Adoruu
2019
Definitely one of the more okay ones for me.
A big Improvement in pretty much everything from Yakuza 3. The combat is still far from perfect and is still very frustrating at times, but it's also much more smoother than 3, so I'll take what I can get. The story by itself is very interesting and engaging, at the very least when everything is still shrouded in mystery, however when you reach the plot-twists it all comes crumbling down. I saw a lot of people complain about that as well and I do get it now, the twists are either the same thing repeatedly or just dumb and at times even both, I think some of it aren't even necessary at all, like it's just there for the shock factor.
The final chapter actually feels like the peak of the story, though it slows down a bit to info dump you, but the climax of this game and the boss fight gauntlet are one of the most epic moments in the whole series. Definitely a certified "Me and the boys" moment. So I'll give them that.
Another thing I really love in this game is the characters, I went in thinking I'll probably like them just a bit, at least not as much as I like Kiryu, but now I honestly find them more interesting than Kiryu (At least in this game), Akiyama and Tanimura especially. The new main characters and their interactions are definitely the strongest point of this game for me.
A big Improvement in pretty much everything from Yakuza 3. The combat is still far from perfect and is still very frustrating at times, but it's also much more smoother than 3, so I'll take what I can get. The story by itself is very interesting and engaging, at the very least when everything is still shrouded in mystery, however when you reach the plot-twists it all comes crumbling down. I saw a lot of people complain about that as well and I do get it now, the twists are either the same thing repeatedly or just dumb and at times even both, I think some of it aren't even necessary at all, like it's just there for the shock factor.
The final chapter actually feels like the peak of the story, though it slows down a bit to info dump you, but the climax of this game and the boss fight gauntlet are one of the most epic moments in the whole series. Definitely a certified "Me and the boys" moment. So I'll give them that.
Another thing I really love in this game is the characters, I went in thinking I'll probably like them just a bit, at least not as much as I like Kiryu, but now I honestly find them more interesting than Kiryu (At least in this game), Akiyama and Tanimura especially. The new main characters and their interactions are definitely the strongest point of this game for me.
2010
Epic story, one of the best casts in video game history, and the last mission being the culmination of all your choices and actions is a masterpiece. Perfect example of an RPG.
2018
It feels outdated, but it's definitely not as bad as they say. Enemies do block yes, but that's only if you keep spamming attacks, there's a lot of ways to get around that, so i never really see this "enemies block a lot" thing as a problem in at least most of my playthrough. Combat is rough early on but once you get to a certain point in the story, you will have an arsenal of moves you can use to make combat much easier and smoother, (especially Komaki's moves) Also enemies or bosses that keeps strafing/dodging are 100x more annoying than enemies that keeps blocking. The final bosses of the Hitman side mission are more annoying than the final boss of the game itself. At the very least you can cheese the very final boss.
Another problem is the fact that enemies do attack together, at least when you're fighting a crowd (Which you will A LOT) because the moment you turn your back to attack one guy, 2 or 3 will instantly attack you from behind.
Story is alright, It's pacing is bad and there's a lot of filler but it's still Ok.
Honestly, it's not that bad. It's an alright game which is just dragged down by being outdated in a lot of ways but I could definitely see how this game worked back then. I think if it gets the Kiwami treatment, it could be one of the higher ones in the series.
Another problem is the fact that enemies do attack together, at least when you're fighting a crowd (Which you will A LOT) because the moment you turn your back to attack one guy, 2 or 3 will instantly attack you from behind.
Story is alright, It's pacing is bad and there's a lot of filler but it's still Ok.
Honestly, it's not that bad. It's an alright game which is just dragged down by being outdated in a lot of ways but I could definitely see how this game worked back then. I think if it gets the Kiwami treatment, it could be one of the higher ones in the series.
2016
Unlike Yakuza 0 which I have nothing but praise for, I have very mixed feelings regarding this game. I do get that it's a remake but the original game itself is very flawed and aged very poorly. Though even then, I do think it's still a very solid game with a cool story despite it's many flaws.
One of my major gripes is the combat. Like every yakuza games, you WILL fight multiple people at once even 10 or so enemies at some point, some of them will use knives or guns, which is fine as long as the combat system is smooth and balanced. This game however nerfs certain styles and even locks the dragon style for at least 8-10 chapters before it becomes remotely useful, even then you have to fight Majima an absurdly amount of times, it took me a total of 50 Majima fights to get most of the dragon style unlocked (missing 4 or 5 abilities) before i gave up from how repetitive it became, it's also RNG as well, certain abilities require certain type of Majima. In my 30+ hours of playthrough, I never once came across Idol Majima in the streets and therefore never unlock the corresponding abilities. I have to say, despite how broken Tiger Drop is, it definitely made some questionable combat mechanic and some outdated level design less BS.
