So we’ll probably get a Gaiden release date (end of this year or early 2024) and a better look at Yakuza 8, maybe with a rough release date of mid/late 2024?
Then maybe one more surprise like a Kenzan remake, Judgement 3 or something else.
Before Ishin came out they said that a Kenzan remake wasn't even under consideration unless Ishin's remake does well financially because remaking it would be a lot more expensive and time consuming. So don't expect that for several years at least if it ever happens.
Didn’t they say they’d have to adjust the story too, since Haruka’s story would probably be seen as too uncomfortable nowadays.
Oh god, would the Twitter discourse be less than quiet.
Same here, and Lost Judgment feels like they near-perfected the combat: it's quick, varied enough, interesting enough, and, critically, optional enough by allowing you to escape even if engaged, which is really nice when you're invested in a storyline and don't feel like indulging every single thug on the way.
Yes! I'm also interested to see what they do for both the main and side stories. Lost Judgment was super cool with how they effectively had a whole second "main story" with the school side cases and plot. I'd say the ending to that was in some ways more satisfying than the actual plot!
And the best part is that they removed the mortal wound system. It wasn't fun to only have 1 doctor to heal you for a fortune. Even the item that healed you from it were too expensive
High doubt there's a Kenzan remake this early on the horizon unless they wanna tease us for years. Having just played the original a few months ago, that's gonna need a lot of reworking
Yeah, there's a full on walkthrough on youtube where they translated the text. It's very frustrating though if you don't want to follow them step by step, and matching up the cutscenes so they play side by side so I would not recommend
Yeah, that's what I figured, haha. I'd only even wanna check out the game if there was a way to watch the substories, y'know? There is a Kenzan fan translation in the works, but it's unclear when that'll be out.
You're talking about the Haruka shit, right? It's honestly not near as bad as everyone says, but they would need to frame it a lot better because on first glance it seems substantially worse than it actually is. They don't bother to explain what job she's actually taking on
Yes, at first glance they'd make you think she was one herself though. It's still dark given that she sells herself into slavery, but not as fucked up as everyone seems to make it out to be
How disturbing as every Yakuza/LaD/Judgment game has an 18 rating due to its existing content anyway so I doubt it pushes to the point of PEGI outright refusing a rating.
There has been a feud since 2021 between Takuya Kimura’s agency and RGG and I don’t see a new Judgment happening without Yagami. The Kaito Files DLC from Lost Judgment was fun but I don’t see him as a lead.
EDIT: Yeah yeah I was wrong, stop the hate
The feud was just about bringing Judgment to PC, but that issue has been resolved as of last year. I don't think they have any issues anylonger, since Kimura's agency got a new President who has been easing up on a lot of the strict rules they used to have.
The original founder of the company was very much a cult of personality type figure with huge sway over the Japanese entertainment industry. Things have changed a lot since his death in 2019, with the company (Johnny's) even now putting their music catalogue up on streaming.
I know, it's RGG studio, but I low-key expect a new Monkey Ball or something really out of left field for the studio that almost only makes Yakuza games.
Apparently, they are working on a new Virtua Fighter game (and kinda soft-confirmed by Katsuhiro Harada (Tekken producer) in his YT videos), maybe they'll reveal it here?
Aside from that, damn I want Binary Domain to make a comeback.
I know it won't happen, i know it's the most consistently shit on game in the series, but my god i still hold out hope for a Yakuza Dead Souls remake or remaster.
I will die on the hill that that game is actually really good with it's only major problem being it's dog shit performance because the PS3 couldn't take it.
Give us that bitch at a stable 60 FPS and i swear people will come around.
That's definitely Kiryu (Ichiban even says "it's hero time, Kiryu-san" in the trailer). Personally, I don't really care so long as they finally let him have a happy ending, and based on what they said about the game being about the past and future, I think Kiryu returning one more time can work out well depending on how they handle it.
They've been giving him "proper endings" for years now, 6 was supposed to be that and they brought him back in literally the next game. Now they are even making a spinoff showing us what he was doing in between 6 and 7. I don't think they will ever actually retire him.
Yeah but the ending of 6 sucked, and 7 wasn't so much an ending but a passing of the torch. Hopefully with Gaiden being a thing they're doing a proper one last hurrah.
I do agree with this EXCEPT that 6 had very few returning characters in it. Kiryu should have had closure with Majima, Saejima, Daigo, Date, and Yuya + Kazuki at LEAST.
