[Yakuza] Punch Detective Simulator 2018

[John Layfield]

That is, if I ever get around to solving the game tape on Yakuza 0. 140 hours and counting over here, almost literally the only thing I've played all through August.

Yeah, it's all right, I suppose.

[Delthazar]

I didn't even realize I popped this cheev 'til I happened to glance at my Steam activity just now



from the rare "stuff that happens while the game's idling 'cause I'm off cooking dinner" class of cheev

[Delthazar]

That's a wrap.



Steam shows an additional 14 hours of playtime, maybe 'cause the in-game counter doesn't include menu/map idling. #6 on my Steam most played list, snuggled between Fallout New Vegas and Skyrim. Not bad company.

There's a truly ridiculous amount of stuff in that 81% completion stat. Going for the missing 20% would likely bring the counter up to 200 hours, if I don't burn out and bounce first, so I decided to call it and finish the damn game already. Anything else I do in Y0 can wait for the next time I need to kill another giant podcast backlog. Maybe hop into Premium mode, listen to Greatest Gen again, build that golden statue of Kiryu in the real estate office. That's how it'll push New Vegas out of the #5 slot I guess.

Speaking of burnout, I'm trying to decide on whether or not I wanna jump immediately into Kiwami 1 now that it's a permanent $20 on PS4, or wait for the Steam version, which still has no release date. My gut tells me it'll probably be out by the end of the year, and that I might need a spot of downtime on Yakuza, but... there's an itch, suddenly.

I'll probably have more to say on Yakuza 0 later, somewhere, somehow.

[John Layfield]

Nice. I'd advise at least a short break. I think about 50% through Kiwami 1, the burn out became real.

[John Layfield]

Also, I know 150 of those hours were spent at the Japan Catfight Club. Don't front.

[Delthazar]

So, uh, wow, the Yakuza team's Fist of the North Star game really is just Yakuza with anime characters and a UI reskin, huh.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNhoUah7QRU

[Delthazar]

Yakuza, but you're a private eye = Project Judge.

https://youtu.be/Y4jhuwEVJBo

https://youtu.be/URoAnyXqB9g

https://kotaku.com/the-yakuza-teams-nex ... 1828940940

Sounds like it's in-universe with Yakuza, too.

[John Layfield]

I was ready to potentially eh my way through it, like their Fist of the North Star thing, but if it's in-universe....

[Delthazar]

Yep. The press release mentions one of the characters is a Tojo captain in Kamurocho.

https://gematsu.com/2018/09/yakuza-stud ... ge-for-ps4

Plus the city in general certainly has that look. 'course, one flashy Japanese cityscape could just as easily be rebuilt to become another. Maybe it's Roppongi! (It's probably Kamurocho. )

If someone finally gave SWERY a AAA budget for a new Deadly Premonition I kinda imagine the detective sections in this gameplay trailer is how York's profiling stuff would work. If they're doing Yakuza-style crime drama from the other side of the law, that's as good a way to do it as any, I think.

There's already a demo up on the Japanese end of PSN. Dunno if those are region-locked. Otherwise we'll get this over here sometime next year.

[Delthazar]

Decided I don't feel like waiting for the Steam version of Kiwami (still listed as Coming Soon, grr) so I'm staring at a PS4 download progress bar instead.

[John Layfield]

They've been slow at announcing a date for the remaster (not a Kiwami-style remake) of Yakuza 3 as well (already out in Japan) which is slightly frustrating.

[Delthazar]

I guess TGS is nigh, so watch 'em drop all that knowledge then and there.

I wonder how the PS3 games will hold up as remasters vs. the Kiwami remakes. Also, how big is the Yakuza team if they're doing all this Yakuza stuff on a pretty crazy annual schedule plus Judge Eyes and the North Star thing. If it ain't a big team, it's an overworked team.

[John Layfield]

Apparently, talking with someone who has been big into Yakuza since day 1 in Japanese, it's more-or-less a small team working on a tight budget, which kind of explains how they stumbled onto "truncated, tight open-world" as the balance between freedom and linearity.

Although I would hope these days with their modern successes, Sega will open the purse-strings and recruitment a little considering the new titles they're making in a constant stream.

