Can’t believe they didn’t include a Blues Brothersmobile side game
Oh god the chapter 12 boss is even more bullshit than I thought if you leave a doppleganger alive to try to finish off majima before saejima can join, he seems to stop taking damage at the one third left mark
Agreed, this chapter 13 twist is incredibly stupid and this game was much better when it was all about chosen families rather than this swerve relation bullshit.
Running for office was fun for like 5 minutes though.
I stumbled across a random mook that took me like 10 minutes to kill and I couldn’t run away. It was excruciating.
It took me what, 4 days? To finish up the business game and battle arena and that wasn’t great, really coulda gone without having to do all that. Game really shoulda just let me auto-win all that stuff cuz I made zero interesting decisions during them.
I thought that dev quote about the game shifting to a turn based system after the positive response to their April fools’ video was nonsense but considering how tedious and unbalanced the latter half of the game is I can kinda buy into it. None of these systems and side quests really come together, it’s just a lotta RPG busywork that isn’t worth the effort.
The bits with previous Yakuza protagonists are gratuitous and embarrassing, they add nothing and all that WOW COOL INVINCIBLE GANGSTERS talk is some real fanfic garbge. Did Kiryu get a facelift while he was faking his own death? Does he show up again later? I kinda get the feeling he doesn’t, that this was just some cameo that totally undermined the ending of 6, which was inevitable of course but the way they did here was very dumb. Have some confidence in your spinoff for crying out loud.
I still dig this and it’s probably the only new game I’ve played this year that I’ve enjoyed and I expect the climax will have me hooting and hollering like a madman but they really had the best Disc 1 of all times going there and then they just abandoned all the fresh shit for yet another bloated crime RPG.
10 Likes
Just got done with chapter 13 and yeah this shit is bananas. I wish the election stuff had been a bigger thing, possibly another surface level minigame.
I have mixed feelings on Kiryu returning but I guess they couldn’t resist. I feel like he had a whole game we will never play leading up to that moment.
I’m completely done with side stuff now. At least fights are just a part of the world in traditional Yakuza and they’re not always clearly useless endeavours. In Yakuza LAD, you get to the point where the lack of a flee button just forces you to dive into a taxi (or use the ‘no encounters’ amulet but then dive into a taxi anyway because why run around so much after 50 hours).
It also suffers heavily from the ‘all party member character stories have been dealt with and they’re indebted to the hero for life’. I feel like we’re stretching how much the friend of an ex-Yakuza would go to help them with their Yakuza laundry (and whether the Yakuza laundrette would tolerate these civilians in the way they do). The game is at its best when its goofy RPG logic meets the mundane. The twisty factional melodrama doesn’t always mix well with the goof logic.
3 Likes
You mean L1?
2 Likes
Damn, how did I miss this? I think I read the icon as being associated with the skills tab.
It’s never mentioned or explained anywhere that I can find in the game so that’s probably why
Yeah I only found out about it by accident too but thankfully fairly early on
i also kinda disliked how the optional party member - in my playthrough kasuga’s most loyal friend who had never been removed from the battle party because dealer is op, doesn’t show up in any of the cutscenes or get any kind of acknowledgement in the ending lol
5 Likes
This didn’t happen!! I usually fall for the masculine melodrama but there was very little be found here! Returning to the Millennium Tower is some hacky shit! All my beloved friends may as well have disappeared for the second half of the game! I’d actually forgotten all about Adachi’s beef with the commissioner cuz it hadn’t been mentioned in like 30 hours! I am glad Kasuga didn’t want to take a DNA test – he is a much more likable character than whoever was writing him! Trying to save his brother with words instead of fists was much better than all the bits where they had him play a poofy haired Kiryu! God, the Kiryu stuff was all so lame! And yeah Eri didn’t even show up in any of the cutscenes so why even have her in the game! Just stick to the main 4! The other three were total afterthoughts! Also I have zero memory of Joon-Hi in Yakuza 6, but despite that I think that may have been an overall better game – it’s half as long, never as tedious, and when it went over the top it worked. Also it was hornier, and had more dad content. This one never gets all that nutso, which wouldn’t have been a problem if it had maintained that early game vibe, but it became A Yakuza Game and that’s unfortunate. It seems like they dumped the usual explosive finale to show off some Digital Acting and I’ll admit all the crying got me feeling feelings but it woulda hit harder if not for all the dumb action stuff prior to it.
OH WELL BOTTOM LINE:
This is the Final Fantasy 7 of Yakuza. Also probably my GOTY 2020.
