Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio (Yakuza, Judgment, Binary Domain + more!) Discussion Thread

[Urthor]

"lines had to be changed"

sounds like they be whitewashing some of their freaky JP stuff from back in the day

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Nah that's more of a Jap thing. We talked about it before, but gist is that the actor who Tanimura was voiced by and modeled after became kind of a persona non grata in Japanese entertainment business after being accused of using cocaine and was essentially forced to retire. This is just Sega joining in on unpersoning the guy.

 

[Deflowerer]

Yeah, it's definitely corporate PR bullshit.

 

[Reinhardt]

Wait, in Japan actors are not allowed to be drug junkies?

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

The hostess club minigame is a little different in Fist of the North Star. Rather than being more about prep and maximizing each client, it's about doing that really fast. Each round is just two minutes, and has no pauses, so you have to constantly keep on your toes while trying to drain customers of their cash ASAP with skills of some of the girls or by seating best girls possible (this time you can also seat two girls per table) so you can get more customers.

Also, the final Grand Prix challenge of the racing minigame is just too hard for me.

Lin's shop substory step clear cutscene is really funny too:

 

[Misco Jones]

Yakuza 4 for PS4 trailer:

 

[Rahdulan]

RUBBER BULLETS

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Yakuza 4: Rubber Bullets of the Legend?


Anyway, finished Fist of the North Star. All around, good fun. Albeit, not as good as mainline Yakuza games. The big things in that regard are that there is really just that since Kenshiro does not use environmental weapons beyond HIDEBU! sound effects the combat ends up feeling less expansive, and some of the Secret Techniques are too elaborate in their requirements to see much use; and that the story suffers notably from a lot of it being occupied by what are essentially franchise cameos, good example being a chapter that can be summed up as "Souther attacks" -> "Kenshiro fights Souther" -> "Souther is told to fuck off" -> "Souther fucks off and is not seen or heard of again." Doubly a shame with Souther because his boss theme is one of RGG Studio's finest. A big part in this I figure is that despite the story being in certain parts alternate retelling of the manga it just doesn't get too daring and properly integrate the characters. The only cameo that ends up being like that are Raoh and Toki, though I suppose Jagi gets halfway there (really just dragged down by the much more notably cameo driveby appearance of Rei). However, there's still good stuff in the story, even if it's more concentrated in its beginning and finale.

One thing I'll be very interested in contrasting the game to (and Yakuza in general) will be RDR2 when I get around to it. Namely that when it comes to side activities, there's very little superfluous bullshit, everything is made to be very precisely what you need with little waiting around or busywork (unless one counts the 100 million debt quest which can be solved by grinding hostess club for a while; only other real busywork is just the effort needed for materials to top-end car parts). By contrast, I'm already figuting the horse-whistling changes are going to be a gigantic pain in the ass.


PS: Also save your Talisman leveling on first playthrough for Raoh's and Ryuken's talisman, which grant additional secret techniques (Raoh's being an encounter sweeper, and Ryuken's being a single target that doesn't require stun)

 

[Aqualung]

Will Kiwami finally be released this year? Or is it a cruel lie?

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Can't rule out a Christmas release. After all, the game also takes place during the Holiday season.

 

[Hobo Elf]

Just replay Yakuza 0. I finished Kiwami yesterday and thought it was all around a pretty terrible/lazy entry for the series.

Fist of the North Star was really fun, but one thing I don't really enjoy about these side releases is that they add a bunch of annoying grindy shit to artificially inflate the life span of the title. They did it in Kiwami and they did it here as well. I heard that Yakuza Ishin was also grindy. Anyway, the FotNS was made by a new team of people and I really liked what they did with the gameplay. It was a lot of fun beating up desert punks and the boss fights were really on spot as well.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

I'd say Kiwami is the definitive way to experience Yakuza 1, since you can look up some videos to see how janky the original was (plus it adds really neat story details). Sure it's not as good as 0 or 6, but it's still way better than, say, EVERY ROCKSTAR GAME EVER.