[Delthazar]

Kiwami progress

Spoiler :

Story structure is way heavier on flashbacks than I expected coming from 0. It's useful to help bridge the 10-year gap in Kiryu's life and everything that happened while he was locked up, but it does at times feel like an older method we don't see as much in fully modern games. It doesn't usually date the source material too badly, though. Even if I probably didn't need a playable flashback just to hunt down a ring. I wonder if all the flashbacks were in the original game or if some were added by Kiwami.

...it's interesting coming from 0 to see how Y1/Kiwami pretty much straight-up wrecks the lives of a lot of those characters. And boy did 0 do a lot for Nishiki in particular. I dunno if I'd be nearly as invested in what's up with him in Kiwami if 0 hadn't laid down all that extra character work.

The substories are definitely where some of the age still shows. You were right to call these out on stream. What a difference a decade or so makes, huh. Most I've seen are over in a couple minutes, with only substories like the F-Cup thing getting closer to 0's average length and involvement - and that one dropped an achievement, which kinda implies it's about as involved as Y1/Kiwami's substories ever get. That's a shame, but it's still neat to see the seeds of how this was all designed later, without actually going back and playing the PS2 original.

I wish the battle styles still had their music from 0. The reorganization of abilities and unlocks via EXP instead of yen works well enough, especially if there's no business systems to keep Kiryu flush with cash. All the Majima stuff has been great so far.

Shimano was a rough-ass fight I kinda don't wanna repeat. If a lot of the bosses in this game have self-heals and can easily interrupt your combos with grabs like Shimano - oof.

Map's fully open now so off I go exploring.

[John Layfield]

Spoiler for Flashbacks :

All the young Nishiki running his family while Kiryu is in jail stuff is new to Kiwami. In the original, it's just the ring flashbacks and then he's a jerk with slicked-back hair mouthing off to Sera.

Spoiler for Everything else :

I'm glad you like the Majima stuff. It wore on me but maybe it won't for you.

That Shimano fight is a fucker and I'm glad it was a lot easier on NG+ for me. There may not be a more frustrating fight as far as an enemy's ability to just shut you down goes. Harder and/or longer fights, maybe, but not one as frustrating.

Substories are totally mostly interesting as historical curiosities. The Pocket Circuit stuff is new to Kiwami though and has more of that 0-type humour.

I might have touched it on Twitter, but Kiwami/1 feels like it's going for a different crime movie pastiche. This is like a Hong Kong action flik, I guess. The main character's best friend turns into a jerk and we don't have much raisin to care but it's okay because it's the excuse for the hero to do sick-looking heat actions! I get it.

Spoiler for Small Kiwami 2 Spoiler :

There's actually a neat substory in Kiwami 2 about a Yakuza movie series that fans feel have gone off the rails by focusing on character drama at the expense of action somewhere around its third installment and... yeah.

[John Layfield]

Spoiler for Character development and lack thereof :

And yeah, it feels weird from our perspective that it's like "Oh you took an interesting character like Sera and killed him off that early? Dojima dies in basically a flashback? Do what you want I guess." but for someone who played these first, it's more like "It's neat Zero fleshed out those minor guys from the first game, that's rad!".

As someone who liked Sera's machinations in Zero, it felt weird to go from that to "I'm kind of a dork at my job and now I'm dead whoops". But showing the dork was good at stuff in the past probably flows better to a series veteran.

[Delthazar]

Regarding Sera in particular,

Spoiler :

Yakuza 0 very nearly painted Sera as a master manipulator type, or at least well above the competence level of a Dojima or a Sagawa, which makes his early offscreen exit in Y1/Kiwami feel sorta beneath him.

That said, since the strings in Y0 were mainly being pulled by Kazama, and Sera already managed to get himself shot once, well. Maybe it's not as big a clash as it feels like at first, especially considering a decade-plus has passed with Sera as Third Chairman, which is probably enough time for even him to get a little complacent.

Dojima getting got via flashback sequence is befitting a total fucking goon like him better than Sera's fate, I think. He never came off terribly well in Y0 outside of maybe his first appearance, and certainly he ends that game like a chump.

[Delthazar]

jeeeeez

Spoiler :

Pocket Circuit Fighter absolutely 100% should've gone home and taken over his family tofu shop, huh

[Delthazar]

Flashbacks, Y0 stuff

Spoiler :

I'm enjoying these Nishiki scenes a lot and I'm glad they're here. They kinda need to be here, really, after 0. But I'll always wonder if maybe given more time and budget Nishiki could've had his own playable scenario in the place of these flashbacks.

