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Just finished Kiwami, and really I'm not sure I'd have liked it half as much without Majima Everywhere. Basically just felt like a half-baked Yakuza 0 for most of it, although catching up with the Pocket Racing gang was heartwarming. Mostly I just dislike the ending. A lot of standing around having cutscene guns pointed at Kiryu wondering why he isn't being killed, then fighting some rando politician and his zombie special forces guys (speaking of annoying bosses with guns, gently caress that Matrix wannabe reject you fight on the rooftop after finding Shinji). Spent the whole time chanting, "Where's Nishki?!" and then when he actually did show up the fight felt really anemic and didn't really resolve anything. I'd rather be fighting Kuze again, bro. Also huge missed opportunity not to have Mister Moneybags smiling proudly in the crowd at the end. Still love Majima though. Hope to see more of him in Kiwami 2. Also the Tiger Drop is hilarious and I never stopped using it after unlocking it. Well worth the tedious arena battles. I may have even started hating Majima if I didn't have the cheat code to burn down his health bars so quick.
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Jan 8, 2024 17:32
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| # ¿ May 22, 2024 03:31 |
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Just started Kiwami 2 and I wanna get something off my chest about guns in these games. In gameplay guns are nothing. You get shot, you grunt, you fall down, you mash A. It doesn't do much damage, it just interrupts your flow and lets other guys kick you while you're getting back up. In cutscenes guns are a big deal. You get shot you're either dead, walking with a cane the rest of the game, or at least not taking part in the immediate confrontation. Yeah, Kiryu and Massive Man are both back up and fine in a few hours, but being shot prevents them from saving Tachibana/Makoto when it counts, it's a big deal. Yakuza 0 felt like it actually gave those cutscene guns weight. If someone's toting a gun in a cutscene, it usually gets disabled during the cutscene so the actual fight can begin, like Wen Hai Lee throwing a needle through the guy's hand. When Awano has a gun trained on Kiryu, Kiryu basically calls his bluff and turns his back on him but it's treated with the gravity that if Awano had pulled the trigger it would've gone bad for Kiryu. The end of Kiwami and the start of Kiwami 2 both feature scenes where Kiryu is facing multiple people pointing guns at him, and he treats them like they're gameplay guns, he's completely unphased and confident he can rush these fools down and beat their asses before bullets do anything. He's right, but it really undermines the threat of those guns and the inevitability of someone getting killed taking a bullet for someone else during those scenes. Those games just have more guns in general. The mass of special forces dudes at the end of Kiwami, two bosses that use guns almost exclusively. I think Lao Gui was the only boss in 0 who used a gun and only for one of his three phases where he used it alongside a sword.
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Jan 10, 2024 13:12
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I just heat actioned a dude off the Sotenbori bridge and he landed balls-first on the prow of a river barge. Please disregard any past or future criticisms I make of Kiwami 2.
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Jan 10, 2024 16:05
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Just finished Kiwami 2. I'll probably take a break from the series before hitting the next one, I'm a bit Yakuza'd out (I dove right in from 0 and Kiwami 1 after I got 0 to 6 in the November Steam sale). Loved everything with Makoto in the Majima Saga. Really looking forward to seeing the same deft handling of Kiryu and Kaoru's relationship when I do get into 3 though!
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Jan 21, 2024 02:06
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grate deceiver posted:Please please post your reaction in the thread when you get to it  I was expecting her to be comically killed off like Liz Hurley in the second Austin Powers movie, Kiryu maybe milking it for one scene and then forgetting she ever existed. Not even that. Low energy. Sad!
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Jan 28, 2024 20:52
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I finished Yakuza 3. That sure was a game. For reals though, got a bit emotional at the end. Kiryu telling Mine about how people can change as long as they're alive, I was thinking to myself, "This is what he wanted to tell Nishki!" and then of course Mine has to loving sacrifice himself in some dumb play to take responsibility just like Nishki. At least Daigo got to do something incredibly cool after being useless throughout the rest of the series. Also RIP Rikiya, I'll miss your hoarse voice yelling, "Aniki!" every five seconds while running around Kamurocho.
