my Yakuza ranking
my yakuza ranking as of finishing infinite wealth. will add onto this as i play more of the series
14 Games
3
honor, regret, duality, begrudgement
in retrospect, it's a little weird to have Yakuza 1 near the end of this list but have this game at the very top, considering how similar they are, but I dunno man, I couldn't even explain the distinction myself, honestly.
a game i did not expect to love nearly as much as I did. sure, maybe later entries came with more minigames or substories or whatever to boot. but for my money, the pure, unfiltered Yakuza experience is found here. the original's excellent atmosphere is retained, even improved upon largely in part to its updated lighting, now relying less on tacky effects to give its streets that punctual glitz, but also due to the addition of Sotenbori - a recurring locale in the series now, although I still find that this neo noir-esque debut take on it stands above the rest to this day. what stuck out to me the most, however, was the story - this is w/o a shadow of a doubt the most consistent and enjoyable narrative i've been delivered from this franchise thus far (with really damn good cutscene direction aswell !!! seriously, they aren't able to touch the presentation of this game until 0). another thing to note personally is how goddamn satisfying the combat here is. with few exceptions i've never really cared very much for the fighting in these games - enjoyable for sure, but not exactly an allure, but Y2 manages to stand above the rest by genuinely making huge strides to evolving 1's combat (in many areas, it still feels better than the newer titles) whilst maintaining that game's delightfully punchy sound design.
the director of Yakuza 1 and Yakuza 2 left the company after this game, and it seemed the series was kind of thrown into a frenzy while it scrambled to get its bearings as it made the jump to seventh gen. i don't exactly mind the direction it took starting with 3 / kenzan, and now more than ever it's certainly found its footing, but honestly i think i will forever fuck with this old yakuza cinema style way more. my favourite.
in retrospect, it's a little weird to have Yakuza 1 near the end of this list but have this game at the very top, considering how similar they are, but I dunno man, I couldn't even explain the distinction myself, honestly.
a game i did not expect to love nearly as much as I did. sure, maybe later entries came with more minigames or substories or whatever to boot. but for my money, the pure, unfiltered Yakuza experience is found here. the original's excellent atmosphere is retained, even improved upon largely in part to its updated lighting, now relying less on tacky effects to give its streets that punctual glitz, but also due to the addition of Sotenbori - a recurring locale in the series now, although I still find that this neo noir-esque debut take on it stands above the rest to this day. what stuck out to me the most, however, was the story - this is w/o a shadow of a doubt the most consistent and enjoyable narrative i've been delivered from this franchise thus far (with really damn good cutscene direction aswell !!! seriously, they aren't able to touch the presentation of this game until 0). another thing to note personally is how goddamn satisfying the combat here is. with few exceptions i've never really cared very much for the fighting in these games - enjoyable for sure, but not exactly an allure, but Y2 manages to stand above the rest by genuinely making huge strides to evolving 1's combat (in many areas, it still feels better than the newer titles) whilst maintaining that game's delightfully punchy sound design.
the director of Yakuza 1 and Yakuza 2 left the company after this game, and it seemed the series was kind of thrown into a frenzy while it scrambled to get its bearings as it made the jump to seventh gen. i don't exactly mind the direction it took starting with 3 / kenzan, and now more than ever it's certainly found its footing, but honestly i think i will forever fuck with this old yakuza cinema style way more. my favourite.
4
5
dreams, hopes, legacy, altruism
what a titan of a video game ... Y5 is like ... the Yakuza offering, for better, and sometimes for worse. i find these individual mini story parts much more preferable than Y4's format, mostly because they are better structured / have more length to work with, but also because they generally operate self contained from one another until they all converge at the end, as opposed to 4 which stretches its plot threads too thin to see through each of its parts whilst introducing new ones. probably the best (and most plentiful) side content in the series , there is such an unreal amount of things to get lost doing here... the only game where i bothered to complete all the substories + side stories, well over a hundred hours to do so but so worth it, seven years' culmination of rgg's go bigger, go better approach with yakuza, and it certainly pays off here. were it not for an increasingly bungling finale, i think this would edge out 2 for my favourite in the series.
what a titan of a video game ... Y5 is like ... the Yakuza offering, for better, and sometimes for worse. i find these individual mini story parts much more preferable than Y4's format, mostly because they are better structured / have more length to work with, but also because they generally operate self contained from one another until they all converge at the end, as opposed to 4 which stretches its plot threads too thin to see through each of its parts whilst introducing new ones. probably the best (and most plentiful) side content in the series , there is such an unreal amount of things to get lost doing here... the only game where i bothered to complete all the substories + side stories, well over a hundred hours to do so but so worth it, seven years' culmination of rgg's go bigger, go better approach with yakuza, and it certainly pays off here. were it not for an increasingly bungling finale, i think this would edge out 2 for my favourite in the series.