Secondly, there's so many features that were actually good ideas however implemented very poorly, like the Majima Everywhere system, that's a good idea on paper but the thing is they start and end the same way, the only difference is the types of Majima you'll fight and where you'll encounter him. Not to mention you can only grind it fully near the finale.
Another thing is the Kiwami heat action, it's a good concept and it's actually cool for the first 5 or so hours, then everything just starts to be repetitive, seeing the same animation over and over again, not to mention the recovering state of bosses, if you don't have enough heat gauge, the boss will heal a single health bar, the worst part of it is that bosses could do this multiple times, which means boss fights could take ages, and for every time you execute a Kiwami Heat Action the damage drops drastically, rendering them near useless for damage as the boss fight goes on.
And the Bloat, I think there's so much bloat added for the sake of having a longer playtime. I do get it, in fact I love that they expanded on like Nishiki's Story, and some substories which is expanded from 0. However many substories do feel uninspired and is just there for the sake of bloating the game. I swear my Kiryu got scammed like 10 different times walking around Kamurocho in CH4.
The story is a mixed for me, on one hand I do love it, It's definitely unique, but on the other hand, i feel like some plots happen just cause. Like some death could've been easily avoided but happened just for the sake of garnering emotions, even the whole thing with Jingu and Yumi feels like it happened just cause, it could've easily been different but it's like they wanted to find a way for Yumi to stay relevant to the story. Also, apparently every villain in this game knows they're being betrayed by the previous one, and this goes up the chain till the final boss, which is a classic trope overdone here. It's like that meme of people being one step ahead of each other.
Overall, I never have this much mixed feelings for a game in a long time. Is it still worth playing? Absolutely.
Despite it's flaws I do think it's still fun to go through, you'll definitely notice the flaws as you play but at the end of the day, you'll also see that there's still much to love. As long as you don't expect anywhere near the quality of 0 that is.
One of my major gripes is the combat. Like every yakuza games, you WILL fight multiple people at once even 10 or so enemies at some point, some of them will use knives or guns, which is fine as long as the combat system is smooth and balanced. This game however nerfs certain styles and even locks the dragon style for at least 8-10 chapters before it becomes remotely useful, even then you have to fight Majima an absurdly amount of times, it took me a total of 50 Majima fights to get most of the dragon style unlocked (missing 4 or 5 abilities) before i gave up from how repetitive it became, it's also RNG as well, certain abilities require certain type of Majima. In my 30+ hours of playthrough, I never once came across Idol Majima in the streets and therefore never unlock the corresponding abilities. I have to say, despite how broken Tiger Drop is, it definitely made some questionable combat mechanic and some outdated level design less BS.
Secondly, there's so many features that were actually good ideas however implemented very poorly, like the Majima Everywhere system, that's a good idea on paper but the thing is they start and end the same way, the only difference is the types of Majima you'll fight and where you'll encounter him. Not to mention you can only grind it fully near the finale.
Another thing is the Kiwami heat action, it's a good concept and it's actually cool for the first 5 or so hours, then everything just starts to be repetitive, seeing the same animation over and over again, not to mention the recovering state of bosses, if you don't have enough heat gauge, the boss will heal a single health bar, the worst part of it is that bosses could do this multiple times, which means boss fights could take ages, and for every time you execute a Kiwami Heat Action the damage drops drastically, rendering them near useless for damage as the boss fight goes on.
And the Bloat, I think there's so much bloat added for the sake of having a longer playtime. I do get it, in fact I love that they expanded on like Nishiki's Story, and some substories which is expanded from 0. However many substories do feel uninspired and is just there for the sake of bloating the game. I swear my Kiryu got scammed like 10 different times walking around Kamurocho in CH4.
The story is a mixed for me, on one hand I do love it, It's definitely unique, but on the other hand, i feel like some plots happen just cause. Like some death could've been easily avoided but happened just for the sake of garnering emotions, even the whole thing with Jingu and Yumi feels like it happened just cause, it could've easily been different but it's like they wanted to find a way for Yumi to stay relevant to the story. Also, apparently every villain in this game knows they're being betrayed by the previous one, and this goes up the chain till the final boss, which is a classic trope overdone here. It's like that meme of people being one step ahead of each other.
Overall, I never have this much mixed feelings for a game in a long time. Is it still worth playing? Absolutely.
Despite it's flaws I do think it's still fun to go through, you'll definitely notice the flaws as you play but at the end of the day, you'll also see that there's still much to love. As long as you don't expect anywhere near the quality of 0 that is.