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Feb 14, 2024 02:09
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It's funny how despite basically being the same engine Yakuza 4 has been so much more fun than Yakuza 3. And I haven't even seen Kiryu yet! Just starting the Saejima chapters, and I was not prepared for the Hamazaki redemption arc but I am here for it.
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Feb 17, 2024 21:41
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Finished Yakuza 4: Rubber Bullets. When will these fuckers ever not be dumb around guns? How many people have to die because a 'defeated' enemy has access to a gun that he can shoot at the player character only for someone else to take the bullet? Yasuko went out the same way as Rikiya as the same way as Yumi! Even loving Akiyama would be dead if he didn't carry around fat stacks. Still, loved it, way better than 3. Would have ended on a really high note if not for forcing me to redo the Jingu fight from 1 except with ten special forces dudes instead of four. gently caress, the other three climactic battles were awesome and then they put that as the final fight of the game? Tamimura had to eat all his staminan royales when no one else even touched theirs. I almost used his staminan spark! Oh, also gently caress the fight with the prison guard that both Saejima and Kiryu have to do early on. gently caress that combo-interrupting stun-locking piece of poo poo. Seriously though, great game. Hana is best girl. Excited to see Kiryu come back and take responsibility for the Tojo Clan, I'm sure he won't be back as a civilian within the first hour of Yakuza 5.
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Feb 27, 2024 16:48
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Dr. Cool Aids posted:Props if you did the final boss legit but there's an armour set you could've used to make it more tolerable Yeah, I really couldn't be bothered with crafting in 3 or 4, I think I had a SWAT vest on Tanimura which at least reduced the damage, I wasn't able to get the 'immune to bullets' set you get from Bob for completing everyone's training because Saejima's was gated behind the baseball minigame and gently caress that. Oh, another thing I adored on the topic of training was Komaki being a fan of Kiryu's blog.
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Feb 27, 2024 17:01
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The best part about loopy fun Majima is when he stops smiling and joking. The contrast makes it hit incredibly hard. His expression in the dynamic intro for the Kei fight in Kiwami 2 gives me chills, dude is ice loving cold.
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Feb 28, 2024 10:41
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Kiryu at the end of Yakuza 4: "Sorry Daigo, I dumped everything on you and didn't take any responsibility for guiding you, it's my fault the Tojo Clan is all hosed up." Kiryu at the start of Yakuza 5: "Don't come to me with your problems Daigo, you've gotta figure this poo poo out for yourself." Arai hitting Kiryu with that, "You're always too late Kiryu, that's why these things happen," line at the end of 4 was so on point.
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Feb 29, 2024 15:47
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As I work through the series, I basically skimmed 3 and 4. I probably missed most of the substories in 3 and did none of the side activities, while in 4 I did almost all the substories except the hostess ones, but I skipped all the side activities. But now I'm in Yakuza 5 and the taxi stuff managed to grip me as much as pocket circuit or running Sunshine/Four Shine, it's a really nice return to form.
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Mar 1, 2024 01:45
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Honestly it's not even the mechanics - although the racing is perfectly fine and it's fun to customise your car, it's the vibes though. Everyone at the taxi office is nice and it gives off that same kind of warm feeling as you get with Yuki or Pocket Circuit Fighter and the rest of those crews where you just want to spend time with them and see where their stories go. Admittedly Saejima's dojo in 4 had some pretty fun interactions with your fighter and Sodachi, but the actual fights themselves were miserable and made me give it up quickly.
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Mar 1, 2024 02:36
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I wonder how many people prioritise heat actions like the 'smash face into wall' or 'stamp on face' ones when fighting host type enemies like Shota in Yakuza 1? I certainly do. And 5 including both hosts as a random mob and a new heat action for grinding someone's face over the asphalt feels like such wonderful synergy.