7
oath, glamour, love, wealth
my introduction to the series. i suspected my opinion on Y0 would degrade as I played more of these games and got a better grasp on what i think they should be, but if anything the exact opposite transpired - especially after playing 5 i've gained a bit of a newfound appreciation for this game, how it follows up a game where a major point of conflict is the gradual dying out of the old guard, with a game where the old guard are kicking harder than ever, a game where kiryu is borderline depressed, at his lowest point mentally with a game where kiryu is at his physical and emotional peak ... Y0 is incredibly fascinating, not just within its own right but also as a retrospective of the series overall, it ends up being one of the shorter games but this scaling back ends up in a much more properly curated experience than the other ps3 games i find , much more akin to the ps2 titles, both in story and side offerings.
my introduction to the series. i suspected my opinion on Y0 would degrade as I played more of these games and got a better grasp on what i think they should be, but if anything the exact opposite transpired - especially after playing 5 i've gained a bit of a newfound appreciation for this game, how it follows up a game where a major point of conflict is the gradual dying out of the old guard, with a game where the old guard are kicking harder than ever, a game where kiryu is borderline depressed, at his lowest point mentally with a game where kiryu is at his physical and emotional peak ... Y0 is incredibly fascinating, not just within its own right but also as a retrospective of the series overall, it ends up being one of the shorter games but this scaling back ends up in a much more properly curated experience than the other ps3 games i find , much more akin to the ps2 titles, both in story and side offerings.
sacrifice, failures, parenthood, succession
i will echo the sentiment that it's strange that the supposed* finale to kiryu's story is so detached and scaled back from the rest of the games, many series mainstays are missing here and overall it's not nearly as grandiose a project as 5. course that's not necessarily something i hold against this one, it's not a problem for a game to have a smaller scope, but as far as a finale goes i think 5 would have been a much better place to leave it.
that being said, i much enjoyed this reinvention of the series - 6 strips the typical Yakuza formula back down to the conceptual level and then reiterates upon it from there, especially prevalent in things like the combat, a very divisive element of the game overall but one i liked a fair amount, defo rough around the edges but i appreciate how nicely it flows, brawls can spill across roads and into shops, and much more agency is granted when it comes to things like bounding throws and stomping downed enemies, which are no longer rigid animations. probably the best long battles in the series aswell, with actual setpieces to break things up instead of room after room of enemies (i really liked the shangri-la level).
what stuck out to me more however were story and atmosphere, i loved getting lost in the new kamurocho and onomichi (sometimes in the first person mode, looking for spots to take photos). i especially loved onomichi ... a very nice change of pace from the standard urban yakuza cities, reminds me of my own downtown, running past bars as laughter comes and goes, reading poem stones ... it's very homey, they really went a long way towards making the cities feel lively, pedestrians will start running when the crossing light begins blinking, shopkeepers will refuse you service if you damage their store in the midst of a fight, people will either cover their face, strike a pose, or shoo you away if you point your phone camera at them, etc etc... kamurocho has been cut down a bit and onomichi is pretty empty when it comes to things to do, but little things like this suppress those issues.
i've always thought yakuza was at its best when it fixated on character relationships, (saya date chapter in Y1, the orphanage in Y3,), and 6 places a very heavy focus on this by revolving around parent-child relationships... kiryu and haruka in particular and how this all ties back to the central mystery of haruto's father ... a fairly gripping and well done narrative for the most part, however i think it loses itself once that mystery is solved, making up reasons for the plot to keep going... i don't care about the secret of onomichi ... i don't care about han and the jingweon mafia ... i especially don't care about iwami, someya is one of the better antagonists in the series overall, and i feel like this would have stuck the landing had he been the focus of the last act ... i know with things like the resort expansion in y3 the yakuza games have always been somewhat reflective of real world events and with things like the crackdown on yakuza activity in recent years, someya certainly feels evocative of that, the guy doesn't even have ink ... a far cry from the kind of patriarchs we saw just a game ago in 0 and a strong contrast to kiryu (who is also very good in this game, a lot of the things he does and says defo makes it feel like he's wised up from the events of previous games and his greener years and i found his struggle here to be really compelling.).
