Topic: Yakuza 6 and Yakuza Series on Gamepass

Who else is looking forward to playing Yakuza 6? (dropping on Gamepass March 25th)

It will be awesome to have the full series available on Gamepass! Let me know your thoughts below..

I still have Yakuza 5 left to play before I can tackle 6. I'm not looking forward to 5 that much simply because I've heard that it drags on for far too long. It's going to be interesting though playing through 6 and seeing how the series will wrap up. I'm definitely going to feel sad that Kiryu's story is ending, but Ichiban from LAD seems interesting enough to replace him.

Also, can we have this as a general discussion thread for the entire Yakuza series instead of just 6? I absolutely love the Yakuza games so I'd like to discuss all of them if possible.

@LtSarge I have amended to post to expand it to the full Yakuza series 🙂

I'm looking forward to it, though I haven't even got through Yakuza 4 yet!

Once I get through 4,5 and 6, I plan on picking up both Judgement and LAD... probably have Kiwami 3 to play by the time I've finished.

Like a Dragon is a bit of a departure with the turn based combat but I really enjoyed it! Judgement is an excellent game too.

I've been playing Yakuza 5 the past few weeks and it's insane how long this game is. I'm 45 hours in and last night I finished chapter 12 out of 21! I'm barely halfway through the story, lol. It's definitely going to take 20-30 more hours before I'm done with this game.

So yeah, keep that in mind if you're going to start it. I've seen many state this before but it's easy in general to get burned out on Yakuza games since they all have the same structure until Like a Dragon. Yakuza 5 in particular is definitely going to test people's patience since it's pretty much the largest game in the series.

@LtSarge That's nothing compared to Assassin's Creed Valhalla (or even Odyssey). I've still got a ways to go in Valhalla and I'm a bit passed the 75 hour mark.

In other words, it's probably best to take a break from the series in between Yakuza 4 and 5 from what you are saying.

@KilloWertz I was comparing the game to the rest of the series. Typically a Yakuza game is like 20-30 hours depending on how much side content you do, but Yakuza 5 is much longer than that which is just crazy.

Yes exactly. I think I played through Yakuza 4 last summer so it's been quite some time since I've played through a mainline Yakuza game. But despite that, I'm actually getting quite tired of the game now since it's repeating a lot of the side content and the substories aren't really that interesting. The game's a perfect example that more is not always better. I'm definitely interested to see where the story is going, but other than that there's not much motivating me to play it at this point.

@LtSarge I know. I was just providing an example of another long game I'm playing that hasn't gotten old for me in Assassin's Creed Valhalla.

That's fair. If there's a lot of repetitive padding, then that actually hurts the game instead of helping. Not sure why they went that route then, but judging by the reviews after it popped up on Game Pass, it seems like Yakuza 6 is a great finale for that character's series.

I've never played any of them, but it's hard for me to jump into the series even though it's all on Game Pass with it being 7 games long. I do really want to try Like a Dragon at some point after Assassin's Creed Valhalla though.

@KilloWertz Yeah it does sound intimidating but I think the best approach is to not think that you have to play through all games. Just play through the first one and then decide if you want to keep going or not. In this case, Yakuza 0 is the best starting point since it's considered one of the best games in the series but also because it's a prequel to the first game. And to be honest, if you've played Yakuza 0 then you've pretty much experienced all there is to do in the Yakuza series. At that point you'll be playing the game for primarily the story and the characters, which are phenomenal.

As a side note, I love the Assassin's Creed games. I just bought Bloodlines on Vita, which is a PSP AC game, so I'm looking forward to giving it a go. I still haven't played Valhalla or Origins, but I'm definitely interested in starting up Origins soon since I just love the exotic setting. Odyssey is my favourite game in the series, I spent 120 hours playing it including all of its expansions. So I'm very excited to eventually play Origins since they both feel similar.

@LtSarge Yeah, I may just play Yakuza 0 if I ever get the time to play any of them besides Like a Dragon. I doubt I'll have the time to play the ones after 0 story wise since I missed out on a lot of games bouncing back and forth between Xbox and PlayStation (one reason I'm glad to be just Xbox now).

120 hours? Real men play it for 200 hours. That sounds crazy, but it was also my favorite game of the last console generation, so it was 200 hours well spent. I was shocked when I looked at the "Stats" on Xbox though and saw the playtime, since according to the game itself it was more like 150 or so if I remember correctly (but isn't accurate). I've never had a Vita, so I haven't played Bloodlines, but Origins was pretty good.

