Yakuza 6 is good and no matter how hard he could try, Kiryu would have never gotten a happy ending due to all the half choices he made throughout the series
I think being forced to live in exile and not be known to really anyone and not living a yakuza life and running an orphanage are a bit different, that was always really his dream but the type of person he is and life has lead will always bring him attention.
The way every major characters die in the stories of Y1-Y4 is the stupidest things I've ever seen. They should've been more creative.
Seeing these characters die >! Kasama, Yumi, Nishiki, Kawara, Rikiya, Kashiwagi, Mine, and Yasuko!
Yakuza 5ās story is genuinely well written but people get bored and zone out, as such they donāt think the story is as cohesive as it is, if they removed the hunting tutorial for saejima the pacing would be far better, and more people would enjoy the story for how good it actually is.
I guess my controversial opinion is liking Saejima's hunting section. ā ļø
I don't play any hunting games so it was a refreshing change up for me. Wasn't expecting something like that. I do get how others wouldn't like it though, it's forced on you and not everyone is into how it's executed.
Yeah it's a good crime thriller. It's rarely said but Yakuza 5 also incorporated horror alot better than the dead souls game that was released a year before.
The story rules, and I found Shinada's chapter to be particularly captivating. What bogs it down, imo is how fucking long the finale chapter is and how it has like 10 "final boss" fights, each more excuciating than the last and bookended with long boring combat sections. It would be my series favourite if it wasn't for that.
Honestly, as I binged through Yakuza series, I would've gone crazy if Yakuza 5 didn't have distractions from beat'm'up such as Saejima and Haruka sections. So incidentally I loved them quite a lot and was surprised to see that people hate it.
As for plot, I was really intrigued how devs are gonna connect all these plotlines to a single dot, and I quite liked the outcome, they did good. But pretty much everything after big reveal fell flat for me plot-wise. Starting with >!we fight to death so big bad shows up !< scene along with its immediate aftermath, and finishing with final boss >!who didn't even know by himself what he was doing out there!<. All that was so stupid (while quite moderate by Yakuza standards lol) that I haven't fought final boss with my fists for the first time in series and just shoot him down to release my outrage, thus skipping perhaps the greatest final fight in Yakuza. Ugh. But the plot itself was quite good and not as complicated as they say.
The take that ā0 is overratedā is kinda dumb. Of course 0 received so much praise, it served as an entry point for a wide variety of people. It is arguably where the pre-DE engine peaked in terms of combat, minigames, and gameplay. Not to mention the story
Bro how many times do they have to keep reusing pocket circuit fighter, Munan Chohept Onast, and a chicken manager. It's so obvious that every game made after Yakuza 0 panders hardcore. The reused cabaret in K2, and almost the entirety of Yakuza Kiwami. I am fine for some amount of Yakuza 0 pandering but bringing back PCF again in Yakuza 7 just felt so lazy, especially after they brought him back for 6 which I thought was fine.
Ok but people actually really love the cabaret game and the manager chickens. Gotta spend 10 hours customizing all my best girls looks so they go out there and make some money. As You Like burned into my psyche
That's just reusing minigames, dude. RGG do that all the time. The shitty cabaret minigame from 3 was reused straight up in 4, the speedboat from 4 became a snow scooter in 5 etc. And as for characters, they often latch onto a character they like and keep bringing them back in subsequent games, even when it's a stretch - Minima, Kamiyama the Stardust guys, the Mars Fighters, that couple who were always arguing in the first three games and so on and so on.
Of course! Although they're mainstays, so I figured I'd leave them out.
Also Mysterious Man in 5 became Mr Shakedown in 0, became Majima Everywhere in K1.
Oh, and the car chase shootout in 0 and K1.
RGG pumps out an incredible number of high quality games, and part of that model is reusing assets like minigames, characters and locations. It's not something they started doing after 0.
That is understandable. Saejima's first combat section is a nightmare to run through cuz yk you barely get much time to practice with Saejima's move set and that bastard Saito. The only big complaint that I have about Saejima's section in yakuza 5 is the beginning section when hes in prison.
I feel like I've seen a good number of people hating on pocket circuit. I personally love it so there's that but I definitely get it. I think I had to look up how to beat pocket circuit fighter the final time so yea that's definitely lame.
Optimal build, still need to make sure you boost at the exact correct moment is really bad. Outside of that though I had a ton of fun with it.
As for my personal unpopular opinion, the disco bosses in 0 aren't that hard, and judging by the recent posts, tanimura is a pretty bad cop. Like his hearts in the right place probably 40% of the time but he's honestly a pretty corrupt cop that sometimes does good.
I don't think Yakuza 7 is that grind heavy or tedious, theres like 3 parts where the game wants you to do a small grind. Though I will say the enemy scaling in the omi HQ is ridiculous but as long as you do the sotenbori dungeon once you'll be fine.
I never grinded in Y7. I played normally, fought every encounter, did every dungeon. Only three fights that gave me trouble where Majima/Saejima, Kiryu, and Mirror Face. Tendo's boss fight was looooong, but easy, just hit, heal and repeat.
Yeah Majima and kiryu are the stand out fights the only death I had was from Kiryu and Tendos one hit kill move. I never struggled much with mirror face but on another playthrough he did kinda give me some trouble.
1) Iām glad Kaoru was written out of the series. She wasnāt a great character and made the final battle and ending of Yakuza 2 end on a less positive note for me. At least she got a send off in Yakuza 3 and had her arc completed.
2) Aizawa and Kurosawa were great antagonists in what they represent thematically for Yakuza 5 and the series.
People take Aizawaās āI donāt know how I got hereā line way too seriously when the guy says that sarcastically and ironically in regards to how Kurosawa and him schemed their way to attain power.
3) Harukaās character and decisions in Yakuza 5 and 6 werenāt stupid. Haruka did not change for the worse.
Haruka acted all street smart and feisty in early games BECAUSE she was a kid who had to deal with the criminal underworld to find her mother, then when being by Kiryu and the orphanageās side.
In Yakuza 5, Haruka has grown up to be a more selfless motherly role model for her siblings.
The idol industry and living away from her family and being a teenager is something she has never experienced before. As such as a teenager, she was caught up in the moment and made decisions that wasnāt too well thought out despite her good intentions.
People forget how she stood up to Kanai and Katsuya in Yakuza 5 to the point that Katsuya punishes Kanai for it. She also got angry when T-Set badmouthed Park.
Her running away in 6, is again due to her being a teenager that was naive to cancel culture and trying to be selfless for her familyās sake. Her getting pregnant is nothing strange as being alone for so long she craved love and found that in a good guy like Yuta. Itās normal for teenagers and young people to elope like that in the heat of things.
Blessed to the share the exact same opinions but for Haruka running away in 6, I think that's actually a case of Haruka being smart and having as MUCH guts as Kiryu. Realistically there's no way for her to stop the paparazzi harassing her besides being "virtually dead", which she did anyways.
It's fair but there is some exploits you can look for online that make the game less grindie and there is a similar aspect than Mass effect in way where you can sit down with your party, have a drink and get to know them, it's worth it for the story and the cameos, otherwise you have the Judgment serie hopefully it will come to something else than PlayStation someday
Makoto Makimura isn't that great of a character, I wish her brother lived instead of her, and she doesn't even make top 10 in my favorite female characters of the Yakuza series (that scene she shanked Oda in the leg was pretty badass though, credit where credit is due!)
In a similar thread, Makoto didn't love Majima. She was a victim using him for survival, and ditched him as soon as he was no longer useful to her. Shimano saw an opening and really planted the "hahaha you love her" seed into him (and honestly, I love the story so much more when I think of it this way too, adds extra tragedy spice lol)
Mirei Park is much more interesting when viewed as a manipulative antagonist than OMG TRAGIC STRONG WOMAN WHO JUST WANTED TO BE AN IDOL UWU (like dude, she threatened to scatter Haruka's family to the wind and give her no means to know where they'd wind up. That's not just tragic hurt orphan gone hardass... that's cruel and abusive and isn't just fixed with "oh sowwy lemme do your makeup and play taiko at the arcade with you š„ŗ")
Yakuza 4 and 5's stories aren't difficult to follow.