as of writing this i beat the game about... twelve hours ago, and as such there's still a lot fresh in my mind that i'd love to say, but that's probably better reserved for a review so i'll leave it here... i've spent hundreds of hours at this point working my way through kiryu's games and it stings a little to reach the conclusion of eleven years worth of games so quickly, but i'm also glad to be able to move onto the other stuff... v excited to get to the judgments and 7!
i will echo the sentiment that it's strange that the supposed* finale to kiryu's story is so detached and scaled back from the rest of the games, many series mainstays are missing here and overall it's not nearly as grandiose a project as 5. course that's not necessarily something i hold against this one, it's not a problem for a game to have a smaller scope, but as far as a finale goes i think 5 would have been a much better place to leave it.
that being said, i much enjoyed this reinvention of the series - 6 strips the typical Yakuza formula back down to the conceptual level and then reiterates upon it from there, especially prevalent in things like the combat, a very divisive element of the game overall but one i liked a fair amount, defo rough around the edges but i appreciate how nicely it flows, brawls can spill across roads and into shops, and much more agency is granted when it comes to things like bounding throws and stomping downed enemies, which are no longer rigid animations. probably the best long battles in the series aswell, with actual setpieces to break things up instead of room after room of enemies (i really liked the shangri-la level).
what stuck out to me more however were story and atmosphere, i loved getting lost in the new kamurocho and onomichi (sometimes in the first person mode, looking for spots to take photos). i especially loved onomichi ... a very nice change of pace from the standard urban yakuza cities, reminds me of my own downtown, running past bars as laughter comes and goes, reading poem stones ... it's very homey, they really went a long way towards making the cities feel lively, pedestrians will start running when the crossing light begins blinking, shopkeepers will refuse you service if you damage their store in the midst of a fight, people will either cover their face, strike a pose, or shoo you away if you point your phone camera at them, etc etc... kamurocho has been cut down a bit and onomichi is pretty empty when it comes to things to do, but little things like this suppress those issues.
i've always thought yakuza was at its best when it fixated on character relationships, (saya date chapter in Y1, the orphanage in Y3,), and 6 places a very heavy focus on this by revolving around parent-child relationships... kiryu and haruka in particular and how this all ties back to the central mystery of haruto's father ... a fairly gripping and well done narrative for the most part, however i think it loses itself once that mystery is solved, making up reasons for the plot to keep going... i don't care about the secret of onomichi ... i don't care about han and the jingweon mafia ... i especially don't care about iwami, someya is one of the better antagonists in the series overall, and i feel like this would have stuck the landing had he been the focus of the last act ... i know with things like the resort expansion in y3 the yakuza games have always been somewhat reflective of real world events and with things like the crackdown on yakuza activity in recent years, someya certainly feels evocative of that, the guy doesn't even have ink ... a far cry from the kind of patriarchs we saw just a game ago in 0 and a strong contrast to kiryu (who is also very good in this game, a lot of the things he does and says defo makes it feel like he's wised up from the events of previous games and his greener years and i found his struggle here to be really compelling.).
as of writing this i beat the game about... twelve hours ago, and as such there's still a lot fresh in my mind that i'd love to say, but that's probably better reserved for a review so i'll leave it here... i've spent hundreds of hours at this point working my way through kiryu's games and it stings a little to reach the conclusion of eleven years worth of games so quickly, but i'm also glad to be able to move onto the other stuff... v excited to get to the judgments and 7!