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Mar 2, 2024 00:57
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Randallteal posted:0's my all time fave but I found both last bosses and the future plot-necessitated decisions to spare / keep working for Dojima a little unsatisfying, so as silly as it was, it was nice in Infinite Wealth that they just let you beat up the old guys responsible for all the bs at the end. It does kind of blow my mind that at the end of Yakuza 0 Dojima is like, "Yeah sure Kiryu, you can come work for me again. Kazama too." I guess in Kiryu's case it could be the same logic Shimano has for keeping Majima around; wanting a weapon like him at his side, but Kazama? I actually wound up sympathising with Dojima because the game starts with a lot of stuff about how he's sidelining Kazama and getting his lieutenants gunned up to take his spot, but as the plot develops it becomes clear that Kazama has been undermining and working against Dojima for a long time, gently caress yeah you'd want to get rid of a liability like that as your captain.
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Mar 4, 2024 15:04
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It's heavy-handed, but everyone constantly pushing the Kiryu button around Nishki does a good job of showing why he'd eventually lose his poo poo.
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Mar 6, 2024 18:02
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Frog Act posted:Also I think 0 first, playing the one set in the 1860s, and to a lesser extent K1 and 2 spoiled minigames for me because nothing in 3 came within spitting distance of Slot Cars and the generic ones like baseball and bowling didn’t have any content attached. Hoping 4 is better in that regard Each character gets their own unique minigame-adjacent thing and Akiyama's is just the same hostess training thing as 3 had, but Kiryu has a pretty cool one of fighting various gangs, which is just normal random encounter street fights with bosses you have to find via clues and while it's not much it does feature some good savage/cocky dialogue from Kiryu poo poo-talking gang members that he and you and the game all understand are going to be eating dirt in seconds. The character you play as after Akiyama has a dojo training one which is probably the closest it gets to pocket racing or cabaret club in terms of having an arc with fun characters to interact with.
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Mar 6, 2024 23:07
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Wolfsheim posted:I would put 5's pretty low because while its maybe the best Kiryu/Saejima moveset before 0 introduced multiple styles, Akiyama felt weirdly gimped and Shinada has, literally, the worst combat in the entire series Haruka's combat owns though. I just got to her part in 5 and it's a really fun change of pace so far. Serious answer though, 0 and Kiwami 1 are hard to beat, the style switching and each style being so good in their own ways is as good as it gets. My favourite part of playing Saejima is that he's almost Beast style.
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Mar 9, 2024 02:24
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Waltzing Along posted:The combat is the worst part of these games. They would be much better if you could just have a skip combat button. Maybe it would just skip to a heat action and be done with it. Starting with 0 absolutely spoils you with the 'throw money' option not being available in any subsequent games.
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Mar 9, 2024 02:40
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Wolfsheim posted:This is exactly why I didn't finish all substories in Y6. Five hostesses, with something like 5+ visits per hostess to max them out, meaning multiple repeating conversations about nothing particularly interesting I did all of Kiryu's hostess in 5, and honestly planned to do Saejima's hostess too but when I had him walk to the club and he was all, "I gotta go speak to the MEB first," even though his prison buddy had not only recommended the hostess but played out an imaginary karaoke date with her I just couldn't be bothered and said gently caress it. Sorry Kaguya. If they really want to use the MEB hookup to point you at their designated girl they should just let you blunder in and get a random that doesn't work out, play it like the telephone club in 0.
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Mar 9, 2024 23:19
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Loneliness Loop (the second song in the Princess League in Yakuza 5) is a total banger. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiqZ-Iw8ux8 Reminds me of listening to KOTOKO .mp3s back in the 00s.