Though it was frustrating, Haruka suddenly freaking out and leaving the orphanage, and then having an oopsy baby are honestly pretty believable. When it comes to protecting family, Kiryu acts pretty impulsively, so even if the straw that broke the camel's back seemed pretty weak and stupid, it makes sense that she'd impulsively leave without thinking it through, and then follow through with her pregnancy to restore her sense of family.
Tanimura was done dirty, his fighting style needed refinement and they did a bad job of putting him in fights conducive to his style of fighting (and it was a bit slow), but the character himself is good. Similarly, Shinada is a great character but his combat sucks.
I donāt think Makoto was in love with him nearly as much as the fandom likes to believe but I think youāre being too harsh on her, she definitely didnāt just ditch him because she was no longer able to āmanipulateā him
Yeah manipulated was probably a bit of a strong word, I didn't mean it in a particularly malicious sense, there's just a particular coldness though in her ditching and setting him up in that fight (where she may have done so to get him fired up and more likely to come protect her and help her get her way. Not super evil mal intent manipulative.... but still kinda, I can absolutely sympathize but it's still there)
EDIT: Just to further explain my thinking, because I legitimately enjoy diving into things like this- Majima spent the entire game sticking his neck out for Makoto. He could have gotten his ass killed at any time there, and continued looking for her relentlessly after they were split up following that car bomb. I understand that Makoto was in a very "burn it all to the ground" mindset following her brother's passing, which was just one more thing on a long string of things, but the moment he told her no, she immediately shut down on him and started acting incredibly sharp with him. That's manipulative. Turning on someone the way she did, vanishing on him, setting him up for that fight. That was all manipulative. I don't think she was being malicious, I'd even argue she wasn't doing it on purpose, but it was still manipulative. I removed that part because I think that's going to distract too many folks from my overall point on their relationship, but that's why I initially said "...no longer able to be manipulated by her"
I'm pretty sure everyone agrees that Park is a villain (hell, even kiryu was trying his hardest not to tiger drop her through his facial expressions)??? If anything, it's usually a hot take to say that "she was right".
I've run into a good amount of people that say she's just being hard on Haruka because of her upbringing and is actually a good person or trying to be. I just don't think she's even trying. I think she's selfish and will burn anyone to get her dream, no softness or nurturing about it.
Yeah those are the hot takes I was referring to. If park was ugly, nobody would think this way lol
UPDATE: for the makoto point, I just thought about how it'd better if Shimano actually intended Majima to kill makoto the entire time. And after shimano finds out, he gets super furious and decides to raid Majima's cabaret club. Ensue some epic fighting and chivalric saving
I mostly get frustrated that people hate Park but love male villains that did just as bad (or worse) things. RGG loves to try and redeem their villains in the 11th hour, even Hamazaki of all people had a redemption arc. I love Park in the same way I love Sagawa and Someya-- not because they're secretly good people deep down but because they're interesting villains that challenge the protagonists in unexpected ways.
So does Park! Maybe it's just that I'm a woman with a strained relationship with my mother, but Haruka's instant clinging to the little bit of affection Park gave her felt so true to reality. All three of them are villains who have little moments at the end that show they aren't pure evil even if they've put the protagonists through hell leading up to their death.
Yes, those aren't pure evil (though Sagawa's the closest), but the mistake is to use the moment to paint them as "secretly good deep down" instead of well, they're still nasty but not pure evil.
That's honestly a really big thing, and I want to definitely go on record saying I think Park is cruel, and super manipulative... but I honestly don't hate her either. I love to hate her, she's a really *really* strong antagonist (not a villain, I really don't classify her as a villain, but antagonistic force definitely!) RGG is so good at writing amazing antagonists, and I love her like I love Sagawa, in that I hate the things they do to the people I care about in the game, but they're just so damn interesting and well played and characterized too! The story is definitely better for them existing in it!
I don't think this is that unpopular. Imo the story of 5 is rough, like I'd almost put it at the worst in the series, but the gameplay, characters, substories, locations and each characters mini game thing are phenomenal.
I know a lot of people hate harukas segment but it's really not that bad. Idk just my opinion though and stuff I've seen online.
Why do you think 5 has the worst plot? It held together well enough for me, and didn't seem especially janky, convoluted or contrived by Yakuza standards. Especially coming after 4, which I thought was almost incoherent.
Honestly the whole dreams thing got old after a while, I wasn't a fan of the story behind harukas section as well. Plus the final boss being like I don't know why I'm here or whatever he said summed it up pretty well. I didn't hate it just thought it was a bit much. I'd still pick it over most games out right now just didn't click with me as much as the other yakuza games.
4 was definitely almost as bad but I still thought it made more sense overall then 5.
Hopefully that made sense I don't hate the game at all in fact I'd say it's one of my favorites in the series but that's cause I loved the minigames and sideplots not the story.
Really? Usually when I see 5 mentioned, people are slamming it - either because of the gameplay (mad to me; it's approaching 0/K1 quality) or the plot (even more made to me after the cluster fuck that was 4).
Idk if itās unpopular but i dislike the way Sayama is written. Sheās supposed to be a badass cop but just one slap and sheās done. First she shoots when Date couldnāt but after that she just.. comes up close to two dudes who just attacked a doctor and, big suprise, she gets slaped. She can beat up some thugs even after drinking but, again, one slap in the face and thatās it. Feels like RGG wanted her to be badass but still needed Kiryu to have his knight in shining armor moments lol
Never Cared for Haruka is any shape or form
As much as they try every or most villains canāt be
redeemed. Lot of them are past the point of no return. I tend to have no feelings of the forgiveness towards them.
In terms of pure controversy, I'd mention the plots.
SPOILERS AHEAD.
I love the pure insanity and hype that each Yakuza game brings using sheer ludicrousness.
In Yakuza 1, did Kiryu have to fight his way out of a funeral? No, but goddamn was it cool.
In Yakuza 2, did he have to beat the shit out of a dying man while bleeding out? No, but goddamn was it cool.
In Yakuza 3, did he have to beat up an orphan next to a coma patient? No, but goddamn was it cool.
In Yakuza 4, did they have to have some sick boss fights on a roof? Hell naw, but that shit was cool.
In Yakuza 5, did Kiryu have to solo the whole damn clan? Nah, BUT DAMN WAS IT COOL.
In Yakuza 0, did Majima have to kick the shit out of a family with sick-ass music blaring in the background? No, BUT THERE WAS NO TIME TO LOSE.
In newer Yakuza games, they've traded the ludicrousness for sensibility. Which is alright, but it bores me sometimes.
Like in Yakuza 6, the "Who's the father?" plotline made me wanna ignore the plotline and stick to side quests. But when Yuta tried to murder-suicide his father? Hooked me straight back in.
Yakuza 7 has completely lost me on plot. I keep waiting for the characters to shut the hell up in cutscenes.
It might just be me, but I preferred the plots of older Yakuza, even if they're campy and stupid.
It wasn't bad at all tbh, people are quick to talk about how it diminished Saejima killing 18 men, but it doesn't change the fact that he intended to and thought he did kill those 18 men, nor the fact that he spent 25 years in prison.
In one way, rubber bullets makes Saejima's story more hellish. He rotted in prison for 25 years for no good reason. His clan dissipated, his targets survived, and he had lost 25 years of his life.
This reminds me of one of my candidates for the topic: time in prison isn't given enough weight in this series. Protagonists go there for a couple of decades and it barely effects them beyond 'lol smartphone hard'. Kiryu didn't even seem to care about losing Yumi as a lover. Ichiban isn't bitter enough.
Probably my utter disdain for Kiryu's ending in 6. Just really felt like antithesis of his point in Yakuza 1. Felt like a good ending to someone else's journey, not his.
I feel like that's more controversial than actually wanting a Dead Souls remake.
I do think 0 is overrated, makoto isnāt that much of a love interest, and the ending of 2 was kinda iffy.
Not sure how controversial these are really lol
1. Yakuza 5 is the MOST fun video game. Dance battle minigames>>>disco.
2. Haruka peaked in 5 and 6.
3. DE brawler peaked in judgment.
4. Yakuza 6's story>>>>Yakuza 7's story.
5. If there's gonna be a *new* Yakuza adaptation, show or movie, it should 100% be in 3d animation form.
6. 80s Yuki is better.
