Topic: Yakuza 6 and Yakuza Series on Gamepass

@ralphdibny Maybe by the time you have a sizable amount of points, the Series X will finally be readily available.

I'm similar about Game Pass. I'm not sure if I would actually have it if I had to pay the monthly fee, but being able to subscribe to Gold and then just pay the one month fee for it makes it a lot more appealing. Obviously it's a great service, but I'm not sure I would use it enough every month to keep it if I had to pay $15 a month for it.

I'm playing Mass Effect right now. I'm definitely not going to rush through that as I want to enjoy re-playing it again as much as I can, but I'm looking forward to finally playing ReCore as well at some point next month (and also finally being involved in a month of the Game Club). It just won't be right at the beginning of the month as I know I definitely won't be done with Mass Effect yet by then.

@KilloWertz yep that's the plan! I'd just be gutted if I saw it in stock, spent 10-20 minutes redeeming all the points (we only have vouchers in £5 denominations) only for it to go out of stock again during that time 😅.

It's definitely a good deal at the much lower price I think. It's an age old sales tactic where you sell a product to a few people for pennies and they spread positive word of mouth and then loads of people will pay full price for it. I rarely ever buy things full price. Obviously value is subjective though so I try not to judge people who do.

But yeah, at the price I paid, I got 2 and a half years for less than the current price for a year of Disney+ which is one of the cheaper streaming services out there!

I'm about half way through Yakuza Kiwami (both main and sub stories). I'm not as enamoured with it as I was with 0. I have heard that this is the worse one but yeah, it's just "ok" for me at the moment. There's a few laughs in it but not nearly as many as 0 had. It's saving grace is that it should be half the length of 0 (hopefully....lol)

@ralphdibny Yeah 0 set the bar really high for the series and considering Kiwami is a remake of the first game that came out on PS2, people will definitely notice a huge step-down coming from 0. However, the more Yakuza games I played the more I started to appreciate Kiwami because it's a sequel to 0. The further away you get from 0 the more the series starts to depart from what defines it. Many stop playing at Yakuza 3 for obvious reasons and while I've personally enjoyed all Yakuza games, Yakuza 5 was definitely the one where I asked the question "Am I even playing a Yakuza game anymore?". That's why I appreciate Kiwami more now even though I know it's not as good as 0.

That's one thing that the developer has massively improved upon in Yakuza 6. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that after 25 hours of playtime, Yakuza 6 is the "most Yakuza" game I've played since probably 0. That's mostly because you feel like you're actually part of the Yakuza once again. This is enhanced further by the fact that you even have your own small squad with you in certain situations. Not to mention the wonderful group dynamic, like Kiryu actually enjoys being around these people. Moreover, the substories are much better in this game, they're more akin to 0's substories where the focus is on long and interesting stories with the people of the cities. Time travel, body swapping, ghost hunting, AIs taking over the world, like these are so much better than any of the substories from the previous four games.

So yeah, I think Yakuza 0 and 6 are definitely my favourite games in the series followed by the Kiwami titles and lastly the PS3 games.

@LtSarge it makes sense for the more recent titles to have more of what people love about the series! I don't think I understand why Majima has become a total maniac between 0 and Kiwami though 😅. I'll probably just take that at face value for now!

@ralphdibny Well at the end of 0, he realises that it's better to behave crazy and have fun rather than being depressed all the time since he went through a lot of traumatic experiences such as being tortured by Shimano, held captive by that Omi guy in Sotenbori for a year, losing his sworn brother, and falling in love with Makoto who he couldn't have. Basically, it's all a facade and not how he actually is. He's just trying to hide his true emotions by living as free and happy as he can. Also, you might remember a guy from 0 called Nishitani, the one who was stuck in jail with Majima and then shortly thereafter got shot to death. He was the main inspiration for Majima, i.e. a carefree and fun-loving person. Once Majima saw his way of living life, he decided that he wanted to be like him. I guess it's both honouring his memory as well as making his own life less miserable.