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Mar 11, 2024 19:10
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60 hours in and I've reached the finale of Yakuza 5. Just hope I can finish it this week before Dragon's Dogma 2 comes out. The game's good, no doubt about it it's best in the series so far after 0, but it feels too long. Shinada's chapter was a slog, not helped by his fighting style being kind of bad. I got the sturdy weapons to save on running back to Kamiyama but they're really weak. Still I did kind of love the sports drama feel with his chapter's conclusion, even if I missed the QTE at the end of the long cutscene because I'd put down my controller to have a sandwich.
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Mar 18, 2024 21:59
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Finished Yakuza 5: Men would rather embark on insane schemes than get therapy. Definitely felt like it was hitting the same heights as 0 in places even if a few parts felt like they went on too long. End boss was up there with Shibusawa, I loved the dynamism of fighting through Tojo HQ and having lots of impactful QTEs. Should've known that guy was gonna be trouble as soon as I saw the carp on his back. Majima shouldn't be allowed to watch Naruto though. Also everything with Haruka was great, it really has been nice seeing her grow up through the series. I hope there's more idol stuff to come for her.
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Mar 21, 2024 19:06
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Shimano super sucks but it gets a lot better after him. Majima can get really bad after a while though, so it's well worth doing the coliseum/Komaki to learn Tiger Drop which just deletes health bars.
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Mar 26, 2024 01:56
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Didn't the guy who fell off the Millenium Tower with him already survive?
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Apr 1, 2024 18:09
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Perfect Potato posted:It was a hospital. 3 is like the only mainline game that doesn't give a poo poo about that cursed place Oh god you're right. I even initially typed 'fell off a roof' but then I changed it to emphasise Millennium Tower because every loving game ends up there, except that one didn't!
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Apr 2, 2024 13:09
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Started Yakuza 6, and man I forgot how pretty the Dragon engine is. Seeing all the kids from the orphanage grown up a bit is a real treat too after them being basically absent from 4 and 5. Most importantly I hit the karaoke as soon as I could, sang TONIGHT, and confirmed Kiryu still loves Nishki. I guess really it's more that Kiwami 2 just reused the song/footage from here, but still it's really nice to see his kyodai still in Kiryu's thoughts.
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Apr 5, 2024 00:51
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I want to complain about the isolating nature of karaoke-kan. There's all these songs that Kiryu won't sing but will do backup for, but unless you've maxed out a hostess or brought Haruka there in Premium Adventure, it's just Kiryu shaking maracas in an empty room. It's sad and depressing! In 0 you did karaoke at a bar and so one of the other patrons or the bartender would sing the song for Kiryu to do backup for and it was much better. Kiwami 2 at least let you invite Majima halfway through the story as well.
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Apr 5, 2024 12:09
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I gotta say Haruto's signals aren't nearly as clear as the ones the girls in the cabaret club gave. Guest glass/ladies glass is a lot easier to parse than lift/upsy-daisy.
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Apr 6, 2024 19:44
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Solenna posted:Is there a play with the baby minigame at some point???? Yes when you're walking around with Haruto in 6 you randomly have to stop him crying by playing with him. It triggers way too much. At least it gives some XP.
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Apr 6, 2024 20:07
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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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The pizza substory is insane because it's so good right up until the end. Kiryu's idiotic misunderstanding, him going to a burger place for pizza because they're both western foods, the one-time use of extremely dramatic music for bringing the pizza back to her... it's gold right up until the human trafficker is like, "I love you lets get married," to his victim and they all eat the pizza and laugh. Such a fumble.
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Apr 11, 2024 16:30
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Yakuza 6 spoilers. After a lot of time wondering what the hell the Secret of Onomichi could be I was both not prepared for the emergence of the Yamato mk.2 but also for its big dramatic reveal I kept thinking how it's really less of a big deal than Osaka Castle having a larger golden castle underneath it that emerged in similar fashion. But holy poo poo that bit with Hirose revealing he killed Nagumo and Matsunagi's dads as he died, Kiryu's reaction and remembering how Kazama went out. Incredible drama. Also it was funny when Yuta was revealed as Haruto's dad because literally as soon as we met him I was sure it'd be him but then we spent most of the game on a wild goose chase.
