I finished Y5 last night! What a wild ride.
I agree that it is too long and scattered, even if individually I liked all the stories.
The final chapter was about 15 twists too many but hating on a Yakuza game makes me feel like real fuddy duddy because the final chapter had maybe the best Yakuza Love scene of the entire series.
Haruka’s story was absolutely my favorite (when I realized her “fights” were going to be teen idol jpop rhythm games I very solemnly said “hell yeah, I was born for this shit” and my wife hasn’t stopped dunking on me since) and I’m really bummed you don’t get to play way more of it, I wish they had sprinkled in a little bit more throughout the course of the game. And then her big concert at the end is just a cutscene! What the hell!.
Just general other spoilery stuff below:
In Every Yakuza game there are sections where someone pulls a gun on you, you beat the dude to an unconscious pulp but then leave the gun on the floor while Kiryu etc talk extensively about their Yakuza emotions. The bad guy inevitably wakes up, picks up the gun, and kills someone with it (usually the honorable yakuza bad guy who just had a change of heart pummeled into him by the fists of the DRAGON OF DOJIMA). It literally happens in EVERY game. So I couldn’t believe it when this game completely subverts it this time around by having every character that gets shot in this game surviving! It happens to like 6 different characters!! 4 of them get fakeout deaths! Nobody dies!
This is especially wild because this is finally the game where Kiryu is like “WHY DOES EVERYONE AROUND ME HAVE TO DIE??” in the only game where literally NO ONE around him dies! Seriously, until Yakuza 4 he’s like the curse from It Follows, if you befriend him you are TOAST, I guess Saejima and Akiyama finally broke it though tons of other minor friends in Y4 get killed.
After finishing the game I checked to see what the general consensus is around the Aizawa twist because it made absolutely no sense to me whatsoever, and it seems like everyone more or less agrees. Morinaga tells you he’s dead and that he killed him, the body is confirmed, then like 50 hours later he’s actually alive and desperately looking for Morinaga-aniki who he felt betrayed him, but then it turns out Morinaga died off screen, and actually in the end it turns out he was killed by Aizawa? And also he’s Kurosawa’s kid??? I really liked the fight though.
After two games in which Kiryu makes a dramatic entrance via Helicopter I was sad that he just walked to all his fights this time around. Real step down for the Dragon of Dojima IMO.
I loved Shinada’s batting cage based sidestory so much that I played through it twice because my PS4 froze during a save right after I blasted through the entire thing.
But I lived in Nagoya for 6 years and I was bummed they chose Sakae as the base when there are so much more fun places they could have used. But I feel like the Yakuza team as a whole just basically chose the “recognizable downtown” area for each town, even if they aren’t really the “red light districts” like Kamurocho/Kabukicho.
This will mark essentially the 6th straight month in which I haven’t played anything besides Yakuza games on my PS4 so I’ll probably take a break before diving into Yakuza 6, which people seemed to really hate! But people also rank Yakuza 5 very highly and it’s probably my least favorite so who knows.
Also its kind of old news now but the show in Japan where they lurk around the airport looking for foreigners and then ask them why they came to Japan and then follow them around for a few days had a guy on it a bit ago who came from Martinique to see Kabukicho because he loves the Yakuza games so much! I tried to find an english subbed version of it but couldn’t come up with it but you can see it here (starts around 54 minutes in).
Looking back I think a lot of the appeal in 5 for me, besides the typical ridiculous sidequest stuff, Gunrhein and having the most refined mechanics and systems out of all the PS3-4 transition iterations on the series before 6 rebooted everything, was walking around recreations of different Japanese cities I would probably never get to see in my lifetime, even though they are all functionally the same apart from some minigame spots. (did get to go to Kabukicho once but for various reasons couldn’t see many landmarks, but Gindaco takoyaki was good!)
Well this bodes well for me because wouldn’t you know it Y6 is on sale for $10 and my wife is asking me to start it up right away after watching the trailer
I totally buy this and even though Y5 wasn’t my favorite I could see how it would bring a lot to the table.
