Terra
Cipher
- Joined
- Sep 4, 2016
- Messages
- 922
Finished Yakuza 7, terrific reboot of the series with a new protagonist. I honestly haven't been as hooked by a Yakuza plot since I first played Yakuza 1 all the way back on PS2. Really enjoyed my time with the game.
Thoughts below:
[Story + characters]
[Final Thoughts]
Now after finishing the game, my thoughts turn to how I always felt that Y1/Y2 provided really solid endings / walk off into the sunset moments for Kiryu personally, while after that, I found some of the rationale for him being continuously dragged back into things (and subsequent endings) somewhat lacking. I know they're planning to keep going with Ichiban, but much like Y1 closed out a big chunk of Kiryu's past/family drama perfectly, likewise Y7 starts and ends really nicely, telling a relatively complete story arc of Ichiban that's bookended perfectly at the start and finish of the tale. I can only hope they can repeat that in his upcoming game(s) as well as they managed to here in Y7.
Honestly, it's probably a contender for my favourite Yakuza game now, I've had a great time with it and am sorry to see it end. Highly recommended. I took a quick look at some forums and saw supposed series fans refusing to get it due to the "slow/boring" turn-based battle system. Man, are they missing out on a great game.
Thoughts below:
On PC at least, I had excellent performance across the game, I chose to lock it to 60FPS max and I was able to hit that easily with plenty of headroom to spare. Game was super stable for me - zero crashes from start to finish. I think Denuvo's still in the game as of my writing this, but aside from that, great port.
Wasn't a fan of the part time hero activities, and ended up not seeking many of them out, mostly seemed like quite low-effort content on the developers part. With the vast majority of sidestories now being split into multiple parts, I really didn't feel like this game needed padding with this extra content. I feel for anyone who sets about trying to 100% the game. I did the Cat Rescue x2 missions and any I naturally bumped into during city traversal but yeah, PTH is just herb gathering by another name. Game has enough content without it.
Side stories were excellent this time around, I loved the new Be my Baby story with the Gondawara guys, you got a hint that it might be going in that direction with the baby formula, and then Ichiban's face is just priceless. Great summon too. The guy covered in bubbles that needed escorting was hilarious too. Also many, many wholesome moments spread across the side stories. In a lot of ways, this game feels like the Saints Row 3 of the Yakuza series, with the costume/job changes and themed enemies really cranking the silliness factor up beyond past entries for a prolonged period. It's all lampshaded by Ichiban's uh, delusions, I guess, so it works. The crazy "summons" in particular brought me back to being a kid and playing Final Fantasy 7 for the first time and witnessing craziness like Fat Chocobo for the first time, really amusing stuff whilst still being in keeping with the Yakuza game world and emphasising the building of relationships through the substories. At first, I thought they might have gone too far with the silliness, with the giant Hitachi Magic Wand I bought early on possibly serving as a prelude to the SR3 dildo bat, however unlike SR3, Yakuza 7 still manages to maintain a good balance of seriousness when needed, such as the main plot thread and also numerous sidestories. I'd probably go so far to say it's probably the most wholesome Yakuza game on that front.
It's missing some minigames from past entries. Guessing they can't reconcile the physics system and variable framerate of past minigames in the new engine, but I definitely missed Pool & Bowling (as well as Disco, but I guess that's never coming back). Honestly, as I play more and more of the series, the more I find I'm merely skimming over most of the returning minigames; I play a quick runthrough of VF2/5 if they're there, try the mini golf once, baseball once, but while I'm happy they're there, it is very much a case of "been there, done that" for a lot of these minigames. Hence why I found Y0 refreshing, adding in new stuff like Disco, Bowling, Cabaret Management. Eh, I guess a lot of the returning minigame entries lack the allure they once held (and to be fair, that's somewhat expected given I've been playing since the first entry) but I suppose I didn't find the new Business management & Dragon Kart quite as much fun as some of 0's offerings, they were okay though.
I didn't buy the Job DLC, but I don't appreciate having content like that behind a paywall, granted it isn't needed to beat the game or anything but it sets a sad precadent moving forwards.
Bond between core cast seems as strong as/stronger than Kaz's from past games. I found the scenes where the cast were chatting/hanging in the bar, as well as post-meal chats & banter all added considerable believabilty to the cast bonding strongly over a relatively short period of time, there's a different dynamic to the stoic Kiryu drowning his sorrows with 1/2 other people in Serena and I think they did a really good job with this over the course of the whole game everything feels organic and flows well with the core narrative. The party dynamic allows them to do/pull off different things than before when it was typically just Kiryu on his own or with a single partner and that's used to great effect throughout the game. I felt Zhao & Joon-gi Han were probably recruited a little late (I'd already done a lot of side content by this point, so it was hard to raise the bond meter with them naturally, had to gift spam in the end). Adachi was great, as was Saeko, I wish Nanba would change out of his hobo outfit at some point, lol. Eri felt a bit like a bonus character as she isn't really there in any cutscenes, but she pops up conspicuously during those moments when it's only meant to be 3 in the part if you happen to have her. They've built a solid cast in the core party, I'd be interested to see who will return as regular party members in the future.