By the way, have you been doing any karaoke in the games so far? I sadly didn't care much about it in Kiwami and 0 when I played them for the first time and as a result, I missed out on all the great songs like Baka mitai and what have you. Definitely take this opportunity to check it out so that you don't miss out on them like I did.

@LtSarge yeah that makes sense! Regardless of his maniacal nature, I think the only thing that doesn't sit quite right is his sadism. He seems to really revel in hurting other people but yeah, that's the life of a Yakuza sometimes I suppose!

I did the compulsory karaoke in 0. I liked it but I wasn't very good at it, I don't know how many more songs were available to do after the pop star Majima song and rock band kiryu/nishiki song. I did really enjoy the sequences but I just wasn't any good at them!

I haven't been to the karaoke bar in Kiwami yet but I do plan to check it out at some point. My favourite activities from a game play perspective are the pool and bowling mini games. I got quite addicted to pool in 0 lol.

I'm going to play Kiwami for the rest of the day and try and make some progress on it. I am quite keen to move on as I just bought Miles Morales for PS4 in the days of play sale. Need to finally do the DLC for the first spider man game before I play it though!

@ralphdibny I forgot to mention in my previous post that another reason for doing the karaoke songs is that some of them will actually show you flashbacks of moments from previous Yakuza games. This is another advantage of playing both Kiwami remakes as the developer has tried to add as many things as they could to make the games tie in more with 0, which is great! Sadly Yakuza 6 doesn't have many of these songs but at least there's one that shows some of the events from Yakuza 0.

I'm so close to finishing Yakuza 6 now by the way. Been playing for 34 hours now and I'm on the second to last chapter. I've just spent so much time doing substories because a good chunk of them are tied to certain mini-games. I literally spent hours doing one where you're supposed to interact with people at a bar and make friends with them. Possibly the most "mature" mini-game I've played in the series thus far, lol. All you do is talk with people and help them with their family troubles or their past. It was great though, definitely a mini-game suited for "old" Kiryu since people that age prefer to do stuff that is more relaxing and simple that makes you happy. Like throughout this entire series, you rarely see Kiryu happy. He's been more happy in Yakuza 6 through stuff like the bar mini-game than any of the previous games combined, lol (as evident by my avatar picture).

@LtSarge I did wonder how much stuff had been added to Kiwami. I know a few sub stories were added, specifically an endgame one that explains Sera's role in 0 against his action in Kiwami. I haven't got there yet but I am on the second to last chapter now.

I did check out all the karaoke songs available to me after you mentioned it and saw a few amusing/melodramatic/crazy vignettes accompany them which was nice. I think I've mentioned this game isn't nearly as funny as 0 but a few moments have made me laugh. The main one was that interview with "bad dads" where Date and the Florist come out and try to out do you in front of this reporter. That was probably the funniest bit of the game.

So is Yakuza 6 another short one then at 34+ hours? It's weird, I did 100 hours on 0 and I'll probably finish Kiwami in just over 50 hours. I know there is a bit of me leaving the game running while I do something else but I've tried not to do it as much in Kiwami. I did it a lot in 0 because of that real estate game.

I'm going to try and tick off as many sub stories as I can. The ones I'm likely to skip are the pocket circuit fighter (pocket racing is tedious), the last half of the komaki ones (the coliseum is tedious) and the dating ones (the dates are tedious and nowhere near as good as the equivalent Majima hostess training parts of 0). The only thing that's tedious that I'm keen to see through to the end is the Majima everywhere bit. I hate fighting Majima, it takes ages and you do it so many times but I really want to see how the story pans out as I'm invested in it because of 0.

@ralphdibny It honestly is. I too remember spending 50+ hours with Kiwami 1 and that game felt like it had way more content than 6. Granted, I'm at 41 substories done of 52 but that's because half of the remaining ones are tied to interacting with hostesses by basically grinding and leveling up their ranks for hours. I didn't feel like doing that. Then there are like 4 substories tied to darts and I can't for the life of me find where to activate this questline and at this point I don't really care anymore since I'm so close to the end of the game. 80% of the substories done is still pretty good all things considered.