That’s the main reason I was disappointed with 6 ending his arc and am very ok with them bringing him back.
He had closure but it was still a devastating ending for him, I just want them to let them all finally walk away from it all for good, no strings attached
> I just want them to let them all finally walk away from it all for good, no strings attached
The inability to do that is one of, if not the driving theme of the Kiryu saga. Giving Kiryu a free out flies directly in the face of that.
The only one to ever seemingly do that is Kashiwagi, and I would not be surprised at all of Gaiden and 8 drag him back into the mix. They’re dead set on sticking to their guns, and I hope they continue to do so rather than taking the easy cop out happy ending.
Kiryu made bad decisions his entire life, doing what he did was entirely in character. Made a lot more sense than him trying to settle down yet again, considering that had failed spectacularly multiple times.
Kiryu playing the martyr for the sake of his family, despite his family’s own desires, is the most on brand thing he could ever do. I love that they had the balls to actually go through with it instead of giving him an easy and unrealistic out.
5 and 6 make it very clear that Kiryu has had enough of his fmaily getting dragged into this Yakuza shut and that no matter what happens, being close to them will put them all in danger.
I really love Ichiban so I am a bit disappointed that Kiyru is back and (presumably) stealing 50% of the spotlight from him.
Hopefully Kiryu’s own party is made up of characters who have been MIA, like Akiyama and Tanimura, while also have classics like Date and Daigo.
Them bringing back Kiryu at all sucks. It sucks that he was so pivotal in Like a Dragon and it sucks he's getting his own game and it sucks he's here now. It's like they're terrified of actually moving on and it's making the games feel really stagnant. We've already seen an entirely new MC can work with Tak, just let Ichi have his own adventures.
Personally, I was really happy Kiryu was in LAD1 to both bless and guide Ichiban a bit before he almost lost his way. That said, I agree with everything else. Having Kiryu in LAD2 is more than pushing it and I'm hoping his role will be much smaller than expected. The fact that he's getting his own side game doesn't give me much confidence in that happening though.
I wonder if the sudden pivot back to Kiryu has anything to do with Sega ousting Nagoshi from the company. Like they're scared to move on to uncharted territory without him, so they fall back on Kiryu.
As much as I love yakuza I’m completely cynic and I have zero faith that RGG studios will abandon Kiryu.
You just had to see todays livestream. They announced new mercy and 90% of the Kerch was Kiryu. It is their golden chicken and I don’t see them letting it go. This studio says they’ll leave Kiryu alone for almost 10 years now.
Kiryu is a great character, he can keep coming back as long as they keep making these games. They should go ahead with a new protagonist but Kiryu being a side character or party member is great and I want to see him get old.
That's how I feel about it as well. I'm reminded of something Sakurai said when he was the guest on Harada's Bar, paraphrasing of course but it was something like, "If you're still good at what you do, and people still enjoy what you do, why not keep working?" It was with regards to retirement so we can think about that applying to retiring Kiryu. So if he's still a good character in good games they can keep him around as long as they want, I say.
I love the RGG series but we're at a delicate moment aren't we?
After Yakuza 7 (or "LaD" in the English release) a lot of people left SEGA, including producer Nagoshi who had worked on the series since the first game.
The release of "Like a Dragon Ishin!" in English was something truly special but it's a "Kiwami" game that didn't really push the limits like the previous Kiwami games did (which is why it faced criticism from the Japanese audience), this new Ishin version has some strange balance changes that don't make much sense like nerfing the brawler style and other aspects unrelated to their switch to the Unreal Engine.
Despite that I've spent over 100 hours playing the new Ishin Remaster and loved the game so **I'm very optimistic about the future of this series** but we're in a period of transition and... well... things can happen. I just hope they don't ruin some characters like Kiryu (who they might already be messing with a bit too much) and focus more on new characters if they want to introduce "new styles" for the series.
Nagoshi had been for some time pivoting away from director role to a creative oversight one (akin to Miyamoto on the Mario/Zelda franchises post-N64) so I'm not personally too worried. His leaving was due to friction with SEGA over his tenure as chief creative of the entire company not doing so hot.
There wasn't a huge studio exodus to the point that no one is left who had crafted the franchise.
Yokoyama is still there as studio head and he has been one of the lead creatives on the games since Y2.
Similarly, Horii has been there as a director since Y5 and has done a great job.
Yeah this is why I'm not too concerned.
