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8 is the most fun mainline Yakuza game to play, and the character work + tone is good enough to ignore the plot problems, which every one of these games has anyway
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Apr 8, 2024 04:15
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I really liked 8. I didn't have any major issues with the story beats, the conspiracy was as baked as it ever is (half), but I enjoyed all the regular betrayals and the new characters were good. Yamai is a standout who I hope to see again, even though his character arc is pretty much complete. They probably could have done less minigames, but I'm not going to complain. The city itself was too large imo, there's about half a dozen places I can picture in my mind and then it's just stuff between them, it felt too much like distinct locations spread across an open world rather than a single bustling city location full of stuff. I felt like a number of new features needed longer in the oven - I feel like the best example is the segways where, sure, they speed up your travel around the city for a small cost, but they prevent you from picking up any items or interacting with people, which are the things you want to travel around the city doing; if you just wanted to arrive faster you can almost certainly taxi directly to where you want to be. However, they fully elevated the combat with the positioning system and changes to targeting. You're so much more in control of the fight space and it's really satisfying to ricochet bad guys between themselves and your friends for extra damage. I also found it also kept me quite engaged in fights I'd previously have Auto'd through as lining up those combos could end a fight so much more quickly than repeated basic attacks. I'm interested to see who Ichiban fights after this - it felt like they drew a clear line between him and Kiryu when it comes to the yakuza, but I feel like that's such an easy well of organised crime conspiracy stories that RGG struggled quite a bit in making the Overseer's cult seem a believable organisation by substituting mystical brainwashing for the family loyalty motivating most yakuza goons.
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Apr 8, 2024 04:22
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gimme the GOD drat candy posted:i think it would have been nice if your party was involved with at least some side quests. Yeah, like it makes sense that your party aren’t involving themselves in Kiryu’s stuff*, but it feels so off for Ichiban to have constant conversations with his friends and shoot the poo poo while eating out with them…but then Tomizawa has nothing to add to the Sojimaru plot line despite being a mechanic? Or Let It Snow considering his whole loving backstory? You could have Adachi get roped into the drinking scam along with Ichiban just because it’s right up his alley. Or involve Chitose in the lemonade stand one since she also has parent issues. *guess what, they do though! Saeko helps with Four Shine and she’s really excited because Yuki and Koyuki are legendary hosts and it’s neat! Do that more RGG Studio!
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Apr 8, 2024 06:49
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I feel like 8 was actually greater than the sum of its parts, because the main story wasn't very good but I still thoroughly enjoyed everything.
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Apr 8, 2024 08:00
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Last Celebration posted:Yeah, like it makes sense that your party aren’t involving themselves in Kiryu’s stuff*, but it feels so off for Ichiban to have constant conversations with his friends and shoot the poo poo while eating out with them…but then Tomizawa has nothing to add to the Sojimaru plot line despite being a mechanic? Or Let It Snow considering his whole loving backstory? You could have Adachi get roped into the drinking scam along with Ichiban just because it’s right up his alley. Or involve Chitose in the lemonade stand one since she also has parent issues. One of the things both this game and LAD have a problem with is that the side quests being somewhat universally accessible at least once you've gotten to the chapter where specific ones start being available, is they tend to exclusively feature Ichiban in order to account for storyline shifts in who's with Ichiban and who isn't. It's not dissimilar from how after her original introduction, you never see Eri in a storyline cutscene because she's an optional character. Admittedly the games have a lot going on as-is so it makes sense this wouldn't exactly be a high priority to implement, but even a little flavor dialogue and having the extra party members at least standing around during in-engine cutscenes would be something.
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Apr 8, 2024 13:37
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i think the best compromise would be to have substories that are only available when you have certain party members. there's no point in trying to make them available for every possible permutation of your party.
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Apr 8, 2024 13:44
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Imho “not everyone is always on hand” is a lameass excuse, like the only party member to leave for any length of time in LAD7 is Nanba, and in LAD8 its just Chitose, and only for a little bit. And even for LAD7 you could just do the sane thing of gating those, like the ones gated behind the time of day.