I appreciated being able to buy (most) crafting materials en masse, handy once you'd mastered the business minigame, saved me some time.
Not much to do in Sotenbori/Kamurocho besides the battle arena, hearing the old battle theme was cool though. This was both a good and a bad thing, at this point I'd done everything in the first city (excluding PTH) and I wasn't relishing another city full of sub stories to conquer this late in the game. On the other hand, things do feel kinda empty in these cities, though I understand why it is that way.
Returning character spoilers
The class-specific weaponry coupled with the fact that each character has a unique class always left me unsure as to what ultimately I should be working towards - like, would Ichiban's Hero class and his unique bat ultimately turn out to be the best choice for him, what about other characters. This make it tricky to determine what equipment to invest in through the crafting system as well.
Concerning the spawning of enemy groups - sometimes these groups just spawn way too close to you after you win a battle. I was heading down a street alongside the river, and ended up in 4 battles back to back as a new enemy group spawned in just 2 meters down the road when I defeated the prior group. All just to walk down one road.
Move variety - too many moves look or at least feel the same/similar. Like Fiendish Slash looks the same as Devilish Slash (excluding VFX). If you do a lot of job switching you end up with such a large list of moves by the end and I'd have liked them to be set apart from each other a bit more.
Wasn't a fan of the part time hero activities, and ended up not seeking many of them out, mostly seemed like quite low-effort content on the developers part. With the vast majority of sidestories now being split into multiple parts, I really didn't feel like this game needed padding with this extra content. I feel for anyone who sets about trying to 100% the game. I did the Cat Rescue x2 missions and any I naturally bumped into during city traversal but yeah, PTH is just herb gathering by another name. Game has enough content without it.
Side stories were excellent this time around, I loved the new Be my Baby story with the Gondawara guys, you got a hint that it might be going in that direction with the baby formula, and then Ichiban's face is just priceless. Great summon too. The guy covered in bubbles that needed escorting was hilarious too. Also many, many wholesome moments spread across the side stories. In a lot of ways, this game feels like the Saints Row 3 of the Yakuza series, with the costume/job changes and themed enemies really cranking the silliness factor up beyond past entries for a prolonged period. It's all lampshaded by Ichiban's uh, delusions, I guess, so it works. The crazy "summons" in particular brought me back to being a kid and playing Final Fantasy 7 for the first time and witnessing craziness like Fat Chocobo for the first time, really amusing stuff whilst still being in keeping with the Yakuza game world and emphasising the building of relationships through the substories. At first, I thought they might have gone too far with the silliness, with the giant Hitachi Magic Wand I bought early on possibly serving as a prelude to the SR3 dildo bat, however unlike SR3, Yakuza 7 still manages to maintain a good balance of seriousness when needed, such as the main plot thread and also numerous sidestories. I'd probably go so far to say it's probably the most wholesome Yakuza game on that front.
It's missing some minigames from past entries. Guessing they can't reconcile the physics system and variable framerate of past minigames in the new engine, but I definitely missed Pool & Bowling (as well as Disco, but I guess that's never coming back). Honestly, as I play more and more of the series, the more I find I'm merely skimming over most of the returning minigames; I play a quick runthrough of VF2/5 if they're there, try the mini golf once, baseball once, but while I'm happy they're there, it is very much a case of "been there, done that" for a lot of these minigames. Hence why I found Y0 refreshing, adding in new stuff like Disco, Bowling, Cabaret Management. Eh, I guess a lot of the returning minigame entries lack the allure they once held (and to be fair, that's somewhat expected given I've been playing since the first entry) but I suppose I didn't find the new Business management & Dragon Kart quite as much fun as some of 0's offerings, they were okay though.
I didn't buy the Job DLC, but I don't appreciate having content like that behind a paywall, granted it isn't needed to beat the game or anything but it sets a sad precadent moving forwards.
Bond between core cast seems as strong as/stronger than Kaz's from past games. I found the scenes where the cast were chatting/hanging in the bar, as well as post-meal chats & banter all added considerable believabilty to the cast bonding strongly over a relatively short period of time, there's a different dynamic to the stoic Kiryu drowning his sorrows with 1/2 other people in Serena and I think they did a really good job with this over the course of the whole game everything feels organic and flows well with the core narrative. The party dynamic allows them to do/pull off different things than before when it was typically just Kiryu on his own or with a single partner and that's used to great effect throughout the game. I felt Zhao & Joon-gi Han were probably recruited a little late (I'd already done a lot of side content by this point, so it was hard to raise the bond meter with them naturally, had to gift spam in the end). Adachi was great, as was Saeko, I wish Nanba would change out of his hobo outfit at some point, lol. Eri felt a bit like a bonus character as she isn't really there in any cutscenes, but she pops up conspicuously during those moments when it's only meant to be 3 in the part if you happen to have her. They've built a solid cast in the core party, I'd be interested to see who will return as regular party members in the future.
