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Okay, I'll give it to Lost Judgment (ending spoilers): The fight against Soma loving sucked rear end but the Kuwana fight was a hell of a lot better than Judgment 1's final boss by a significant margin. Probably better than 3, 4, and 6's last fights in my opinion too. But yeah, my thoughts on the prior page are pretty much the same and my thoughts echo some of the other posters; I get feeling bad for Kuwana, but the game is really hung up on the Sawa-sensei situation than the simple fact that Kuwana is a literal serial killer and his killings are just misguided retributions, rather than deterring anything. And the court drama was just... absolute nonsense and the only way a lot of the story beats work is if characters start actively sabotaging their plans. Now do I want another Yagami game... eh... I dunno man. Dude is probably going to get disappeared by someone in the Japanese government at this point.
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Dec 31, 2021 04:08
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Generally agreed. One bright spot in Lost Judgment is the final fight. Like the combat is consistently good throughout the game but that last encounter is on another level. I'm even more impressed they managed to make that type of fight work. It's been done in other games, it can quickly go sideways into disempowerment or frustration or blandness, and they nailed it here. For my bit, I wouldn't mind another Yagami game. I like a lot of his aspects, and I like Kimura as an actor and performer. I do hope the narrative team rounds off the rough edges and stops using (big general Lost Judgment spoilers) the deaths of women as motivational vehicles for male protagonists. It's tired, it's gross, and it's unworthy of their potential.
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Dec 31, 2021 04:19
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Oh right, now I remember why the thing about how they handle the villain didn't bother me that much on the first real conversation about the murders, it felt pretty clear that Kuwana already has no regret about his big ol' murderspree. It's premeditated to such a degree that there's no way any sane argument will go through, so Yagami doesn't try at that point. Sawa-sensei, though? That's something Kuwana never accounted for, a completely innocent collateral. Kuwana's probably made peace with the shitkids taking the fall if something goes sideways, but never an innocent, unrelated person. And then Yagami doubles down when he finds out Sawa wasn't just innocent, but someone he involved, and then it triple turns out Sawa-sensei was Kuwana's moral compass who tried to get him to prevent the suicide all those years back. Does Yagami repeat her name way too much? Yes. Is the game trying too hard to make us feel sympathy for a murderous monster? also yes. But I do think it adds up that this is the one argument the lawyer Yagami would keep hammering, because it's the one Kuwana had not spent over a decade refuting in his head. This part I don't think the game's trying to imply, but it's how I like to read it to make Yagami more nuanced: this is also his revenge fantasy. He got the hots for Sawa, so getting revenge for her is something he's chasing just like Tsukumo talked about early on. About how it's a pleasure to get revenge. A moral high ground revenge fantasy.
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Dec 31, 2021 05:30
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The culprit is such a tremendous piece of poo poo, but I mean that in a good way.
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Dec 31, 2021 06:13
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Kiwami 2 ruled hard Don't evacuate the bomb site. Fight to the death against a dude you just met. Be a man.