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Apr 8, 2024 13:46
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Shadow Clone Jutsu on Seonhee with her ultimate armor is, uh, pretty good huh
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Apr 8, 2024 14:28
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Last Celebration posted:Imho “not everyone is always on hand” is a lameass excuse, like the only party member to leave for any length of time in LAD7 is Nanba, and in LAD8 its just Chitose, and only for a little bit. And even for LAD7 you could just do the sane thing of gating those, like the ones gated behind the time of day. I think it could a little more nuanced than that, for example the substories could have been developed apart from the main story and they didn't have all the details of the story hashed out yet to know all of these specifics.
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Apr 8, 2024 14:32
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man nurse posted:Now that the dust has settled, how’s everyone feel about 8? I kinda felt lukewarm on it. Some good improvements but ultimately kinda messy and less than the sum of its parts. The story in particular kinda left me feeling like this settles into sort of a mid entry. Having finally gotten my last achievement after ~100 hours, it's just under the top ranked games (0/2/7/G) for me. The character interactions are just as excellent as in 7, the combat system is much improved, and it contains probably the most enjoyable set of side content in the series. With that said the mid story feels especially disappointing as a followup to 7 - I was really excited upon finishing that game to see what Kasuga + co would get up to in their next adventure, and they wound up spending their next adventure hiding in Kiryu's shadow. (full game spoilers) I am now anti-excited for 9 because Kiryu's definitely coming back despite saying goodbye for the last 4 games, right? Let the man retire in Okinawa, I will buy the Morning Glory game! The pacing was also poo poo, usually they dial down the side stuff in later chapters in LaD but here they give you your last party member + Drink Links in Chapter 13 and you can't even finish 3 loving Walk & Talks until the finale!! That said the 30 hours spent in Chapter 6 between Dondoko and Sujimon were my own drat fault.
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Apr 8, 2024 14:54
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Climax battles(at least in Kiwami) is very poorly designed. There’s no restart options but more importantly in a mode where your available skills change per mission you can’t see your skill list so I hope you got that poo poo memorized
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Apr 8, 2024 16:21
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I would agree with the sentiment that the mechanics are improved, the plot is mostly bad, the characters are top notch, etc, but I really agree that Hawaii as a map is too big. It really gets away from the kind of tight-knit design of Kamurocho and Sotenbori for the more 'empty space with a few points of interest' style of other open world games which doesn't really play to their strengths. It was a noticeable issue in Lost Judgment since almost all the substories started at the school so so much of the Yokohama map felt kind of unused, but its really noticeable in IW since there's so many empty stretches of road with only men telling you that this ain't a show shithead to keep you company. They also missed some obvious opportunities. Like, that bar where you fight the cop early on, that's super detailed? There's no real reason to ever go back there other than for a food bonus, but they modeled an entire pool table area that you can't use, despite pool being in the game in other bars. Let us play pool in there! I can see the table!
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Apr 8, 2024 16:50
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I thought the plot was fine-to-good, but I'm also of the opinion that most of this series' stories aren't that good or memorable. 0, Judgment, 7, and Gaiden are probably the best stories pre-IW.
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Apr 8, 2024 16:55
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Y8 felt like a JRPG version of Y5 to me. It was really good, there was also too much of it, and the main plot was kind of a big nothing.
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Apr 8, 2024 16:57
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Dewgy posted:Y8 felt like a JRPG version of Y5 to me. It was really good, there was also too much of it, and the main plot was kind of a big nothing. sujimon and dondoko island wish they were as satisfying and well-realized as kiryu's polite taxi simulator and saejima's hunting extravaganza 
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Apr 8, 2024 17:08
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After complaining earlier about the alienating experience of going to Karaoke-kan alone, I'm pleased that Yakuza 6 includes a bar full of friendly locals with a karaoke machine.