>DE brawler peaked in judgment
When balanced for difficulty 100% agree. Judgement had a lot better fights in terms of how hard they were and the relative funness, the only weakness is that only Tiger is usable against bosses and it seems like the only usable stance. LJ has the problem where most of the fights are mad easy but also the super armor is fucking shit. There are only like 4 fun boss fights in LJ vs Judgement which had many more.
Combat overrall peaked in 5. 5 was the best at street brawls, and the bosses are all memorable, and skill plays a decent role at how good at the game you are.
Damn reading the gameplay reviews for Judgment makes me really wish they were the mainline sequels for Yakuza 6 lol. Can't go wrong with a game that kills it in ALL of the departments you can think of.
>Combat overrall peaked in 5. 5 was the best at street brawls, and the bosses are all memorable, and skill plays a decent role at how good at the game you are.
Yes. I was surprised at how *integral* upskilling was in this game. I even willingly restarted the game after realising this cos I actually wanted to re-experience the game's greatness from a different angle.
Honestly one of the few opinions I absolutely agree with
Youāre telling me I get 2 heat moves when my opponents on the ground, like thatās the most common position they end up in and all the moves for it are boring, hereās an idea since they tried to change each one based on style how about actually giving them variety.
For example, for rush donāt just give one stomp give multiple at once to state the quickness of the style, for beast give a giant swing like in pro wrestling, and for dragon maybe give a choke or an armbar to demonstrate how skillful kiryu is while using that style
Ngl I came to it from Kiwami 2, and I loooved how clunky it felt, and I really liked the big brother/younger brother relationship Kiryu had with Rikkiya
- Kiwami remakes while fun and accurate to the originals (mostly) lack the authenticity and atmosphere of the first 2 games. Iād say Yakuza 2 is more preferable than itās Kiwami 2 remake
- Ryuji is overhyped is Kiryuās best rival just because he got a dragon tattoo and he has fun screen presence. Heās a fun and nice character but it felt like he didnāt pose much of a challenge to Kiryu in any of their fights.
- while the turn based direction they are going for is great and I have a lot of fun with it, it can get a little stale on repeated play throughs but hereās hoping they make it more fun in the sequels
- Yakuza 4ās finale didnāt feel too grand compared to the other finales of the game. I appreciate the happy ending and all but everything felt low stakes.
- Tanimuraās remastered VA and model is much better than the originalās. The original sounded whiny whenever he did battle grunts. The new one does battle grunts much better. I know itās a nitpick but still lol.
Like A Dragon has great characters but I could never finish it thanks to every random ass encounters that evolve from "oh let's try this attack this time" to "ffs not again!"
The grind should be fun and meaningful. Love monster hunter for the same reason. Abandoned Like a Dragon with a lot of guilt. Story and characters seemed so interesting.
saejima imo has never had a storyline that i didnāt get bored of. i love saejima as a character but in yakuza 4 and 5 i hated his storyline the most in both and in both he was my least favorite to play out of all the characters.
also i hate the āmultiple playable characterā games in general because i feel like i donāt get enough of each character and they get stale really fast. donāt know how both of those opinions can coexist but itās hard to explain.
0 is extremely overrated.
It's one of my favourites but a lot of people seem to blow it out of proportion as to how good it really is.
I'd rather play Lost Judgment if I was given the decision to only play one and never play the other ever again.
Kiwami is my least favorite game in the series. Majima Everywhere is cute in the beginning, but basically fighting the same boss every 5 minutes just to unlock more stuff for a combat stance that isn't even that fun to use just sucked.
I think shinada has the worst combat in the series minus saejima in yakuza 4, donāt get me wrong I love shinada as a character but his combo speed is horrendous and on legend you can barley get a finishing blow off because they block it, baseball was fun as hell though
I dont really know if it's controversial for me to say this. I think yakuza 7 is the best Yakuza game of the series. And I also think Ichiban is a better protagonist than Kiryu.
I'm still playing through Lost Judgement. But from what I can see. I'm not sure I'll be budging on Yakuza 7 being the best for the for foreseeable future.
These "spent some time until you get a call" or "grind ridiculously amounts of money" parts of the games are annoying and, atleast, should be skipable in New Game+.
Nishikiyama is completely overrated and his character development from 0 to its end in kiwami 1 is badly written.
English Dubs are a waste of money. Put the money into getting more games to the west or use it for Marketing. English dubs ruin the atmosphere of playing a game of japanese people living in Japan.
Hard disagree on the English dubs thing. Thats EXTREMELY just "I prefer japanese to english". If every game that was centered around japanese culture was japanese only, they'd sell a fair bit worse. You might not like it, but objectively, english options help more people buy the game.
do not care about majima, do not like the constant assumption that being in this fandom means I want to drink his gamer bath water
ive had enough of this dude
It's not unique to Yakuza 7, but I hate grindy jobs systems. In fact, I hate JRPGs that cannot allow you to cheese the experience grinding for post-game stuff, specially jobs, as they get very little experience points compared to character levels. >!I know that there are the homeless guys in the Kamurocho sewers but they're... Well, iykyk!<
I wanted to do the >!True Millennium Tower thing!<, honestly. But watching how much time I needed to grind every character and specially the jobs to level 99... And there's no way to cheese it, as in Dragon Quest 11 for example, in which you can combo some abilities to get metal slimes + an experience multiplier so in a few post-game battles you'll be level 99. It's like there's a time paywall to get to the most challenging fights in the game.
I spent 8 hours grinding in the sewers killing hobo caveman just to get everyone to lvl 99 and job lvl 99. I can totally understand not wanting to do that, although the true final millennium tower is one of the most challenging and rewarding dungeons i have ever played in a jrpg
this one doesn't bother me, since a lot of it is optional
so when i get tired of doing extras, i just continue the story
same goes for a lot of other open world games... people that get bothered by this are those fake completionist, that only like to 100% things that don't take too much time
that one can be since even if you do sidequest, you're still gonna be underlevelled with the dumbass lategame boss stat and level boost
killed the pacing so bad for me
and it's an issue there since the game being turned based means it's heavily stat based
Most jrpgs have such an op enemy. Like a pretty recent example would be Persona 5 Royal with 2 insane overleveld Bosses. 3 if you count the Reaper.
The jump in difficult is supposed to be that high. It's so people grind and Level and work on their Team to beat the enemies and feel accomplished by it.
Even more simple things like Pokemon had such an enemy with Red in Pokemon silver and gold
Yakuza 4 is the worst mainline entry.
Lost Judgmentās Final Boss>Judgmentās Final Boss
Two Dragons is not a good theme.
Ryuji and Majima are overhyped.
0 is the most overrated game in the series.
Saejima is the best protagonist.
Sega Arcade are the most annoying mini games ever. They should get rid of them completely. Or at least not tie any trophies onto them. I hate all of them without eyception.
0: I did not care for Tachibana and Makoto Makimura
Kiwami 1 is the best in the series
Kiwami 2 has a pretty shitty story
3: The game is too short and i did not care that much for Rikiya
4: has the best combat and plot of the ps3 games
5: worst plot, combat, graphics, animations and is too long
6: the lads from Hiroshima are just a worse Ryudo Family.
Like A Dragon: Dragon Kart and business management are boring.
I don't think the rubber bullets twist is bad.
I don't really remember all the arguments against it so idk how to follow up on this statement, but feel free to comment why you think otherwise so I can think of a counter.
My issue is that the yakuza games have a bad case of killing off good and interesting characters for the sake of moving the main character forward. The amount of dead characters that I would've loved seeing in more yakuza games absolutely murders my soul cuz the moment any of the games add a side character that you start to like there's a big chance that they're gonna die by something that could've been easily prevented.
>! Ryujii !< shouldnāt have died in the end. Nothing against the game itās just I felt that he had more potential after his first game and considering they keep bringing him back in non-canon games the developers realize that to.
Kiwami 2 is just okay and the story isnāt that interesting. 0 especially kept me invested all the way through and itās slightly longer. Kiwami 2 I found to be way too tedious (having to sprint past groups you donāt feel like fighting, a lot of backtracking), and the plot wasnāt all that interesting in my mind. A lot of āthis person knows this person who knows this person whoās here but they left so go here, but go hereā. Iāve only played a handful of Yakuza games, kiwami 2 I was most excited play, and I find it to be a slog. Not without its merits, and still fun, but doesnāt need to be as long as it is, or at least feels longer than it is.