10
loss, purpose, destiny, ambition
fuckin' respect it. the foundation Yakuza 1 lays out is stronger than most and the fact that the newer games are still virtually identical in structure is a testament to that. ps2 kamurocho is still one of the liveliest locales of the generation, and the seedier undertones of it go hand in hand with the events of the game itself, an aspect that future titles kind of lost, this is still probably the most human title in the series, the substories just have you interacting with regular people ... good and bad, not a tinge of the goofiness that became staple later on, and that's rather refreshing in its own right ... this is a once bustling city that has been beaten and bruised in the ten years Kiryu spent in prison, leaving only smog and blood, and the game makes sure to let you know of this, gangs fester in the open streets, scam artists lurk in alleyways, jumping at any opportunity they get, sketchy clubs and shops line districts, so on and so forth. can't go further without talking abt HIdenori Shoji's delightfully grungy soundtrack, the 1 + 2 album is my favourite ost in this series bar none and is accordingly ambitious in how it portrays the city, things like the combat and story certainly leave a lot to be desired, but that almost seems trivial when you think about everything else this game managed to accomplish.
fuckin' respect it. the foundation Yakuza 1 lays out is stronger than most and the fact that the newer games are still virtually identical in structure is a testament to that. ps2 kamurocho is still one of the liveliest locales of the generation, and the seedier undertones of it go hand in hand with the events of the game itself, an aspect that future titles kind of lost, this is still probably the most human title in the series, the substories just have you interacting with regular people ... good and bad, not a tinge of the goofiness that became staple later on, and that's rather refreshing in its own right ... this is a once bustling city that has been beaten and bruised in the ten years Kiryu spent in prison, leaving only smog and blood, and the game makes sure to let you know of this, gangs fester in the open streets, scam artists lurk in alleyways, jumping at any opportunity they get, sketchy clubs and shops line districts, so on and so forth. can't go further without talking abt HIdenori Shoji's delightfully grungy soundtrack, the 1 + 2 album is my favourite ost in this series bar none and is accordingly ambitious in how it portrays the city, things like the combat and story certainly leave a lot to be desired, but that almost seems trivial when you think about everything else this game managed to accomplish.
11
family, trust, loyalty, kindness
*played Remastered
y2's plot and stakes were so insane that it kind of leaves you scratching your head about where 3 would take it. the brief answer is that it doesn't really take it anywhere, but this is honestly a pretty good thing ... instead we get a much needed developmental rest for kiryu, placing a massive emphasis on showing how he fathers the kids at morning glory and it really is heartwarming ... unfortunately i don't enjoy the crime drama half of this game nearly as much, a slew of underdeveloped characters and severe structuring issues lead to this half of the game feeling sloppy, the saving grace being when its able to tie itself back to the orphanage portion again. i probably would have enjoyed the story a lot more had it fully committed to the orphanage side of the plot , relegating the crime drama to purely focus on stuff like the ryudo / tamashiro family and the resort / military expansion, but it seems that the usual tojo clan shtick, perhaps out of a need to make it feel like the previous two entries in the series was shoved in anyway.
regardless, the orphanage stuff is strong enough to let me look somewhat past it, and this game has plenty of other great things to display - okinawa is still one of my favourite locales in the series, the soundtrack slaps as usual, plus this is the game where the substories really started to find their groove, and the combat, while being a step down from 2, is still pretty fun esp. with the komaki moves. game plays better on ps3 for sure though, and i'll have to go through all of it there to see how it fares. regardless, good shit!
*played Remastered
y2's plot and stakes were so insane that it kind of leaves you scratching your head about where 3 would take it. the brief answer is that it doesn't really take it anywhere, but this is honestly a pretty good thing ... instead we get a much needed developmental rest for kiryu, placing a massive emphasis on showing how he fathers the kids at morning glory and it really is heartwarming ... unfortunately i don't enjoy the crime drama half of this game nearly as much, a slew of underdeveloped characters and severe structuring issues lead to this half of the game feeling sloppy, the saving grace being when its able to tie itself back to the orphanage portion again. i probably would have enjoyed the story a lot more had it fully committed to the orphanage side of the plot , relegating the crime drama to purely focus on stuff like the ryudo / tamashiro family and the resort / military expansion, but it seems that the usual tojo clan shtick, perhaps out of a need to make it feel like the previous two entries in the series was shoved in anyway.
regardless, the orphanage stuff is strong enough to let me look somewhat past it, and this game has plenty of other great things to display - okinawa is still one of my favourite locales in the series, the soundtrack slaps as usual, plus this is the game where the substories really started to find their groove, and the combat, while being a step down from 2, is still pretty fun esp. with the komaki moves. game plays better on ps3 for sure though, and i'll have to go through all of it there to see how it fares. regardless, good shit!
