Yakuza series

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Re: Yakuza series

Postby Bluecast » Mon Jun 19, 2017 3:53 am

0 is my first Yakuza game and I really really loved it. I played a demo of 6 but since I can't read Japanese outside of battles didn't do much. I loved Yakuza 0 and getting the remake of 1 in August. I really hope they remake Yakuza 2 as well for the west. I wish I experienced this series earlier. Problem is when I finally got a PS2 the series was exspensive and 3-4 on PS3 were already deep in story. Why 0 is great as I could jump in being new to it. I have seen the Yakuza movie acouple times as well and really liked it.
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Re: Yakuza series

Postby south carmain » Mon Jun 19, 2017 4:13 am

I didn't realise that you hadn't played any of the games in the series before BC, I somewhat started the series with 3 myself (I did play through quite a bit of 2 on PS2 but never got to finish it and it was so long before I got 3 that I already forgot most of it) and never had an issue understanding the story. Yakuza games although in a chronological order have individual stories that you don't really need any context to understand as they stand on their own. The only thing that is useful from playing previous games I found was having an understanding of the relationship Kiryu has with certain characters and how he came to be where he is now.

But yeah you definitely don't need to worry about playing the PS2 games to start on the PS3 ones and if you really want to know what happened before, each game offers recaps to catch up on events from the previous ones.

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Re: Yakuza series

Postby Crimson Ryan » Tue Jul 11, 2017 3:48 pm

- https://blog.us.playstation.com/2017/07 ... re-orders/

Digital pre-order is up for £29.99

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Re: Yakuza series

Postby FlagshipFighter » Tue Jul 25, 2017 10:21 am

Just caught the last glimpse of SEGA Japanese Update Stream on Youtube today with Nagoshi-san. According to some of the translators in chat (and what I could make out of the English/Numbers) Nagoshi-san is actually working on two games. We're going to hear about one of them in some form on the 26th of August.

...which is actually the last day of gamescom. The actual event for the announcement will be happening in Akihabara though.

Any idea's on what the mad dog Nagoshi is working on next. Is it his switch game? A new Monkey ball? A new IP? Binary Domain 2? *gasps* Dead Souls 2?

August is going to be a heck of a month, that's for sure!

(Thanks to @まあくん - and @MVK from the chat helping out with translation)

Update: Some are saying it could be Kiwami 2, with the other game being a rebooted 7th entry with a new protagonist.
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Re: Yakuza series

Postby 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.
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Re: Yakuza series

Postby Ash » Mon Aug 14, 2017 1:45 pm

O Rei do Frango Assado wrote: 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?


No, in fact, I think Kiwami will be my last Yakuza game unless Sega do shake up the formula. I still like the games, I bought 0 very soon after release, and enjoyed it, but at this point, my view of the series is that you really can have too much of a good thing.
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Re: Yakuza series

Postby O Rei do Frango Assado » Wed Aug 16, 2017 1:47 am

I knew I couldn't be the only one.

Those are exactly my feelings. While I criticized Yakuza for being a technical dinosaur, so to speak, and the devs for investing too much of their efforts in meaningless shit and jumping the shark (though, who can blame them, if they have to dish out a new Yakuza game every year?), the fact remains that Yakuza games are excellent and a whole lot of fun. It's no wonder newcomers are feeling so enchanted with Yakuza 0.
But, indeed, you can have too much of a good thing and these games are all exactly the same and, since each one of them is a huge game, I just can't bring myself to play any more Yakuza, even though, sometimes, I do get curious about what kind of new stories they came up with to, once again, bring Kiryu out of retirement.

Speaking of which, the last Yakuza I played was Yakuza 3, whose story was a disappointment, by the way, especially after the brilliant Yakuza 2 (best story, by far). Maybe that also had a part in me deciding that I was done with the series.

For those that have played 4, 5 and 0 as well, how would you rate their stories overall, especially when comparing them to the rest of the series? I certainly hope they're way better than Yakuza 3's. Though the fact that Yakuza 5 makes you play a whole section with Haruka, whose "random battles" are J-Pop dance-offs, completely puts me off of that game... How big is the Haruka section, anyway? And are Haruka's "random battles" as frequent as Kiryu's?

Maybe, after a few years, when I finally forget Kamurocho's layout (if that ever happens) and my Yakuza franchise fatigue goes away and I start getting nostalgic and in need of some Japanese crime drama craziness, I may jump back.
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Re: Yakuza series

Postby south carmain » Thu Aug 17, 2017 2:17 am

0 being set in the 80s made it feel completely fresh for me, the story is my favourite by far and although Kamurocho felt familiar it also felt like a different place due to the change of themes, atmosphere and layout to a certain extent. The changes in a lot of gameplay elements also contributed to it feeling like a fresh experience. I enjoyed 4 for branching out in to different characters while not focussing much on Kiryu who I had become bored with at that point, the changes it made to Kamurocho was enough to keep the location from feeling too familiar for me. As for 5 you don't spend much time in Kamurocho and it has some really cool moments but overall I enjoyed it less than 4 and especially 0 that has become my favourite in the series. Even though 5 is huge with lots of new places to see it felt like it dragged on a lot of the time, I still put something like 80 hours in to it though so I didn't find it be a bad game by no means.