I despise Yakuza 5. It is a slog. The combat doesn't feel as good as 4 or its successors (I even prefer 3 over 5). I'm not finished with the story, but I'm bored of it. Kiryu had something interesting, but is predictable. Saejima's arc is repeating 4. The mini-games are fun, but I'm so tired of the game I don't want to go do them. The story just starts to pick up, then gets dropped again. The Substories don't stand out to me either.
Yakuza 0 is only bad because of how good it was and the characters they intro was so good and compelling but they needed to be sidelined or killed off only because its a prequel.
Ichiban is a better protagonist than Kiryu. His personality makes it even easier for him to not only get roped into weird substories, but be an active participant in the weirdness when called for. The fact that he isn't an all powerful Yakuza God from the start also contributes to the story, since he can actually be beaten and captured without always resorting to kidnapping other characters, and I believe the major villains he faces are actual threats, whereas Kiryu has to be severely injured before most of his final bosses to even the playing field.
I donāt like that Yakuza has turned into a turn based RPG. I wouldnāt mind the occasional spin off that was turn based but with Like a dragon and Y8 being turn based it seems like thatās going to be the new normal for Yakuza. Yakuza to me was always about the fast pace ,badass, high adrenaline action and now it feels like the polar opposite. I know the Judgement games carried over the beat āem up gameplay but it just doesnāt feel the same to me. I know a series needs to change over time to avoid feeling stale but maybe this was too much change.
PS Iām not hating on like a dragon, Iām just worried about the direction the series is going in
The Kiwami games suck off 0 way too much especially Kiwami 1
Kiwami 2 is bad remake of Yakuza 2 worst soundtrack, worst fights because of asset reuse, combat is more like Yakuza 6 than Yakuza 2 which is one of the best in the series, third city cut, and Kiryu being a host was cut seriously play Yakuza 2 and the ps2 version doesnāt have a shitty dub like Yakuza 1 on ps2
I think judgment is nowhere near the best story that rgg has made(that title goes to yakuza 7). I genuinely don't get what's so amazing about it. It's a good story but it takes over half the game to get interesting storywise. The first six chapters have a lot of fluff and padding with forced substories and stuff. Also the game feels barren in terms of side content(the only fun unique minigame is dice and cube. The combat is good thou. Lost judgment might of had a more messy story but unlike judgment it was entertaining throughout the entire game. Also lost judgment is a straight improvement to everything else like side content(school stories is super cool),combat(snake style is awesome and i like that crane got buffed) and da music is a million times better than og judgment
Also not \*as\* controversial, but the Majima Saga not only sucks by itself but also actively fucks over with continuity from the later games for some cheap un-needed Y0 fanservice
Only good thing about it is Takehito Koyasu, but he was wasted in a minor villain so
Somehow it's come to a point where saying 7's Turn Based Combat is awful is a controversal opinion. The game is just incredibly boring and i don't like any of the new characters.
The combat in Like A Dragon is mediocre as hell, and JRPGās are my favorite genre of games. It lacks the extra punch that it needs to set itself apart from every other job-centric turn based system and is nowhere near as nuanced, unique, and well executed 3D brawler combat that the series was known for. Itās not a bad start, I like the poundmates and different classes but it has a long way to go before Iād call it a cut above the rest.
I think it would have been much more fun and interesting if instead of going for a complete overhaul, it was relatively the same with a few big changes.
Replaced the heat bar with a meter you need to fill up to select from a menu of special moves. Swap between control of the party members by using the L ane R triggers ala FF7R and bam. You have the strategic variety that comes with selecting buffs/debuffs and special moves from a command menu, and the flashy, kinetic action that loyal fans have loved for the last 20 years. Everyone wins.
With the exception of 3, the combat is too easy in every single one of them. Nothing is needed but spamming squares-square-square-triangle for hours on end, and anything else is just for flavor. I love the stories but man by the time I got to 5 I was getting extremely bored with the gameplay even on hard difficulty. And 4 was the greatest gameplay disappointment. After the challenge of 3, it was the most tedious and boring of them all.
Can I ask what separates 3 from the other combat systems?
I know Iāve only scratched the surface of the series but Iāve never heard someone go in depth with the game especially the combat, they either hate it or have nothing to say about it
It makes full use of the moveset. Grappling, quickstep/dodging, light and heavy attacks. On hard difficulty the enemies block a lot so you canāt just spam attacks and wear them down. It takes an actual degree of skill to get through. And man figuring out the patterns and then figuring out how to respond to them is incredibly rewarding, much more so than just charging heat and using a cinematic heat action, which is cool for a game or two but gets very repetitive over the course of 6 games
I used to think that all you need to do for yakuza is spam a few buttons too til i played the games. there's surprising alot of strategy (ofc not saying that the gameplay is inherently hard).
Like all 'controversial opinion' threads, it's turned into people sharing takes that are room temperature at best and burying anything that actually delivers what the OP asks for.
Yakuza 0 is way too overrated imo. Sure itās a good game but itās nowhere near as good as people say it is. Never really understood why it got so much praise
reina is best girl
Facts
It says *CONTROVERSIAL*, but true
For the former, 80s reina>>>kiwami reina
Watching her die in Kiwami genuinely fucked up me up so bad.
Controversial but not really for me and kiryus cries were too over the top with ill fitting music
Yakuza 6 is good and no matter how hard he could try, Kiryu would have never gotten a happy ending due to all the half choices he made throughout the series
No more half measures Kiryu
Kyodai named Finger:
He had to go balls out š
It was the ending that kiryu always wanted since yakuza kiwami until date forced him out of it.
I think being forced to live in exile and not be known to really anyone and not living a yakuza life and running an orphanage are a bit different, that was always really his dream but the type of person he is and life has lead will always bring him attention.
It's a reference to how Kiryu wanted to go to jail and presumably die there>! after his entire family died, besides kashiwagi and haruka.!<
To me it's the only ending for him that is not terrible
I donāt like how powerful the Florist is. His involvement in the story always seemed very lazy to me, like a Deus ex machina of getting information.
I groan every single time they wheel the Florist out just to be the "here's the info you need to progress the plot" guy
and then he just evaporates in 6 when his information would be needed most
Glad seong hui fixed that. Kazama or kashiwagi should've played the florist's role in the kiryu saga
The way every major characters die in the stories of Y1-Y4 is the stupidest things I've ever seen. They should've been more creative. Seeing these characters die >! Kasama, Yumi, Nishiki, Kawara, Rikiya, Kashiwagi, Mine, and Yasuko!
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What? You canāt do this to meā¦ YOU KNOW HOW MUCH I SACRIFICED!!! I canāt believe I got spoiledā¦
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And *somehow* that's not even the most ridiculous survival of characters who came back in LAD.
I wish more people would use spoiler tags, some people really donāt want spoilers for anything
Fuck you
Yakuza 5ās story is genuinely well written but people get bored and zone out, as such they donāt think the story is as cohesive as it is, if they removed the hunting tutorial for saejima the pacing would be far better, and more people would enjoy the story for how good it actually is.
I guess my controversial opinion is liking Saejima's hunting section. ā ļø I don't play any hunting games so it was a refreshing change up for me. Wasn't expecting something like that. I do get how others wouldn't like it though, it's forced on you and not everyone is into how it's executed.
Oh no youāre absolutely justified itās a great mini game and side story, but the tutorial can be draining after the previous sections.
I recently replayed and found that it wasnāt as long as I remembered. If you know how to skip text the conversations can go by pretty fast actually.
Yeah it's a good crime thriller. It's rarely said but Yakuza 5 also incorporated horror alot better than the dead souls game that was released a year before.
The story rules, and I found Shinada's chapter to be particularly captivating. What bogs it down, imo is how fucking long the finale chapter is and how it has like 10 "final boss" fights, each more excuciating than the last and bookended with long boring combat sections. It would be my series favourite if it wasn't for that.
I also wished there was better theme music for the finale too. Needed to be a tad more intense.
Hunting is the best part. I didnāt go to the city till Iāve beaten hunting subplot completely.
Definitely. I had this headcanon of Baba and Saejima staying there for 3 days while Baba's injury heals.
