Defend your Title

Ashura-Hen is the direct sequel to Kurohyou which I also made a review, you can find it here. I'll cover only some key aspects this game has a sequel. So to avoid any future redundancies, check out my review on Kurohyou.

Ukyo Tatsuya, now as a changed man after the events of the first game ends up fighting his way into the scene and make a name for himself leaving the illegal underground colliseum known as Dragon Heat behind. Now under the control of his agency; it's just a matter of time Tatsuya finally start to find peace and comfort in a little gym located in Kamurocho. But something is missing, who was he fighting for now? This is where Tatsuya finds out Dragon Heat was in deep trouble, the place that made him change, grow and evolve. Ashura-Hen as a sequel could've gone a lot of places narratively speaking. This time, unlike just looking for the next big thing it clings itself to the idea of protecting what made himself change. Same case with Kazuma Kiryu rejecting being the Fourth Chairman of the Tojo Clan. To put it simple, Haruka is what Dragon Heat is to Tatsuya; his reason to keep living.

It follows more or less the same gameplay structure as it's prequel. This time the map is not only limited to the same old Kamurocho but Sotenbori makes a return after being absent since it's debut in Yakuza 2, back in 2006. You won't find many surprises, as the cities are nothing but 2D background to save on processing power of the already aged PSP. So, walking around the cities is still a drag and can get boring fast. On the other hand the actual combat saw some changes and now is more centered around co-op fights rather than tackle it alone at least during street fights. Enemies wll come in hordes and they make most Yakuza thugs pale in comparasion. They're tough nuts to crack, specially on Hard Mode and the best strategy down the line is to call whoever you had recruited before. So partnerts are no longer tied to story events and that's a plus, but the game is made with that very system in mind. It counteracts a problem, giving you a little more leverage than normal, make sure to come prepared before each fight. Lowering the difficulty would be a good idea in case street fight get the best of you, don't be ashamed to lower it to Easy.

What really does sell this game isn't the story of Dragon Heat or Tatsuya itself. But it is the main villain that is well on pair with the likes of Yakuza 3 and even Lost Judgment. Is a tale as old as time; a story of revenge with a common enemy, approached differently between both the hero and the villain. The rest of the story up to that point doesn't feel that important oddly enough, but the fights on Millenium Tower always deliver no matter the game we're in.

The story might be one of the weakest aspects of this game. It plays safe as it's not as involved as the first one. Goes all over the place with moments you won't care about much for at times, as they don't add anything substantial to the main plot. Even side character stories get in the way mid-adventure, can you believe that? It doesn't feel natural. The main plot surrounding the Ashura is fine, but the overall pace gets dragged by side-character arc nonsense.

Recommended for any hardcore Yakuza fan looking for something familiar, with a refreshing intense combat. If you liked the first, there is no reason to not play this one.

In some ways, this game is a step up in terms of content, better graphics, and more styles and moves to play around with. However, in others, the story, while good, isn't as good as the first game's story, the game compression for the audio is REALLY audibly noticeable, and while this doesn't have anything to do with the game, but as of me finishing this game with the 1.0 Translation from TeamK4L, the game's got A LOT of things that need to be either polished up translation-wise or actually finished cause a lot of the game is broken. I had to switch between the Japanese and English versions here just to unlock certain styles without the game crashing. Either wait til they fix this game with a patch or just be like me and put up with the broken bits.

The second and last entry in the "Yakuza Games Are Doing Great Let's Outsource a PSP Title" list. Does a lot of things better and a lot of things worse, so it ends up with the same rating for me.
Most of this review will be gameplay focused.

The music is just as good, if not better, than the first game. The combat is much more entertaining, and the boss fights are a lot better. However... the start of the game is awful. They nerf you to hell, and don't communicate any of the actual important changes to the core gameplay.

Stamina is a MUCH bigger deal, dodges are unreliable, parry got moved from block to grab, targeting is worse, moving around feels worse, your styles have no combos, arenas are tighter, enemies WILL kill you in ten seconds, you get stunned and downed much easier, grabs are worse (to counter the first game where they were OP), yakuza enemies are deadlier than actual killers, and the game doesn't explain how combos ACTUALLY work.

The injury system is much harsher in this, and combined with all of the above, it's impossible to enjoy the game before you learn what it actually wants you to do and how it wants you to play. The first two chapters are nothing but suffering. Styles get combos as you level but nothing gives you enough XP at the start, so you're stuck eating dirt for hours until the game opens up and lets you actually have the movesets the enemies have been stomping your ass with.

Everything after that is smooth sailing... for the most part. Navigation is still horrible, the pre-rendered backgrounds are somehow worse, and the Sotenbori segments are infuriating. There are several areas where the camera angles will send you back and forth repeatedly and the rest of the areas are impossible to see anything in. This combined with some instant-encounters that trigger like trainer eyesight in Pokemon makes you waste A LOT OF TIME. At least it's XP?

The story barely has any reason to exist. Tatsuya doesn't have any reason to do this but he's not a smart guy, so whatever. It gets more interesting near the very end, but then there's more "dumb RGG choices" that made me groan. But the final boss is the main reason to play this anyway, and that absolutely delivers.

I was going to rate it a 2/5 before the combat opened up and let me actually play the game because it's seriously upsetting and frustrating to be combo'd to death 10 seconds into a fight because you missed a punch they dodged mid-combo somehow.
So it's a 3/5.
But I added an extra 0.5 because the final boss is the fucking best and NEO-FRANTIC made farming the Style XP fun to the point where I actually maxed everything.

They explicitly said they'll never give these a remake and I can see why, but it would be interesting. But if they can't get BORN TO BE WILD again and we suffer like Kiwami2's song then I don't want anyone to touch this ever.

For the most part, Kurohyou 2 is a direct improvement on most of what Kurohyou 1 has to offer. There are a few more styles this time, and towards the end you get a style that allows you to combine attacks from other styles (although you really don't have too much freedom in this). Each style comes with more drawbacks than in the first game, however, meaning each one stands out a bit more, but not always in a good way. For the most part, towards the end of the game, I had little issue using any style due to having a fairly high level, but early on the first few styles don't do a lot to help you compared to some of the ones unlocked later. I do like that this mechanic was added to make different styles have different uses outside of moveset alone, but it is a bit frustrating until you can either negate some of the negative effects or level up the stats you need to properly use them (especially stamina). The styles themselves are a lot more convoluted this time around. The first game basically had 3/4 tiers of styles, where mastering 2 styles from a tier typically meant you gained a style from the next tier. This is not the case in Kurohyou 2, however, where it feels kind of random which styles you need to level to get new ones (at least they tell you when you level up a style. The leveling system is much better this time, allowing you to raise your stats every level instead of making you buy them as upgrades in the first game. You also get a lot more exp from story fights compared to the first game, which helps a lot. The story this time around is about as good as the first game, if not a bit less interesting. Where the first game shows the growth of Ukyo Tatsuya, this game doesn't add nearly as much character development, but it does still have cool bosses and set-pieces throughout the story. Minigames are slightly better than in the first game, but are still fairly lacking. Battles also now have a partner system more often than in the first game, giving you another character to assist in certain fights. Overall, this game builds upon the foundation set by Kurohyou to great success in most places, and is generally a better experience than the first overall. Like the first game, this game is great if you enjoy the Yakuza/Like a Dragon series but want something a bit different than what the main series tends to offer.