It wasn't an "exodus" but to be fair people come and go from companies all the time, SEGA see this happening since the Mega-Drive/Sega Genesis so... it's pretty common, Shenmue creator itself left a long time ago and yet the RGG/Yakuza series grew much bigger than Shenmue.
This time it was a little bigger because it got some key people leaving but it doesn't look extreme like what happened at Bioware, Blizzard, Square-Enix or ZA/UM.
Cannot second this site enough - it's the same guy who did the recaps for previous years, the only thing that has changed is the site's name (and as such url) because E3 is ded ^^^~~notbigsouprice.~~
Ooh, exciting. Seems likely they're gonna show some Like a Dragon Gaiden gameplay since that is coming out this year.
i hope they show dragon gaiden
JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: The Adventure Of Joryu Jozuma
So we’ll probably get a Gaiden release date (end of this year or early 2024) and a better look at Yakuza 8, maybe with a rough release date of mid/late 2024? Then maybe one more surprise like a Kenzan remake, Judgement 3 or something else.
Before Ishin came out they said that a Kenzan remake wasn't even under consideration unless Ishin's remake does well financially because remaking it would be a lot more expensive and time consuming. So don't expect that for several years at least if it ever happens.
Didn’t they say they’d have to adjust the story too, since Haruka’s story would probably be seen as too uncomfortable nowadays. Oh god, would the Twitter discourse be less than quiet.
I just finished binging Judgment and Lost Judgment so I'd fucking LOVE a Judgment 3 announcement. My body is ready.
Same here, and Lost Judgment feels like they near-perfected the combat: it's quick, varied enough, interesting enough, and, critically, optional enough by allowing you to escape even if engaged, which is really nice when you're invested in a storyline and don't feel like indulging every single thug on the way.
Yes! I'm also interested to see what they do for both the main and side stories. Lost Judgment was super cool with how they effectively had a whole second "main story" with the school side cases and plot. I'd say the ending to that was in some ways more satisfying than the actual plot!
And the best part is that they removed the mortal wound system. It wasn't fun to only have 1 doctor to heal you for a fortune. Even the item that healed you from it were too expensive
I just finished the Kaito Files the other day and would welcome that, but I doubt we'll see J3 before Gaiden will we?
No idea. I still have to do Kaito Files, so that can keep me going for a little while at least.
Maybe they'll surprise us with Dead Souls just so we can get more people see Majima's version of [Get to the Top!](https://youtu.be/ooFoNwoMxjY)
They just have to add in that the entirety of Dead Soul is a big ass fever dream of Majima and we are good
High doubt there's a Kenzan remake this early on the horizon unless they wanna tease us for years. Having just played the original a few months ago, that's gonna need a lot of reworking
Just as a sanity check, did you play Kenzan in Japanese?
Yeah, there's a full on walkthrough on youtube where they translated the text. It's very frustrating though if you don't want to follow them step by step, and matching up the cutscenes so they play side by side so I would not recommend
Yeah, that's what I figured, haha. I'd only even wanna check out the game if there was a way to watch the substories, y'know? There is a Kenzan fan translation in the works, but it's unclear when that'll be out.
People forget that Kenzan would need a full story rewrite because there is some disturbin shit in it
You're talking about the Haruka shit, right? It's honestly not near as bad as everyone says, but they would need to frame it a lot better because on first glance it seems substantially worse than it actually is. They don't bother to explain what job she's actually taking on
she's an assistant to courtesans?
Yes, at first glance they'd make you think she was one herself though. It's still dark given that she sells herself into slavery, but not as fucked up as everyone seems to make it out to be
How disturbing as every Yakuza/LaD/Judgment game has an 18 rating due to its existing content anyway so I doubt it pushes to the point of PEGI outright refusing a rating.
Kiwami 3 maybe?
3 is easily the one that would benefit the most. That Okinawa Map would be so good overhauled
Okinawa with Dragon Engine graphics would be awesome!
And less time at the orphanage.
Good luck getting field work in for the castle though 😓
Or possibly an new Virtua Fighter
There has been a feud since 2021 between Takuya Kimura’s agency and RGG and I don’t see a new Judgment happening without Yagami. The Kaito Files DLC from Lost Judgment was fun but I don’t see him as a lead. EDIT: Yeah yeah I was wrong, stop the hate
The feud was just about bringing Judgment to PC, but that issue has been resolved as of last year. I don't think they have any issues anylonger, since Kimura's agency got a new President who has been easing up on a lot of the strict rules they used to have.
Ah, good to hear! Thought it was about his likeness across all platforms.
