Yakuza Series

[Bernkastel]

So, here is a thread for the Yakuza series of games, one about a plushie sales team called the Yakuza and their deadly mission to meet their sales targets in time.

 

Okay, it's a fighting game revolving around the far less amazing Japanese crime organisation with that name. You play as individuals connected to that world of organised crime, the main one being Kiryu Kazuma. In my experience, admittedly limited to Yakuza 0 and Kiwami, it's a fun blend of serious drama, ridiculous antics and curbstomping. The side-quests are a definite highlight. It's always interesting to see what random shit you are going to get wrapped up in. The main story also tends to be engaging and the fights are a delight, even the random fights with thugs. It's fun to cut loose and see what heat moves you can unleash.

 

Anyway, I'll stop my ramble. This is a thread for anyone who wants to talk about this series of games. I'll be posting stuff from my playthrough of Kiwami and I welcome others who want to talk about their own experiences/opinions regarding these games.

[Bernkastel]

So, here are some things I wrote elsewhere, observations I made at points while playing Yakuza Kiwami.

 

 

So, I got Yakuza Kiwami on the 20th. It's been fun, though I only got properly into the side quests yesterday. Until I got an accessory that allowed me to see the location of side quests on the map, I just seemed to miss them. The main story is good, with intrigue and interesting characters, but the side stories are just so much fun. I enjoy going around and seeing what I'm going to stumble into next. Plus, there's the Majima Everywhere system and the quest involving finding Majima. He has a number of costumes, though one is just him hiding under a giant traffic cone. But there is one as a police officer and another as a hostess. Yes, a hostess. That and another part where he suddenly becomes a bartender, just so he can try to slap a ridiculous charge on you for the booze he serves and fight you when you refuse to pay it also demonstrate the absurd side of this any many side quests that is just wonderful.

 

Oh, I should also mention the gameplay. The combat system is fun, though it took a while for me to understand where I was going wrong with the heat move system that allows you to perform special moves. It depends on being close enough to something you can batter a person with or folding an appropriate weapon. Seeing all the different moves and upgrading yourself with move moves is fun. So is simply the pleasure of bumping into random goons or people harassing an innocent and curbstomping them. I'll be doing more curbstomping today.

 

 

 

So, here is some more Yakuza stuff. First, I had a very serious fight with Majima in which I aimed to get back a little girl he had abducted for the sake of getting me to fight him. You know, main story stuff. He ended up taking a knife to the chest because one of his lackeys tried to stab me. Only Majima can kill me. I found some areas in that fight where I really need to get upgrades. We got more info in regards to the main plot of a missing childhood friend and a missing 30 billion yen.

 

Then Majima popped up at a bowling ally and we bowled together. We later met up at another place to play darts. You know, as you often do with people set on fighting and killing you. Then he and his men pretended to be zombies as the latest scheme to get Kiryu into a fight. I guessed the fake part straight away, but the protagonist, Kiryu, takes everything super-seriously. It's a wonderful part of his character that he will approach anything he has to do, no matter how inane or silly, with incredible seriousness and intensity. So, Majima needed to point out at the end that he wasn't actually a zombie. He did have expensive effects to the point of effectively paying the budget of a horror b-movie and deciding to turn the recorded footage into an actual movie, so that lessens the silliness of Kiryu believing the whole zombie thing, but it is still wonderfully ridiculous.

 

Also, I ended a sub-story in which a roaming gang of con-men have one of their members bump into you and pretend via really bad acting that you badly injured them. Then they demand money from you. Each time, you beat the shit out of them and the person injured suddenly “becomes healed” and they run off and try again later. Eventually, they just give up on that and try to get revenge. It ends with the group settling for getting out of town after another ass kicking. On that note, I have a subquest involving a random kid who conned me into paying for broken contact lenses to finish, along with a bunch of other stuff to check out. There was also a plot involving a mysterious person who keeps phoning Kiryu on a phone he got off a dead person. Each time, the mystery person gives you a task to perform, like go to a locker to get an item. Those instructions were for the dead person to make the steps to kill a person. The mystery person on the phone ignores all efforts at correcting them and guides you to the final step. The target is the the same location as you. Now, all you need to do is strike that target, Kiryu, with the weapon you were told to get earli.... wait, what? Yeah, Kiryu was the target. Well, the story ends with you informing the mystery person of what happened, beating them up and then letting them go so they can try to avoid the wrath of the Yakuza boss who hired them to kill you.

 

Yeah, this game is addictive. I aimed to play two hours yesterday. I played five before stopping myself.

 

[MeandMyImaginaryFriends]

I am in love this game! I am currently playing through Kiwami 1 on my twitch channel and more and more I am finding the little things I love about this game that make it a one of a kind series. Also as far as I can see the community isn't as toxic as others I've seen. Maybe thats just cause this is still kind of small and with a cult following but I'm hoping more people find and like this game that it becomes more mainstream.