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

[Abu Antar]

Yakuza: Like A Dragon.

Chapter 12 finale. Chapter 13 intro.

Bros... don't cut onions while you play games.

 

[Nirvash]

Don't act like Saejima segment wasn't half Yakuza 5's length, first you run around Kamurucho, then fart around prison, then mountain snow village replete with boring hunting minigame, then whatever that northern city was called, and this isn't even counting later chapters playing as him.

HOW DARE YOU

 

[Endemic]

Don't recall seeing it mentioned here yet, so.. Yakuza 6 at historic low price on Fanatical: https://www.fanatical.com/en/game/yakuza-6-the-song-of-life

 

[Abu Antar]

More Like A Dragon.

Spoiler

Beat chapter 13. That Sawashiro fight was sublime. Actually offered a nice challenge, and the song was top noth. That whole segment was very nice. I liked his different phases of switching weapons. The second phase was actually more troubling than his dual wielding phase.

*chef's kiss*

 

[Abu Antar]

 

[Nirvash]

Nishiki is a true romance character

 

[Abu Antar]

Customize my Kasuga as a tank, with high defense. Debuff attack and accuracy of boss. Boss gets their turn. Boss one-hit KO's Kasuga with a critical hit.

 

[Deuce Traveler]

Customize my Kasuga as a tank, with high defense. Debuff attack and accuracy of boss. Boss gets their turn. Boss one-hit KO's Kasuga with a critical hit.

Chapter 15? That boss does one shot kills. After I died the first time against him, I had Kasuga act as a healer or buffer and avoided attacking the boss so that he wouldn't be targeted. It worked and I beat the boss on the 2nd go.

 

[Abu Antar]

Customize my Kasuga as a tank, with high defense. Debuff attack and accuracy of boss. Boss gets their turn. Boss one-hit KO's Kasuga with a critical hit.

Chapter 15? That boss does one shot kills. After I died the first time against him, I had Kasuga act as a healer or buffer and avoided attacking the boss so that he wouldn't be targeted. It worked and I beat the boss on the 2nd go.

Chapter 14. But I have a strategy lined up for my second attempt.

Spoiler

Ishioda and Mirror Face. I will only use elemental attacks.

 

[Modron]

Apparently both of the psp Yakuza games are mostly translated at this point, team4kl just released a patch last month for Kurohyō 2: Ryū ga Gotoku - Ashura Hen that covers almost all of it:

The main story, substories and minigames (except for one) are finished. The only thing missing is the dialogue heavy hostesses, but we are still working on that! It's about 99% done though

https://gbatemp.net/threads/kurohyo...calisation-project.600959/page-3#post-9711371

They are also going back and working on finishing the translation of the first one which had the main story and most of the sidestories but not all of them translated previously before that effort crumbled.
https://www.teamk4l.com/project-download

 

[Abu Antar]

I beat it. 105 hours. Everything but a few Dragon Kart stuff done. The True Millennium Tower will have to wait for another time. I read that it's a grind to get up to snuff with actually beating the final boss in that place. My opinion is that Like A Dragon is a great game, with some issues that I hope get ironed out in a sequel.

The combat flows well, but it's a bit buggy, with people falling behind after you have explored the world. Some party members start a fair bit away from the action, and you have to wait for them to run in. Characters also have a tendency to not always have the best path finding. I had fun with the job system. There weren't a great amount of them, but they felt fairly distinctive. For the final boss, my Ichi was a tank. Random encounters felt repetitive after a while, but bosses were fun. Some of the bosses might have been a bit too easy, but the later story bosses offered a decent enough challenge. It would be cool to have free control of character movement in combat, to set up your attacks and spells. It was somewhat possible to do things that could turn out in your favor when it comes to positioning, but manually doing it is the most ideal scenario.

The cities you visit are good, but I don't love Yokohama. It's not bad, maybe I just don't like new things. Kamurocho and earlier cities in the series feel more intimate in a way. On the other hand, maybe Yokohama is actually more city like when you think about it. There were enough hidden stuff for world exploration being worth it. Hidden items, some areas and secret shops. My only disappointment is that there are only sub stories in the first city. Not a major issue, but I was looking forward to more.

Mini games are fun. Most of my time was spent on the casino and management mini games. Some time was also spent on golf and baseball. The vocational school quizzes were also fun. In general, the offering of min games is great, with a lot of variety.

Sub stories were mostly great. There were only 2-3 that I thought were "weak", but overall, I had a great time doing all these side stories. While the Management mini games isn't really side story, it was still fun, and had enough story and unique characters to be held in a positive regard, and not considered merely a mini game. You get very cool rewards for it, too. A great character in combat, and a cool attack for Ichiban. A few more sub stories would have been cool.

