Yakuza series

[AnimeGamer183]

and it's hard for me to believe that Sega could be so dumb as to skip it entirely.

dude... think about what you just said. Really? I know you are aware of the kinds of decisions Sega has made lately... I have no idea how you could believe that. Like I said, no Y5 is a tough pill to swallow, but Sega are obviously off their rocker with decision making for years now. They didnt localize PSO2, We got Hatsune Miku singing game for idk what market they thought would actually buy that in mass outside of japan, obviously no S3, Sonic has been a mess since DC, idk whats going on with Valkyria Chronicles, but they have basically cut us off from that. What more evidence do you need? Their executive decision making is in shambles.

[Axm]

I picked up inshin for PS4 and had fun with it for awhile. Traded it in though after a few days. It's just too stale of a game for me.

Sorry to all the fans but imo their hasent been even slightest evolution to these games since the first. It makes games like Call of Duty and Assasins Creed look like constant innovators in comparison.
I've given every single entry but Dead Souls a go and without fail, I stop half way through the game out of sheer falling asleep boredom.
The combat system is still unapealing to me. Bash and mash simple combo's over and over on random drawn out chinpira's who say "dont look at me" "I dont like your face" etc. It just gets old for me.

Why I keep coming back to these games though however is because yes, they have a nice environment to run around in when you arent being stoped every 10 feet.. But after ive seen all the places, eaten at the resturants, sing karaoke etc im still left with a overly convoluted unwhelming story that takes ages to get to the point and a battle system so recycled I can see the animation in my head from Yakuza 1 before I execute the command on my controller.

Ive put too much money into these games and next time around I will resist it the best I can.

[Thief]

Yeah -- as much as I liked the first Yakuza (still the only one I've beaten), the combat system really suffered. Also, there was just way too much combat. I praised high heaven when I finally got the item that eliminated the random battles. I'm still looking forward to Yakuza 2 because I really did enjoy the story (and voice acting even though I know it changes) and the environment was great.

If I could have made the game better I would have had no random battles and no level up system (or at least no mandatory level up system). Maybe something similar to Shenmue. It just got to be too much, the story missions would have been fine but I just don't appreciate getting ambushed every 10 steps in the city.

[OL]

To be honest, I think Shenmue would have had a similar effect if it had actually been allowed to run for as many games as was originally planned. I can't imagine they would have switched the gameplay up much as it went on. The only difference is that combat is a little more sparse. But if you like combat, I don't see how that's necessarily a benefit; it's just a difference.
I kept coming back to Yakuza because I love the characters and stories, primarily. You might see the narratives as convoluted and underwhelming, but to me they represent a very uniquely-Japanese style of storytelling, and that kind of thing is right up my alley. It's totally kept with the overall style of old yakuza movies except on a larger scale, and that's appealing as hell to me. I love the gameplay and overall formula too, to such an extent that I don't mind at all if only slight changes have been made as the series goes on. You can complain of battles being repetitive, but the series has come to a point where it may as well be half-RPG, so it's really no different from the formulas that other RPGs go by. Not talking about you guys necessarily (because I'm not sure of your stance on it), but I always find it funny when folks who love JRPGs start ragging on an action game for being repetitive. It happens a lot, surprisingly, but I don't see how one is any different from the other.
Besides, Ryu Ga Gotoku 5 was clearly a huge shock to the formula anyway; it has driving, rhythm games, and hunting, aside from the continued use of beat-em-up encounters and exploration (which was seriously stepped up, if the demo was anything to go by; action is waaaay smoother than it was before). So clearly they're taking steps to switch things up in the main series as it is. The appeal of spinoffs like Kenzan and Ishin is the time periods and scenarios themselves, so crazy changes aren't quite as necessary.

But if western gamers have such a problem with the constant random battles, maybe Sega is smart not to localize the series further. They're in there because Japanese gamers like that sort of thing, the constant sense of improving one's characters through work and all that. It's part of why RPGs are so big there. I like it myself, but then I seem to like a lot of things others don't; people also complain of the fixed camera angles in the first two games, but I really liked those too.

EDIT: Oh, and in regards to the first game, funnily enough I found that there's a glitch when playing it on a backwards-compatible PS3; except for a few chapters, the random battles mostly don't show up at all, unless they're story-related. I was actually missing them after a while.

[AnimeGamer183]

Lets get one thing straight, Yakuza is a RPG, and its plays like one. I mean, even RPGamer covers it. Idk how they really play past 2, but I loved the first 2 games. I felt like such a bad ass playing those games, haha. But I love the gangsters/mob premise no matter what country it takes place in. And I love japan so obviously im going to love this story and characters, and they are interesting characters. Good story with decent combat, im satisfied.