But yeah, Yakuza 6 definitely feels like it has the least amount of content of all the games, except for maybe Yakuza 3. I remember walking around in 0 and discovering something new at every turn. Here it's more like you have to run around and put in effort in order to discover new things. Not really my idea of fun, to be honest. But like I said, the substories that you activate by walking around are amazing. Quality over quantity I guess then.

@LtSarge ah that's good to know they get shorter. I was under the impression that Kiwami was the shortest one. I do like the games I've played so far but I was apprehensive about dedicating 700 hours to the series 😂.

I've bought so many games this last week it's ridiculous. I've even capped off this ridiculousness by buying all the Wolfenstein games physically on Xbox (I know 3 out of 4 of them are on game pass and I already own NO/OB on PS4 😂 but I just couldn't help it!). I also picked up Cyberpilot on PSVR. I'm good to go on a full playthrough of Wolfenstein now, similar to how I did with Doom! I've got the first 3 games on steam and the 2009 game on PS3. But yeah, I need time to play all these games!!!

@ralphdibny If you're interested, I can give you the stats of my playtime from Kiwami 2 and onwards:

Kiwami 2: 43 hours
3: 31 hours
4: 36 hours
5: 62 hours
6: 36 hours (played a bit more just now, lol)

And that's including doing as many of the substories as I could, as well as mini-games on the scale of the Cabaret club/Real estate ones from 0. As you can see the odd one out is definitely 5 because of how many mini-games they tried to integrate into the story. Skipping them basically shaves off 10-20 hours I believe.

Nice! The Wolfenstein games are great fun, I've played the first one and The Old Blood and both are excellent experiences. Makes me excited to see what MachineGames is cooking up next. You know it was rumoured in that Outer Worlds 2 article that Wolfenstein 3 might get announced at E3, so this would be the perfect time for you to get into the series right before a potential announcement of a new game.

@LtSarge oh cheers, yeah I am interested actually! Sounds like you'd do a similar amount of substories as I would (though I do get hung up on a few weird things like eating every food at every restaurant for CP 😂).

That's good to know though, I'll have to set aside a decent chunk of time for Kiwami 2 but it's more manageable after that. I know I said I was less busy this month but I'm going to Cornwall for a week on Monday so everything is getting pushed back again! I think my final two weeks of this month will be dedicated to ReCore and Subnautica (which is the push Square game club game - I really can't see me playing that game on my own volition so I'm quite keen to do it as part of the PS game club). But yeah, even with my brief soirée with Kiwami, hopefully I'll be back to my normal gaming schedule in July!

I wonder if they will bring Judgment and Like a Dragon to game pass at some point!

Oh yeah, that could be good! I'd probably play it on game pass when it comes out (probably) and buy a physical copy when it's dirt cheap

Just finished Yakuza 6 after 40 hours of playtime. Man it feels so weird to finally finish up Kiryu's story. Like I know there are more Yakuza games as well as other series such as Judgment, but Kiryu's saga has been going on for over a decade and across multiple games. Because of its longevity, it feels more special than the other games. This game also managed to really bring together as many of the memorable moments from the past games as possible. One moment is a throwback to Kiwami 1, another to Kiwami 2, a third one to Yakuza 0 and so on. They didn't feel tacked on just to celebrate the finale of Kiryu's saga, but were very well integrated so that it doesn't feel obvious and those who have played all the games will absolutely recognise these moments. I also really enjoyed the theme of this game compared to Yakuza 5. That game focused on "dreams", which I thought in all honesty was not fitting for this series at all and was too poorly integrated into the story. The theme for Yakuza 6 however was family and that was definitely fitting for the finale of Kiryu's story. Very well executed! Only major gripe I had with the story was the lack of certain recognisable characters not showing up enough, which was really disappointing. But overall, this is the best Yakuza game after Yakuza 0 in my opinion. I'm glad that I've got to experience this wonderful series and I hope more people will experience it as well. These are just such phenomenal games.