It's a shame that said character doesn't really get acknowledged much in the main story. They are not in any cut scene that has to do with the actual story of the game. Why is this a shame? because the other characters that you meet are very fun, and well written for the type of series that Yakuza is. I liked the protagonists and the antagonists. I still remember all of them, and I can't see myself forgetting about them any time soon. The plot of the game is as we all know J-drama to its core. Either you like it or not. I wouldn't have played most games in the series if I didn't like it. Some fun twists and turns, some real drama, and a decent enough conclusion. The story of Ichiban, which is a main character that fills the shoes of a Yakuza protagonist excellently, was well done, and a sequel is something that I am looking forward to.

My final word to possible future players: Do not play the game in English. This is absolutely imperative in my opinion. I watched a couple of clips in English, after beating the game. For the love of God, do play in Japanese.

 

[Nirvash]

wow, best doggo's doing yakuza ps2

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Some of these ultimate matches are nuts.

 

[Abu Antar]

I like OG Y1 and Y2 more than their Kiwami counterparts. Yes, controls are worse, but a lot is lost in the transition.

 

[Alphons]

Some of these ultimate matches are nuts.

Either I got good or there's nothing worse than Sera in Ultimate Match 2 in 0.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Some of these ultimate matches are nuts.

Either I got good or there's nothing worse than Sera in Ultimate Match 2 in 0.

Shinada's where you need to knock out 3 dudes with only weapon switching attacks.

 

[InD_ImaginE]

I like OG Y1 and Y2 more than their Kiwami counterparts. Yes, controls are worse, but a lot is lost in the transition.

Both Y1 and Y2 is much more serious than Kiwami counterpart. In some way they lean more on the drama more compared to later Yakuza series even in side content. Kiwami 1 especially is heavy on trying to make the game "on par" with the funniness with later games through the Majima everywhere but frankly ended up feeling like a worse game.

 

[Alphons]

Shinada's where you need to knock out 3 dudes with only weapon switching attacks.

Haven't finished Y5 story yet. Looking forward to it.

 

[Curratum]

Got Zero, got so enamored with it, I bought a bundle with all the other games. Started playing Kiwami and it's dull and shit. Now I've lost all desire to play the whole series.

 

[Nirvash]

Got Zero, got so enamored with it, I bought a bundle with all the other games. Started playing Kiwami and it's dull and shit. Now I've lost all desire to play the whole series.

Just rush it, majima grind and 90% subquest are garbage, enemies are not rebalanced for y0 battle system and so even combat is very dull.
kiwami 2 is alot better.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Got Zero, got so enamored with it, I bought a bundle with all the other games. Started playing Kiwami and it's dull and shit. Now I've lost all desire to play the whole series.

Just rush it, come back to master dod later and enjoy how stupidly broken tiger drop is in this game.

 

[MpuMngwana]

Got Zero, got so enamored with it, I bought a bundle with all the other games. Started playing Kiwami and it's dull and shit. Now I've lost all desire to play the whole series.

Do not play all of the games without taking breaks in-between, that's a great way to get burnt out. Kiwami is IMO one of the weaker games in the series, so if you decide to push on it mostly gets better, but as I said, take a month or two between each game.

 

[Modron]

Weakling I played 3-6 last year, 100 percented the completion list in each game, just do it.

 

[GhostCow]

It's been about 2 or 3 years since I beat kiwami and I still can't muster the will to play through kiwami 2 (although I did play and complete 7 at release). I did play a little bit of the intro but going from the Y0 engine to the Dragon engine was way too jarring for me. The combat seemed way worse. I don't understand why so many people say that you should just hold your nose and get through kiwami to get to kiwami 2 where the real fun is. What am I missing? Does the combat get way better later on? I thought the combat in Y0/Kiwami was great as it was.

 

[Modron]

No the combat doesn't get way better, Yakuza games experienced some growing pains in transitioning to the newer engine in my opinion. There are less heat actions and the circumstances that you are able to deploy heat from are much lower with only one counter heat, less guarding stance heats, and less environmental heat moves. Most of the heat moves are deployed based on what you or the enemy are holding and from grapples. The lack of styles relegates most encounters to following the exact same rote building heat to go into Kiwami (Fist of the North Star) mode. It's still a good Yakuza game of course but there is more monotony in the combat and there is a lot of combat in Yakuza games.

Zero and K1 were peak yakuza (probably Judgement as well but I have not played that since it's only on Stadia on the pc).