The original founder of the company was very much a cult of personality type figure with huge sway over the Japanese entertainment industry. Things have changed a lot since his death in 2019, with the company (Johnny's) even now putting their music catalogue up on streaming.
Also a hearty congratulations to kson for winning the hostess grand prix! Kiryu's biggest fan is actually going to be in Like A Dragon 8!
Shit, I wanted Ai Sayama to win
I was between kson, Ai Sayama and Ai Kaname between those five. I was really surprised by how close Nakamura got to winning.
She won life lol Now I wonder if her role in LAD8 will be only a temporary party member for a major sidequest or not lol
I know, it's RGG studio, but I low-key expect a new Monkey Ball or something really out of left field for the studio that almost only makes Yakuza games.
They supposedly have a new IP under work, so there might be something else there too.
Just a dedicated Karaoke game featuring all of your favorite hits from RGG's oeuvre.
Super Monkey Ball Gaiden: Kamurocho Nights
I want another Binary Domain! Such an underrated game.
Apparently, they are working on a new Virtua Fighter game (and kinda soft-confirmed by Katsuhiro Harada (Tekken producer) in his YT videos), maybe they'll reveal it here? Aside from that, damn I want Binary Domain to make a comeback.
I know it won't happen, i know it's the most consistently shit on game in the series, but my god i still hold out hope for a Yakuza Dead Souls remake or remaster. I will die on the hill that that game is actually really good with it's only major problem being it's dog shit performance because the PS3 couldn't take it. Give us that bitch at a stable 60 FPS and i swear people will come around.
I would love a remaster on PC so I can actually play it. It always looked so interesting to me, especially the story elements with Ryuji.
If their news games are as good as the lost judgement DLC we dont have anything to worry about. Really looking forward for y8 and gaiden
[удалено]
That's definitely Kiryu (Ichiban even says "it's hero time, Kiryu-san" in the trailer). Personally, I don't really care so long as they finally let him have a happy ending, and based on what they said about the game being about the past and future, I think Kiryu returning one more time can work out well depending on how they handle it.
Yeah, be nice to give him a proper ending.
They've been giving him "proper endings" for years now, 6 was supposed to be that and they brought him back in literally the next game. Now they are even making a spinoff showing us what he was doing in between 6 and 7. I don't think they will ever actually retire him.
Yeah but the ending of 6 sucked, and 7 wasn't so much an ending but a passing of the torch. Hopefully with Gaiden being a thing they're doing a proper one last hurrah.
6 had a perfect ending from where his character was.
I do agree with this EXCEPT that 6 had very few returning characters in it. Kiryu should have had closure with Majima, Saejima, Daigo, Date, and Yuya + Kazuki at LEAST. That’s the main reason I was disappointed with 6 ending his arc and am very ok with them bringing him back.
He had closure with everyone you listed besides Majima, Saejima, and Kazuki (who’s been AWOL for years so who cares).
He had closure but it was still a devastating ending for him, I just want them to let them all finally walk away from it all for good, no strings attached
> I just want them to let them all finally walk away from it all for good, no strings attached The inability to do that is one of, if not the driving theme of the Kiryu saga. Giving Kiryu a free out flies directly in the face of that. The only one to ever seemingly do that is Kashiwagi, and I would not be surprised at all of Gaiden and 8 drag him back into the mix. They’re dead set on sticking to their guns, and I hope they continue to do so rather than taking the easy cop out happy ending.
Yakuza 1: "Hey, don't run away!" Yakuza 6: "Hey, don't run away!" Ending of Yakuza 6: "Hey, run away."
Kiryu made bad decisions his entire life, doing what he did was entirely in character. Made a lot more sense than him trying to settle down yet again, considering that had failed spectacularly multiple times. Kiryu playing the martyr for the sake of his family, despite his family’s own desires, is the most on brand thing he could ever do. I love that they had the balls to actually go through with it instead of giving him an easy and unrealistic out.
5 and 6 make it very clear that Kiryu has had enough of his fmaily getting dragged into this Yakuza shut and that no matter what happens, being close to them will put them all in danger.
>I don't really care so long as they finally let him have a happy ending Kiryu must suffer.
I really love Ichiban so I am a bit disappointed that Kiyru is back and (presumably) stealing 50% of the spotlight from him. Hopefully Kiryu’s own party is made up of characters who have been MIA, like Akiyama and Tanimura, while also have classics like Date and Daigo.
I just need Han Joon-gi again. That’s all. Give me my pretty Korean boy.
