Yakuza

I'm liking this a lot more than I thought I would from the demo.

I've heard this complaint before, and while I haven't had too much trouble with this, there is a solution fairly early in the game. Aside from remembering to hold down R1 while fighting and using the shift technique to quickly escape when you find yourself in this situation, there are two reverse attack moves you can learn that pretty much make this a non issue. At the start of Chapter 4 you can go to the alleyway southwest of Theater Square to find Coin Locker Key No. 50. Unlock this locker to get a book on Roundhouse kick techniques. Once your Tech stat reaches 4 you will automatically learn this if you have the book. There is also a Reverse Strike punch to learn from Sensei Komaki in Purgatory, but you have to have Tech built up to 6 for him to teach it to you.
The only "random" encounters in all of chapter 5 for me were the ones on the way to meet Majima, again scripted so they don't really count, none in chapter six so far. Again, too many random encounters is the game telling you to earn more EXP.
All the swearing is an attempt to approximate in English the way Yakuza actually talk. It sort of works but I could see it all coming off much better in Japanese with subtitles. I read that they wanted to include the Japanese language track but there wasn't enough room on the disc.

Okami is great but if I didn't have it I wouldn't trade this for it. The story alone makes it a keeper, for me.

Should read: hold down R1 while fighting to shift and using the dodge technique while shifting to quickly escape

did anyone play yakuza 2 through? seen it mentioned a few times on ILg I think

Sitting on my to-be-played shelf :(

some solid praise from good writer types. been meaning to pick up a copy, but that would necessitate buying a new PS2 memory card.

Yakuza 2 was probably my favorite game of last year. the story is stunningly non-retarded (I never played the first one so I had no idea what to expect), the action is frantic and awesome, and then there's this:

this game is great (regretting putting it on easy tho cos it's a pinch too easy); as james says the story is surprisingly nonretardo, the presentation (gfx+music) is great and the combat is rly satisfying

my only complaints are petty: no 480p even tho the box says so, the camera is a bit iffy, eh

we're never going to see yakuza 3, kenzan or yakuza 4 in the west are we?

fuck yeah!!!!
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=18013966&postcount=424

if this actually goes down I am bullish as hell on the chances of it selling well enough to justify the other games being brought over since (1) there's an actual groundswell of support behind the release and (2) people still haven't figured out how to pirate PS3 games yet. (assuming we're talking about a disc release and not on PSN like foax had been a-sayin').

It's not going to win any awards - unless there's a category for "best golf game unexpectedly inserted into a violent RPG" included in end of the year round-ups - but it's slick stuff, and in the quirky wholeheartedness with which SEGA's underworld adventure throws itself into capturing the feel of Tiger Woods, you can see why people often refer to this series as the spiritual successor to Shenmue.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/yakuza-3-european-hands-on

only one flaw w/that argument YAKUZA rocks SHENMUE sux

anyone who doesn't buy this game should be reincarnated as Amy Winehouse's taint

i say no, no, no to that

i heard eliza dushku is in this, true?

http://www.blogcdn.com/www.joystiq.com/media/2010/02/shenmue-ryo-hazuki-forklift-figure.jpg

lol

poor old sega ;_;

true, but they put out at least 3 classics in the last 3 years (Yakuza 2, Valkyria Chronicles, Bayonetta)

do you have a take on this whole saga jc?

(I assume you've been following the saga of the removed hostess sections in the NA release of Y3; general internet bitching and whining as per)

it sucks that they're removing content, but I never got as much into the hostess stuff as other Yakuzatards so I'm not slitting my wrists over it or anything. as long as I can still win a fight with a tiger by sticking a cigarette in its eye, I'll be good.

new trailer up on PSN for yakuza 4 apparently; features a chainsaw

btw Sega has said that if Y3 sells well enough they'll consider bringing over Yakuza Kenzan (the one set in like 1885), so everyone buy like eight copies

omg cig flick
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sl11P__gN1Q

oh fuck yeah

want to play this so bad ;_; are there any ps2 emulators?

yeah, but you need a super beefy machine to get playable frame rates

btw Sega has said that if Y3 sells well enough they'll consider bringing over Yakuza Kenzan (the one set in like 1885), so everyone buy like eight copies

I hope "well enough" is like 10,000 copies, because that's the game I really want to play (and Yakuza 3 is sure not to sell much, come on, not at sixty dollars, not with this packed AAA March). Also based on missing tropies from the western release of Yakuza 3, it seems a lot more than just the hostess club stuff has been cut, but also the japanese games like mahjong and shogi (and more). Kind of a bummer in 2010...

