by O Rei do Frango Assado » Sat Aug 12, 2017 4:15 am
A bit of a rant here...
Am I the only one who went from being a huge Yakuza fan, since the very first game on the PS2, to losing interest in the series, due to the fact that each and every entry is virtually the same?
Couple that with the fact that, with each installment, the game just gets bigger and bigger, with more and more grind and meaningless side-activities, the fact that each game, even when it introduces a new city, makes us spend most of our time in Kamurocho, in the same streets, the same places, for hours and hours, the fact that they shouldn't have just dropped Kamurocho already, but Kiryu too (even though Kamurocho is a great setting and Kiryu a great character, but enough already. They're done to death).
Each year there's a new Yakuza game that feels pretty much the same as all the others, but, hey!, look at all the real-life porn stars we've hired, look at all the real-world brands we got, look at all the mini-games! Just more and more and more meaningless shit!
Meanwhile, even Yakuza 6 (which, they boasted, runs on a brand new engine) still looks like something from the PS3 generation, with its stiff and clunky animation, shitty collision detection and shiny, plastic-y character models (main characters' faces look quite good, though).
Yakuza really needs, at least, a 2 or 3 year break. It has become Japan's Assassin's Creed or Call of Duty (though even Assassin's Creed at least takes place in a totally different setting with each entry. Really, I just can't bring myself to spend another 50 hours roaming the same streets in Kamurocho, after having done so for 3 games already).
What I find interesting is that, around the internet, I mainly see two types of people: those hardcore Yakuza fans that still buy every single entry on day one and just can't get enough of it, and those who never played Yakuza games before and now gave Yakuza 0 a go and think it's absolutely amazing. But, to me, even though I'm sure Yakuza 0 is an excellent game, as Yakuza generally is, it just seems more of the same, so I didn't bother playing it (having said that, I'm happy to see Yakuza finally getting some appreciation in the West and being successful ).
But I never seem to see someone like me, who started as a huge fan, but just lost interest due to the annualization of the series and the consequent lack of innovation.
Also, I'm still bitter about the fact that Kenzan and Isshin were never localized and brought to the West. I mean, they, to me, actually seem even more interesting than the main series (at least, the completely different setting and time period would be a breath of fresh air, coupled with sword-based combat), but Sega seems to think: "Fuck it, it's just a spin-off!".
What's more infuriating is that the only spin-off that they did bring to the West was the terrible Dead Souls, because Westerners can't get enough of zombie shit, right?
Anyway, it would be amazing if Sega gave a 3-year break to Yakuza and then blew us away with a proper sequel that not only brought something entirely new to the table (while still keeping the Yakuza spirit, obviously), but also could, from a technical point of view, compete with the best AAA games coming from Western developers.
But I don't see that happening anytime soon. Not, at least, while Yakuza keeps on being a best-seller in Japan. In the meantime, they'll just be spending their budget and focus their efforts on brand licensing, hiring and hyping porn stars in huge, expensive public events and open castings, and coming up with even more stupid mini-games to inflate even more the game's playtime to even more ridiculous levels.