how is anyone poor in hawaii. you can just look in the dumpsters and you'll find high quality metals and also grenades.
Complete smash hit for me. Took a game I already really liked in yakuza 7 and improved it across the the board.
Core combat changed in ways I didnt expect but like. It took things like occasionally hitting an enemy into a car or picking up an item to slap them into a core aspect of the game. During your character's turn you are allowed to move around in circle before actually declaring an attack. The game has multiple mechanics to emphasize positioning getting your more damage; position your character so that after you attack a guy he gets knocked into another person, or that its in range of another party member who will do a follow up attakc for, or both, ect ect. The same logic applies to aoe moves; line aoe attack? see if you can line it up to hit the most people possible for the most damage. Enemies also aren't static either; there's like an extra layer of trying to line things up fast because enemies will shuffle around while you're picking your actions, possible putting them out of range for whatever you're trying to do, or even waiting a bit to see if theyll shuffle into your range.
Skill usage also feels a lot more balanced than 7. In 7 I remembered especially by the end I was mostly just doing Highest Damage skill / Party Buff Skill / Healing / Tell joon gi han to apply poison to the boss as necessary. I was doing way more stuff and way more party skill combinations. There's less obviously clear "this is the skill you should be using", a lot more utility stuff and classic inherent gimmicks; shit like Kunoichi you want to specifically try to get her agility to +3 to get the most damage out of her big damage skills or party combos about abusing the Idol -elec resist skill and lined up with a party combo designed to get as much elec damage as you can, ect ect.
A big reason for the above is the changes to the job system. Before it each job had 2~ skills a character would always have access too once you level them, and then rest of your skills are pooled from whatever job your character is on. It still worked and emphasized leveling many jobs, but it was a bit limiting. In 8 instead you can crossclass 5 regular skills and one essence skill from ANY of the jobs that character has leveled.There's a lot of ways you can build your team, and the game wants you to level multiple jobs to mix and match your skills to get something crazy. Jobs are also clearly made with holes in their kit meant to be covered through cross classing; For example, Night Queen has great physical stats and a whole suite of good physical skills, but doesn't have a single Gun or Slashing move for coverage. Homeless Guy has great stats for a caster and really good defensive skills as well but only has ac cess to fire and generic magic attacks and no single target skills, or lightning/ice attacks, but you can cover that with skills from Host, or you just play host and cross class the homeless guy skills to that.
i do think there's some odd holes in the the skill list however; for example there is straight up no cross classable single target heavy/extreme damage electric damage skill so people looking to abuse skills like Playful Splash are rocking shit like the medium damage aoe jelly fish skill. It's weird but hey limitation breeds creativity.
I won't get go into story spoilers but I liked it. I think it gets a little off the rails at the time but this is also the series with the secret of onomicio so lol. I think it has weird little issues in terms of pacing and how some characters/plot points are executed, but on the flip side it has a very focused message and themeing and it nails that aspect of the story perfectly. Also the Kiryu half of the sidestories were genuinely getting me pretty good; walking the streets and reminiscing about the entire history of the franchise from the point of view of a character at the end of his life, as someone whose also followed this franchise since the ps2, really hurts a little man.
Game also looks great. The Ichiban focused yakuza aesthetic is just unmatched. I really just love hawaii as a setting, you're always running into really funny freaks. I fought a guy in a garbage bag and he shot me with a gun that was in his bag. There's nothing else like it.
My biggest complaint about this game isnt really about the game but the DLC; locking things like an endgame dungeon, regular NG+ (not super relevant cuz there's still premium adventure but u get me), preorder jobs. I really hate day 1 DLC and think we let people get away with too much, but this is far from the only RPG with this issue. Hey, I didn't buy it so you cant blame me.
Game is a great. Ichiban is my friend in real life.
Complete smash hit for me. Took a game I already really liked in yakuza 7 and improved it across the the board.
Core combat changed in ways I didnt expect but like. It took things like occasionally hitting an enemy into a car or picking up an item to slap them into a core aspect of the game. During your character's turn you are allowed to move around in circle before actually declaring an attack. The game has multiple mechanics to emphasize positioning getting your more damage; position your character so that after you attack a guy he gets knocked into another person, or that its in range of another party member who will do a follow up attakc for, or both, ect ect. The same logic applies to aoe moves; line aoe attack? see if you can line it up to hit the most people possible for the most damage. Enemies also aren't static either; there's like an extra layer of trying to line things up fast because enemies will shuffle around while you're picking your actions, possible putting them out of range for whatever you're trying to do, or even waiting a bit to see if theyll shuffle into your range.
Skill usage also feels a lot more balanced than 7. In 7 I remembered especially by the end I was mostly just doing Highest Damage skill / Party Buff Skill / Healing / Tell joon gi han to apply poison to the boss as necessary. I was doing way more stuff and way more party skill combinations. There's less obviously clear "this is the skill you should be using", a lot more utility stuff and classic inherent gimmicks; shit like Kunoichi you want to specifically try to get her agility to +3 to get the most damage out of her big damage skills or party combos about abusing the Idol -elec resist skill and lined up with a party combo designed to get as much elec damage as you can, ect ect.
A big reason for the above is the changes to the job system. Before it each job had 2~ skills a character would always have access too once you level them, and then rest of your skills are pooled from whatever job your character is on. It still worked and emphasized leveling many jobs, but it was a bit limiting. In 8 instead you can crossclass 5 regular skills and one essence skill from ANY of the jobs that character has leveled.There's a lot of ways you can build your team, and the game wants you to level multiple jobs to mix and match your skills to get something crazy. Jobs are also clearly made with holes in their kit meant to be covered through cross classing; For example, Night Queen has great physical stats and a whole suite of good physical skills, but doesn't have a single Gun or Slashing move for coverage. Homeless Guy has great stats for a caster and really good defensive skills as well but only has ac cess to fire and generic magic attacks and no single target skills, or lightning/ice attacks, but you can cover that with skills from Host, or you just play host and cross class the homeless guy skills to that.
i do think there's some odd holes in the the skill list however; for example there is straight up no cross classable single target heavy/extreme damage electric damage skill so people looking to abuse skills like Playful Splash are rocking shit like the medium damage aoe jelly fish skill. It's weird but hey limitation breeds creativity.
I won't get go into story spoilers but I liked it. I think it gets a little off the rails at the time but this is also the series with the secret of onomicio so lol. I think it has weird little issues in terms of pacing and how some characters/plot points are executed, but on the flip side it has a very focused message and themeing and it nails that aspect of the story perfectly. Also the Kiryu half of the sidestories were genuinely getting me pretty good; walking the streets and reminiscing about the entire history of the franchise from the point of view of a character at the end of his life, as someone whose also followed this franchise since the ps2, really hurts a little man.
Game also looks great. The Ichiban focused yakuza aesthetic is just unmatched. I really just love hawaii as a setting, you're always running into really funny freaks. I fought a guy in a garbage bag and he shot me with a gun that was in his bag. There's nothing else like it.
My biggest complaint about this game isnt really about the game but the DLC; locking things like an endgame dungeon, regular NG+ (not super relevant cuz there's still premium adventure but u get me), preorder jobs. I really hate day 1 DLC and think we let people get away with too much, but this is far from the only RPG with this issue. Hey, I didn't buy it so you cant blame me.
Game is a great. Ichiban is my friend in real life.