Also based on missing tropies from the western release of Yakuza 3, it seems a lot more than just the hostess club stuff has been cut, but also the japanese games like mahjong and shogi (and more). Kind of a bummer in 2010...

okay, THAT is a bummer; the insanely-fleshed-out minigames added a lot of flavor to Y2 even if I never actually beat any of them. I still remember flipping through like 10+ pages of tiny-ass text explaining how to play mahjongg; it was more imposing than most of the fights.

still preordering it since beating people's asses in Y2 is impossibly fun, though.

while I don't agree w/sega's decision I can understand their rationale and I don't think this is the wrong-headed idiocy that the internet wd have you believe

tht being said the hostess club content is interwoven throughout the game, losing that loses you a significant proportion of the non-combat experience. how many small events that enriched yakuza have now been lost because the hostess club backbone has been removed?

the qn is how many side missions dependent on the hostess club content have we lost? it has a domino effect.

if yakuza was just a fighting game I wouldn't be interested.

hopefully they leave it on the disc and then patch a translation in later.

it totally affects different threads throughout the game tho so presumably they'll have to remove those and insert other scenes; don't see tht happening myself jc

http://kotaku.com/5478862/sega-you-are-once-again-making-a-giant-mistake

I agree with his point but as with most Ashcraft articles, the only thing I end up taking away from it is that Brian Ashcraft should be dropped from a great height

it seems mr. ashcraft has missed the subtext of sega's 'you wouldn't get it, sugar' explanation: pretty sure they just couldn't afford to translate all the game (and have said as much in a subsequent statement iirc) - they had to cut something and decided this was the most non-essential portion of the game

The couldn't afford it explanation reeks of bullshit - honestly, how could it cost more to translate a few hundred lines (or whatever) of text compared to paying a programmer to take out those sections of code and reprogram the game to work w/o those sections?

that makes sense, I guess, iunno, sick of reading about this and discussing it by now tbf ;_;

can't stop reading the GAF thread on this, against my better judgement. must. stop.

2 lazy to google relevance but translation is iirc really expensive whereas deleting shit not so much. i mean idk anything abt how/what/how much has been cut but i can see that being both a) cheaper and b) quicker

i dont think is like snes ear nintendo i just think its sega rushing/doing the trans on the cheap *shrug* in the would i rather wait for the ~right~ version of the game vs getting the game at all/soon im usually predisposed to go with the latter

I agree with his point but as with most Ashcraft articles, the only thing I end up taking away from it is that Brian Ashcraft should be dropped from a great height

he is like the worst writer ever. i know i've mentioned it before, but also 85% of his articles for kotaku are creepy thnigs about japanese soft-porn actresses, he reminds me of that shiroi basket shoes guy with the creepy flickr page.

Finally started Yakuza 2 last night (and played for a little over an hour - is it always that long between save points? I think in the first one you could save at phone booths?) I know they did it to save money, but the decision to stick with the Japanese language track was the best thing to happen with this game - it really adds to the atmosphere. I was also surprised to actually be into the story (so far)... that just happens so rarely with games it's sort of shocking. On the negative side, the way the camera works in these games still kind of annoys me, especially in those awkward moments when you take a few steps and it has to load a new angle or whatever. And I still feel like the brawling in 3d is just a little more clunky then it should be - game would benefit from a Demon's Souls style lock-on maybe. Anyhow, definitely looking forward to playing some more over the weekend.

yeah, the story is surprisingly engaging and well written

that whole game is just such a treat. definitely going to place in my top 3 when we get around to the PS2 poll.

Here's a new, long trailer for Yakuza 4 (out in March in Japan, I think?), mostly focusing on the side games you can play in the game...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNd9HlQ_OwY

In Yakuza 2, I dig how there are so many different shops and places you can go in and do all kinds of crazy stuff, even though a lot of that stuff isn't very compelling, like all the different restaurants with 20-30 item menus or the super basic UFO catcher games in the arcade. It's just cool it's there, it's some of what was missing from GTA IV. I did get to a mahjong parlor, but got too intimidated looking through the massive instructions to even try to play the game (though I'd like to learn some day). Definitely not bothered if it got cut from 3 for the English re-release. Played a little blackjack though in the weird bummy hangout place, which was fun. Gotta figure out how to get back there. Still can't quite get used to the layout of the areas and navigating around is annoying (especially compared to recent GTA games, which are obviously much bigger). Also don't like the quick time events - they come up so fast they always catch me by surprise and I almost always fail. I've gotten used to the brawling though.