2015
The most unique gaming experience you'll ever have.
Never have a game mindf^ked me this much on the revelation, legit took some time to process what I've experienced before after reaching "that" part, the amount of foreshadowing that just clicked once you've figured everything out is insane.
The ending is also really epic and sweet at the same time, granted a lot of the parts feels quite forced, but honestly it's still one of the most mind-twisting games I've ever experienced.
Though the most mind-blowing part is that someone actually came up with a story like this and managed to put at least some sense into it. Definitely one of Uchikoshi's best works. I don't know if I like it more than the first one, but I do know that they're both definitely his Magnum Opus. Hopefully there's more AI games in the future.
The ending is also really epic and sweet at the same time, granted a lot of the parts feels quite forced, but honestly it's still one of the most mind-twisting games I've ever experienced.
Though the most mind-blowing part is that someone actually came up with a story like this and managed to put at least some sense into it. Definitely one of Uchikoshi's best works. I don't know if I like it more than the first one, but I do know that they're both definitely his Magnum Opus. Hopefully there's more AI games in the future.
2021
Its a very solid entry, huge step up in everything from the other tales games, the romance is also built up pretty well, the villain though is pretty bland. Overall, it's farrr from a "masterpiece" of an RPG, but for a tales game it's good.
2020
It has a really good story/premise but sadly accompanied by a very poor execution, one of the worst I've seen.
Most story quests with actual good story is usually accompanied by terrible gameplay such as "talk to this person, then this person and so on" or "find and grab this 8 items nearby" and then walking back and forth over and over again, there's like a hundred quests making me go from one corner to another corner of Liyue just to talk to people back and forth, it's like grinding the poor gameplay design just to get to the good ones like actually fighting the enemy which can get a bit boring since enemies outside of the spiral abyss are like bubbles, it takes an average of 10 seconds just to beat them sometimes more depending on the number, but it's still better than the other gameplay mechanic.
The grind in this game is also veryy repetitive since you will 100% replay the same dungeon over and over again due to RNG, but I don't consider that game-breaking since it is an RPG game and therefore a level of grinding is needed, but the grinding is definitely designed in the most RNG way imaginable so that you would not have a "good" artifact for your team in the first few hundred tries and so you would at least have a reason to continue playing the game at all times since there's a very clear lack of content so it acts as something like a long term "goal" like raiding dungeons in other MMOs but infinitely much worst, it is definitely something worth noting of.
The events in this game are pain, some of it is good and engaging but most of it is actual pure pain, it either has a really poor gameplay mechanic or just sends you from one point in the map to another to talk to someone repeatedly for at least 6x like what I've discussed early on (writing this I realized that the devs could (somewhat) write a decent story, but has a terrible execution on how to dump the story onto the players), even some puzzle level in events are poorly designed. I am still traumatized by how tedious the first anniversary event is. The saving grace and what really makes this game popular is honestly just the waifus, and the story (somewhat) but mostly waifus, other than that, everything is just poorly executed.
Most story quests with actual good story is usually accompanied by terrible gameplay such as "talk to this person, then this person and so on" or "find and grab this 8 items nearby" and then walking back and forth over and over again, there's like a hundred quests making me go from one corner to another corner of Liyue just to talk to people back and forth, it's like grinding the poor gameplay design just to get to the good ones like actually fighting the enemy which can get a bit boring since enemies outside of the spiral abyss are like bubbles, it takes an average of 10 seconds just to beat them sometimes more depending on the number, but it's still better than the other gameplay mechanic.
The grind in this game is also veryy repetitive since you will 100% replay the same dungeon over and over again due to RNG, but I don't consider that game-breaking since it is an RPG game and therefore a level of grinding is needed, but the grinding is definitely designed in the most RNG way imaginable so that you would not have a "good" artifact for your team in the first few hundred tries and so you would at least have a reason to continue playing the game at all times since there's a very clear lack of content so it acts as something like a long term "goal" like raiding dungeons in other MMOs but infinitely much worst, it is definitely something worth noting of.
The events in this game are pain, some of it is good and engaging but most of it is actual pure pain, it either has a really poor gameplay mechanic or just sends you from one point in the map to another to talk to someone repeatedly for at least 6x like what I've discussed early on (writing this I realized that the devs could (somewhat) write a decent story, but has a terrible execution on how to dump the story onto the players), even some puzzle level in events are poorly designed. I am still traumatized by how tedious the first anniversary event is. The saving grace and what really makes this game popular is honestly just the waifus, and the story (somewhat) but mostly waifus, other than that, everything is just poorly executed.
