense of fun to them, and I never got annoyed or anything like that when he wanted me to take a photo to have a revelation. A lot of this game also has a lot of fun additions in it too, such as combat, i know I mentioned this a few sentences ago but a lot of fights in this game had no problems, the controls felt smooth and never felt awkward to control. Though, a lot of this game can simply be marked up by pressing the square button a ton and then the triangle. With this all being said, there is one glaring problem, and that problem is the random encounters. They are, so, so, so, so, so, so, many of them. Every few steps there's a new one. It gets very annoying after a while though it's tolerable. The problem is that they span between both Okinawa and Kamurocho too, any crevice that exists, there's probably 3 fights waiting for you. Speaking of Okinawa, this is gonna be the most negative part of these reviews, but here goes nothing. Okinawa sucks. I hate it, it's not fun to walk through, there's nothing to do, and it's too bright and the colors are just straight up ugly. I'm happy there's a new city to explore, but the problem is that the city is not fun to be in, in any capacity. The only worthwhile thing in it is maybe the market? It's cool to see a full fleshed out market in a Yakuza game, I suppose. The mini-games though, those are highlights. Since I was playing the PlayStation 4 Remaster, a lot of the cut stuff got added back, such as a new mini-game that takes place at a massage parlor. It's not fun to control but it's funny so there's that. I also think the introduction of controlling a hostess club too was nice, though I still don't understand how any of it works. They also added a chase mechanic that is pretty pointless, not only do you have to chase your opponent without losing your health, every time you hit something, you lose a large chunk of health, almost every iteration of it in the stories are absolutely impossible on first twice. I will say about the game though is that it has a really rough start, to the point where I stopped playing for 0 though I reeled myself back in and I'm glad I did as the game is amazing, and a great addition to the series. That's all I really have to say about these games so I'll catch you guys next time with the 4th game and possibly a mini-review of the prologue film.
I'm sorry for the long wait, but I'm glad I finally wrote this. At some point there's gonna be a non-Yakuza related post so be on the look out for that. I'm having a lot of fun with this series though, and I just started playing Yakuza 4 and I have absolutely nothing but positive things to say about it.
Original Tags - game reviews, games, like a dragon, video games, yakuza, yakuza 3, yakuza kiwami 2
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