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Jan 1, 2022 07:45
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Club Sunshine = Club San-shine = Club Three-shine -> Club Four-shine :O
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Jan 1, 2022 10:15
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Ytlaya posted:Club Sunshine = Club San-shine = Club Three-shine -> Club Four-shine OOOOOOOH Majima talking about Four-Shine being a copycast confused the hell out of me, tyvm
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Jan 1, 2022 18:28
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Ytlaya posted:Club Sunshine = Club San-shine = Club Three-shine -> Club Four-shine It's also the pun in the karaoke song "x3 SHINE" 
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Jan 2, 2022 02:18
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That song is basically my Rosetta stone for figuring out the Four Shine pun too
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Jan 2, 2022 02:30
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So I just made it through Yakuza 0! It was my first Yakuza game and man, it ruled. Can't believe I put it off for so long: I actually recommended it to tons of friends and they loved it, even though I never actually played it, haha. I knew I've love it and it was the Shenmue sequel I wanted, but for some reason I kept holding off and savoring it. It had a bit of a rocky start for me: it was a bit of a slow starter, the combat was a bit stiff and annoying in some respects such as bosses having way too much superarmor/counters/blocks, and I made the supreme mistake of having the charismatic autobiography equipped for too long before I realized my mistake. But despite all that, it really won me over. Random thoughts: Really surprised how much I went from wanting to play as Kiryu to playing as Majima. I really didn't think I'd like the eye-patched guy that much, but geez, it really felt like the Majima Power Hour here with Kiryu just playing a bit part in the end. I guess there was a lot in this game similar to that, thinking about it: tons of people like Nishitani and Kuze really turned from poo poo to hot poo poo as the game went on. Goddamn that final sequence was amazing: doing the raids simultaneously as both Kiryu and Majima, I was absolutely sweating and going 'ora doushita!' right alongside them with every heat action. While the boss fights were quite annoying at times due to aforementioned superarmor/counters/blocks/me stubbornly playing on hard, I felt like I started to get good at whittling them down through death-by-a-thousand-cuts style combat along with strategic heat usage. Seriously that sequence repaid all the growing pains I had with the game with interest: bunch of old dudes ripping their shirts off and whaling on each other: incredible! It didn't always work, but when it did, man, Breaker style felt like cheating, haha. It was always a bit risky to use on boss enemies since it's such a high commitment offence with no defense when you start spinning, but if you get them locked down, their health bars just get deleted. I'd mostly try to stick with Thug and Slugger to be 'fair'. As this is my first Yakuza, I didn't know much about Majima except the whole meme of him chasing down Kiryu all the time in the other games. Maybe you find it silly, but my prediction was that Kiryu was going to blow it in front of Majima, like letting Makoto get shot and die in front of him (or it's a misunderstanding but blames him anyway), and that was going to crack his psyche and send him spiraling down into insanity, where he becomes a Joker-esque figure to Kiryu, constantly hunting him down and not letting him rest as a means of tormenting him with guilt for the mistake he made, testing to see if he can remain a goody-two shoes compared to his new anti-hero persona, and so on and so forth. It didn't end up like that, so I'm actually curious where the whole 'Kiryu-chan' thing comes from since they really never met each other. I can't believe Kiryu just took the car and ditched Nishiki back there. Rude! (Well, he did try to shoot him...) These guys really recover from injuries super fast, huh? Kiryu whipped his shirt off and was bare chested despite just being bandaged up minutes earlier with bullets in his arm and leg, and Majima had plenty of times where he was severely tortured/beat-up and yet went right back to business looking fresh. Not even animes have their heroes recover this fast. ~sunao ni i love you~ I love how someone pointed out that it accurately recreated the stuntman choreography despite them not needing to do so: they use rapid cuts when doing the spin move to hide the stunt double switch, and similarly they hide the stunt man's face with the glare from the lamps when they do the flip. Crazy detail! A few questions: In terms of moving on from this, I was wondering 1) is it worth it to go back into Premium Adventure and finish up stuff like the businesses (and maybe pocket circuit/etc), are there some cool events/lore/fights hidden there and 2) what would be the next game to move onto? I know the obvious answer it most likely Kiwami and Kiwami 2, which I have from bundles, but honestly based on people treating Y0 as the best, I'm thinking I painted myself into a corner and I should just move sideways onto Y7 instead of moving downwards into Kiwamis.
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Jan 3, 2022 06:53
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nah do the kiwamis
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Jan 3, 2022 07:06
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Kiwamis are a downgrade, but I’m gonna be honest, in just about every way every Yakuza is a downgrade from 0, some less than others (5, K2, LAD) but still. Plus, Yakuza Kiwami is neat on its own merits and benefits from being an otherwise kinda barebones game narratively that’s massively elevated by being the not-sequel to 0 so it’s pretty great going in from that perspective to see the otherwise one-note characters that 0 elaborated on.