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Apr 8, 2024 17:23
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I still need to finish Kiryu's finale, but my only real complaints are: -I wish there was more reason to engage with mini games like Can Quest, Crazy Delivery, Sicko Snap. Dondoko Island should have been stretched out more too. -I would have preferred more new characters added instead of bringing back Joongi and Zhao. They weren't very well fleshed out in 7, but at least they had more connection to the story. In 8 they really felt like an afterthought. I was getting big death flags from Chitose after beating Bryce and that had me really concerned. I would not have cared nearly as much about Joongi or Zhao biting it. DanielCross posted:Let It Snow has to be top five substories for the whole series. Continuing the series' oldest and silliest running gag, and also nailing the landing so perfectly that I near bawled my eyes out, pure perfection. That was wild in a way that only a Yakuza game can pull off. A man holding his wife's hand as she takes her final breath and smash cut to nearby rooftop where diaper-fetish gangsters are hanging dong while furiously throwing down a combination of diaper absorbent and shaved ice  Larry Cum Free fucked around with this message at 19:31 on Apr 8, 2024 |
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Apr 8, 2024 19:21
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i feel like that should have had kiryu in it for completeness. its was kinda weird doing substories and only ichiban gets involved. had some missed "hmm so this doesnt just happen to me..." stuff.
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Apr 8, 2024 19:23
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Ytlaya posted:I feel like 8 was actually greater than the sum of its parts, because the main story wasn't very good but I still thoroughly enjoyed everything. I agree with this. Playing was fun as hell and all the side stuff was great. And after how lonely Gaiden felt having Kiryu do friend stuff as part of the plot was adorable. I think the villains were underdeveloped which made the main story feel kind of meh. Especially following up 7 and Gaiden which had fantastic antagonists and really personal stakes. And for Gaiden fighting with and against Shishido repeatedly and seeing how terrifying he is made the last fight hit way harder. While at the end of IW I was more like "oh Ebina can fight too? Uh ok I guess." Joon-gi had my favourite drink link with Saeko and Tomizawa being notable to me for doing a good job adding to their characters.
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Apr 8, 2024 20:11
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It was good but I don't think it was worth $70.
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Apr 8, 2024 20:24
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Maybe it's because I started with 7 or maybe I'm just a weirdo but I actually find Kamurocho uncomfortably cramped. I don't like hanging out there, you bump into everything. Especially since the walk system has some inertia so you need a bit of space to start and stop. My other complaint (which was also in 7) is how many points you need to do to get stuff that's worse than what you already have or will soon get unless you grind the hell out of the minigame the moment it unlocks. Especially egregious with minigames that involve luck and gambling.
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Apr 9, 2024 00:18
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8 hosed me up in a good way. Massive game, so much to do, and nearly every gameplay element is an improvement on 7. We don't get crisp dialogue and expert localization like this every day, so when we do, it's worth celebrating. The VA performances (at least in the sub, mostly) are on point as well. There are most certainly warts. As with the transition to any new system, the EN barks are frequently awkward. Some of the VA is rough. And if we're gonna have a big map, I want travel to be more engaging. Sujimon and the long level grinds sorta accomplish this, as does Dondoko Island. That said, as the only person in the world who doesn't love Pokemon or Animal Crossing, they didn't fully land for me. Played the hell out of each, to be sure, but it was more like "this is pretty fun" instead of "FEVER TIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIME" from Y0. But I'll take those flaws. They make the good stuff stand out that much more. Given RGG's track record, I'm reasonably confident they'll polish those rough elements in time. They'll still experiment to mixed results, as they should. It means they're taking some risks, that they're growing as artists & storytellers, and they're helping to move the medium forward. Also, and above all, this is a love letter to both Kiryu and to all us kyodais who've followed our Oji-san from some point within the past 20 years. Completely lost my poo poo at the ending, and at multiple points in Kiryu's bucket list. The (Kiryu late game substory) Four Shine reunion got me good, as did the final scene. Didn't think they'd top Y6's closing in my book, but they did it anyway. isk fucked around with this message at 03:59 on Apr 10, 2024 |
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Apr 9, 2024 01:47
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Yakuza 7/Like a Dragon: finished! That was a good time.
