Just as Kazuma, a former rising star in the Yakuza, emerges from prison after a murder cover-up, 10 billion yen vanishes from the Yakuza vault, forcing him once again into their brutal, lawless world. A mysterious young girl will lead Kazuma to the answers if he can keep her alive.
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The game is surprisingly decent.
It's impressive how many ideas were already present in the first game.
The eng dub is very funny and truly an experience,but overally not bad at all
It's impressive how many ideas were already present in the first game.
The eng dub is very funny and truly an experience,but overally not bad at all
The stark contrast between the English dubs "You fucking piece of shit! You're fucked if you think you can fuck my shit up!" and the otherwise slow-burn crime drama plot, I choose to believe, is the origin point for the insane tonal dichotomy the rest of the series is famous for. Either that or Majima being a fucking lunatic.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/ubCWYRIZ23k
slightly jank combat. decently told story. very primitive sub story design. Definitely a formula for success if built upon correctly.
slightly jank combat. decently told story. very primitive sub story design. Definitely a formula for success if built upon correctly.
Ci giocai ai tempi, ma non l'ho mai finito.. Poi ho recuperato tutta la saga anni dopo.
I understand why people like Y1 more than Kiwami even if I don't necessarily agree. It's such a compact and interesting experiment by Sega, at the time I truly believe there was nothing like it. Calling it "like Grand Theft Auto 3" is obviously a bad comparsion, but it's hard to compare Yakuza to other contemporaries. The stiffer combat with fewer options makes every new option you obtain more important. This is the first game I've played in the series that made the dropkick feel worthwhile to use. In Kiwami, I had no clue why anyone would use the reversal options in combat, but Kiryu in Y1 doesn't have turn-tables on the bottoms of his feet so he really needs them for crowd control. The necessity of engagement with its mechanics makes Yakuza 1 the only character action game in the series (except maybe 2 IDK).
Kiryu's stiffness isn't an unfortunate consequence of fresh devs trying a new idea, it's not a weird bug that detracts from the game - it's an intentionality of the design.This wrinkle in the fabric of gameplay is what gives reversals their purpose. Forcing the player to develop an understanding of their toolkit is actually good design, not bad. Not to say that later Yakoozers are inherently worse because they're more accessible - their intended emotional responses are simply different. Later games are much more about the power fantasy of being the tallest man in Tokyo and living in a walkable city.
This is actually an aspect of later titles I prefer over the original: the pseudo-vaction escapism elements. Maybe it's just because I've played 1,000 games set in Kamuro but Yakuza 1 feels the most matter-of-fact about its settings. Kiryu's lived his whole life in and around Kamurocho - there's not much new for him to discover. It's an element they really wanted to home in on in later entries, especially 3 and 8. 3 is actually the first game in the series with karaoke because the devs wanted to showcase Kiryu finally being able to relax after two games of pure action.
I primarily play games for escapism (free Palestine, trans rights, and black lives matter though) and I find RGG's life-adjacent heightened reality to be a perfect escape. But because player choice is at its weakest in Yakuza 1, the escapist elements don't flourish as well as they eventually will. Absolute lowest number of minigames and side activities, the camera is not under the player's control, and the player has far fewer options in combat than later games - Yakuza 1 is not an escapist fantasy, it's a sobering crime genre.
Every change to the combat that I could describe as "better" comes with a change to the music or atmosphere that takes away from the overall experience. The lack of all the goofy bullshit from modern Yakuza games makes the comparitively-simple story a lot easier to swallow. Plus there's none of those stupid Super Duper Heat Moves you have to use on bosses. Also I think this might be my favorite soundtrack in the series. The remixes of the battle tracks in Kiwami are like dogshit, but Funk Goes On and Intelligence for Violence go fucking crazy..