6 Likes
been debating whether I should put this down since ch.7 myself so, curious: what yak games should I play, really, in between 0 and 6, since I keep hearing 6 is good?
the only other one I like the feel of is 5 (based on having tried the original on PS2, kiwami 2, and 4 in RPCS3) which has complicated things somewhat
1 Like
5 is my favorite, even though it probably is the most bloated, with the minigame variety and wild tonal shifts between characters
That Kiryu fight is probably my favourite part of the late game so far. The hallucination was a lot of fun and Kiryu was the only boss that felt like he uncannily knew the rules of the game. He’d relentlessly target Kasuga and other heavy hitters and it almost felt like he wanted to shut down poundmates and healing (I mainly use Kasuga for healing at this point). I assume Kiryu being weak to cold is a joke about him fighting shirtless or quelling his heat?
I’m in the final chapter and I feel like the pacing has veered off a cliff. I’m hype for the final confrontation but I am compelled to grind given that I made it out of the last chapter by the skin of my teeth. I don’t really want to grind at this stage and I’ll probably just head back to the arena because of the exp density. The Kamurocho dungeon seems like a bad deal because enemy levels are all over the place but exp is miniscule. I’m guessing the gear is good but I’ve already got some of the best stuff.
1 Like
Also you gotta get personality stats to level 10 to finish the date stuff!? I’m done
there’s one particular enemy that gives you a ton of exp, the fella with the staff:
i went from late 40s to 65 just running through that dungeon once, running from every encounter that didn’t include one of these guys
3 Likes
Finished it last weekend. I liked it a lot (especially the first half) and it is a better approach to moving away from the Kiryu core than Judgment was. I’m not sure how successful was but I do think Yakuza needs some kind of brand rethink after this game.
Dumping my dumpy spoiler thoughts up in
I know I said it moves away from the Kiryu core better than Judgment but imagine if Judgment’s second act had diverted into a Yakuza focused plotline involving series staples that upends the status quo. That would’ve sucked and been totally distracting right? I feel like a Yakuza 7/8(?) plot draft somehow got tangled in the loom of Sega when they were making this. The game got very unfocused as soon as Arakawa’s grand plan to dissolve the Yakuza started kicking off and it just felt like our awesome party took a backseat to everything when they were front and centre (and more interesting) when Kasuga was just going to a goddamn job centre. Kasuga is a strong character and I like what they’re setting up with the dissolution of the Yakuza but they didn’t need to do it here. Is Yakuza 8 gonna be a security company strategy game/business management sim? Yes.
Damn, I wouldn’t care if they just stopped caring about the Yakuza altogether. I guess it helps get those crazy high stakes underworld dramarama storylines going but I’d be happy if LAD just abandoned all branding and focused on regular people. Call it Regular People: Like a Person.
The final character dynamic/melodrama between Kasuga and young master was a highlight after quite a drawn out end. The final fight was weirdly easy and the build up to it was appropriate but the final conversation between Kasuga and Masato was good shit (fuck off with your drama twist bullshit Kume). It could probably have used a bit more fleshing out though. They spend a lot of time with the improbable coin locker lottery (my personal theory is there were probably 5 other babies in those lockers that night that will become protagonists of future games). More time could’ve been spent to show why Kasuga cared about Masato rather than just chalk it up to his unwavering familial passion. Show us something in Masato’s past to get us to see the connection/repentance maybe? Nah coin locker coincidences are more fun.
Yakuza has translated to JRPG well but it was balanced and paced with the old Yakuza in mind. I’m not sure if I want another turn-based system with pacing refinements or if they should strike out in another weird direction a la Final Fantasy. One thing is clear to me which is do Yakuza stuff or don’t do Yakuza stuff. The half and half here felt like it was tugging at the scenery. Kasuga’s everyman is clearly the appeal and he was so well characterised I actually enjoyed sidestories more because of it. Explore society’s outcasts, we’ll love it.
Adachi getting a post-credits scene was the loose end wrap-up only the writer cared about.
My headcanon is that Eri is just out of shot in most cutscenes and just doesn’t speak up.
6 Likes
Thinking about how this started as a bored programmer’s April Fool’s joke. I’m still in awe and increasingly worried about RGG studio turning these out at a yearly pace.
3 Likes
I just finished this last night and the main thing bugging me about the ending is what was the deal with Mirror Face? So Kasuga gets his vengeance against Tendo, except it wasn’t him at all that we were fighting? Then the real Tendo shows up and cooperates with Kasuga to catch Aoki out? So was Tendo the actual murderer or did Mirror Face do it, and if so why even do it? Aoki didn’t seem to know why he was there either. Otherwise I guess Tendo just gets away with it? I swear the writers didn’t think about any of this for more than a few seconds
2 Likes
Also I’m pretty sure the reason Eri has no involvement in the plot and doesn’t appear in the cutscenes is because she won a competition to be featured in the game, with the grand prize being included as a party member. The four women who you give flowers to are the runners up and I guess they added the dating aspects last minute to give them something extra to do
4 Likes
Whoa that rules lol. Also feel weird finding upgrade girl cute now that i know shes a real human on earth