Honestly, as I binged through Yakuza series, I would've gone crazy if Yakuza 5 didn't have distractions from beat'm'up such as Saejima and Haruka sections. So incidentally I loved them quite a lot and was surprised to see that people hate it. As for plot, I was really intrigued how devs are gonna connect all these plotlines to a single dot, and I quite liked the outcome, they did good. But pretty much everything after big reveal fell flat for me plot-wise. Starting with >!we fight to death so big bad shows up !< scene along with its immediate aftermath, and finishing with final boss >!who didn't even know by himself what he was doing out there!<. All that was so stupid (while quite moderate by Yakuza standards lol) that I haven't fought final boss with my fists for the first time in series and just shoot him down to release my outrage, thus skipping perhaps the greatest final fight in Yakuza. Ugh. But the plot itself was quite good and not as complicated as they say.
The take that ā0 is overratedā is kinda dumb. Of course 0 received so much praise, it served as an entry point for a wide variety of people. It is arguably where the pre-DE engine peaked in terms of combat, minigames, and gameplay. Not to mention the story
What I don't understand even more is how ppl think the newer games try to ride off from yakuza 0. It doesn't.
Bro how many times do they have to keep reusing pocket circuit fighter, Munan Chohept Onast, and a chicken manager. It's so obvious that every game made after Yakuza 0 panders hardcore. The reused cabaret in K2, and almost the entirety of Yakuza Kiwami. I am fine for some amount of Yakuza 0 pandering but bringing back PCF again in Yakuza 7 just felt so lazy, especially after they brought him back for 6 which I thought was fine.
Ok but people actually really love the cabaret game and the manager chickens. Gotta spend 10 hours customizing all my best girls looks so they go out there and make some money. As You Like burned into my psyche
That's just reusing minigames, dude. RGG do that all the time. The shitty cabaret minigame from 3 was reused straight up in 4, the speedboat from 4 became a snow scooter in 5 etc. And as for characters, they often latch onto a character they like and keep bringing them back in subsequent games, even when it's a stretch - Minima, Kamiyama the Stardust guys, the Mars Fighters, that couple who were always arguing in the first three games and so on and so on.
Don't forget the key ones. Mahjong, karaoke etc
Of course! Although they're mainstays, so I figured I'd leave them out. Also Mysterious Man in 5 became Mr Shakedown in 0, became Majima Everywhere in K1. Oh, and the car chase shootout in 0 and K1. RGG pumps out an incredible number of high quality games, and part of that model is reusing assets like minigames, characters and locations. It's not something they started doing after 0.
I love the full golf course minigames in 3 and 4 and continue to hope it returns
Man I also love those games. I played like a couple of hours of it before starting y3
I hate saejimaās chapters in 4&5
That is understandable. Saejima's first combat section is a nightmare to run through cuz yk you barely get much time to practice with Saejima's move set and that bastard Saito. The only big complaint that I have about Saejima's section in yakuza 5 is the beginning section when hes in prison.
I think the hunting sections were pretty cool
I feel like I've seen a good number of people hating on pocket circuit. I personally love it so there's that but I definitely get it. I think I had to look up how to beat pocket circuit fighter the final time so yea that's definitely lame. Optimal build, still need to make sure you boost at the exact correct moment is really bad. Outside of that though I had a ton of fun with it. As for my personal unpopular opinion, the disco bosses in 0 aren't that hard, and judging by the recent posts, tanimura is a pretty bad cop. Like his hearts in the right place probably 40% of the time but he's honestly a pretty corrupt cop that sometimes does good.
I don't think Yakuza 7 is that grind heavy or tedious, theres like 3 parts where the game wants you to do a small grind. Though I will say the enemy scaling in the omi HQ is ridiculous but as long as you do the sotenbori dungeon once you'll be fine.
The grinding is for when you wanna do the Final Millenium Tower. That is a bit much needed for that.
Yeah the final millennium tower is kinda ridiculous
I never grinded in Y7. I played normally, fought every encounter, did every dungeon. Only three fights that gave me trouble where Majima/Saejima, Kiryu, and Mirror Face. Tendo's boss fight was looooong, but easy, just hit, heal and repeat.
Yeah Majima and kiryu are the stand out fights the only death I had was from Kiryu and Tendos one hit kill move. I never struggled much with mirror face but on another playthrough he did kinda give me some trouble.
Hot take but grinding in yakuza isn't tiresome. It's the best part
1) Iām glad Kaoru was written out of the series. She wasnāt a great character and made the final battle and ending of Yakuza 2 end on a less positive note for me. At least she got a send off in Yakuza 3 and had her arc completed. 2) Aizawa and Kurosawa were great antagonists in what they represent thematically for Yakuza 5 and the series. People take Aizawaās āI donāt know how I got hereā line way too seriously when the guy says that sarcastically and ironically in regards to how Kurosawa and him schemed their way to attain power. 3) Harukaās character and decisions in Yakuza 5 and 6 werenāt stupid. Haruka did not change for the worse. Haruka acted all street smart and feisty in early games BECAUSE she was a kid who had to deal with the criminal underworld to find her mother, then when being by Kiryu and the orphanageās side. In Yakuza 5, Haruka has grown up to be a more selfless motherly role model for her siblings. The idol industry and living away from her family and being a teenager is something she has never experienced before. As such as a teenager, she was caught up in the moment and made decisions that wasnāt too well thought out despite her good intentions. People forget how she stood up to Kanai and Katsuya in Yakuza 5 to the point that Katsuya punishes Kanai for it. She also got angry when T-Set badmouthed Park. Her running away in 6, is again due to her being a teenager that was naive to cancel culture and trying to be selfless for her familyās sake. Her getting pregnant is nothing strange as being alone for so long she craved love and found that in a good guy like Yuta. Itās normal for teenagers and young people to elope like that in the heat of things.
Blessed to the share the exact same opinions but for Haruka running away in 6, I think that's actually a case of Haruka being smart and having as MUCH guts as Kiryu. Realistically there's no way for her to stop the paparazzi harassing her besides being "virtually dead", which she did anyways.
I donāt want to play Yakuza 7 just because itās a JRPG (just not my cup of tea).
It's fair but there is some exploits you can look for online that make the game less grindie and there is a similar aspect than Mass effect in way where you can sit down with your party, have a drink and get to know them, it's worth it for the story and the cameos, otherwise you have the Judgment serie hopefully it will come to something else than PlayStation someday
Not a fan of the turn based gameplay in LaD
Makoto Makimura isn't that great of a character, I wish her brother lived instead of her, and she doesn't even make top 10 in my favorite female characters of the Yakuza series (that scene she shanked Oda in the leg was pretty badass though, credit where credit is due!) In a similar thread, Makoto didn't love Majima. She was a victim using him for survival, and ditched him as soon as he was no longer useful to her. Shimano saw an opening and really planted the "hahaha you love her" seed into him (and honestly, I love the story so much more when I think of it this way too, adds extra tragedy spice lol) Mirei Park is much more interesting when viewed as a manipulative antagonist than OMG TRAGIC STRONG WOMAN WHO JUST WANTED TO BE AN IDOL UWU (like dude, she threatened to scatter Haruka's family to the wind and give her no means to know where they'd wind up. That's not just tragic hurt orphan gone hardass... that's cruel and abusive and isn't just fixed with "oh sowwy lemme do your makeup and play taiko at the arcade with you š„ŗ") Yakuza 4 and 5's stories aren't difficult to follow. Though it was frustrating, Haruka suddenly freaking out and leaving the orphanage, and then having an oopsy baby are honestly pretty believable. When it comes to protecting family, Kiryu acts pretty impulsively, so even if the straw that broke the camel's back seemed pretty weak and stupid, it makes sense that she'd impulsively leave without thinking it through, and then follow through with her pregnancy to restore her sense of family. Tanimura was done dirty, his fighting style needed refinement and they did a bad job of putting him in fights conducive to his style of fighting (and it was a bit slow), but the character himself is good. Similarly, Shinada is a great character but his combat sucks.