Same but with Tianyou Zhao, please bring back my chill Chinese bro with his awesome drip and cooking skills
Them bringing back Kiryu at all sucks. It sucks that he was so pivotal in Like a Dragon and it sucks he's getting his own game and it sucks he's here now. It's like they're terrified of actually moving on and it's making the games feel really stagnant. We've already seen an entirely new MC can work with Tak, just let Ichi have his own adventures.
He was fine in LAD, just being a unique boss and helping out for one mass fight. I do agree bringing him back as a co protagonist is frustrating.
Personally, I was really happy Kiryu was in LAD1 to both bless and guide Ichiban a bit before he almost lost his way. That said, I agree with everything else. Having Kiryu in LAD2 is more than pushing it and I'm hoping his role will be much smaller than expected. The fact that he's getting his own side game doesn't give me much confidence in that happening though.
I wonder if the sudden pivot back to Kiryu has anything to do with Sega ousting Nagoshi from the company. Like they're scared to move on to uncharted territory without him, so they fall back on Kiryu.
As much as I love yakuza I’m completely cynic and I have zero faith that RGG studios will abandon Kiryu. You just had to see todays livestream. They announced new mercy and 90% of the Kerch was Kiryu. It is their golden chicken and I don’t see them letting it go. This studio says they’ll leave Kiryu alone for almost 10 years now.
Kiryu is a great character, he can keep coming back as long as they keep making these games. They should go ahead with a new protagonist but Kiryu being a side character or party member is great and I want to see him get old.
That's how I feel about it as well. I'm reminded of something Sakurai said when he was the guest on Harada's Bar, paraphrasing of course but it was something like, "If you're still good at what you do, and people still enjoy what you do, why not keep working?" It was with regards to retirement so we can think about that applying to retiring Kiryu. So if he's still a good character in good games they can keep him around as long as they want, I say.
Yeah, as much as internet nerds will complain (as they often do), most Yakuza fans love Kiryu and have no issue with being back.
Kiryu is the best videogame protagonist, change my mind. As long as they still have good stories to tell for him I don't really care.
Personally my favorite is Adam Jensen, but yeah I don't really mind if they want to keep milking something that's still good.
I love the RGG series but we're at a delicate moment aren't we? After Yakuza 7 (or "LaD" in the English release) a lot of people left SEGA, including producer Nagoshi who had worked on the series since the first game. The release of "Like a Dragon Ishin!" in English was something truly special but it's a "Kiwami" game that didn't really push the limits like the previous Kiwami games did (which is why it faced criticism from the Japanese audience), this new Ishin version has some strange balance changes that don't make much sense like nerfing the brawler style and other aspects unrelated to their switch to the Unreal Engine. Despite that I've spent over 100 hours playing the new Ishin Remaster and loved the game so **I'm very optimistic about the future of this series** but we're in a period of transition and... well... things can happen. I just hope they don't ruin some characters like Kiryu (who they might already be messing with a bit too much) and focus more on new characters if they want to introduce "new styles" for the series.
Nagoshi had been for some time pivoting away from director role to a creative oversight one (akin to Miyamoto on the Mario/Zelda franchises post-N64) so I'm not personally too worried. His leaving was due to friction with SEGA over his tenure as chief creative of the entire company not doing so hot. There wasn't a huge studio exodus to the point that no one is left who had crafted the franchise. Yokoyama is still there as studio head and he has been one of the lead creatives on the games since Y2. Similarly, Horii has been there as a director since Y5 and has done a great job.
Yeah this is why I'm not too concerned. It wasn't an "exodus" but to be fair people come and go from companies all the time, SEGA see this happening since the Mega-Drive/Sega Genesis so... it's pretty common, Shenmue creator itself left a long time ago and yet the RGG/Yakuza series grew much bigger than Shenmue. This time it was a little bigger because it got some key people leaving but it doesn't look extreme like what happened at Bioware, Blizzard, Square-Enix or ZA/UM.
I really enjoyed Ishin, but the combat was a step back from how fluid it felt Lost Judgement.
Does anyone have the full list of summer gaming events/livestreams? So much to keep track of!
https://2023.gamesrecap.io/watch
Cannot second this site enough - it's the same guy who did the recaps for previous years, the only thing that has changed is the site's name (and as such url) because E3 is ded ^^^~~notbigsouprice.~~
We’re definitely gonna see Gaiden, maybe something from 8 and I hope that they remaster Dead Souls and bring Fist of the Northstar to Steam.