[Thief]

I think you're right OL, and it also explains why I just can't seem to get into JRPG's like I used to. I just don't have the patience for the encounters. There's nothing necessarily wrong with it -- and I've certainly enjoyed them immensely in the past -- but my tastes have changed. I'm currently into muscle memory and dexterity challenging games such as Actraiser 2 and Super Metroid any% speedruns -- and I'm growing increasingly interested in competitive fighters and shoot-em-ups. If we go just a couple years back I almost exclusively played RPG and similar type games. I imagine my taste for them will come back eventually but for the moment this is how it is for me.

Yakuza though -- man do I love the characters and story and overall atmosphere. Even though I don't love the battle system (to be clear I don't hate it either) it's still worth playing through just for everything else the game has to offer, and I've only played the first -- supposedly the worst.

[OL]

^^Duuuuuuude... second game. Now.
If you loved the characters and atmosphere of the first, the second will blow you away.

[Axm]

I see alot of your opinions as valid ones(AG and OL) but heres the facts about myself before you get my expectations twisted.
I LOVE Yakuza movies.
I live in Japan, have a Japanese wife and speak Japanese.
I love a good RPG with random battles ala Dragon Quest, Pokemon, FF etc..

My problem is that with this series in particular neither the story or gameplay/fighting system I think are actually GOOD. Thats my opinion based on me coming now on 6 games in the series played, excluding 5 and Dead Souls. I even played the demo for 5 too and thought ya it was improved but not dramatically enough for me to literally run out and get it here in Japan.
I've tried to love this series so hard but it just never grabs me.
So take my opinion as someone with just different taste for this particular game series then someone ignorant to what the games are or are trying to be.

[mue 26]

I'm still looking forward to Yakuza 2 because I really did enjoy the story

You should play 2. I've played the first three games and Y2 is the very best one in my opinion. Definitely story wise. That's not to say Y3 isn't worth your time though, it's probably worth it just for Okinawa alone, such a great setting. The opening segment of Y3 is actually one of my favorite bits in any game to be honest, and definitely my fav bit of that game, though I know many didn't like it. The rest of the game isn't bad by any means, but the story does rapidly spiral out of control into a bit of a very convoluted mess (and that's in comparison to previous entries), but it does still pack an emotional punch, and there is one scene later on in particular that I defy any grown man to make it through without shedding a tear.

I do have similar problems with the nature of the gameplay as other people have stated, but you just have to accept that the game at it's core is a modern day streets of rage crossed with a RPG. The story and side quests (and there are some fucking fabulous ones in every Yakuza game I've played) are enough to get me through the endless slog of the unrelenting combat...just about.

[AnimeGamer183]

Lets get another thing straight. Yakuza isnt a AAA series. Its scrores have always been in the 7-8 range (save for those gamer elitist that scored it even lower than that because they cant be bothered by anything less then the top games... DOUCHE BAGS!) but I dont expect these games to be more than that. Also they are AAA in certain areas, mainly being story and character and setting, all that stuff is extremely well done, but collectively it falls short, there are plenty of areas that could be deeper, and hopefully at some point they are. I think their main issue is they dont wanna stray too much from the original formula because thats whats worked best thus far, and if anything they will do small improvements and eventually build upon whats already there over time.

[Henry Spencer]

I honestly thought that Yakuza 4 changed things up very well by including so many different playable characters and therefore different playstyles. I also loved the beat 'em up gameplay and brutal finishers in this series. Then again, I love my brawlers so this series was always going to appeal to me.

The series just has that old-school SEGA look and feel to it, to me as well, which I am dearly missing nowadays.

[Thief]

All this talk of Yakuza makes me really want to play it -- I've got the night off from work and I've had Yakuza 2 since I bought the first game. I think I'll play it tonight.

[mue 26]

The series just has that old-school SEGA look and feel to it

So true! One of the last.

[Crimson Ryan]

Only YOU Can Help Bring Yakuza 5 To The West - Do It NOW

As a last-ditch effort to get this series going again in the West, fans on the Official Sega Forums are planning a letter-writing campaign for August 8th, 2014. Fans new and old are being called to take ten minutes out of your day to write a cordial letter to Sega expressing your love for the franchise and your request for Sega to please bring Yakuza 5 to North America and beyond. If each of you reading this would please write a letter, and mail it by August 1st, 2014, it should arrive around the target date of August 8th (depending on the mail system in your country or area, please compensate for the speed of your mail delivery by sending earlier if necessary). Addresses at the links posted.

Can't say I've ever considered writing to a games company before, but it's so painfully easy and even if there's no response, I won't feel I lost a great deal of time and effort. I barely play games at all anymore but I'm still desperate for more Yakuza games..

[Axm]

I hope it works for all you, but if it does ill flip my shit. What would Shenmue fans have to do to get Shenmue 3 after that? 1000 of us show up to the corporate office to protest with signs and banners? Camp out walk on walstreet style?