RGG Studio (Yakuza, Judgment, Binary Domain, Project Century ) Discussion Thread

[Deflowerer]

Why clan creator Is named like that? You just hire a team to protect a costruction a Building site, you don't build a clan rival to Tojo and Omi.
In Kiwami 2 while the rarity is a good way to have an idea of melee units power It doesn't work with support units. For example Councilor Saeki Is labeled as common but his Attack Power Is bigger than rare support. Also there Is pistol, bomb and Rocket Launcher support but pistol seems garbage...has slighty Better rate of fire but you kill even 20 enemies with a rocket Launcher.

It's a testament to the game that I've played 70 hours and have no idea what this post is talking about. Looks like it's still got some new surprises to throw at me even after 70 hours. This is definitely my GOTY no doubt, it's just a shame they've not balanced the difficulty properly.

He is talking about Kiwami 2, not LAD.

 

[Fishy]

This is definitely my GOTY no doubt, it's just a shame they've not balanced the difficulty properly.

Same here. It's absolutely magnificent and I barely scratched the surface with jobs and party composition. I think only CP77 is a contender to take over GOTY, and even then, it's going to be a seriously high bar to get there.

 

[Reinhardt]

CP77 is a contender to take over GOTY

 

[Endemic]

Didn't see anyone discussing this mod, so:

 

[Robber Baron]

wtf Haruka was a nephilim all along

 

[Endemic]

Rather convenient that Rie Kugimiya voices a lot of other characters that were mined for this

 

[Reinhardt]

Didn't see anyone discussing this mod, so:

But why? Don't get me wrong - i like playing female characters but why would someone change Kiryu for some annoying kid?

 

[MpuMngwana]

Like a Dragon was great so far, but wow, chapter 12 really takes it to another level. Interesting plot developments, some real nice character moments, ton of Yakuza fanservice and probably the first genuinely difficult battle in the game.

 

[Shackleton]

Like a Dragon was great so far, but wow, chapter 12 really takes it to another level. Interesting plot developments, some real nice character moments, ton of Yakuza fanservice and probably the first genuinely difficult battle in the game.

Yes, that's where I am as well. Just past the battle I think you're talking about and the difficulty did take me by surprise after I'd crushed the arena and felt I was never going to see a challenging fight. Took me two goes at it as I didn't heal Ichiban enough when 1 became 2 and, well, you know the rest. Now grinding up some cash to fully upgrade the crafting workshop and seeing what wonders I can create just in case that was signifying a step up in the difficulty curve.

 

[Endemic]

But why? Don't get me wrong - i like playing female characters but why would someone change Kiryu for some annoying kid?

For the lulz, obviously.

 

[MpuMngwana]

Just past the battle I think you're talking about and the difficulty did take me by surprise after I'd crushed the arena and felt I was never going to see a challenging fight. Took me two goes at it as I didn't heal Ichiban enough when 1 became 2 and, well, you know the rest.

Yeah, that's the one. Tried it first before doing the arena, got demolished by a 15 levels higher enemy. Went back, did the arena fights, maxed out Nanba's friendship in the process and made decent progress with Zhao and the Korean dude, and it was still rather tough. Got killed another time in a matter similar to you, then won the next time after playing much more conservatively.

 

[Fishy]

Yeah, I'm in the finale and the difficulty curve has massively spiked starting with *that* fight in chapter 12. Same goes for the subsequent ones. Nothing impossible, but boss fight levels jump up big time to the point where you get to the point where Kasuga can get one-shot by the boss at any time. Since side stories seem to have all been front loaded, you don't naturally increase through random encounters anymore. Not a big fan of being pushed into grinding the arena/undergrounds just so that character levels catch up, but it was that or spending even more time against lower level street mobs. They probably should have saved some side content for those late chapters, the streets feel too empty.

 

[GhostCow]

Does this game have accurate subs if you're playing in Japanese or does it just use the English dialogue for the subtitles? That's my biggest concern with this series getting a dub.

 

[Fishy]

Just give me a few years to develop fluency in japanese and I'll get back to you with the answer.

 

[Abu Antar]

Does this game have accurate subs if you're playing in Japanese or does it just use the English dialogue for the subtitles? That's my biggest concern with this series getting a dub.

Probably not. Why do i say this? Because in 95% of other games, it does not work like that.

 

[Deflowerer]

As someone who is intermediate in Japanese (can understand daily conversations fine, although struggle with heavy slang like you hear in Yakuza games), I've noticed quite a few differences, though can't recall anything off the top of my head. But if you mean something along the lines of like the English translation of Battle Royale manga, then no, it's not that level of different.