12
money, faith, truth, power
ooooohhh...
deeply conflicting for me, there are times where i loved playing through yakuza 4 and there are times where it had me yelling at my screen. all in all i don't think it's *bad but it does have a lot of segments that were thoroughly unenjoyable for me ... doubles down on 3's lesser aspects, the game is now broken up into four parts and a final chapter, but each part suffers from pretty bad structural issues to some extent (shoutout to that tanimura chapter that is like ... literally ten minutes long), leaving me always somewhat dissatisfied by the end, with the exception of Saejima's portion and Akiyama's somewhat, even then things like the prison and meandering through the rooftops and sewers to avoid cops certainly don't help. kiryu's section especially is just kind of ... waste, he himself is somewhat prevalent throughout the game but there isn't really a good reason for his part to exist, feels moreso obligatory than anything that was given any real thought. by tanimura's section the plot becomes hard to unravel and i feel like even the game is aware of this to an extent, hence why the finale just kind of goes fuck it and tries to deliver on being unfiltered vibes ... and kinda succeeds? save some very stupid moments, but of course this leaves a lot of plot threads and ideas that just kind of culminate into ... nothing
still though, this game does get a lot right. akiyama has my fav fighting style in the series, the cast is great outside of the villains (hamazaki finally gets his plot relevance) and through things like substory quality, the police scanner, sodachi dojo (but not the hostess club because that minigame genuinely sucks), the side content is at its best yet. the additions to kamurocho are also very welcomed, i would have liked to see them cleaned up a bit to be a little less annoying to traverse but otherwise they add a lot of depth to an already very dense city and i really do wish they were present in future entries. my least favourite yakuza game but y'know what...? s'alright!
edit : kiwami has dethroned (?) this game as my least favourite in the series, so disregard that last sentence lol...
ooooohhh...
deeply conflicting for me, there are times where i loved playing through yakuza 4 and there are times where it had me yelling at my screen. all in all i don't think it's *bad but it does have a lot of segments that were thoroughly unenjoyable for me ... doubles down on 3's lesser aspects, the game is now broken up into four parts and a final chapter, but each part suffers from pretty bad structural issues to some extent (shoutout to that tanimura chapter that is like ... literally ten minutes long), leaving me always somewhat dissatisfied by the end, with the exception of Saejima's portion and Akiyama's somewhat, even then things like the prison and meandering through the rooftops and sewers to avoid cops certainly don't help. kiryu's section especially is just kind of ... waste, he himself is somewhat prevalent throughout the game but there isn't really a good reason for his part to exist, feels moreso obligatory than anything that was given any real thought. by tanimura's section the plot becomes hard to unravel and i feel like even the game is aware of this to an extent, hence why the finale just kind of goes fuck it and tries to deliver on being unfiltered vibes ... and kinda succeeds? save some very stupid moments, but of course this leaves a lot of plot threads and ideas that just kind of culminate into ... nothing
still though, this game does get a lot right. akiyama has my fav fighting style in the series, the cast is great outside of the villains (hamazaki finally gets his plot relevance) and through things like substory quality, the police scanner, sodachi dojo (but not the hostess club because that minigame genuinely sucks), the side content is at its best yet. the additions to kamurocho are also very welcomed, i would have liked to see them cleaned up a bit to be a little less annoying to traverse but otherwise they add a lot of depth to an already very dense city and i really do wish they were present in future entries. my least favourite yakuza game but y'know what...? s'alright!
edit : kiwami has dethroned (?) this game as my least favourite in the series, so disregard that last sentence lol...
philosophy, desire, strength, compassion
this was an experience i was heavily looking forward to, a decent time but i found that it didn't stick me as much as i'd hoped... i think where kurohyou shines is in those little pockets before and after the ring matches where you really delve into tatsuya's psychology, i found it quite interesting how the characters pick his brain apart, and the fact that their conversations can translate into actual gameplay is extremely cool... unfortunately i found the rest of the story to be a slog (albeit with some good moments), revolving around a mystery that doesn't naturally unravel in a way that really suspends my disbelief, instead being strung along by bits and pieces you pick up chapter by chapter — i don't like using "predictable" as a jab against a story but here i think a lot of the plot's utter failure to conceal itself works heavily against it...