I'm 100% here for all the occasional references to 0, like the Pocket Circuit Stadium obviously (cue Kiryu's nostalgic remembrance face), or Kiryu alluding to the Empty Lot in conversation with Haruka about the Millennium Tower.

Substories, minigames

Spoiler :

Substories seem to be improving somewhat as I get in deeper. Some also feel like they're new to Kiwami or rewritten to reflect 0 a little more. I'll look that up later maybe.

Karaoke feels harder than it was in 0, but the 00s remixes are solid and I love the new cutscenes in there. TONIGHT being a greatest hits collection of Kiryu/Nishiki bromance moments from 0 is great and adding Pocket Circuit Fighter to Bakamitai is pretty damn funny.

They found the weirdest way possible to repurpose the catfight models, huh.

Majima

Spoiler :

While I'm digging the Everywhere stuff, I do feel like the cooldowns are probably too short. I went from the "Majima as a bartender" scene to the "Majima as a pole dancer" scene in about five minutes last night, which could totally be spread out over, I dunno, an hour or two, maybe. Similarly, Majima's random appearances as a Mr. Shakedown type are also probably too close together.

There's also maybe a slight tonal clash with Majima the wacky sidequest guy versus Majima the actual story character, at least when you end up fighting him at the batting cages. Here's the guy fighting you constantly on the street to help you shake off your rust, dressing up as cops or bartenders and hiding inside giant traffic cones, all the time coming off as a fun mostly-harmless goofball rival, then suddenly he's kidnapping girls as bait for a big story fight (and getting Date shot in the process) which feels more like something Kuze or Awano would do in the previous game.

other story stuff

Spoiler :

Heh, is there an underground fighting arena in all these games or what

[John Layfield]

Spoiler :

Hey man, Pocket Circuit Fighter got that raise and has a fiance, so just BACK OFF!

My problems with Majima Everywhere are the same as yours, though I found it easy enough to separate it from plot Majima, who is obviously way more actually violently unhinged. I have a feeling Everywhere Majima is the version of the character that grew out of Original Majima's breakout performance.

The additional Nishiki stuff is absolutely to this game's advantage. Obviously some of the most Zero-feeling stuff too. It really does sell the "heel turn" in a way that the main game simply doesn't feel like doing.

There is absolutely an underground fighting arena in 2, 3, 4 and 5. Don't know about 6.

[Delthazar]

Heh, alright, some of these substories can stay.

Spoiler :

Kiryu, Date, and Florist in a battle to be the baddest BAD-ass dad (or DILF, jeez) is totally what I'm looking for.

Also interesting to see a couple substories get full cutscenes, like the one with the assassination attempt at the strip club, or the one with the doctor.

Minor issue that Y0 kinda shared: I wish groups of goons weren't placed so closely together. You really start to notice that when you can't make it rain any more, and when you've also got Majima to deal with on top of the random encounters. I feel like Kiwami also puts you with a conversation buddy more often than 0 did, so I'd kinda rather just have no encounters at all in those sections.

[John Layfield]

The good sidequest you mentioned is absolutely unique to Kiwami. I've been comparing lists. So are the Bump and Scam substories which you may have triggered a few of, which are short like the original stuff but have some silly 0-type writing.

I kind of see why battles are less avoidable, with no real way to make money or experience outside of battles. Avoid too much and you're gonna hit a wall. With saving anywhere, there's the potential for a very frustrating near-soft lock experience.

[Delthazar]

YES YES YES

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXG7ElqPqhk

Clicking play, see you in an hour.

[Delthazar]

Maaan, the new engine for Yakuza 6/Kiwami 2 looks nice. 0/K1 is no slouch visually - uh, a lot of the NPC models notwithstanding - and it always looks great in full cutscenes, but there's so much more going on here.

Also really digging how they reworked the abilities progression. The Sphere Grid-y stuff was perfectly functional before, if a tad basic, but Kiwami 2 looks deeper, better organized, and more dynamic. Flows better. A good match for the better UI they rolled, too. They really improved those details a lot in a relatively short time.

Spoiler :

...glad they rethought the voice direction for poor G.B. Holmes.

...yeah, I'll probably try to pick this up before the end of the year if I can.

e: oh jeez that Great Muta forehead, some expert texture work on that one, wow

[Delthazar]

PS+ members get Yakuza Kiwami in November.

(Play Yakuza 0 first if you can.)