But I don't know what you mean by accurate subs anyhow. They've always translated quite a lot of things differently (particularly puns) to English before because doing direct translation would make the script feel stilted and awkward as fuck. Vagueness of Japanese does not translate well into English at all if you just do it mechanistically.

 

[Shackleton]

There's a bit at one point where a goon says something like 'take a hike, jack' to which Ichi replies 'Take a hike, jack? Ah, so you're from kansai'. That really sounded like something was lost in translation. I've got no idea on the Japanese words, but some of the voice actors they've picked for the various characters is more off putting imo. No spoilers, but there's one character who's the typical Yakuza patriarch who they've tried to give some terrible bastardisation of a Brooklyn accent. Thankfully as almost nothing in the game is played totally seriously it just added to my enjoyment but if you're a purist I can see it getting under some people's skin.

 

[Endemic]

Some of the dialect\word choices aren't to my liking, but that isn't exclusive to Yakuza 7.

Here are a couple of examples of how localization is handled, from Yakuza 0:

https://legendsoflocalization.com/how-the-michael-jackson-references-work-in-yakuza-0s-localization/

https://legendsoflocalization.com/yakuza-0s-fisting-artist-in-translation/

 

[SerratedBiz]

The way that Yakuza handles the translation of Tokyo vs Kansai accents is that, if you see someone talking colloquially then they're assumed to be from Kansai.

If they're loose with their enunciation (eg, talkin' instead of talking) or using that kind of stang phrase then they're recognized by Tokyoites as outsiders.

As other people pointed out, this is common in the Yakuza universe and not particular to LAD, regardless of accuracy. It's just the way they decided to portray the accent and dialect.

 

[GhostCow]

As someone who is intermediate in Japanese (can understand daily conversations fine, although struggle with heavy slang like you hear in Yakuza games), I've noticed quite a few differences, though can't recall anything off the top of my head. But if you mean something along the lines of like the English translation of Battle Royale manga, then no, it's not that level of different.

But I don't know what you mean by accurate subs anyhow. They've always translated quite a lot of things differently (particularly puns) to English before because doing direct translation would make the script feel stilted and awkward as fuck. Vagueness of Japanese does not translate well into English at all if you just do it mechanistically.

Sometimes in dubs they take the localization a bit too far. Going beyond adding filler words and completely changing the tone or subject of conversations. There's a certain scene in Bubblegum Crisis Tokyo 2040 that comes to mind. Subs are generally a lot more accurate even when they're not using extra text to add translation notes explaining puns and such. That's the main reason I hate dubs. My ability in Japanese is definitely below yours but I know enough that changes like that bother me.

 

[d1r]

Holy shit, that difficulty spike in Chapter 12 is extreme. Definitely wasn't prepared for THAT fight. Was trying to cheese

Spoiler

Majima

with one doppelganger left, but his health just stays at 50% until the 2nd boss enters the fight. Guess I have to grind the whole arena first, eh (since the tackle and tag team attack in the 2nd round are just extreme)?

 

[Shackleton]

Holy shit, that difficulty spike in Chapter 12 is extreme. Definitely wasn't prepared for THAT fight. Was trying to cheese

Spoiler

Majima

with one doppelganger left, but his health just stays at 50% until the 2nd boss enters the fight. Guess I have to grind the whole arena first, eh (since the tackle and tag team attack in the 2nd round are just extreme)?

Yeah, this is definitely the point where the boss battles start to get interesting. Apart from the trash in the city that you shouldn't even encounter any more, it all gets a touch harder from here. Do the last 5 fights in the arena a couple of times and upgrade your weapons as much as you can. I'm in the last chapter now and just had a probably 15 minute fight against normal mobs at the end of the dungeon which involved rezzing for the first time. Finally it gets challenging!

 

[d1r]

Holy shit, that difficulty spike in Chapter 12 is extreme. Definitely wasn't prepared for THAT fight. Was trying to cheese

Spoiler

Majima

with one doppelganger left, but his health just stays at 50% until the 2nd boss enters the fight. Guess I have to grind the whole arena first, eh (since the tackle and tag team attack in the 2nd round are just extreme)?

Yeah, this is definitely the point where the boss battles start to get interesting. Apart from the trash in the city that you shouldn't even encounter any more, it all gets a touch harder from here. Do the last 5 fights in the arena a couple of times and upgrade your weapons as much as you can. I'm in the last chapter now and just had a probably 15 minute fight against normal mobs at the end of the dungeon which involved rezzing for the first time. Finally it gets challenging!

Don't even want to imagine how the boss fights in NG+ on harder difficulties look like. Ouch!