I appreciated being able to buy (most) crafting materials en masse, handy once you'd mastered the business minigame, saved me some time.
Not much to do in Sotenbori/Kamurocho besides the battle arena, hearing the old battle theme was cool though. This was both a good and a bad thing, at this point I'd done everything in the first city (excluding PTH) and I wasn't relishing another city full of sub stories to conquer this late in the game. On the other hand, things do feel kinda empty in these cities, though I understand why it is that way.
Returning character spoilers
Fighting against the Tojo guys; Majima, Saejima & especially Kiryu became predominantly defensive battles. I'd gone through the battle arena quite a bit (high 50s) and I was still chugging first aid kits against Kiryu. Bosses were tough battles and unlike anything else you fight in the game.
Kiryu looked a bit... off, I guess. As we've gone through sequels and different engines, we've seen him get older, then in some games he gets a bit chunkier and here he looks a bit younger than I expected tbh. He's a bit like a Tekken character, suddenly aging up in Tekken 3, then mysteriously looking younger again in future games. The pocket circuit guy looks positively decripit by comparison.
Kiryu looked a bit... off, I guess. As we've gone through sequels and different engines, we've seen him get older, then in some games he gets a bit chunkier and here he looks a bit younger than I expected tbh. He's a bit like a Tekken character, suddenly aging up in Tekken 3, then mysteriously looking younger again in future games. The pocket circuit guy looks positively decripit by comparison.
The class-specific weaponry coupled with the fact that each character has a unique class always left me unsure as to what ultimately I should be working towards - like, would Ichiban's Hero class and his unique bat ultimately turn out to be the best choice for him, what about other characters. This make it tricky to determine what equipment to invest in through the crafting system as well.
Concerning the spawning of enemy groups - sometimes these groups just spawn way too close to you after you win a battle. I was heading down a street alongside the river, and ended up in 4 battles back to back as a new enemy group spawned in just 2 meters down the road when I defeated the prior group. All just to walk down one road.
Move variety - too many moves look or at least feel the same/similar. Like Fiendish Slash looks the same as Devilish Slash (excluding VFX). If you do a lot of job switching you end up with such a large list of moves by the end and I'd have liked them to be set apart from each other a bit more.
[Story + characters]
The twist with Sawashiro was unexpected, the whole thing is a little farfetched sure, but it works so I can roll with it. I found it interesting that they set up Ichiban + Arakawa's story to be so similar to Kiryu's in Y1. Even had the betraying "brother" aspect in there as well. And Adachi is the police sidekick too. For a moment I thought Ryo Aoki might actually survive through to the ending, I was already imagining the prison visit in Yakuza 8 but...
Fucking Kume, male-feminist/SJW fuck that he is, man, I hope we get to smash that cretin's face in again in the future. Well-played on the devs' part though, you'd just about forgotten that little shit by that point in the story. Aoki's fleeing and ultimate fate also reminded me a little of the end of Death Note.
Anyway, I really liked the core story of Y7, of course there's the usual gameplay/story disconnect where Ichiban is both simultaneously the president of a holdings company that's raking in hundreds of billions of Yen, whilst also being dirt broke and unable to buy ramen in any story cutscene. But the main plot thread was great, I thought, really puts Ichiban through the wringer in the final chapters of the game, some really well done cutscenes and dialogue.
Fucking Kume, male-feminist/SJW fuck that he is, man, I hope we get to smash that cretin's face in again in the future. Well-played on the devs' part though, you'd just about forgotten that little shit by that point in the story. Aoki's fleeing and ultimate fate also reminded me a little of the end of Death Note.
Anyway, I really liked the core story of Y7, of course there's the usual gameplay/story disconnect where Ichiban is both simultaneously the president of a holdings company that's raking in hundreds of billions of Yen, whilst also being dirt broke and unable to buy ramen in any story cutscene. But the main plot thread was great, I thought, really puts Ichiban through the wringer in the final chapters of the game, some really well done cutscenes and dialogue.
[Final Thoughts]
Now after finishing the game, my thoughts turn to how I always felt that Y1/Y2 provided really solid endings / walk off into the sunset moments for Kiryu personally, while after that, I found some of the rationale for him being continuously dragged back into things (and subsequent endings) somewhat lacking. I know they're planning to keep going with Ichiban, but much like Y1 closed out a big chunk of Kiryu's past/family drama perfectly, likewise Y7 starts and ends really nicely, telling a relatively complete story arc of Ichiban that's bookended perfectly at the start and finish of the tale. I can only hope they can repeat that in his upcoming game(s) as well as they managed to here in Y7.
Honestly, it's probably a contender for my favourite Yakuza game now, I've had a great time with it and am sorry to see it end. Highly recommended. I took a quick look at some forums and saw supposed series fans refusing to get it due to the "slow/boring" turn-based battle system. Man, are they missing out on a great game.