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Jan 3, 2022 07:26
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The Y0 businesses do have a pretty satisfying ending but if you didn't get through the bulk of them during the story it's a bit of a grind. I also wouldn't try to do every substory because that is a LOT of a grind (like, a bunch are hidden behind maxing out all your main hostesses for example).
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Jan 3, 2022 07:40
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Nostalgia4Butts posted:nah do the kiwamis
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Jan 3, 2022 08:05
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Kiwami 2 also links more closely to Yakuza 0 then any other Yakuza
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Jan 3, 2022 08:08
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Hey, this is a weird question, but here goes; there’s this one kinda upbeat k-pop track that plays in the stores in the Dragon Engine games sometimes and if anyone knows what it is that would be rad.
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Jan 3, 2022 17:41
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FutureCop posted:A few questions: 1) Yes, the side stories are a lot of fun, but don't be afraid to start the next game if you're wanting to. I'd mess around until it feels like a chore. 2) Kiwami 1 & 2 are both incredible, and you will be missing out if you skip them. I personally LOVED Kiwami 2. I'm not on Y7 yet but each game builds on the previous entries.
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Jan 3, 2022 18:35
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I just started playing Judgment again (wanted a refresher before going whole hog on LJ) and just noticed something that was probably obvious to everyone else: Y0, YK, Y4, Y7 and Judgment all open with the protagonist chasing down a debtor. It especially sticks out in Judgment because it's clearly them unable to escape their yakuza trappings even if there's no real reason this lawyer/detective would be doing small-time enforcer work like this, but it's funny that over half the games in the series have an intro that plays out identically.
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Jan 3, 2022 19:18
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A lot of them (all of them?) also take place during winter. It’s like poetry it rhymes The debtor thing is an interesting observation as, considering Kiwami is technically a remake of Kiryu’s first appearance, it can be seen as the introduction for each time a game opens with a new protagonist. man nurse fucked around with this message at 21:24 on Jan 3, 2022 |
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Jan 3, 2022 21:21
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I'm surprised that I'm not really feeling it with LAD as much as I did with most of the other games in the series so far. I had concerns about the switch in combat when I first heard about it of course, but then the nearly universal reaction when it came out seemed to be that it owned and was one of the very best games in the series. I think Ichiban's fine, but I don't have the attachment that I had to Kiryu yet for sure. I'm up to where I can choose my first jobs right now, and I miss the beat 'em up gameplay. Not that it was totally amazing/didn't get repetitive, but it was obviously more immediately engaging. I think random encounters were probably easier to avoid in a lot of the other games too (except maybe 3, which was both the worst game in the series and super short), and that the encounter rate is a bit too high in this one overall. I'm probably judging a little prematurely since obviously options are still opening up, but my relatively early impression has been pretty underwhelming at least.
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Jan 5, 2022 03:52
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Last Celebration posted:Hey, this is a weird question, but here goes; there’s this one kinda upbeat k-pop track that plays in the stores in the Dragon Engine games sometimes and if anyone knows what it is that would be rad. You might skip around the soundtrack for 5 and see if you hear it
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Jan 5, 2022 04:06
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I guess everything’s subjective and all, but yeah the combat kinda falls into the mediocre JRPG trap where you just mash Attack/[insert crowd control ability here] and occasionally your gun or stab-elemental moves. And poo poo, I love Dragon Quest but that’s partly because it respects your time more with it’s easy fights. I can at least say I felt more onboard with Ichiban than Kiryu, because Ichiban is just a loser who never lets it get him down. He’s more of a modern shonen protagonist wrt his life outlook than Kiryu basically being the Fist of the North Star guy, which makes him endearing in a realistic enough setting that he’s treated as a huge goober for it. You’re at least like, a chapter away from the game opening up gameplay-wise in a huge way if that helps.
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Jan 5, 2022 04:17
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I just played DQ11 like two months ago, so I think the contrast between this and the best in class version of this type of combat is probably not helping either. Glad to hear it should improve though! If they want to stick with JRPG combat, I hope they try making it a bit more of a hybrid like FF7R in a subsequent game.