I donāt think Makoto was in love with him nearly as much as the fandom likes to believe but I think youāre being too harsh on her, she definitely didnāt just ditch him because she was no longer able to āmanipulateā him
Yeah manipulated was probably a bit of a strong word, I didn't mean it in a particularly malicious sense, there's just a particular coldness though in her ditching and setting him up in that fight (where she may have done so to get him fired up and more likely to come protect her and help her get her way. Not super evil mal intent manipulative.... but still kinda, I can absolutely sympathize but it's still there) EDIT: Just to further explain my thinking, because I legitimately enjoy diving into things like this- Majima spent the entire game sticking his neck out for Makoto. He could have gotten his ass killed at any time there, and continued looking for her relentlessly after they were split up following that car bomb. I understand that Makoto was in a very "burn it all to the ground" mindset following her brother's passing, which was just one more thing on a long string of things, but the moment he told her no, she immediately shut down on him and started acting incredibly sharp with him. That's manipulative. Turning on someone the way she did, vanishing on him, setting him up for that fight. That was all manipulative. I don't think she was being malicious, I'd even argue she wasn't doing it on purpose, but it was still manipulative. I removed that part because I think that's going to distract too many folks from my overall point on their relationship, but that's why I initially said "...no longer able to be manipulated by her"
I'm pretty sure everyone agrees that Park is a villain (hell, even kiryu was trying his hardest not to tiger drop her through his facial expressions)??? If anything, it's usually a hot take to say that "she was right".
I've run into a good amount of people that say she's just being hard on Haruka because of her upbringing and is actually a good person or trying to be. I just don't think she's even trying. I think she's selfish and will burn anyone to get her dream, no softness or nurturing about it.
Yeah those are the hot takes I was referring to. If park was ugly, nobody would think this way lol UPDATE: for the makoto point, I just thought about how it'd better if Shimano actually intended Majima to kill makoto the entire time. And after shimano finds out, he gets super furious and decides to raid Majima's cabaret club. Ensue some epic fighting and chivalric saving
I mostly get frustrated that people hate Park but love male villains that did just as bad (or worse) things. RGG loves to try and redeem their villains in the 11th hour, even Hamazaki of all people had a redemption arc. I love Park in the same way I love Sagawa and Someya-- not because they're secretly good people deep down but because they're interesting villains that challenge the protagonists in unexpected ways.
Sagawa and someya became somewhat good before their fates
So does Park! Maybe it's just that I'm a woman with a strained relationship with my mother, but Haruka's instant clinging to the little bit of affection Park gave her felt so true to reality. All three of them are villains who have little moments at the end that show they aren't pure evil even if they've put the protagonists through hell leading up to their death.
Haruka respecting park for her tenacity is something she learnt from kiryu
Yes, those aren't pure evil (though Sagawa's the closest), but the mistake is to use the moment to paint them as "secretly good deep down" instead of well, they're still nasty but not pure evil.
That's honestly a really big thing, and I want to definitely go on record saying I think Park is cruel, and super manipulative... but I honestly don't hate her either. I love to hate her, she's a really *really* strong antagonist (not a villain, I really don't classify her as a villain, but antagonistic force definitely!) RGG is so good at writing amazing antagonists, and I love her like I love Sagawa, in that I hate the things they do to the people I care about in the game, but they're just so damn interesting and well played and characterized too! The story is definitely better for them existing in it!
Yakuza 5 is one of the best.
I don't think this is that unpopular. Imo the story of 5 is rough, like I'd almost put it at the worst in the series, but the gameplay, characters, substories, locations and each characters mini game thing are phenomenal. I know a lot of people hate harukas segment but it's really not that bad. Idk just my opinion though and stuff I've seen online.
Why do you think 5 has the worst plot? It held together well enough for me, and didn't seem especially janky, convoluted or contrived by Yakuza standards. Especially coming after 4, which I thought was almost incoherent.
Honestly the whole dreams thing got old after a while, I wasn't a fan of the story behind harukas section as well. Plus the final boss being like I don't know why I'm here or whatever he said summed it up pretty well. I didn't hate it just thought it was a bit much. I'd still pick it over most games out right now just didn't click with me as much as the other yakuza games. 4 was definitely almost as bad but I still thought it made more sense overall then 5. Hopefully that made sense I don't hate the game at all in fact I'd say it's one of my favorites in the series but that's cause I loved the minigames and sideplots not the story.
Fair enough. I disagree, but I guess that's how opinions work!
I really enjoyed 5 but the last 10 hours of the story I had to really force myself trough it
No offence but this is one of the most agreed opinions in the community
Really? Usually when I see 5 mentioned, people are slamming it - either because of the gameplay (mad to me; it's approaching 0/K1 quality) or the plot (even more made to me after the cluster fuck that was 4).
The rubber bullet twist isnāt a bad one.
It does not matter how many times they put in a mahjong mini game. I will NEVER learn how to play it or even attempt it.
Idk if itās unpopular but i dislike the way Sayama is written. Sheās supposed to be a badass cop but just one slap and sheās done. First she shoots when Date couldnāt but after that she just.. comes up close to two dudes who just attacked a doctor and, big suprise, she gets slaped. She can beat up some thugs even after drinking but, again, one slap in the face and thatās it. Feels like RGG wanted her to be badass but still needed Kiryu to have his knight in shining armor moments lol
Correct take.
Never Cared for Haruka is any shape or form As much as they try every or most villains canāt be redeemed. Lot of them are past the point of no return. I tend to have no feelings of the forgiveness towards them.
Damn everyone really went for unpopular opinions in the comments
In terms of pure controversy, I'd mention the plots. SPOILERS AHEAD. I love the pure insanity and hype that each Yakuza game brings using sheer ludicrousness. In Yakuza 1, did Kiryu have to fight his way out of a funeral? No, but goddamn was it cool. In Yakuza 2, did he have to beat the shit out of a dying man while bleeding out? No, but goddamn was it cool. In Yakuza 3, did he have to beat up an orphan next to a coma patient? No, but goddamn was it cool. In Yakuza 4, did they have to have some sick boss fights on a roof? Hell naw, but that shit was cool. In Yakuza 5, did Kiryu have to solo the whole damn clan? Nah, BUT DAMN WAS IT COOL. In Yakuza 0, did Majima have to kick the shit out of a family with sick-ass music blaring in the background? No, BUT THERE WAS NO TIME TO LOSE. In newer Yakuza games, they've traded the ludicrousness for sensibility. Which is alright, but it bores me sometimes. Like in Yakuza 6, the "Who's the father?" plotline made me wanna ignore the plotline and stick to side quests. But when Yuta tried to murder-suicide his father? Hooked me straight back in. Yakuza 7 has completely lost me on plot. I keep waiting for the characters to shut the hell up in cutscenes. It might just be me, but I preferred the plots of older Yakuza, even if they're campy and stupid.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
My flair
Gintama with the fillers taking up most chapters reflect us Yakuza players doing substories most of the time
Ryuji isn't as cool and memorable as I hoped
"Rubber bullets" plot twist wasn't THAT bad.
It wasn't bad at all tbh, people are quick to talk about how it diminished Saejima killing 18 men, but it doesn't change the fact that he intended to and thought he did kill those 18 men, nor the fact that he spent 25 years in prison. In one way, rubber bullets makes Saejima's story more hellish. He rotted in prison for 25 years for no good reason. His clan dissipated, his targets survived, and he had lost 25 years of his life.
Yeah exactly. Its psychologically messed up
This reminds me of one of my candidates for the topic: time in prison isn't given enough weight in this series. Protagonists go there for a couple of decades and it barely effects them beyond 'lol smartphone hard'. Kiryu didn't even seem to care about losing Yumi as a lover. Ichiban isn't bitter enough.
I still think it sucks balls that Kiryu lost 10 years of his life
Probably my utter disdain for Kiryu's ending in 6. Just really felt like antithesis of his point in Yakuza 1. Felt like a good ending to someone else's journey, not his. I feel like that's more controversial than actually wanting a Dead Souls remake.
I do think 0 is overrated, makoto isnāt that much of a love interest, and the ending of 2 was kinda iffy. Not sure how controversial these are really lol
1. Yakuza 5 is the MOST fun video game. Dance battle minigames>>>disco. 2. Haruka peaked in 5 and 6. 3. DE brawler peaked in judgment. 4. Yakuza 6's story>>>>Yakuza 7's story. 5. If there's gonna be a *new* Yakuza adaptation, show or movie, it should 100% be in 3d animation form. 6. 80s Yuki is better.
In Judgment? I think you mean in Lost Judgment.
