Combat is pretty cool with its focus being purely hand to hand. People may find it more "limiting" than normal yakuza gameplay but I think the game's way of trying to be challenging is to have the exact same skills as the enemy. I think it's pretty cool since the combat is more akin to those Wrestling/UFC fighting games. Fighting styles are pretty cool. A lot of them really feel different from each other despite sharing a few animations. Bosses are probably the best part of the game to me. For the type of combat this is, I feel the challenge is pretty fair for most of them and bosses probably felt the most imposing out all of the series from a gameplay standpoint.
This is probably just a "me" thing but the art style of the game is also my favorite of the franchise. I like the cutscene art a lot. Feels what Yakuza's 1 & 2 might look like in 2d form with its gritty look and all. Its probably what stood out to me the most and in a way why I wanted to keep playing the game without knowing a lick of japanese when I was "checking it out." So at first, it was just me wanting to look a bunch of pretty pictures. Animation is pretty much flash animation but it's stylized up the ass to really make me care.
The game overall looks pretty nice for a PSP title. I also like how diverse enemy designs look. Some of look straight out of a delinquent manga.
Story (from what little translations I managed to scrounge up) is pretty good. I imagine if you like stories like Judge Eyes/Judgement, you'll appreciate its tone and how it differs a lot from main series Yakuza despite taking place in the same city. In this era of the series, its one of the more grounded stories in my opinion. Erm... At least after a certain part of chapter 1/before/after confronting the final boss.
For cons:
Navigation can be a pain in the ass (though it's not because of controls). There's no taxis. And the cops can make getting to places kind of annoying if you end up a lot farther away from your intended location.
Enemy health can get pretty beefy especially on harder modes unless you upgrade stats. Leveling up stats is pretty weird since it's completely different from leveling up normally (experience points, etc.) Money is pretty god damn scarce.
The combat is CLEARLY not designed for multiple enemies. There's no real crowd control options in combat or at least ones that feel natural.
This is probably what can turn off fans from checking these games out, the camera is too close in combat and shakes too much whenever clean hits are made. It kind of makes the game worse than it actually is. Its not like zooming out the camera is a bad idea. Not like obstacles can obstruct the gameplay in the first place.
Side content other than substories is pretty limited. This has more to do with it being on a PSP so they probably had to make due with a smaller space than usual.
This probably depends on who you are but having the options of making cutscenes skippable AFTER beating the game is pretty pinheaded. It made redoing some sections to give the best gameplay performance I could a REAL pain in the ass.
So yeah. Interesting spin-off for the series
This is probably just a "me" thing but the art style of the game is also my favorite of the franchise. I like the cutscene art a lot. Feels what Yakuza's 1 & 2 might look like in 2d form with its gritty look and all. Its probably what stood out to me the most and in a way why I wanted to keep playing the game without knowing a lick of japanese when I was "checking it out." So at first, it was just me wanting to look a bunch of pretty pictures. Animation is pretty much flash animation but it's stylized up the ass to really make me care.
The game overall looks pretty nice for a PSP title. I also like how diverse enemy designs look. Some of look straight out of a delinquent manga.
Story (from what little translations I managed to scrounge up) is pretty good. I imagine if you like stories like Judge Eyes/Judgement, you'll appreciate its tone and how it differs a lot from main series Yakuza despite taking place in the same city. In this era of the series, its one of the more grounded stories in my opinion. Erm... At least after a certain part of chapter 1/before/after confronting the final boss.
For cons:
Navigation can be a pain in the ass (though it's not because of controls). There's no taxis. And the cops can make getting to places kind of annoying if you end up a lot farther away from your intended location.
Enemy health can get pretty beefy especially on harder modes unless you upgrade stats. Leveling up stats is pretty weird since it's completely different from leveling up normally (experience points, etc.) Money is pretty god damn scarce.
The combat is CLEARLY not designed for multiple enemies. There's no real crowd control options in combat or at least ones that feel natural.
This is probably what can turn off fans from checking these games out, the camera is too close in combat and shakes too much whenever clean hits are made. It kind of makes the game worse than it actually is. Its not like zooming out the camera is a bad idea. Not like obstacles can obstruct the gameplay in the first place.
Side content other than substories is pretty limited. This has more to do with it being on a PSP so they probably had to make due with a smaller space than usual.
This probably depends on who you are but having the options of making cutscenes skippable AFTER beating the game is pretty pinheaded. It made redoing some sections to give the best gameplay performance I could a REAL pain in the ass.
So yeah. Interesting spin-off for the series