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Jan 5, 2022 04:20
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In my opinion Like A Dragon's JRPG systems are very perfunctory. The systems work, they do what they say they do, but they don't feel super satisfying and there's a lot of little triffling issues I have with it that bog it down for me. After games like Persona 5, I want to be able to just tap R1 and see a quick rundown on the enemy I'm targeting, and the decision to not lock the battle down with set boundaries is really poor. There are fights in this game, frequently in the 2nd Arena, where I'd be clowning on a guy so hard that their ragdolling body would be pushed far enough away that the game automatically forces the attacker and said clowned guy back towards the rest of the party, which affects my follow-up downed attacks. They have something with LAD's systems but, like all things Yakuza, it's going to take some iterations to polish out the kinks. There's some stuff there that I dunno if it's what they intend for by design, like if everyone can do every job then optimally it all boils down to who has the best unique loadouts so why would I not bring Joon-Gi Han with his magic bag of tricks at all times? The big thing for me was the lack of HEAT actions. It's always satisfying in Beat Em Up Yakuza games to just punch punch punch grab a bike and SMASH that loving thing on someone, but here it's all passively tapping commands and watching Kasuga run over to hit a guy with a bat. There's no visceral direct input to cool smashing cutscene and it really stood out late game when you fight Kiryu and HE'S busting out HEAT actions to kick your rear end. Again, this is something you could probably fix by adding, like, I dunno a HEAT class of spells.
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Jan 5, 2022 04:40
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I finished the story for Lost Judgement today. Had spent 30 hours in chapter 10 to finish the school stuff before the end of the game. That stuff was pretty good for the most part despite death race being frustrating at times. Gameplay wise this is probably my favorite RGG game. The combat styles are fun and there are a lot of fun minigames (if you include school stuff at least, which is DLC?). I found myself abusing boxer style a bit at the end though because one hit at low health could erase an entire health bar on the final boss and also you can’t get hit in EX boost with the right upgrade, which made it super easy to beat Kuwana without healing. It’s also cool that they brought back the ability tiger drop, albeit with a different name, for this game. That said, some systems like stealth, skateboarding, and parkour feel unfinished and poorly integrated. Hopefully they will be more fleshed out if they are included in subsequent games. Put Ichiban on a skateboard. For thoughts on the story, I simply agree with MechaX, but will add that certain emotional moments at the very end (such as Kusumoto talking to her son, and Kuwana crying when he hears her plan to take responsibility) still really landed with me. As with all Yakuza games, I don’t agree with the game’s stance on a few things and the story gets pretty silly and unbelievable at times (for better and worse), but they often nail those human, emotional moments of both levity and despair. But I really did find myself uninterested in the plot at times. Isk, you mentioned the final fight being an exceptional example of something other games have tried. Can you explain what part of it you’re referring to?
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Jan 5, 2022 04:43
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The next Yakuza game should have a psyche up system like later Dragon Quest titles so that Ichi can just grunt until he turns purple and then hit someone with an exploding energy bicycle.
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Jan 5, 2022 04:59
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Policenaut posted:The big thing for me was the lack of HEAT actions. It's always satisfying in Beat Em Up Yakuza games to just punch punch punch grab a bike and SMASH that loving thing on someone, but here it's all passively tapping commands and watching Kasuga run over to hit a guy with a bat. There's no visceral direct input to cool smashing cutscene and it really stood out late game when you fight Kiryu and HE'S busting out HEAT actions to kick your rear end. Again, this is something you could probably fix by adding, like, I dunno a HEAT class of spells. Poundmates and kiwami moves are pretty good turn based alternatives imo. A cool animation you watch damage an enemy by spending a resource. I agree that it’s not as satisfying as timing your inputs in a fight though. I’d be surprised if they don’t implement a similar timing based system to FF7 or other RPGs as someone else mentioned. Hell, the Tales games basically have a heat gauge. It will be hard to replace the brawling combat for me, though. It’s been a draw since starting the series, despite the prevailing sentiment seeming to be that the games “don’t have great combat, but the side content and stories are fun”. It’s just fun to hit light attack then heavy attack a sometimes. I even think it’s fun to have to dodge behind enemies to hit them.