My main relationship with the Yakuza games revolves around that feeling when shirts start flying off, torsos get exposed, and how bad do I want to pound this guy into mush?? How badly does he need to see the error of his ways at the hands of the 4th Chairman?? Or if they are a friend how badly do I need to show him why I am the Aniki??
By the end of Y5 I basically had no idea why anyone was fighting anybody. I loved the four way fighting tournament on the rooftop but the reasoning for everything after that felt pretty thin. Shinada’s final fight in particular was ludicrous. I still loved it but it didn’t quite work for me on the level of some of the previous games.
Y6 rules so much. It’s got some weirdness, but man Kiryu is so good in it. He moves into being an old dude pretty well.
And yeah, the baseball team alone is some great shit. As is the gang warfare with NJPW dudes. Really, like, man, I enjoyed the heck out of that game.
I think the people who started when Zero came on were mad there wasn’t more Majima, but this is Kiryu’s game, and I didn’t mind that at all. I think playing it after Kiwami 1 (which suffered from too much Majima) helped with that for me.
I can’t begin to think about what it would be like writing one of these games but I think it felt confusing and emotionally hollow because they started from the premise of “we need to have five characters and cities because it’s the 5th mainline game” and didn’t have much else to build on. For what it was as a giant bloated spectacle I would call it my favorite but couldn’t recommend it to anybody.
The worst thing about 6 is that they made really easy to miss triggering the best meatiest subgames (baseball - which then triggers having a local bar).
The fishing deserves love too. We may never see another Ocean Hunter, but in my deepest heart of hearts, that minigame gave us the best we’re going to get. Also Onomichi as a whole is fun to walk around and take in. Although you have to switch cities if you want to take a break with the Club Sega games.
I forgot the fishing, yeah. Really, Onomichi as a whole is such a nice move for that series. Sure, the plot kinda goes off the rails, but that is also sticking with the series, really.
wait baseball unlocks a bar??? i was playing yakuza 6 and i fell off like i always do on a first playthrough of a yakuza game and OH MY GOD YOU GET A CHEERSBAR how much like Guys is it
Whoops I bought it and played the first hour and between the goofy fight physics with rough talkin but secret nice guy who is DEFINITELY going to call me either kyoudai or Aniki one day, played by Hiroyuki Miyasako (fun fact: he was dropped by his agency and basically kicked off TV last year after it was found he got paid to entertain at real life Yakuza party) and Kiryu keeping a baby in a duffle bag I’m already completely in
Like others said up thread it is really easy to get locked out of Baseball and Cheers until you beat the game and then the Onomichi sections seem very empty for the main game.
Is anyone else super pumped for the turn based one. Rudie whats the general verdict on that one in japan. Im p familiar with isezaki-chou so thats exciting.
I’m playing Yakuza 6 and it’s fucking awesome. I’m in Chapter 5 and got the baseball team and the Snack Bar and the clan creator and the spear fishing and i’m just loving every minute of inhabiting this game. I’m glad y’all told me about these mini games because I’m sure I would have totally missed them had I not known they were coming but I like how they all sort of build into each other (you can get baseball players for your fantasy team at the bar etc). I haven’t touched the main story in about 10 hours (even though I’m basically on board for it) but I’m in no rush to leave Onomichi.
Also maybe I’m just a sap but I find the game really funny in a way video games usually aren’t and even the previous Yakuza games weren’t.
Also I didn’t realize the bar everyone was talking about above was a Snack Bar. When I was a JET teacher my landlady owned/was the mama of a snack bar (“Snack Bar Friend”) where I could drink for free at as long as I mingled with some of the locals. There wasn’t really anything else to do in the small town I was stationed in so I spent a lot of time there, and so I’m getting REAL nostalgic with this mini game. I’m sure there are many types of Snack Bars in existence but New Gaudi so perfectly nails the feel of being in that windowless smoky bar with old locals like the one I used to frequent.