I do seriously like the voice acting, overall I think the actors do a good job even if the editing doesn't do them any favors. I actually really like Kurylo as Kiryu, even if he's no Kuroda. Goofy as Date is pretty good too. I'm actually impressed by how much dialogue is just untranslated Japanese that they hope players understand. And they pronounce most of it correctly! The constant swearing didn't really bother me, I work in a factory so I hear and say worse than this on a daily basis. Plus I really like the combat barks enemies have. STUPID OLD FUCK would have stuck with me if I had played this game in 2005.
A shoulder camera would have been nice but these are highly-detailed environments for a PS2 game, filled to bursting with NPCs, I understand that it probably would have hampered the atmosphere and taxed the hardware if the player could control the camera.
There's very little [subst]ance to these [subst]ories, they're all stories that have been repeated in other Yakuza games even outside Kiwami. I'm sure some people appreciate that they're simple and to the point, unlike modern substories that have 30 cutscenes and 4 distinct group battles.
In conclusion, Yakuza 1 is the best in the series because there's NO FUCKING MAHJONG
Kiryu's stiffness isn't an unfortunate consequence of fresh devs trying a new idea, it's not a weird bug that detracts from the game - it's an intentionality of the design.This wrinkle in the fabric of gameplay is what gives reversals their purpose. Forcing the player to develop an understanding of their toolkit is actually good design, not bad. Not to say that later Yakoozers are inherently worse because they're more accessible - their intended emotional responses are simply different. Later games are much more about the power fantasy of being the tallest man in Tokyo and living in a walkable city.
This is actually an aspect of later titles I prefer over the original: the pseudo-vaction escapism elements. Maybe it's just because I've played 1,000 games set in Kamuro but Yakuza 1 feels the most matter-of-fact about its settings. Kiryu's lived his whole life in and around Kamurocho - there's not much new for him to discover. It's an element they really wanted to home in on in later entries, especially 3 and 8. 3 is actually the first game in the series with karaoke because the devs wanted to showcase Kiryu finally being able to relax after two games of pure action.
I primarily play games for escapism (free Palestine, trans rights, and black lives matter though) and I find RGG's life-adjacent heightened reality to be a perfect escape. But because player choice is at its weakest in Yakuza 1, the escapist elements don't flourish as well as they eventually will. Absolute lowest number of minigames and side activities, the camera is not under the player's control, and the player has far fewer options in combat than later games - Yakuza 1 is not an escapist fantasy, it's a sobering crime genre.
Every change to the combat that I could describe as "better" comes with a change to the music or atmosphere that takes away from the overall experience. The lack of all the goofy bullshit from modern Yakuza games makes the comparitively-simple story a lot easier to swallow. Plus there's none of those stupid Super Duper Heat Moves you have to use on bosses. Also I think this might be my favorite soundtrack in the series. The remixes of the battle tracks in Kiwami are like dogshit, but Funk Goes On and Intelligence for Violence go fucking crazy..
I do seriously like the voice acting, overall I think the actors do a good job even if the editing doesn't do them any favors. I actually really like Kurylo as Kiryu, even if he's no Kuroda. Goofy as Date is pretty good too. I'm actually impressed by how much dialogue is just untranslated Japanese that they hope players understand. And they pronounce most of it correctly! The constant swearing didn't really bother me, I work in a factory so I hear and say worse than this on a daily basis. Plus I really like the combat barks enemies have. STUPID OLD FUCK would have stuck with me if I had played this game in 2005.
A shoulder camera would have been nice but these are highly-detailed environments for a PS2 game, filled to bursting with NPCs, I understand that it probably would have hampered the atmosphere and taxed the hardware if the player could control the camera.
There's very little [subst]ance to these [subst]ories, they're all stories that have been repeated in other Yakuza games even outside Kiwami. I'm sure some people appreciate that they're simple and to the point, unlike modern substories that have 30 cutscenes and 4 distinct group battles.
In conclusion, Yakuza 1 is the best in the series because there's NO FUCKING MAHJONG
This review contains spoilers
Primer yakuza jugado!1!1!!1
No he jugado al 0, cometí el error de mirar la historia de 0 en un gameplay hace dos años creo recordar.