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Jan 5, 2022 05:08
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PhoenixFlaccus posted:Isk, you mentioned the final fight being an exceptional example of something other games have tried. Can you explain what part of it you’re referring to? Sure! (LJ final fight) A common trap of mirror fights is that they end up either frustrating or boring. The root is the player character's toolkit, which when designed well can handle all enemy types and challenges. Developers "only" have to worry about unidirectional balance in that the player character's abilities won't be used against them. Mirrors can be frustrating when they're overtuned, when you suddenly and unexpectedly don't have a clear counter. The boring part swings the other way, when the mirror has superficial commonalities but is ultimately shallow and unengaging. I feel that RGG got Kuwana right in that he both looks like Yagami with the visual effects and credibly threatens Yagami with similar versatility. but not to the point of frustration. At least in my playthrough, it was a back-and-forth fight where I kept shifting between offense and defense.
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Jan 5, 2022 05:46
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isk posted:Sure! (LJ final fight) A common trap of mirror fights is that they end up either frustrating or boring. The root is the player character's toolkit, which when designed well can handle all enemy types and challenges. Developers "only" have to worry about unidirectional balance in that the player character's abilities won't be used against them. Mirrors can be frustrating when they're overtuned, when you suddenly and unexpectedly don't have a clear counter. The boring part swings the other way, when the mirror has superficial commonalities but is ultimately shallow and unengaging. I feel that RGG got Kuwana right in that he both looks like Yagami with the visual effects and credibly threatens Yagami with similar versatility. but not to the point of frustration. At least in my playthrough, it was a back-and-forth fight where I kept shifting between offense and defense. Interesting. Since I cheesed it I noticed the style changes but didn’t have to engage with it much. They left a save point right before Soma so you can experiment later if you want which is great. Also I think finishing the story is what unlocked alternate versions of fights, including Amon, in the title menu? That stuff looks fun.
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Jan 5, 2022 06:24
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for me yakuza games are all about the moments that perfectly combine all of its core elements. as an example that first battle in yakuza 0 with kuze as a boss is a great moment from the game that i cherish. all of the yakuza games ive played had moments like that. admittedly kiwami is a weaker game altogether but the specific endgame battle combined all of its elements so well its still probably the top yakuza moment as far as i've experienced (y7,y0,kw,kw2,y3). if you really feel like zero hooked you, you could probably play them all and enjoy them.
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Jan 5, 2022 06:27
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Policenaut posted:There are fights in this game, frequently in the 2nd Arena, where I'd be clowning on a guy so hard that their ragdolling body would be pushed far enough away that the game automatically forces the attacker and said clowned guy back towards the rest of the party, which affects my follow-up downed attacks. It also stands out in the fact that to escape from battle you need to be lucky enough to be controlling a character on that turn who has enough physical space to run in the exact opposite direction away from the enemy at least as far as whatever arbitrary minimum distance they’ve set up for escape, otherwise you’re trapped. Made those sewer trips for the grind to 99 an extra slog since it was so cramped.
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Jan 5, 2022 14:28
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Plot stuff can go in a lot of directions but I’m pretty confident they’ll smooth out the RPG stuff for Yakuza 8, considering when they decided to switch to it in development and set out a solid base already to build off of
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Jan 5, 2022 14:47
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Yeah as much as I love turn based RPGs and enjoyed Yakuza 7 its combat had some issues. It was still pretty good considering, as mentioned, the game wasn’t even originally going to be an RPG, so I’m looking forward to seeing what they can do with a second attempt. Well, assuming we get a second attempt.