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Apr 9, 2024 04:17
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My biggest issue with 8 was that around chapter 5 or 6 it started to get very clear that the game was going to have you unlock the same RPG features at the exact same pace in chapters that 7 did, but 7 felt like they had enough story to tell to justify the chapters, whereas 8 feels like it's gotta find extra story to put between job unlocks, the rng dungeons and the island mini game. A lot of the middle chapters are along the lines of: talk to one guy, oh no you're betrayed, let's fight our way out, ok now what. I was usually pretty unclear about how anything I was doing was going to lead me to Ichiban's nom. It felt like four separate scenes where you get introduced to the Real Boss of hawaii, have to fight them, and then find out they weren't in charge, actually they just follow the orders of an Even Bigger Boss. Then another four or so scenes where Chitose turned out to be betraying you all along!! But actually it only looked that way and anyway you need her to introduce you to the next Big Boss. I'm just now remembering the mob boss dad freaking out about how his kid was taken by the Real Actual This Time Lord of Hawaii and thought for a while they were setting him up as a new party member, tbh I can't even remember what specifically happened to him. Kiryu's story helps fill some of the game's empty space but has the problem of being pretty much entirely him saying "I have terminal cancer. I am dying and will be dead soon. I'm resigned to my fate and giving up" over and over again in different arrangements. Yamai was a fun antagonist and the highlight of the game's story, but the main bad guys being an obviously crazy guy and also some guy you had an awkward five minute chat with in chapter 2 made for a big step down compared to 7's ending. I still enjoyed the game and characters, it was fun to play, but also this game has you spend so much time watching cut scenes and reading through dialog boxes where every character is as wordy as they could possibly be just to tell you absolutely nothing beyond okay let's go to the next place with bad guys. By the end every cut scene felt like a slog. MOD EDIT: Edited in spoiler tags at the request of a couple of posters. No big deal! --HopperUK Somebody fucked around with this message at 19:26 on Apr 9, 2024 |
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Apr 9, 2024 04:55
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i liked that stuff
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Apr 9, 2024 09:13
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Probably want to put spoilers on that post my guy
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Apr 9, 2024 12:39
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Kyte posted:
Realism in video games is getting out of control
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Apr 9, 2024 14:34
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Imho It’s okay that most of the minigame point items are only marginal improvements and a massive time investment over what you’d normally have because they’re there for people who are insane completetieonists and need every armament for the personality poo poo, or people who just really like the minigames. It’s at least better than the reverse situation, where they’re huge upgrades and you don’t actually like playing poker/blackjack. poo poo, that’s actually kind of the case with Sujimon iirc, the Kunoichi’s Knife is locked behind the arena and I sure never liked it enough to get it.
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Apr 9, 2024 14:54
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One of the reasons I think LAD games get away with "too many minigames" while FF7 Rebirth got that as a regular complaint (aside from the fact that Rebirth often makes its minigames part of the main story) is that Rebirth's minigames have very good rewards. Even if you're not a completionist it's hard not to feel compelled to do the best you can on every minigame because you get really good accessories, crafting materials, and even a weapon from one of them. It leads to a lot of people who don't intrinsically enjoy the minigames banging their heads against a wall trying to get the rewards.
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Apr 9, 2024 15:15
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RGG aren’t above gating something good behind an unbelievably lovely minigame tbf Looking directly at you, VR arcade pass at the end of drone racing in Judgment
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Apr 9, 2024 15:26
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I didn't play Rebirth but does it still have the Remake style progression minigames (robot arms, wind tunnel, uh the synchronized switch puzzles)? My big problem with those were they were required and rewardless on top of sucking out loud. IW railroads you into Crazy Delivery and Dondoko but you're free to totally bomb them and move on if you like.
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Apr 9, 2024 15:28
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welcome posted:I didn't play Rebirth but does it still have the Remake style progression minigames (robot arms, wind tunnel, uh the synchronized switch puzzles)? My big problem with those were they were required and rewardless on top of sucking out loud. IW railroads you into Crazy Delivery and Dondoko but you're free to totally bomb them and move on if you like. Oh yes. I found each individual minigame less tedious than the ones in Remake (nothing nearly as tedious as the robot arms for example), and at least a couple of them you can skip if you want to, but there really are a lot.