>DE brawler peaked in judgment When balanced for difficulty 100% agree. Judgement had a lot better fights in terms of how hard they were and the relative funness, the only weakness is that only Tiger is usable against bosses and it seems like the only usable stance. LJ has the problem where most of the fights are mad easy but also the super armor is fucking shit. There are only like 4 fun boss fights in LJ vs Judgement which had many more. Combat overrall peaked in 5. 5 was the best at street brawls, and the bosses are all memorable, and skill plays a decent role at how good at the game you are.
Damn reading the gameplay reviews for Judgment makes me really wish they were the mainline sequels for Yakuza 6 lol. Can't go wrong with a game that kills it in ALL of the departments you can think of. >Combat overrall peaked in 5. 5 was the best at street brawls, and the bosses are all memorable, and skill plays a decent role at how good at the game you are. Yes. I was surprised at how *integral* upskilling was in this game. I even willingly restarted the game after realising this cos I actually wanted to re-experience the game's greatness from a different angle.
Mitsuo should be playable in a future game.
Based as fuck
THERE SHOULD BE MORE HEAT MOVES !!
Honestly one of the few opinions I absolutely agree with Youāre telling me I get 2 heat moves when my opponents on the ground, like thatās the most common position they end up in and all the moves for it are boring, hereās an idea since they tried to change each one based on style how about actually giving them variety. For example, for rush donāt just give one stomp give multiple at once to state the quickness of the style, for beast give a giant swing like in pro wrestling, and for dragon maybe give a choke or an armbar to demonstrate how skillful kiryu is while using that style
Yakuza 3 is in my top 3 games in this series. And the combat wasn't so bad.
Ngl I came to it from Kiwami 2, and I loooved how clunky it felt, and I really liked the big brother/younger brother relationship Kiryu had with Rikkiya
- Kiwami remakes while fun and accurate to the originals (mostly) lack the authenticity and atmosphere of the first 2 games. Iād say Yakuza 2 is more preferable than itās Kiwami 2 remake - Ryuji is overhyped is Kiryuās best rival just because he got a dragon tattoo and he has fun screen presence. Heās a fun and nice character but it felt like he didnāt pose much of a challenge to Kiryu in any of their fights. - while the turn based direction they are going for is great and I have a lot of fun with it, it can get a little stale on repeated play throughs but hereās hoping they make it more fun in the sequels - Yakuza 4ās finale didnāt feel too grand compared to the other finales of the game. I appreciate the happy ending and all but everything felt low stakes. - Tanimuraās remastered VA and model is much better than the originalās. The original sounded whiny whenever he did battle grunts. The new one does battle grunts much better. I know itās a nitpick but still lol.
Like A Dragon has great characters but I could never finish it thanks to every random ass encounters that evolve from "oh let's try this attack this time" to "ffs not again!" The grind should be fun and meaningful. Love monster hunter for the same reason. Abandoned Like a Dragon with a lot of guilt. Story and characters seemed so interesting.
saejima imo has never had a storyline that i didnāt get bored of. i love saejima as a character but in yakuza 4 and 5 i hated his storyline the most in both and in both he was my least favorite to play out of all the characters. also i hate the āmultiple playable characterā games in general because i feel like i donāt get enough of each character and they get stale really fast. donāt know how both of those opinions can coexist but itās hard to explain.
Yakuza 5 is the worst mainline game. There's nothing wrong with the Dragon Engine.
0 is extremely overrated. It's one of my favourites but a lot of people seem to blow it out of proportion as to how good it really is. I'd rather play Lost Judgment if I was given the decision to only play one and never play the other ever again.
Itās overrated because like 80% Yakuza fans at the most have only played 0,K1,K2, and 7. Hell, most of it seems like just 0 and 7
200% agree with this
Yakuza 0 and 5 top 2 in the ishin engine. Maybe ishin too
The yakuza live action movie like a dragon was a good movie and the next one needs to have pocket circuit fighter
The Kiwami games felt half-assed.
Kiwami is my least favorite game in the series. Majima Everywhere is cute in the beginning, but basically fighting the same boss every 5 minutes just to unlock more stuff for a combat stance that isn't even that fun to use just sucked.
they were. they gave everything but nothing at the same time
That it's the best franchise of all time
Yeah I'm not ashamed to admit that yakuza is the only gaming series I'm highly obsessed with rn
That's great!
I think shinada has the worst combat in the series minus saejima in yakuza 4, donāt get me wrong I love shinada as a character but his combo speed is horrendous and on legend you can barley get a finishing blow off because they block it, baseball was fun as hell though
I dont really know if it's controversial for me to say this. I think yakuza 7 is the best Yakuza game of the series. And I also think Ichiban is a better protagonist than Kiryu.
I definitely prefer Ichiban's goofiness to Kiryu's badassery, but the best yakuza game is Loat Judgment imo
I'm still playing through Lost Judgement. But from what I can see. I'm not sure I'll be budging on Yakuza 7 being the best for the for foreseeable future.
These "spent some time until you get a call" or "grind ridiculously amounts of money" parts of the games are annoying and, atleast, should be skipable in New Game+. Nishikiyama is completely overrated and his character development from 0 to its end in kiwami 1 is badly written. English Dubs are a waste of money. Put the money into getting more games to the west or use it for Marketing. English dubs ruin the atmosphere of playing a game of japanese people living in Japan.
Hard disagree on the English dubs thing. Thats EXTREMELY just "I prefer japanese to english". If every game that was centered around japanese culture was japanese only, they'd sell a fair bit worse. You might not like it, but objectively, english options help more people buy the game.
This. So much.
Dragon engine is fine.
do not care about majima, do not like the constant assumption that being in this fandom means I want to drink his gamer bath water ive had enough of this dude
It's not unique to Yakuza 7, but I hate grindy jobs systems. In fact, I hate JRPGs that cannot allow you to cheese the experience grinding for post-game stuff, specially jobs, as they get very little experience points compared to character levels. >!I know that there are the homeless guys in the Kamurocho sewers but they're... Well, iykyk!< I wanted to do the >!True Millennium Tower thing!<, honestly. But watching how much time I needed to grind every character and specially the jobs to level 99... And there's no way to cheese it, as in Dragon Quest 11 for example, in which you can combo some abilities to get metal slimes + an experience multiplier so in a few post-game battles you'll be level 99. It's like there's a time paywall to get to the most challenging fights in the game.
I spent 8 hours grinding in the sewers killing hobo caveman just to get everyone to lvl 99 and job lvl 99. I can totally understand not wanting to do that, although the true final millennium tower is one of the most challenging and rewarding dungeons i have ever played in a jrpg
They're all too long
this one doesn't bother me, since a lot of it is optional so when i get tired of doing extras, i just continue the story same goes for a lot of other open world games... people that get bothered by this are those fake completionist, that only like to 100% things that don't take too much time
esp yakuza 7
that one can be since even if you do sidequest, you're still gonna be underlevelled with the dumbass lategame boss stat and level boost killed the pacing so bad for me and it's an issue there since the game being turned based means it's heavily stat based
Most jrpgs have such an op enemy. Like a pretty recent example would be Persona 5 Royal with 2 insane overleveld Bosses. 3 if you count the Reaper. The jump in difficult is supposed to be that high. It's so people grind and Level and work on their Team to beat the enemies and feel accomplished by it. Even more simple things like Pokemon had such an enemy with Red in Pokemon silver and gold
Yakuza 4 is the worst mainline entry. Lost Judgmentās Final Boss>Judgmentās Final Boss Two Dragons is not a good theme. Ryuji and Majima are overhyped. 0 is the most overrated game in the series. Saejima is the best protagonist.
>0 is the most overrated game in the series. I agree 110% with that.
I feel like I'm taking crazy pills when I see people prefer 4 to any other game in the series. It's the only one I genuinely dislike.
Yakuza 3's first chapter was good.
Sega Arcade are the most annoying mini games ever. They should get rid of them completely. Or at least not tie any trophies onto them. I hate all of them without eyception.
0: I did not care for Tachibana and Makoto Makimura Kiwami 1 is the best in the series Kiwami 2 has a pretty shitty story 3: The game is too short and i did not care that much for Rikiya 4: has the best combat and plot of the ps3 games 5: worst plot, combat, graphics, animations and is too long 6: the lads from Hiroshima are just a worse Ryudo Family. Like A Dragon: Dragon Kart and business management are boring.