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Jan 5, 2022 15:01
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PhoenixFlaccus posted:Poundmates and kiwami moves are pretty good turn based alternatives imo. A cool animation you watch damage an enemy by spending a resource. I agree that it’s not as satisfying as timing your inputs in a fight though. I’d be surprised if they don’t implement a similar timing based system to FF7 or other RPGs as someone else mentioned. Hell, the Tales games basically have a heat gauge. It will be hard to replace the brawling combat for me, though. It’s been a draw since starting the series, despite the prevailing sentiment seeming to be that the games “don’t have great combat, but the side content and stories are fun”. It’s just fun to hit light attack then heavy attack a sometimes. I even think it’s fun to have to dodge behind enemies to hit them. In the very early game you dont have poundmates. In the less early but still early game money is so tight I couldnt afford to use poundmates. It made the combat in LAD feel VERY repetitive in the early game, and I have a decent amount of tolerance for turn based JRPG bullshit. Even in the late game.... You have money for poundmates and a decent array of moves but its a menu based system, it feels wrong to select anything thats less than optimal off the menu (and then eat a hit in return as the sub optimal thing doesnt do enough damage to end the fight as fast) so you end up using the same 2-3 attacks per character and the same 2-3 poundmates on big fights because they are obviously the most useful ones. Its not really a good substitute for heat moves where (even in the games where you had to unlock a lot of them) you have an array right from the start, some of them are context dependent so you only see them in certain places/against certain enemies/using certain weapons, they have a negligable cost (its some heat bar which you get back very quickly by just continuing to fight) and if you are okay at blocking/dodging, even if it turns out to be more funny than useful you dont take a hit for having tried it. Again, I liked LAD but its combat needs a lot of refinement and overhaul. Bare bones more or less covers it.
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Jan 5, 2022 15:05
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I feel like a lot of issues with repetition in menu scrolling could be alleviated if they steal the assist button from P5, so you can just press that to smash your way through mooks if you don’t want to minmax every encounter.
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Jan 5, 2022 15:11
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One random funny thing in Judgment that I didn't notice the first time is that if you slack off on making friends the same one will show up everywhere. I befriended the cat blog guy and just a couple store clerks so because he's my only friend who walks around town he'll literally appear every two blocks coming or going from the complete opposite direction of where he was. At one point running from the ramen shop to Genda Law Office I think I literally saw him five different times.
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Jan 5, 2022 23:54
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There's just a lot of cats around, you know how it is
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Jan 6, 2022 07:29
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SiKboy posted:In the very early game you dont have poundmates. In the less early but still early game money is so tight I couldnt afford to use poundmates. It made the combat in LAD feel VERY repetitive in the early game, and I have a decent amount of tolerance for turn based JRPG bullshit. Even in the late game.... You have money for poundmates and a decent array of moves but its a menu based system, it feels wrong to select anything thats less than optimal off the menu (and then eat a hit in return as the sub optimal thing doesnt do enough damage to end the fight as fast) so you end up using the same 2-3 attacks per character and the same 2-3 poundmates on big fights because they are obviously the most useful ones. Its not really a good substitute for heat moves where (even in the games where you had to unlock a lot of them) you have an array right from the start, some of them are context dependent so you only see them in certain places/against certain enemies/using certain weapons, they have a negligable cost (its some heat bar which you get back very quickly by just continuing to fight) and if you are okay at blocking/dodging, even if it turns out to be more funny than useful you dont take a hit for having tried it. I hope the next game is a DQ inspired one. Yakuza 7 felt more like a rough Shin Megami Tensai game with how long it took to beat people if you had the misfortune to be stuck an a class with mostly resistant moves for the bosses or area you were in. Just give me skills that do big damage and keep the story entertaining enough for me to want to go through it to get to throw a cinderblock at the street gang boss harassing the shops or whatever.
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Jan 6, 2022 07:53
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Make the next one Suikoden based so I can have the six cool people in my party all fight at the same time and also make the business minigame War Battles.
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Jan 6, 2022 07:56
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Make the next one Suikoden based so I can make every single person I meet in a substory come hang out in my castle, and half of them also fight with me.
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Jan 6, 2022 08:24
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