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Apr 9, 2024 15:33
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Last Celebration posted:Imho It’s okay that most of the minigame point items are only marginal improvements and a massive time investment over what you’d normally have because they’re there for people who are insane completetieonists and need every armament for the personality poo poo, or people who just really like the minigames. It’s at least better than the reverse situation, where they’re huge upgrades and you don’t actually like playing poker/blackjack. poo poo, that’s actually kind of the case with Sujimon iirc, the Kunoichi’s Knife is locked behind the arena and I sure never liked it enough to get it. the knife drops in yokohama from the boss on top of the parking lot. no sujimon required
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Apr 9, 2024 15:51
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isk posted:8 hosed me up in a good way. Massive game, so much to do, and nearly every gameplay element is an improvement on 7. We don't get crisp dialogue and expert localization like this every day, so when we do, it's worth celebrating. The VA performances (at least in the dub, mostly) are on point as well. Playing in Japanese with subs and it was definitely an odd choice to have like 25% of the English lines voiced by native English speakers, and the rest a range of heavily accented to 'Japanese guy who doesn't speak a lick of English reading something written out phonetically' (including a major antagonist!)
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Apr 9, 2024 16:14
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Larry Cum Free posted:Playing in Japanese with subs and it was definitely an odd choice to have like 25% of the English lines voiced by native English speakers, and the rest a range of heavily accented to 'Japanese guy who doesn't speak a lick of English reading something written out phonetically' (including a major antagonist!) Doubly odd for the very first lines of the game to be in English, even you picked the Japanese audio. I thought I made a mistake!
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Apr 9, 2024 16:16
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Harrow posted:One of the reasons I think LAD games get away with "too many minigames" while FF7 Rebirth got that as a regular complaint (aside from the fact that Rebirth often makes its minigames part of the main story) is that Rebirth's minigames have very good rewards. Even if you're not a completionist it's hard not to feel compelled to do the best you can on every minigame because you get really good accessories, crafting materials, and even a weapon from one of them. It leads to a lot of people who don't intrinsically enjoy the minigames banging their heads against a wall trying to get the rewards. It would be nice if it was sort of an alternative to grinding in other ways. I would rather play 45 minutes of Crazy Delivery or batting cages or something to get another shark fin than tediously swim around pressing square on yellow circles, or play the fishing 'mini-game' which is mostly mashing X to get through the dialogue required to start it every time. e: speaking of the fishing game dialogue - why oh why does RGG still do dialogue trees like this? When I go to a pawn shop, why does selling a piece of gear, selling a plate and buying an item require 3 separate instances of initiating dialogue with the cashier?? Larry Cum Free fucked around with this message at 16:23 on Apr 9, 2024 |
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Apr 9, 2024 16:20
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Larry Cum Free posted:Playing in Japanese with subs and it was definitely an odd choice to have like 25% of the English lines voiced by native English speakers, and the rest a range of heavily accented to 'Japanese guy who doesn't speak a lick of English reading something written out phonetically' (including a major antagonist!) lol yeah this was wild One weird part is they actually cast a separate actor for Dwight's English lines in the Japanese voice track. Not Danny Trejo. Just another, third guy. But also, why only for Dwight? Why not for Bryce or Tomizawa, who are much more major characters who also are supposed to have lived in the US their entire lives? It's really jarring. Not a huge deal and certainly not a big enough deal for me to switch to the English dub but it did feel kind of silly.
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Apr 9, 2024 16:21
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Harrow posted:lol yeah this was wild Yeah by their logic it should have been Danny Trejo doing the Japanese lines
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Apr 9, 2024 16:25
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You get Toru Furuya, you use him
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Apr 9, 2024 16:30
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Waffleman_ posted:You get Toru Furuya, you use him It was poo poo casting. I don't care if he's a legendary Japanese voice actor. If your character has to speak English and your voice actor cannot speak English, you either cast someone additionally to do the English lines or recast the main role for someone who is bilingual.
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Apr 9, 2024 19:11
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