i found the presentation to be rather disappointing aswell — to be clear, i'm not referring to the cutscenes (which rule), but the ingame experience, i was told that the game would be reminiscent of the ps2 titles, but i don't really see that at all...? sure, it has the fixed camera, but as far as i know, the city is just Y3/4's kamurocho, shot for shot... scaled down to PSP resolution... leading to something that's exactly that, just Yakuza 3's Kamurocho, without any changes, something that was obviously not built to be presented in this way. even the streets themselves scarcely breathe life... many of the NPCs you can talk to be tend to just be more of the game's menial investigation quest relays or telephone card collectibles, and all sub-stories tend to be one and done interactions that end in fights... the only time any ounce of style oozes from this whole affair is in the battles themselves... stylish enemy designs, visceral sfx design, all punctuated by hideki naganuma's insane work on the soundtrack... i think the combat has its rough edges too, particularly in how shallow it can feel at times (your best option against many opponents is to either grab or parry), but they did a fantastic job with sheer gamefeel, this is probably the most brutal combat in the series, hits can sometimes be far and few, but each connection is so satisfying.
it's hard to be this harsh on a game that really makes strides to distinguish itself, a game i enjoyed nonetheless - perhaps burnout from playing ten of these games in a year is settling in and my frustrations are becoming more apparent, so i don't think i'll tackle kurohyou 2 yet, or really any RGG games until gaiden comes out. that being said i would not say kurohyou isn't worth it, it's a very rich experience within its own right and i think any rgg fan worth their salt should get a taste of it - who knows, you might click with it more than i did.
this was an experience i was heavily looking forward to, a decent time but i found that it didn't stick me as much as i'd hoped... i think where kurohyou shines is in those little pockets before and after the ring matches where you really delve into tatsuya's psychology, i found it quite interesting how the characters pick his brain apart, and the fact that their conversations can translate into actual gameplay is extremely cool... unfortunately i found the rest of the story to be a slog (albeit with some good moments), revolving around a mystery that doesn't naturally unravel in a way that really suspends my disbelief, instead being strung along by bits and pieces you pick up chapter by chapter — i don't like using "predictable" as a jab against a story but here i think a lot of the plot's utter failure to conceal itself works heavily against it...
i found the presentation to be rather disappointing aswell — to be clear, i'm not referring to the cutscenes (which rule), but the ingame experience, i was told that the game would be reminiscent of the ps2 titles, but i don't really see that at all...? sure, it has the fixed camera, but as far as i know, the city is just Y3/4's kamurocho, shot for shot... scaled down to PSP resolution... leading to something that's exactly that, just Yakuza 3's Kamurocho, without any changes, something that was obviously not built to be presented in this way. even the streets themselves scarcely breathe life... many of the NPCs you can talk to be tend to just be more of the game's menial investigation quest relays or telephone card collectibles, and all sub-stories tend to be one and done interactions that end in fights... the only time any ounce of style oozes from this whole affair is in the battles themselves... stylish enemy designs, visceral sfx design, all punctuated by hideki naganuma's insane work on the soundtrack... i think the combat has its rough edges too, particularly in how shallow it can feel at times (your best option against many opponents is to either grab or parry), but they did a fantastic job with sheer gamefeel, this is probably the most brutal combat in the series, hits can sometimes be far and few, but each connection is so satisfying.
it's hard to be this harsh on a game that really makes strides to distinguish itself, a game i enjoyed nonetheless - perhaps burnout from playing ten of these games in a year is settling in and my frustrations are becoming more apparent, so i don't think i'll tackle kurohyou 2 yet, or really any RGG games until gaiden comes out. that being said i would not say kurohyou isn't worth it, it's a very rich experience within its own right and i think any rgg fan worth their salt should get a taste of it - who knows, you might click with it more than i did.
any ounce of excitement i had going into this was sapped immediately once i realized what i was playing was essentially a Yakuza flavoured Yakuza 0 asset flip, the fuckin New Super Luigi U to that game. kind of shameless in how much of a hodgepodge of previous titles this ends up being, without any regard for how those would end up congealing together... a good example is the boss fights - largely fucking awful, because their movesets tend to be lifted from games that aren't yakuza 0, which is a Big Problem as it puts 0 Kiryu against fights he wasn't designed for - this is especially apparent against the gun bosses, where you'll be mashing A to get up half the damn time because they didn't bother accomodating for the weapon stun mechanic that game introduced.