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Apr 15, 2024 02:31
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Absolutely incredible scene. Yakuza 6 as the last game of the Kiryu saga makes a lot of sense for just how done with poo poo he seems to be in a lot of it. He gets to be a chill old man in places, going to the bar and running his baseball team, but any time someone starts acting out he's clearly thinking, "I'm too old for this poo poo, I'm not gonna sugarcoat it." Also I want to formally apologise to Date-san for my comments earlier in the thread saying how it sucked we were stuck with him after so many cool characters from 0 never got to appear again. Cuffing Yuta in the middle of his dramatic tirade was just perfect.
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Apr 15, 2024 12:33
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Yeah, really it's just a museum piece in 2016 so it's hard to see anyone of the current generation caring, but somehow the cast is full of people who were not only alive during World War 2 but old enough to be influential and powerful back then too. Kiryu fist fights an 85 year old man! I thought Kuze looked kinda decrepit and he's probably still younger than Hirose. Yes I know Kuze in 0 looks a lot older than Kiryu does in 6, but it was the 80s, people aged rough back then.
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Apr 15, 2024 15:09
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And that's 6 finished. I was pretty disappointed that Daigo/Majima/Saejima were absent the entire game. They kind of have to be for the Tojo Clan to be a fuckup you fight with, but still for the last entry in Kiryu's story I expected more of the guys that've been with him for so much of it. The post-credits stuff with them and especially Daigo was really good though. The moment you realise Kiryu is writing a letter to Daigo and not Haruka really hit hard. Also a fantastic bit of interface 'gently caress you' for the final boss getting his dynamic intro label as CEO of Iwami Shipbuilding. Awesome game. Gonna feel weird going into 7 with the new turn-based style and protagonist, but I'm looking forward to getting to know Ichiban.
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Apr 15, 2024 18:46
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Dewgy posted:I’m pretty sure Majima profits off of Mr. Shakedown too, but not by nearly as much. Every time you beat Mr. Shakedown he'll respawn with more money on him and more hp/damage to go with it, so he can always be farmed for money. It's just Kiryu can multiply those gains by 'donating' to Mr. Shakedown with a loss before beating him, since any money Kiryu loses to Mr. Shakedown gets increased by 50% when added to his fund, while it's zero sum with Majima. Majima does get vastly more money for passing milestones in Cabaret Club Czar at least.
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Apr 21, 2024 23:15
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Just picked up Eri and she's 5 levels behind everyone else. Maybe I've been grinding too much? Something about getting levels in various jobs to pick up those persistent bonuses really scratches a mental itch. Also the cast in Yakuza 7 is just really nice and fun. The little conversations you get in the streets and the restaurants are so characterful, everyone's a treat to spend time with. It genuinely makes me wish we could've had a game with Kiryu and Nishki and Majima hanging out like this. There's an empty spot of time in the 90s you could fit it! But really the best compliment I can pay to 7's cast is that I haven't at any point wished Majima or Kiryu were around. Ichiban and Nanba and Adachi and Saeko stand up great on their own.
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Apr 24, 2024 18:00
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While I've never been to Japan, I did enjoy getting the sense of familiarity with Sotenbori and Tsukimino in 5 from having played Persona 5 Strikers before.
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Apr 25, 2024 11:49
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Chapter 10 of Yakuza 7 is giving me awful flashbacks to the bit in 3 where you had to spend half an hour listening to a politician explain the plot. At least this one gives you breaks to save every ten minutes if you need to step away. edit: Joon-gi Han, you do not get to insert your K-pop star looking rear end into my party and then not have a karaoke song, that's not how we roll here! Shyrka fucked around with this message at 20:06 on Apr 26, 2024 |
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Apr 26, 2024 17:18
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