It's a good start for the series, though some of the cases can be really simple compared to the later games.
It's uh really mid, and the animation is really really awkward, so it's great they really improved that in AI:SF and AI:NI.
The characters are alright i guess... though they made Junpei an emo which can be cool at first but at other times he can be an ass.
Plus Sigma is a completely different guy, all serious unlike in the previous entry which make perfect sense but I wasn't so attached to him compared to in VLR because of that, was hoping he at least maintain some quirkiness.
Some story beats are really good and the concept introduced are nice while some can be somewhat out of the blue or outrageous, even the whole plot twist with what the villain "can do" seems a bit anime like it's really forced out of nowhere.
The ending is also one of the biggest cop out I've ever seen, remember being so frustrated for days after seeing it, they build up this plot from the previous 2 games only to have one of the most cop out ending in the history of gaming itself, it's really disappointing.
The characters are alright i guess... though they made Junpei an emo which can be cool at first but at other times he can be an ass.
Plus Sigma is a completely different guy, all serious unlike in the previous entry which make perfect sense but I wasn't so attached to him compared to in VLR because of that, was hoping he at least maintain some quirkiness.
Some story beats are really good and the concept introduced are nice while some can be somewhat out of the blue or outrageous, even the whole plot twist with what the villain "can do" seems a bit anime like it's really forced out of nowhere.
The ending is also one of the biggest cop out I've ever seen, remember being so frustrated for days after seeing it, they build up this plot from the previous 2 games only to have one of the most cop out ending in the history of gaming itself, it's really disappointing.
The third case of this game beats most cases in the WHOLE series, that should tell you a lot.
Personally i think this along with the first game is the best in the series, it's not even close.
Personally i think this along with the first game is the best in the series, it's not even close.
There's a lot of improvements from the first, there's even multiple iconic scenes of the series accompanied by the most iconic and one of Falcom's magnum opus soundtrack "Blue Destination"
The concept of the story itself is nice, going from a usual school setting to the middle of the war, though some moments are really "anime" and some parts (especially in chapter 2) is really dragged out, it's still really engaging at times, the high of this game is really high while the low can match the first game's pacing.
It's the culmination of the world building of the first, so it's much better than the first game at least.
The concept of the story itself is nice, going from a usual school setting to the middle of the war, though some moments are really "anime" and some parts (especially in chapter 2) is really dragged out, it's still really engaging at times, the high of this game is really high while the low can match the first game's pacing.
It's the culmination of the world building of the first, so it's much better than the first game at least.
The best YS story period and probably even in most action RPGs.
The combat is alright, I don't mind party-based combat that the new Ys adapts, but the combat in this game is really broken, flash guard and rolls are so easy to abuse.
The characters are really good, especially Dana which is truly the best heroine in the series along with probably Feena.
The music is one of the best in the series, I still listen to it to this day.
The story starts out slow to introduce you to the world and the casts but after a certain chapter it really took off while keeping the intensity going.
Plus the true ending is bittersweet.
The combat is alright, I don't mind party-based combat that the new Ys adapts, but the combat in this game is really broken, flash guard and rolls are so easy to abuse.
The characters are really good, especially Dana which is truly the best heroine in the series along with probably Feena.
The music is one of the best in the series, I still listen to it to this day.
The story starts out slow to introduce you to the world and the casts but after a certain chapter it really took off while keeping the intensity going.
Plus the true ending is bittersweet.
And i thought FC was slow. This game not only has a huge pacing issue but also a huge cast which means only a handful will eventually be fleshed out, regardless I think it has a good premise just a very poor execution, plus the ending really sets up the 2nd game well with the cliffhanger.
The story is where it truly shines, it doesn't follow the usual anime tropes, where everyone is op and somehow survives fighting everyone else in a war but instead isn't afraid to kill off a character. The gameplay is also different than other tactical RPG, which is nice.
My only complaint is the RNG aspect of the battles, I've seen people defend it by saying that "if you plan well, it won't matter" but sometimes you may plan things really well only for it to be ruined because an enemy managed to win the evasion skill check and ducked to then perhaps counter-kill you, or you completely missing a shot from your tank because you failed your accuracy skill check causing you to then waste your command point/s, all these can really force you to save scum.
My only complaint is the RNG aspect of the battles, I've seen people defend it by saying that "if you plan well, it won't matter" but sometimes you may plan things really well only for it to be ruined because an enemy managed to win the evasion skill check and ducked to then perhaps counter-kill you, or you completely missing a shot from your tank because you failed your accuracy skill check causing you to then waste your command point/s, all these can really force you to save scum.