Well I just finished Yakuza 5 after 62 hours of playtime and overall I thought the game was good but definitely not as good as some people made it out to be. Before playing it, I had read that this game was one of the best Yakuza games along with Yakuza 0. And in my opinion, Yakuza 5 doesn't come anywhere close to being as good as Yakuza 0. Not even Kiwami 1 or 2. The story is just too weak, there are too many branching story-lines and quite frankly, story-lines that shouldn't even be in a Yakuza game. Hunting? Baseball? Idols? These would've been great as mere side activities but to actually integrate them into the story was a huge mistake. You could cut out a hefty portion of this game and you would still understand the story. Another thing that was annoying was the pushing of the theme "dreams". Towards the end of the game, people would constantly blabber about achieving your dreams every other sentence and it got annoying after a while. They tried to integrate "dreams" into every section of the story and it just felt forced and not natural at all. The developer tried to do so many things but it ultimately came out ruining the pace of the game.

I read that when Yakuza 5 came out in Japan, this game was not received well at all by the fans and it was believed that this was the end of the series because of how disappointing Y5 was. I can absolutely see that considering Yakuza 0 was the next entry in this series and that game blew everyone away and it even helped the series penetrate the Western market. It's just so much better than Y5. The remakes of the first two Yakuza games were excellent as well and I have no doubt in my mind that Yakuza 6 is great as well. And Like a Dragon has been received very well too. You just can't avoid the fact that the origins of the Yakuza series are terrible, especially the PS3 era. Which is too bad considering many people love Yakuza 0 and as they play through this series in chronological order, most of them get fed up when they reach Yakuza 3 and onwards because of how outdated they are. And it wouldn't have mattered if these games had received remakes or not, they are just not up to the standards of the recent Yakuza titles.

But yeah, considering this is a franchise where you could easily get burned out from, I knew especially for Yakuza 5 that I needed a long break from this series. I played Yakuza 4 last summer and so I was all refreshed going into Y5, so it's not like that affected my assessment of this game. I played through it at a gentle pace across this past month and for the most part it was enjoyable. But personally, I wish the developer had removed so many things from the game and only focused on a few stuff. Because the more you add to a story, the harder it gets to tie everything together towards the end. And to be honest, the ending of Y5 was not satisfying to me at all simply because of this.

Well at least I'm done now with the PS3 era of Yakuza (including Dead Souls) and I have now only the good stuff ahead, such as Yakuza 6, Judgment and Like a Dragon.

Has anyone else played Yakuza 6 yet or is currently playing it? I just started it because I've been seriously craving another Yakuza game even though I finished Yakuza 5 just a month ago. Played through the first two hours and the first thing that came into my mind is just how nice it is to play a modern Yakuza game again after having spent the past year playing through the PS3 games. Everything just looks so much better and it feels great to move around and fight enemies. It's also crazy to be playing a sequel to the PS3 games. Like when I saw Akiyama, who has only been in Yakuza 4 and 5, I was just blown away. His character model looked so weird and abnormal compared to the one in the PS3 games. Same thing with Saejima and then you have the kids from the orphanage who are all grown up now. It really makes it clear that you need to play all these games in order so that you can fully appreciate the characters. I'm just amazed to be playing a Yakuza game that was made for the PS4 that takes place after all the other games.

The most incredible feature in Yakuza 6 (besides the awesome photo mode) is that you can actually move around while in first-person mode. It's kinda like in Fallout or Skyrim where you can switch perspective on the fly, which is simply amazing for the Yakuza series since it's always been in third-person. Walking around in Kamuroccho feels so much more immersive now, I love it!

@LtSarge as you've been ploughing through the Yakuza games, have you been doing a lot of or all of the sub stories? I'm just curious how far you've taken it really in terms of playing the games in fairly quick succession and still having a lot to do in each game.

My PS Plus sub runs out in a couple of days so I am quite eager to get back on some of my long standing games instead of ticking off a spreadsheet featuring a mostly boring (with a few real gems) subscription based back log.

Not sure whether to use my new found freedom to play Yakuza Kiwami, Doom Eternal or Streets of Rage 4 first 😅. There's a host of others though!

@ralphdibny Yeah I do almost all substories in the Yakuza games because honestly, they feel like a part of the overall story since most of them feel meaningful and it would be a shame to miss out on them. Granted, this wasn't really the case in the PS3 games but that's because those are older. I've definitely noticed a huge difference in the quality of the substories going from Yakuza 5 (PS3 game) to Yakuza 6 (PS4 game). But I still tried to do all of them, I think I skipped 4-5 substories out of the 80 in Yakuza 5.