oh and my boy Joel was telling me last night the antagonist in Infinite Wealth is some kind of vtuber so let the lols begin

yeah they've said there will be some Japanese locations too

I looked up infinite wealth on Wikipedia and I’m not sure about those plot points mentioned lads
https://i.postimg.cc/tThnrwBP/IMG-6958.jpg

i'm gonna have to play Like a Dragon again before this drops in a futile effort to remember all the plots twists i'll inevitably keep forgetting

- chocolate business
- the power of friendship
- coin locker baby
- sticky tissue disposal
- failed punch perm

They were missing the classic Yakuza trope “secretly Chinese” but more then made up for it with HE COULD WALK ALL ALONG

they nearly went with "secretly Korean" tho iirc

also in every Yakuza ever: "the bad and hated Omi Alliance"

Yeah Secretly Korean is up there but I think Secretly Chinese has more lineage. Did you ever watch classic C4 series Utopia? If so the reveal that Anya isn’t Russian in the last episode of s1 made me SHRIEK irl. I’m such a sucker for these sloppy plot points.

i haven't seen it but i read the spoiler anyway :D

- ambiguously gay
- unambiguously gay, actually played entirely seriously (this applies to antagonists in at least two games)
- does Kiryu know how to use his dick? He seems very naive
- cut to shot outside love hotel yes

xp it’s pure magic, she’s this minor helpless Russian woman in the other episodes and then in e6 she drops the accent in a key scene and is actually a posh English woman - history’s true villains as we know - and there’s absolutely no hint of it beforehand and it’s incredible

tbh i'm still not certain what Kiryu gets up to in those love hotels

pulls out his hanafuda deck

gotta think that's the most likely option

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50NuiQGcrZc

^^love that.

Yakuza 4 atm, akiyama-san is my main man. Feels even cheesier than normal but I’m all about it. Majima up to some dirty. Not a whiff of the dragon of Dojima yet but we all know he’s on his way. Millions falling from the millennium towers. One of the worst hostess mini games of the series. All in all, I love every part of it.

Bout to find out what this Saejima guy is all about.

Damn saejima really up to no good either. What an intro

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50NuiQGcrZc

I kind of want this to become a neverending youtube meme a la steamed hams

LMAO love it

I’m playing the new Kiryu game. Yakuza 6 spoilers: Even though Kiryu faked his own death at the end of Y6 people everywhere you go immediately recognise him, which isn’t surprising since he looks exactly the same bar a pair of glasses. Good that the Clark Kent trope doesn’t apply in Japan?
Very good so far, call backs to a lot of plot points from other series and games, koi-koi remains a great time drain when you’re too numb to do anything else.

ah shit it's out? i'm deep in baldur's gate.

Gamepass too. Trying to speed through 4-6 rn to get to it while it's hot

it's on my wishlist but given current circs i'm more likely to end up playing Infinite Wealth before i get round to this one

wow I couldn't imagine doing that, Yakuza is so much about getting lost in the world and just hanging out

xpost

ah shit it's out? i'm deep in baldur's gate.

i will never stop trying to hit on cabaret hostesses

there was some dodgy live action footage in Inshin as well

I haven’t actually finished that cos I went from Ishin to Mario Wonder, I’m terrible for that kind of shit, but I will do so

Oh god yeah there's the Mario too. Too many games!

Yeah I did finish that, btw I really enjoy glasses Kiryu being hilariously reminiscent of glasses Kiryu in 0

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/F-O_Ofna8AA92Ei?format=jpg&name=900x900

He still comes out with the same dumb shit he always does but he’s got glasses

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FyIOQ1PWAAAgCk_?format=jpg&name=large

wow I couldn't imagine doing that, Yakuza is so much about getting lost in the world and just hanging out

xpost

― Daniel_Rf, Monday, 13 November 2023 20:38 (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

I've kind of accepted I'm playing these games "wrong" but I'm okay with it. Yakuza to me is pure pulp and screaming KIRYU-SAN at your screen whenever Kiryu does literally anything. I'm in it for the vibes, but I'm just not a minigame guy.

This is also turning into somewhat of a Nov/Dec tradition to plow through a couple while listening to end of year music lists. did 0 and kiwami 1 chrissy 2021, kiwami 2 and 3 2022, so gotta keep the pattern going!

New Kiryu game feels so...empty, so far.

How far in are you?

Very early days, I'm at the homeless camp.

It’s a little bit light feeling comparatively. But I’m not finished yet.