 

[Modron]

I'd say Kiwami is the definitive way to experience Yakuza 1, since you can look up some videos to see how janky the original was (plus it adds really neat story details). Sure it's not as good as 0 or 6, but it's still way better than, say, EVERY ROCKSTAR GAME EVER.

Yeah I was playing the first Yakuza on emulator when they announced that 0 and kiwami were coming to the pc and I dropped it right on the spot. Like you said it was quite janky with those resident evil style sudden camera jumps to completely different camera angles but in real time and in the middle of large battles.

 

[HoboForEternity]

I'd say Kiwami is the definitive way to experience Yakuza 1, since you can look up some videos to see how janky the original was (plus it adds really neat story details). Sure it's not as good as 0 or 6, but it's still way better than, say, EVERY ROCKSTAR GAME EVER.

i mean i enjoyed sleeping dogs (yakuza-lite) more than any GTA, maybe except san andreas, but it was nostalgia thing. yakuza is better than sleeping dogs, so obvious i think yakuza >>>> R*

 

[Hobo Elf]

I'd say Kiwami is the definitive way to experience Yakuza 1

Sure, but the best way to experience a mediocre game will still net you a mediocre game.

Sure it's not as good as 0 or 6, but it's still way better than, say, EVERY ROCKSTAR GAME EVER.

You're not setting a high enough bar. Yakuza is better than that.

To enjoy Yakuza Kiwami you'll have to lower your expectations quite a bit. Everything that's good about it was lifted from Yakuza 0 so it doesn't have much going on for itself. It's clearly the low effort release among the titans that surround it. Diehard Yakuza fans will find something to enjoy about it regardless, but I think PC players would be better served with a more enjoyable game release, especially if it's going to take them this long between ports. Going from Yakuza 0 to Kiwami could be especially jarring.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

I wouldn't say it's "quite a bit", Kiwami is IMO still a very good game. Especially because the big problem with original Yakuza is its extremely clunky and frankly unfinished fighting, which is a problem Kiwami doesn't have at all since it re-uses combat from Zero with a handful of additions.

 

[Hobo Elf]

It doesn't matter. The controls are not clunky but the boss and encounter design is the worst. For example most of the boss fights follow the same "fight against henchmen carrying guns/knives + boss who also carries a weapon" pattern. It's crappy, lazy design and the game's combat system isn't really equipped to handle these encounters with grace or skill.

 

[sullynathan]

Played Kiwami for a bit. Graphics aren't as good as the rest and combat is rather shallow.

 

[Deflowerer]

I haven't played Kiw2 nor Hokuto ga Gotoku, but Kiwami has the best combat in the series, since it's perfected Yak0 combat.

 

[Misco Jones]

New announcement incoming. December 8th.

 

[Reinhardt]

They want to bring Ishin to the West because i asked them?

 

[Terra]

Yakuza Dead Souls PC port incoming?

Spoiler

But seriously, the dream of having the whole series minus ^ on PC is getting closer. Kiwami PC is a Day 1 purchase for sure.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

From what I understand, Dead Souls would greatly benefit from being ported to stronger hardware. Supposedly its biggest problem is that it couldn't handle itself on the PS3 and suffered serious slowdowns.

PS: Ishin being released in the West would be

 

[Terra]

I'd honestly rather they didn't bother with Dead Souls, given it essentially tanked the IP in the West from a sales perspective, I can just see Sega wasting time/effort porting that over, it failing to sell and Sega concluding there's not enough interest. It's gonna be a tricky enough sell if they plan to port Yakuza 6 before 3,4,5 (and it looks like they will, I recall reading it somewhere at least) since no newcomer is going to want to jump from Kiwami to 6. The samurai spin offs I absolutely hope we get though, it was so disappointing we never got them.

 

[Hobo Elf]

Hokuto No Ken makes the most sense since it works off the same engine as Yakuza 0 and Kiwami and thus probably easiest for them to port to PC, if it's a PC port that they will announce.