I mainly play Yakuza for the atmosphere and story though so I'm probably willing to overlook at lot of things that could bother other people.

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Re: Yakuza series

Postby O Rei do Frango Assado » Thu Aug 17, 2017 11:30 am

Remember when we had to spend YEARS without even knowing if the latest Yakuza would get localized for the West? Now Sega seems to have finally gotten their act together and began bringing these games way more promptly to the West, even releasing Yakuza 1's remake over here (remember, Yakuza 1 & 2's HD remasters were only released in Japan, and those were simple HD remasters, not full-on remakes, like Kiwami). Yakuza 0's success over here will also certainly help future localizations.

So, with Sega being nicer to Yakuza fans in the West these days, and with the talk of possible remakes/remasters of 2, 3, 4 and 5 for the PS4, does anyone think that, someday, we might just see Kenzan and Isshin brought over to the West?
Because, if that ever happened, I'd definitely jump back into the series again. The idea of an open-world samurai game is incredibly appealing to me. Alas, I can't think of any other one other than the Way of the Samurai series, which, to be frank, simply sucks (I got Way of the Samurai 4 and really wanted to like it (and the whole concept, in theory, has everything to make me like it) and did my best to look past its PS2-quality graphics, but the game was simply too crappy and not just in the graphics department. It was obviously made on a very modest budget).

Personally, I don't think it likely that Kenzan and Isshin will ever get released over here, but stranger things have happened (I mean, we're getting Shenmue 3, for Christ's sake!).
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Re: Yakuza series

Postby south carmain » Thu Aug 17, 2017 11:53 am

I'm not sure about Kenzan and Ishin but if 6 is a success I can see them bringing over some future non-canon entries in the series. I'm more interested in a Kiwami 2 myself though, 2 is definitely up there in the best of the series and it would be criminal to not bring it back after 1.
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Re: Yakuza series

Postby AnimeGamer183 » Thu Aug 17, 2017 5:05 pm

I am also Hoping there will be Kiwami 2 as well. Y0 seemed to have done what we all had hoped it would do, and give an entry point to new fans into the series, so subsequent releases of the first 2 games would help the Yakuza series be around for longer. Also I think the demand for Yakuza 5 in the west got alot of unfamiliar fans attention as well. All is good in the Kamurocho hood 8) .
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Re: Yakuza series

Postby south carmain » Thu Aug 17, 2017 5:24 pm

^I remember reading that Yakuza 5 sold pretty well relatively speaking. Not the success that 0 was but enough to for them to renew interest in the western market regarding the series.

I think after a Kiwami 2 they should do a reboot of the series though. A remastered collection of 3-5 would be cool but I'm not sure if most people would enjoy them unless if they tweak the gameplay and graphics to freshen them up a bit. But even then with releases being so chaotic in the west and so much for people to catch up I think for them to gain a solid following in the west they need to get rid of the 7 and start anew with the series. Although I really hope they don't do like other Japanese developers and change their game in ways that they think would appeal more to western audiences. One of the reasons why I always go back to Yakuza is because its unapologetically Japanese and has that feeling to it that I loved about Japanese games in the 90s and early 2000s.
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Re: Yakuza series

Postby AnimeGamer183 » Thu Aug 17, 2017 8:13 pm

^ yep and that is what alot of people always gripe and complain is wrong with it, also "Just play GTA or Sleeping Dogs". These people just dont seem to get what makes Yakuza so great.
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Re: Yakuza series

Postby OL » Thu Aug 17, 2017 9:45 pm

Ugh, if someone tells you to play Sleeping Dogs over just about anything else, go ahead and break their nose. I could barely play more than two or three hours into it because the driving is so goddamn piss-poor.
Even the driving in Yakuza 5 was better than that, and it was little more than a goofy minigame.
But yeah, the sheer Japanese-ness of the Yakuza series is precisely its greatest strength. It's one of the few series from a major publisher that we regularly get localized that clearly isn't made with a worldwide release in mind. Pretty sure I've even read Nagoshi say before that the games are made specifically with a Japanese audience in mind, and the west doesn't even enter the equation during development. Things like that totally show through in the finished product, and I don't ever want them to change the series on account of "the rest of the world."
That being said, I will agree that the series as a whole is feeling a little long in the tooth by this point, but I wouldn't call that out as a reason for them to overhaul anything. It's just a personal mood thing. I haven't played the series in a couple years now, I think, outside of the first hour of Zero. The craving for it will probably hit again, I just have to let it. Til then, I'll still buy them as they come out, just so they're there when I need them.

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Re: Yakuza series

Postby darksniper » Fri Aug 18, 2017 9:02 pm

It's wishful thinking... but it would be nice if Nagoshi announced that he and his team are doing the Shenmue HD remakes from the ground up. But that's probably a little too much to ask for from Sega.
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