For all its wackiness, the two most hilarious things in Infinite Wealth for me are:

Kasuga sing shouting the instrumental melody line to Chi-chan's city pop song on karaoke

and

The little shot of Kasuga sitting down when you play mahjong with your crew, holding on the hopeful, oblivious grin of a guy who is def about to get completely fleeced.

i know it's reused from the previous game, but i love the animation that plays when kasuga fails a vocational school exam. such a likeable character, ichiban #1!

I'm playing them all in chronological order, to fill in the gaps in my knowledge and to refresh myself on who the fuck everyone is.

One thing about Kiwami 2 is Majima is basically being a gentrifier? Taking a park that belonged to the homeless and building some expensive apartments in there. Where did the homeless people go??

supercut of Kiryu soulfully saying the names of different characters after they've dropped some bombshell

Intercut with him growling the villainses names into the night sky when they've just done something villainous

All leading into a heartfelt karaoke performance

There is also this kind of thing where some important-to-the-plot location/ mysterious property developer etc is described to Kiryu for the first time and he very thoughtfully repeats it back so the player doesn't miss it

...Tachibana...Real Estate...? 🤔

Haha yes.

Having (re)played through the main series (currently at Like A Dragon), one thing I find very interesting is how consistently it is about mob justice, moral crusades, social media call outs without ever falling into anti-cancel culture screeds or reactionary beliefs - the victims of this stuff in Yakuza are sex workers or ex-criminals trying to make a honest living. I'm sure the cultural difference from the West plays a part but it's not like Japan hasn't had its metoo moments. Anyway kinda cool, there are occasional leftist attempts to point out that say ppl trying to ban drag queen storytime is cancel culture but usually in a "by your logic" way, this series just shows reactionaries using these tools and doesn't get into both sides-ism. I was really worried when I heard about the premise of Infinite Wealth and it turned out to be along these lines too.

I’d need to sit down and think about it across the games but the games have been progressive in their views in some ways and in others…not. But I do recall that they did talk about retooling some of the earlier games stuff re trans women and sex workers. I think the overall vibe of the series is that it’s the shadow world & iirc the yakuza in Japan have long been disproportionally comprised of people from various minority groups in the country. Not sure how true this is but it makes a lot of sense with how so many characters in the series are from minority backgrounds:

According to a 2006 speech by Mitsuhiro Suganuma, a former officer of the Public Security Intelligence Agency, around 60 percent of yakuza members come from burakumin, the descendants of a feudal outcast class and approximately 30 percent of them are Japanese-born Koreans, and only 10 percent are from non-burakumin Japanese and Chinese ethnic groups.

Similarly I really didn’t like that plot in the Kiwami remake where one of the girls you date is a lesbian and she wants to sleep with Kiryu to see if she likes men. To me I was like, ugh, are they really doing the “Just needs to meet the right man!” thing, but actually it was far more nuanced than that; they do sleep together but she was like, that was nice but I still like girls lol. It’s portrayed as her experimenting with a person she likes rather than falling into that trope, and it was a lot better for it.

Most of the police you meet are corrupt and the ones you meet who aren’t are openly marginalised by their colleagues; the government is on the take and doesn’t care about the concerns of ordinary people; the super rich will hurt anyone who gets in their way. In that world, how are you going to complain about or even care about Mama in the okama bar? We are all in the gutter together, the series seems to say. Oh, and if you own any land in Japan that might be valuable in any way you’re probably in danger lol.

OTM.

Certainly don't want to paint Yakuza as blanket progressive, it's just if you had subplots about social media hate campaigns in a piece of Western media the target would inevitably be someone accused of sexual offenses or being racist and the series never ever resorts to that (nb there may be some substories I haven't explored).

Similarly I really didn’t like that plot in the Kiwami remake where one of the girls you date is a lesbian and she wants to sleep with Kiryu to see if she likes men. To me I was like, ugh, are they really doing the “Just needs to meet the right man!” thing, but actually it was far more nuanced than that; they do sleep together but she was like, that was nice but I still like girls lol. It’s portrayed as her experimenting with a person she likes rather than falling into that trope, and it was a lot better for it.

lol that subplot was so strange - iirc Kiryu's final lecture to the girl was that she was too hung up on ideas of gender, too obsessed with women conforming to her ideas of what is female, and so she kinda went "ok you're right let's have sex since I'm trying not to care about gender so much". Which, go off pansexual king, but until Kiryu starts frequenting host clubs as a client that's all big talk and no action imo.

You can’t tell me Kiryu and Nishiki never slept together at least once and that’s as far as I’m going with that. I did like that the plot of Mine being in love with Daigo is not remotely played for laughs or gay panic though.