I don't recall you mentioning finishing up Yakuza 0 so I don't know what your overall thoughts were on that game. But if you really liked it then I'd definitely suggest checking out Kiwami 1 next. It's not considered as good as 0, but the story and the substories are still really good.

The thing is that as I'm playing through Yakuza 6 now, I'm quite saddened by the fact that this is the last game in the Kiryu saga. While others have stated that they are intimidated by the amount of games in this series, I'm on the other hand disappointed that there aren't more, lol. These are just such amazing games.

@LtSarge ah nice, yeah I felt that way about Yakuza 0. It was the sub stories that kind of endeared me to the game initially. I skipped a few in 0 like the harder dance ones and some of the randomly distributed telephone booth dates.

I think I was wondering if you felt so inclined considering its a lot in a shorter period of time but it's good to know they are still worth doing! My mate was telling me the other day that Kiwami is very similar to 0, in terms of the story beats and stuff. He did play them back to back though. I'm not sure I'd notice because it's been a few months since I played 0

I think I did mention it, I remember saying I put 100 hours into it 😅. I know Kiwami is going to be shorter though so I think I will do that game next. Providing life doesn't throw another curve ball at me!

Should be a good game to play before we crack on with ReCore in June!

@ralphdibny Well you have to take into consideration that I've been playing the Yakuza games since 2017, lol. My first Yakuza game was Kiwami 1 in 2017, then 0 in 2018, Kiwami 2, 3 and 4 in 2020 and finally Dead Souls, 5 and now 6 in 2021. It's kinda like, the more entries I play the more addicted I become. I spent over 60 hours in Yakuza 5 and I still want to play more Yakuza now, lol.

Oh yeah, now I remember. Yeah Kiwami is a lot shorter than 0 but there is still lots of things to do. I think I did the story and most substories in around 50 hours, which isn't that long all things considered.

I'm definitely aiming towards finishing up Yakuza 6 around the time my semester ends (which is during the first week of June). Considering I'm already halfway through the story, there shouldn't be any problems! Really looking forward to ReCore.

@LtSarge ah fair enough. Yeah 2-6 over a year and a half is pretty close but I guess not as close together as I thought!

I'm still ploughing through the ps plus games (focusing on Vita/PS3 games so I can buy them when my sub lapses if they are any good). Mainly just ticking them off though, I've completed about 8 of them since I started focusing on ps3/Vita but I've tried loads and binned em off after an hour or 2.

The list of games I've completed since March last year is now at 113!

@ralphdibny Wow that's impressive! Hopefully though you won't develop that kind of mentality with Game Pass, otherwise we'll probably never see you again, lol.

I used to focus on completing as many games as I could each summer. I used to get around 50 titles completed and while that's a lot, I feel like I rushed through games and became disappointed with them as a result. My experiences with Metal Gear Solid 3 and Yakuza 0 were certainly dampened by this. So I decided to stop doing this and just enjoy the games even if it meant that my backlog would never get smaller. Although I've realised that I'd rather have a large backlog than a small one because sometimes I'm not in a mood to play most games that I own. It pays then to have a lot of options to choose from.

@LtSarge I think with game pass, especially as I got it for so cheap at £73 for 2.5 years (I'd probably care more if I was paying like £12 a month for it - which I highly doubt I ever will), it is just like Netflix for games really. There's tons of stuff I don't watch on netflix. I also play a fair few games on game pass so I kind of do get my moneys worth.

The difference with PS Plus is I feel like I've paid for access to the monthly games and while I might not like every single one, I at least gotta give them a try. I duno, it's weird, just a different perception of the services I think. I'll probably do a similar thing with the GwG close to when my ultimate game pass sub runs out

It just seems like you get quite a lot from game pass ultimate (at the discounted price). Like the rewards, while not much, are bolstered by the game pass quests. I wish I'd started doing them a lot sooner tbh because then I'd have enough points for a Series X with some months spare toward the end of my sub to start using points on gamepass. As it stands, I'll probably have a sizable contribution toward the series X by may 2022 when it runs out. I think I'm at £70 worth of vouchers and I've been doing it solidly since January.

But yeah, if I wasn't saving my points for a Series X, it almost seems like game pass could pay for itself by doing the rewards. It's pretty insane.

Generally my policy is that if I see a game that's leaving soon that I wanted to try or play then I will play it immediately.

Tbh, pre-pandemic I was rubbish at keeping up with games. It's just the extra free time that's allowed me to get through so many. I wouldn't say I've rushed any and in some ways it's made me realise what games are absolutely brilliant because they stand out amongst the more forgettable games.