Me gustó, jugué la versión de PS2, en un emulador de Android llamado AetherEX. No tuve problema con controles, ya que conecte el mando pro de la switch. Los fps no iban tan estables, pero eran suficientes y no había bajones muy drásticos.
El juego es bastante bueno, a decir verdad me sorprende la buena jugabilidad que todavía contiene a pesar de los años. Las cosas que hay en secundarias y así, no me metí tanto (sobre todo porque no encontre, jugué según las cosas me iban saliendo), asi que por ese lado creo que no hay tantas misiones secundarias. Creo que aquí todavía no llegaba a la absurdez por la cual Yakuza es conocido. Se nota cierto intento de Sega de que este juego fuera "exitoso" en Occidente, por el tipo de peleas, jugabilidad y música (cosa que les resultó al revés, porque se volvió un éxito en Japón).
No creo que tenga algo más que decir. Solo una cosa, de hecho.
El jefe de las dos pistolas en la muerte de Shinji, es horrible, me costó muchísimo, no tenia suplementos de PV, nada que me regenerara mas que el unico suplemento que se encontraba en la sala. Curiosamente gracias a ese jefe mejoro mi técnica de combate a la hora de esquivar y demás. Me ayudó bastante ya contra los jefes finales, no morí ninguna vez. Se me hicieron medianamente fáciles a comparación de el jefe de las pistolas xD.
La historia, diría que es simple, pero no creo que sea la palabra correcta. Es una historia que yo creo que funciona totalmente, sigue teniendo cosas que no me convencen tanto, pero es suficientemente buena, como para adaptarse al juego en si. Se nota bastante que utilizaron el final muy claramente para dar paso al 2.
Llegué a sacarme una foto con Haruka en una tienda, la verdad no sé si todos lo hicieron, pero me dió bastante gracia como Kiryu salía en la foto.
No he jugado al 0, cometí el error de mirar la historia de 0 en un gameplay hace dos años creo recordar.
Me gustó, jugué la versión de PS2, en un emulador de Android llamado AetherEX. No tuve problema con controles, ya que conecte el mando pro de la switch. Los fps no iban tan estables, pero eran suficientes y no había bajones muy drásticos.
El juego es bastante bueno, a decir verdad me sorprende la buena jugabilidad que todavía contiene a pesar de los años. Las cosas que hay en secundarias y así, no me metí tanto (sobre todo porque no encontre, jugué según las cosas me iban saliendo), asi que por ese lado creo que no hay tantas misiones secundarias. Creo que aquí todavía no llegaba a la absurdez por la cual Yakuza es conocido. Se nota cierto intento de Sega de que este juego fuera "exitoso" en Occidente, por el tipo de peleas, jugabilidad y música (cosa que les resultó al revés, porque se volvió un éxito en Japón).
No creo que tenga algo más que decir. Solo una cosa, de hecho.
El jefe de las dos pistolas en la muerte de Shinji, es horrible, me costó muchísimo, no tenia suplementos de PV, nada que me regenerara mas que el unico suplemento que se encontraba en la sala. Curiosamente gracias a ese jefe mejoro mi técnica de combate a la hora de esquivar y demás. Me ayudó bastante ya contra los jefes finales, no morí ninguna vez. Se me hicieron medianamente fáciles a comparación de el jefe de las pistolas xD.
La historia, diría que es simple, pero no creo que sea la palabra correcta. Es una historia que yo creo que funciona totalmente, sigue teniendo cosas que no me convencen tanto, pero es suficientemente buena, como para adaptarse al juego en si. Se nota bastante que utilizaron el final muy claramente para dar paso al 2.
Llegué a sacarme una foto con Haruka en una tienda, la verdad no sé si todos lo hicieron, pero me dió bastante gracia como Kiryu salía en la foto.