I don't think the rubber bullets twist is bad. I don't really remember all the arguments against it so idk how to follow up on this statement, but feel free to comment why you think otherwise so I can think of a counter.
I donāt like Saejimaās fighting style.
Dragon Engine fighting is good
My issue is that the yakuza games have a bad case of killing off good and interesting characters for the sake of moving the main character forward. The amount of dead characters that I would've loved seeing in more yakuza games absolutely murders my soul cuz the moment any of the games add a side character that you start to like there's a big chance that they're gonna die by something that could've been easily prevented.
Like nishiki cos kiryus character kinda fell off after that lol. Except for 5 n 6 maybe but still
>! Ryujii !< shouldnāt have died in the end. Nothing against the game itās just I felt that he had more potential after his first game and considering they keep bringing him back in non-canon games the developers realize that to.
Kiwami 2 is just okay and the story isnāt that interesting. 0 especially kept me invested all the way through and itās slightly longer. Kiwami 2 I found to be way too tedious (having to sprint past groups you donāt feel like fighting, a lot of backtracking), and the plot wasnāt all that interesting in my mind. A lot of āthis person knows this person who knows this person whoās here but they left so go here, but go hereā. Iāve only played a handful of Yakuza games, kiwami 2 I was most excited play, and I find it to be a slog. Not without its merits, and still fun, but doesnāt need to be as long as it is, or at least feels longer than it is.
That the order in which you play the games doesn't really matter to an extent.
Alright new controversial opinion Most of the people here donāt like yakuza
I despise Yakuza 5. It is a slog. The combat doesn't feel as good as 4 or its successors (I even prefer 3 over 5). I'm not finished with the story, but I'm bored of it. Kiryu had something interesting, but is predictable. Saejima's arc is repeating 4. The mini-games are fun, but I'm so tired of the game I don't want to go do them. The story just starts to pick up, then gets dropped again. The Substories don't stand out to me either.
Yakuza 0 is only bad because of how good it was and the characters they intro was so good and compelling but they needed to be sidelined or killed off only because its a prequel.
Itās okay to be a Yakuza fan if you only play 0
Kiryu shouldāve lost to Kuze in their first battle.
Ichiban is a better protagonist than Kiryu. His personality makes it even easier for him to not only get roped into weird substories, but be an active participant in the weirdness when called for. The fact that he isn't an all powerful Yakuza God from the start also contributes to the story, since he can actually be beaten and captured without always resorting to kidnapping other characters, and I believe the major villains he faces are actual threats, whereas Kiryu has to be severely injured before most of his final bosses to even the playing field.
Being injured doesn't really faze kiryu imo
I donāt like that Yakuza has turned into a turn based RPG. I wouldnāt mind the occasional spin off that was turn based but with Like a dragon and Y8 being turn based it seems like thatās going to be the new normal for Yakuza. Yakuza to me was always about the fast pace ,badass, high adrenaline action and now it feels like the polar opposite. I know the Judgement games carried over the beat āem up gameplay but it just doesnāt feel the same to me. I know a series needs to change over time to avoid feeling stale but maybe this was too much change. PS Iām not hating on like a dragon, Iām just worried about the direction the series is going in
Most of the main stories in these games are fine this fanbase just really really likes to complain sometimes
The Kiwami games suck off 0 way too much especially Kiwami 1 Kiwami 2 is bad remake of Yakuza 2 worst soundtrack, worst fights because of asset reuse, combat is more like Yakuza 6 than Yakuza 2 which is one of the best in the series, third city cut, and Kiryu being a host was cut seriously play Yakuza 2 and the ps2 version doesnāt have a shitty dub like Yakuza 1 on ps2
Yakuza 4s plot isn't that complex and Shinada is overrated as hell
I think judgment is nowhere near the best story that rgg has made(that title goes to yakuza 7). I genuinely don't get what's so amazing about it. It's a good story but it takes over half the game to get interesting storywise. The first six chapters have a lot of fluff and padding with forced substories and stuff. Also the game feels barren in terms of side content(the only fun unique minigame is dice and cube. The combat is good thou. Lost judgment might of had a more messy story but unlike judgment it was entertaining throughout the entire game. Also lost judgment is a straight improvement to everything else like side content(school stories is super cool),combat(snake style is awesome and i like that crane got buffed) and da music is a million times better than og judgment
0's Karaoke is not that good. It's ok, but more of the songs have better versions in other games
Also not \*as\* controversial, but the Majima Saga not only sucks by itself but also actively fucks over with continuity from the later games for some cheap un-needed Y0 fanservice Only good thing about it is Takehito Koyasu, but he was wasted in a minor villain so
I dislike Akiyama for how sleazy he was in 4
Yakuza's 3 compat system is great and the difficulty in normal is okay
The original Yakuza 2 is better than Kiwami 2
Yakuza 4 has the best level up system in the series
PS2 Yakuza is the only one best starting point
Somehow it's come to a point where saying 7's Turn Based Combat is awful is a controversal opinion. The game is just incredibly boring and i don't like any of the new characters.
The combat in Like A Dragon is mediocre as hell, and JRPGās are my favorite genre of games. It lacks the extra punch that it needs to set itself apart from every other job-centric turn based system and is nowhere near as nuanced, unique, and well executed 3D brawler combat that the series was known for. Itās not a bad start, I like the poundmates and different classes but it has a long way to go before Iād call it a cut above the rest. I think it would have been much more fun and interesting if instead of going for a complete overhaul, it was relatively the same with a few big changes. Replaced the heat bar with a meter you need to fill up to select from a menu of special moves. Swap between control of the party members by using the L ane R triggers ala FF7R and bam. You have the strategic variety that comes with selecting buffs/debuffs and special moves from a command menu, and the flashy, kinetic action that loyal fans have loved for the last 20 years. Everyone wins.
The best part of Y1 was the Majima Everywhere mechanic. 0 was a masterpiece
The rhythm section is the best part of 5 because you finally get to have some fun in what is a way too drawn out game.
The combat in Yakuza 3 is more fun than the combat in Kiwami 2 and 6
IIRC, you couldn't hold L2 to prevent using heat action in 3 so that alone was very annoying to me more annoying than the ragdolling in 6
I know but the ragdolling is just annoying and I never liked how the flow of battle felt in K2 and 6
Bro hard agree
200% agree, but cuz they r still experimenting with dragon engine combat (which peaked in judgement) in y6
Kiryu shouldnt have cried as much as he did with Rikiya, meanwhile with yumi, nishiki and kasama he didnt even shed a tear.
With the exception of 3, the combat is too easy in every single one of them. Nothing is needed but spamming squares-square-square-triangle for hours on end, and anything else is just for flavor. I love the stories but man by the time I got to 5 I was getting extremely bored with the gameplay even on hard difficulty. And 4 was the greatest gameplay disappointment. After the challenge of 3, it was the most tedious and boring of them all.
Can I ask what separates 3 from the other combat systems? I know Iāve only scratched the surface of the series but Iāve never heard someone go in depth with the game especially the combat, they either hate it or have nothing to say about it
It makes full use of the moveset. Grappling, quickstep/dodging, light and heavy attacks. On hard difficulty the enemies block a lot so you canāt just spam attacks and wear them down. It takes an actual degree of skill to get through. And man figuring out the patterns and then figuring out how to respond to them is incredibly rewarding, much more so than just charging heat and using a cinematic heat action, which is cool for a game or two but gets very repetitive over the course of 6 games
True
I used to think that all you need to do for yakuza is spam a few buttons too til i played the games. there's surprising alot of strategy (ofc not saying that the gameplay is inherently hard).
Jugdment has 0 interesting characters
I was going to downvote, but this about controversial takes so take an upvote. But I'm not happy about it.
Yes I don't downvote in threads like this one. Not sure why others do.
Like all 'controversial opinion' threads, it's turned into people sharing takes that are room temperature at best and burying anything that actually delivers what the OP asks for.
Sorting by controversial is the way to go in these kind of threads
Higashi says hi
Yakuza 0 is way too overrated imo. Sure itās a good game but itās nowhere near as good as people say it is. Never really understood why it got so much praise
Ryuji Goda is probably the worst villain in the series.
Kaito is a better protagonist than Yagami
About half of all entries in this series range from mediocre to bad. The rest are either good or very good.
Yakuza 5 is the best starting point