even more disappointingly it seems the devs made no effort towards keeping Y1's presentation intact (the strongest part of that game to me), the city looks as it did in 0 despite the fact that it's been seventeen years... characters will still talk about how much the place has gone down the gutter and then you look around and ... it's the exact fucking same!!! many substories are missing their cutscenes, and the overall lack of atmosphere diminishes the grizzly nature of the rest. things like the scams were a sketchy city baring its teeth in the original, but now they feel much more like annoying interruptions. slapping the ps2 cutscene animations onto the new character rigs looks fineish but is a very amateur thing to do and it is distractingly noticable sometimes, esp when you go from a cutscene that was in the original game to one of the new ones, not to mention a lot of subtler facial expressions are lost in the transition. so i hesitate to even say those look better.
i got exhausted rather quickly playing through the main story of this, so a lot of my time was spent interacting with the new majima everywhere stuff... which can be charming, if not grossly unfitting to place it here, compared to how he acts in the rest of the game, but it being a necessity to upgrade the dragon style blows titanic amounts of ass, especially considering some of the stuff you have to do... eventually called it quits once i realized how ludicrous some of the requirements were, after i stopped engaging with it it just became more of an annoyance than anything... trying to actually get stuff done until i'm forced to go through fighting majima, doesn't help that the more you rank up, the longer those fights get...
if there's any (half-hearted) praise i can give the game it's that the additions to the story are genuinely v nice... everyone talks about the nishiki cutscenes but also things like the flavour text when walking with characters add a lot, and well... if there's a game in this series to shamelessly ape, i guess 0 is one of the better choices... this is easily my least favourite in the series thus far but it's hard for this formula to be genuinely bad to me, so it's hard to say i didn't enjoy any of it in spite of my grievances. that being said i don't think this is a game that'll linger very long in my mind, and i certainly have no intention of coming back anytime soon. i started with 0 but went to the ps2 games afterwards... i feel for people who started with 0 and came to this, such a monstrous drop in quality, sure plays like that game but retains none of its other strengths, and i especially feel for big fans of the original, game deserved more than a glorified shoestring budget expansion pack.
even more disappointingly it seems the devs made no effort towards keeping Y1's presentation intact (the strongest part of that game to me), the city looks as it did in 0 despite the fact that it's been seventeen years... characters will still talk about how much the place has gone down the gutter and then you look around and ... it's the exact fucking same!!! many substories are missing their cutscenes, and the overall lack of atmosphere diminishes the grizzly nature of the rest. things like the scams were a sketchy city baring its teeth in the original, but now they feel much more like annoying interruptions. slapping the ps2 cutscene animations onto the new character rigs looks fineish but is a very amateur thing to do and it is distractingly noticable sometimes, esp when you go from a cutscene that was in the original game to one of the new ones, not to mention a lot of subtler facial expressions are lost in the transition. so i hesitate to even say those look better.
i got exhausted rather quickly playing through the main story of this, so a lot of my time was spent interacting with the new majima everywhere stuff... which can be charming, if not grossly unfitting to place it here, compared to how he acts in the rest of the game, but it being a necessity to upgrade the dragon style blows titanic amounts of ass, especially considering some of the stuff you have to do... eventually called it quits once i realized how ludicrous some of the requirements were, after i stopped engaging with it it just became more of an annoyance than anything... trying to actually get stuff done until i'm forced to go through fighting majima, doesn't help that the more you rank up, the longer those fights get...
if there's any (half-hearted) praise i can give the game it's that the additions to the story are genuinely v nice... everyone talks about the nishiki cutscenes but also things like the flavour text when walking with characters add a lot, and well... if there's a game in this series to shamelessly ape, i guess 0 is one of the better choices... this is easily my least favourite in the series thus far but it's hard for this formula to be genuinely bad to me, so it's hard to say i didn't enjoy any of it in spite of my grievances. that being said i don't think this is a game that'll linger very long in my mind, and i certainly have no intention of coming back anytime soon. i started with 0 but went to the ps2 games afterwards... i feel for people who started with 0 and came to this, such a monstrous drop in quality, sure plays like that game but retains none of its other strengths, and i especially feel for big fans of the original, game deserved more than a glorified shoestring budget expansion pack.