[DoctorEldritch]

Done with Shinada and moved to Finale yesterday. Now Kiryu is off finding all locker keys again before I move on with the story.

[ZaidH]

Speaking of heat actions, I love how Shinada puts down the baseball bat whenever you pick it up. Says that baseball bats are not to be used for violence🥹 The tiny details *chef's kiss

Ooh endgame hype! I wonder if the ending will be to your liking or not😅

[DoctorEldritch]

@ZaidH Not only that but if you fight with someone who has a bat and they drop it, after Shinada picks it up mid-fight, the bat breaks into smithereens in his hands. That's some commitment to not using bats for violence right there.

I finished Yakuza 5 (Amons fell again).

The endgame was good, but in this case, I got this feeling that of course, the main villain will devise a needlessly complicated plan with numerous parts and variables, not to mention luring back the living legend Kiryu who always (I repeat, ALWAYS) foils any and all such plans, I mean, it is no surprise it ended the way it did. And, can I just ask: Ok, Kiryu has been out of the game for a while, but Taiga is one of Tojo lieutenants, even though he went to prison. But still, should he not know what Omi Alliance Chairman looks like, at least? And also, no one checks IDs no more, all you have to do to be seen as a detective is to say you're one? And can someone please tell me who killed Morinaga?

But all those plot hole complaints are the same as complaining about Raiders of the Lost Ark. It was still an entertaining and enjoyable experience.

And now I started Yakuza 0. Ah, Kiryu looks so young and 80s Japan is so quaint. I am only 2 chapters in, but I can see I'll enjoy it, and it is nice to be back on a new drive, after parts 3-5 were using the old one, everything is so much more vibrant and dynamic, and light is excellent, too!

And to wrap it up, music hour! @ZaidH, when you played Yakuza 0, did you play the version with licensed music or not? I tried both, and I like licensed original music so much better, check it out, this is the English version:

And here is the original song that should have been there:

I really think the English version loses that special something. The clip even feels different. And Japanese version captures the era beautifully, too. Really a shame they did not license it.

[ZaidH]

Lmao that ending is like a fever dream 😂 Even after seeing an ending analysis video, I still don't understand what the heck happened.

I remember reading this pretty apt description of a certain character 😂😂😂


He's Yu Morinaga.

He came up to Kiryu.

He fought Kiryu.

He shot Aoyama.

He dead.


All in all, for me it was a pretty enjoyable experience thanks to the amazing side quests and the equally great setting, but it slightly faltered in the story telling department. Hope Yakuza 6 rectifies these shortcomings.

YES I have been waiting for this moment!!! Yakuza 0 😤😤😤
Yeah they went all out for the environmental detail. It's a step up from the PS3 era where most games had this dull color palette.

I played the PS4 version, so it came with that English intro😅 Personally I prefer it over Bubble, but both are top notch!

[DoctorEldritch]

@ZaidH My biggest critique of the plot would be that how did Omi Alliance manage to make its Chairman a man with such a warped view of what it means to be a yakuza? The whole selection process for the Chairman role is meant to weed out that sort of thing, something is flawed. But I can accept it as a "the villain was biding his time Palpatine-style" twist with some effort.

And I thought Morinaga did not shoot Aoyama, he just told Kiryu he did, which is evidently a lie since Aoyama turns up fine later, while Morinaga himself turns up dead. And Aoyama was sort of elusive as to who killed him (more so with that whole Colesium thing, not sure if he was acting there or not). Either way, I could not really deduce who'd want Morinaga dead at that stage and why.

Yakuza 6 is meant to be the end of Kiryu Saga, so it would probably be a final curtain with a bang.

The environment in Yakuza 0 is much better, and it is even more impressive as it shows Japan of the 80s. I am on Chapter 5 start now, Kiryu just got himself a new suit (I did not want to do lots of substories until Kiryu gets his style in order), so now I am looking forward to some real estate acquisitions and all.

But I did find that I forgot the Majima Saga part from Kiwami 2 game at this point, so with Majima, I had that whole bilnd girl encounter, and I remembered that she was in Kiwami 2 as well, but I can't remember what she was doing there.

This actually brings me to a question again. I've been talking to @ninja3020luffy during one of the GameNights recently about the Yakuza series, and we know there are 2 schools of thought about how to play:

1-2-3-4-5-0-6 (how games came out)
or
0-1-2-3-4-5-6 (how games go chronologically)

There are advantages to both approaches, Yakuza 0 has flashbacks to events of previous games like Yakuza 4 that you do not yet know about if you start there, but then again, this Majima experience shows me that you do forget some things if you play them in the sequence they came out (it takes a lot of time and plot, after all). For someone not familiar with the series, which way is better, do you think?