@LtSarge nice one on finishing the Yakuza games! (Well, most of them!) I've finished Kiwami now but I am still mopping up a few substories in premium adventure mode.

Did you say you'd played the zombie one? Was that any good or worth playing? I am curious if it is basically just Yakuza with a bit more focus on combat and whether it includes all the substories still. I'd probably give it a miss if it didn't have substories but I might track it down if you think it's decent. I know it's set after Yakuza 4 anyway so I am some way away from it!

@ralphdibny Thanks mate! So with Dead Souls, it is pretty much like a typical Yakuza game with substories and all. The substories are interesting on paper but the annoying part is that they all have to do with going into the closed-off sections of Kamurocho and killing zombies in order to reach your objective mark and save a person. And it feels incredibly repetitive. I enjoyed the game for the most part, including the shooting mechanic, but most people didn't like it so unless you're a hardcore Yakuza fan, I would pass on this one for now. After you've played through the PS3 games and you feel like you want more Yakuza, then I'd say go for it. It still has plenty of great moments akin to the rest of the series.

@LtSarge ah fair enough, I'd probably stick it in there in release order if I do. Just because I'm sure I'd know if I'd be up for it by the time I've played 3 more Yakuza games 😂. I am a bit funny because I like to play every release when I play a series (most of the time anyway). I guess it might also depend on how much the English localisation costs and whether I can get a used copy pretty cheap! I think it's like £25 on the PS3 store, not sure

@LtSarge @ralphdibny

I generally agree that Kiwami was the weakest title in the remake series. I'd say 0 is probably my favorite, and Kiwami 2 was a very close second. Kiwami uses the outdated engine that 0 used, but without all the unique flavor or charm that 0 had. It just feels a bit too stale.

I've played Yakuza 3 and I quite enjoyed it. On PC it was quite gorgeous for an old PS3 game. I'm not sure if I'll play 4 or 5, there's not enough time and these games are too long, I'd like to get on with the more modern 6, Like a Dragon, and Judgement games.

One thing about this series is that it does NOT respect your time and you have to be prepared for that. I found a lot of the sub stories to be unfunny and a waste of time. But this is problematic because there are some total gems in there that you wouldn't want to miss either! For Yakuza 3 at least, towards the end of the game I got tired substories and found myself rushing to the finish line.

Reading this post now, it's coming across as a little negative. I don't mean to come off that way, Yakuza is a special franchise and I'm so happy to have been introduced to it and I'm also happy it's on Xbox. (Now let's get Persona!!!)

@LeanerFasterStronger Yeah the substories in the PS3 games aren't the greatest in all honesty. They definitely shot up in quality once the series reached the PS4 with 0, Kiwami 1-2 and 6. But yeah, I know a lot of people who stopped playing through the series once they reached the PS3 titles simply because they felt too different compared to the PS4 games. And the problem is that it's hard to skip them and go straight to 6 because that game takes place immediately after 5. Not to mention that there will be some characters that you won't even recognise if you haven't played 4 and 5.

I really wish the developer hadn't made 3-5 on PS3 because it feels so dumb that this series has gained so much traction here in the West with Yakuza 0 and now Kiryu's story is already over. It would've been so much better if they had continued with making new Yakuza 3-5 for PS4 right after Kiwami 2 in order to keep the hype going. Not to mention that it's so disappointing to play the best game in the series first and then each subsequent entry gets worse and worse.

@LtSarge Great point on how it's jarring coming from Kiwami 2 into 3. We've got that advanced dragon engine and then you hop into a PS3 game. Though I will say I quite enjoyed the main plot of 3. The conflict between the environment, the natives, and U.S. military presence in Japan was quite enjoyable to see from a Japanese studio. I felt like it was enjoyable for both western and eastern audiences to take in.

I don't have the time for 4 and 5, as each game is realistically 40-50 hours, so If I do ever get to 6, I'll likely watch one of those long retrospectives on Youtube I suppose.