Waffleman_ posted:

goblin week posted:

holy poo poo dsfargeg is in this game???

Sapozhnik posted:

Pushed through to the ending of Y:LAD since I was literally at the final gauntlet's doorstep and all.

Final area had good music but the final non-perfunctory boss fight was a real chore and the ending was kind of unsatisfying as well. It didn't really succeed at making me care about these characters or their connections to each other in the end. I guess I'll do Gaiden and 8 at some point but I'm not in a huge hurry right now.

e: I can't believe the first trailer for this game spoiled basically the entire story lol. I didn't see it until I'd almost finished the game but this really seems to be a thing with Sega. Perfect dodging every spoiler for this game wasn't even worth it in the end, didn't care much for the second half of the story.

Josuke Higashikata posted:

Yakuza are yearly release games (generally) and do best when you've given them that time to sit and re-engage your appetite for them. Binging them all, even if it's just one then another, does neither yourself or the game any favours imo.

Sapozhnik posted:

Okay I slept on it and drat, I have Opinions about the end of Y:LAD and how its message is actually really rotten.

To cut down what was a way-too-long rant, I just don't like how it spends the last half hour of the game asking me to feel sorry for a butthurt right wing manchild that the entire game has spent building up as an irredeemable piece of poo poo. I understand that you're not going to get a particularly nuanced engagement with these sorts of topics in a game series that romanticizes organized crime groups that engage in loan-sharking and human trafficking in real life, but I feel like Y:LAD was particularly egregious about it because it is a personal story about a very lovely person rather than merely having Yakuza groups as a general systemic backdrop of the setting. The point in the midgame where Hamako's girls all get rounded up and deported after the early game beat us around the head with the details of their desperate situations was the point at which Masato became irredeemable, but we don't spend any more time feeling sorry for the sex workers that he deported because in the end they're just set dressing for the purposes of story telling aesthetics, and engaging any further with them is just not good aesthetics.

It's weird too, because even in the middle of his big responsibility-dodging pity party he clearly misses the entire reason why his girlfriend from the start of the game in the end wanted nothing to do with him (that is, him being a weird awkward nerd throwing daddy's money around and clearly making everybody around him uncomfortable). He'd rather blow his brains out than take any responsibility or endure any more butthurt. Oh and also Kume is every bit as rotten as Masato is, but Kume is an ugly little snivelling goblin that the audience is meant to hate, but Masato is an intelligent and well-spoken pretty boy who the story wants us to agree with, that he is just misunderstood and, you know, you can sympathize with the reasons for his incredibly destructive temper tantrum just a little bit, right?

ImpAtom posted:

I don't believe the story is ever saying that you, the audience, are supposed to sympathize with him. Kasuga cares about him because Kasuga is a friendship elemental who wants to give everyone possible a chance and he is important to Kasuga because he is Kasuga's basically-brother and he wants an ending for him that isn't him dying. He's a bad person but Kasuga is pretty strongly defined by seeing bad people and going "You are a piece of poo poo but that doesn't mean I won't try to help you not be a piece of poo poo."

Sapozhnik posted:

Then at the end have Kasuga face down Masato and say that hey, he loves Masato like a brother, he wishes things had gone differently, but what you have done cannot be forgiven and you have to for once in your life face up to it and take responsibility.

Mordiceius posted:

It’s Gaius van Baelsar all over again.

Sapozhnik posted:

Then at the end have Kasuga face down Masato and say that hey, he loves Masato like a brother, he wishes things had gone differently, but what you have done cannot be forgiven and you have to for once in your life face up to it and take responsibility.

Sapozhnik posted:

Kasuga should befriend Kume and set him on the right path then. Short kings need love too. Sure Kume stabbed Kasuga's brother to death but everybody makes some regrettable lapses in judgement every once in a while.

The bones of the plot are actually perfectly fine and they could have done something really good with it, they just needed to add another character like Nanoha, but have this character work for Hamako instead of Nonomiya. Interact with her regularly, talk about her family situation, have her hang out in a location that they player frequently visits. Then after the sanctuary sweep she's just, gone. Your final conversation with her was something arbitrary and insignificant. Have some flashbacks of Kasuga and co hanging out with her.

Then at the end have Kasuga face down Masato and say that hey, he loves Masato like a brother, he wishes things had gone differently, but what you have done cannot be forgiven and you have to for once in your life face up to it and take responsibility.

That would have been fantastic and it involves hardly any changes to the story.

ImpAtom posted:

I don't believe the story is ever saying that you, the audience, are supposed to sympathize with him. Kasuga cares about him because Kasuga is a friendship elemental who wants to give everyone possible a chance and he is important to Kasuga because he is Kasuga's basically-brother and he wants an ending for him that isn't him dying. He's a bad person but Kasuga is pretty strongly defined by seeing bad people and going "You are a piece of poo poo but that doesn't mean I won't try to help you not be a piece of poo poo."

AfricanBootyShine posted:

I interpreted it as less about Ichiban being a friendship elemental and more about him trying to hold on to the tiniest notion of family. Ichiban's entire life has been defined by abandonment, and by the end of the game everyone in his adoptive (and biological) family has been murdered. Masato is all he has left.

ImpAtom posted:

Also his adoptive family of a hobo, a police detective, a hostess, two insanely badass criminals and a office ninja are alive and well, thank you.

Perfect Potato posted:

Meanwhile Judgment establishes its main character, the game's core concept, and the central plot Incident, Genda Law Office, Kaito, and a handful of tutorializing straight into hard opening credits in the span of 15-20 minutes. Truly a land of contrasts

Wolfsheim posted:

It was funny watching a video from some youtuber playing YLAD for the first time because I forgot that after the like hour long opening of Arakawa's past there's almost immediately another 30 minute part that's just a different part of Arakawa's past, the guy was probably 3 hours in and Ichiban was still in 1999 lol

Expecting Infinite Wealth to break these records obviously

AlphaKeny1 posted:

I just started with this over the weekend, completely new to the yakuza series. About 6hrs in and it feels like I'm just watching a movie. I assume not all the games are like this. At least the story so far is pretty engaging.

AlphaKeny1 posted:

I just started with this over the weekend, completely new to the yakuza series. About 6hrs in and it feels like I'm just watching a movie. I assume not all the games are like this. At least the story so far is pretty engaging.

IAmTheRad posted:

But back into the topic, I absolutely loved LAD. I liked the combat, even with the issues it had. The changes I saw in the trial version of IW really make it seem better. Being able to better position my characters for doing AoE damage or seeing exactly the area of effect for an attack? Amazing. Hopefully the gear system is improved from LAD as that was the absolute weakest part of the entire game. Seeing the other QoL stuff that RGG is putting into the game is also great for the combat side of things. While you can just steamroll through groups of weaker enemies instantly, if you want to see how good a new skill you get is, you can still fight them if you want.

Virtue posted:

I haven't preordered a game or even paid full price in a long time but I'm going to take a chance on this one. Don't let me down RGG...