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

That's been a thing that the Yakuza games have had to work with in translation for a good amount of time (I got to that bit today, and it was that the goon spoke in a Texan-ish accent), which is Omi people and several others (ie, Majima) speaking in Kansai dialect (easiest way to spot this is if you're playing Yakuza 0 as your first and start noticing several characters using the suffix -han instead of -san; I'd say these suffixes are a good call to keep on part of the translation team precisely because they cue you in on that it's a dialect thing that the accent is meant to convey you). In that particular scene it's also relevant because the Kansai dialect is a dead giveaway of who the goons actually are. The way Yakuza translations go about it is with the Texan-ish accent because it's to my understanding a relatively accurate cultural cue approximation for an English language audience.

The use of accents in the translation is sort of like the use of additional swearing (how else would you convey that someone is rough when what they're mostly doing in Japanese is just their way of talking and use of a type of 'I' when talking, when in the original text this conveys that they're rough, tough and rude?), they're necessary elaboration to give an English-speaking cultural framework for comprehending the substance.

As someone who is intermediate in Japanese (can understand daily conversations fine, although struggle with heavy slang like you hear in Yakuza games), I've noticed quite a few differences, though can't recall anything off the top of my head. But if you mean something along the lines of like the English translation of Battle Royale manga, then no, it's not that level of different.

But I don't know what you mean by accurate subs anyhow. They've always translated quite a lot of things differently (particularly puns) to English before because doing direct translation would make the script feel stilted and awkward as fuck. Vagueness of Japanese does not translate well into English at all if you just do it mechanistically.

And let's not even get into how absolutely non-sensical some Japanese expressions would be if translated directly. One that comes to mind is in that one substory with Eri, where she reacts to Kashiwagi's covering for her with "Master-san...!" and that wouldn't translate in the slightest directly to a Western audience. Or the ways in which the usual way in which questions are asked in Japanese is with the Snake-ism of just repeating a word or short phrase back to who you're asking it about for further details. Or how you can't directly translate what choice of how a character says 'I' in Japanese implies about them (or if you start directly translating ore-sama boasts, it reads like sudden bouts of megalomaniacal lunacy).

But yea, the puns are easily the worst one for translating, since the other type of Japanese pun is based entirely on how something can be said and meant as one thing but written and meant as another. I dread to think what kind of monstrous pun the translation team had to work with when Shinada got screwed by Vietnamese Dong.

 

[MpuMngwana]

Well, finished. The ending was really damn good, overall it is one of the best Yakuza games on PC alongside 0.

The combat takes a bit too long to get involved, as the first 2/3 of the games are a cakewalk, and the jump in difficulty is really sudden. I found most fights to be lacking compared to the brawler games, lacking the spectacle and the sheer brutality of beating up thugs with bicycles while not providing much of anything in return. The late game boss battles, however, are probably my favorites in the franchise (even having a particularly cheap move the second-to-last boss can use). I dislike the fact that Kasuga getting knocked out means game over - in fact, removing that mechanic would make the cheap move mentioned before more bearable, and the whole fight even better.

Spoiler

One thing I really like, which is rare in jRPGs, is how the few of the last bosses' power relative to each other makes sense in-story - being the final boss doesn't suddenly make the governor of Tokio into an ultimate badass. His power is still purely political, and when it comes to fisticuffs he can't hold a candle to a former heavyweight boxer and the Dragon of Dojima.

The game designers clearly had a field day with the job system, and the game derives a lot of humor turning chefs, hostesses, fortunetellers and homeless men into RPG classes with RPG abilities. It is not the mechanically deepest system in the world, but the variety of possible options and the absurdity of it all do make it quite fun to tinker with it.

My biggest concern was the new protagonist, considering whose shoes he had to fill, but thankfully Kasuga turned out to be a super likeable chap. The rest of the party is also mostly great (though I wasn't too fond of Eri and the Korean guy), and there are some standouts among the supporting cast, most notably Arakawa and Nick Ogata. Plot-wise, it's still a mix of mostly melodramatic crime drama in the main plot, and absurd comedy with often feel-good heartwarming moments in the side content; this mix works as well as ever. The average substory quality is quite high, the persimon tree one being my personal favorite. The one complaint I have with those is that they don't seem to take other party members into account. Thus, we'll often see Kasuga valiantly step in to protect an innocent from some aggressor, only for the actual fight to comically turn into a completely one-sided 4 vs 1 beatdown. As for minigames, there's a lot of them, and I haven't bothered with some of them at all, but there's bound to be something for everyone to waste time on.

Overall, a real solid entry in the franchise, which continues to be probably the most wholesome game series around. Given some of the late-game plot developments, I wonder where they will take it next, but hopefully they will polish the systems for the next installment as they show a lot of promise but still have a lot of room for improvement. Probably my personal GOTY and a hard recommend to anyone who isn't completely turned off by the word 'jRPG'.