[ZaidH]

My brain just refuses to comprehend that section of the game😅

Nothing screams 80s like that Disco minigame 😤 Sega, please give us a standalone karaoke and disco Yakuza title🙏

For me, chronological order is the way to go. Yakuza 0 lays such a solid foundation for the character motivations in Yakuza 1 (even beyond that in some instances). The only downside I can think of is the slightly hollow gameplay and some dated story beats of YK1. People moving from Y0 to Yk1 might find this a little jarring.

I might be a little biased here though because I started my journey with Yakuza 0, so I'd love to know if you enjoyed the release order approach😄 What was @ninja3020luffy 's prefered order😃?

[DoctorEldritch]

@ZaidH Actually, I am sad to say that I do not dig the Disco minigame as much as you. Not that it is bad, but the import to PC there is horrible. movement is tied to wasd as usual, but the trigger keys are ijkl, which is very uncomfortable. I can not get the hang of this game at all. I tried my new controller for this, but it is not intuitive there with buttons, so it too was a bust, I just can't enjoy this minigame. And it's not possible to edit the imput.ini there too, I tried that. Though I am not alone in my frustration, there's been a lot of complaints on the net about this.

I really would not mind that, but a few substories are tied to minigames, and without completing those I won't get access to Amon, I honestly do not know what to do. It is annoying when one flaw like that spoils the game.

As for the order, hard to say, because I started with YK1, Yakuza 0 has many references to future games as well, like Ogita who you need to outdance in Disco (Damn you Ogita!). He later pops up in Yakuza 5 as Haruka's dance teacher. Or Pocket Circuit Fighter you mentioned before. But those references work both ways.

I am not sure what @ninja3020luffy will play first, we only briefly talked about it.

[ZaidH]

Many apologies for not replying to your post before 😭 I clicked on the "mark all as read" option and missed seeing your mention 🫥

Ok yeah playing that disco minigame with a keyboard sounds like an absolute nightmare. Even with a controller, I got finger cramps while competing against Ogita (damn him indeed!) and Isobe. Never managed to beat 'em both😣. Here's hoping that the minigame will be to your liking after you're more used to your controller. Also, congratulations on your purchase of the controller! Which one did you buy😄?

Ooof that completion requirement is brutal. There might be some save files/mods out there which you could use to access the boss fights. But after reading your experience with the corrupted save files, I'm not sure if it's a good idea😔

[DoctorEldritch]

@ZaidH no worries, it happens.

To be honest, I am seriously considering trainer at this point. I could probably get to the point where I can beat that minigame, but it would take me too much time, not the amount I'd want to spend on this activity alone. Too bad, this is the first time substories are tied in so closely to the minigame. Before, it happened but rarely more than once (like the baseball substory for Kiryu in Yakuza 5), but this time it's 3 substories using the same minigame in a row, it's too much.

As for the controller, here is what I got.

It is easy enough for me to complete everything else except the disco-tied substories. I am now at the point where I started to run a cabaret club as Majima, but most of Kiryu's substories are now done, I only need to do the same for Majima and move forward with the story.

On a related note, after some thinking, I would now say that the 0-1-2-3-4-5-6 order is better. I find it at times missing some context as I do not remember many of the characters, and plot-wise Y0 is much closer to YK1 and YK2 that it proceeds rather than Y5 which it follows release-wise. Y3-5 had their own stories and new characters, but Y0,1,2 got a core character crew. So @ninja3020luffy, this is my two cents about this now.

[ZaidH]

Oooh I've never used a trainer before. Does it act like a substitute for cheat codes? I can see it working so well with games like Mass Effect where all these small but tedious side missions contribute so much to the ending of the game. But yeah it's a bummer that the Yakuza devs encouraged this weird game design. No boss fight is worth it if you have to complete that Telephone minigame 😓


Congrats, you're a true Yakuza now 🥳🥳🥳 That's one great purchase! What's also great is @GoLLuM13's advice to play Hollow Knight 😁

Kiryu had some wild sub stories in this game. Any standouts for you so far? Also, happy to see another member in the chronological order club 😄

Reminiscing about the Yakuza games through these jolly discussions finally pushed me to play Yakuza 6 😤 Please be a good game please be a good game 🙏