Yakuza/Like a Dragon Megathread

[Jayonnaise6105 Jayonnaise6105]

Well, with the announcement of Yakuza Kiwami 3, I figured it would be cool to have a dedicated thread for what is my personal favourite video game franchise of all time! (Apologies if there is one already, but I only saw one's about specific games so...)

Which are your favourite games in the series? Favourite characters? Favourite minigames? Or just fun/cool memories from when you played them.

Yakuza 4 is my favourite. I love playing as Tanemura so much. Something about his more technical, cop-based fighting style is so much fun! Plus, Saejima is such a powerhouse. He has some of the more satisfying throws in the series.

I have such fond memories renting Yakuza 1 in 2007:
Yakuza 1 was so different to anything I'd played back then. Due in part to the 3D brawling gameplay and crime drama story, but also because of the really weird English dub it initially had
I remember renting Yakuza 3 so many times that the rental store just told me to keep it. I guess no-one else was renting it back in the day

I still need to get around to some of the spin-offs, but I'm kinda waiting to see about potential ports/remakes/remasters just because the franchise is steadily gaining in popularity.

 

[Yousef Yousef]

Cool, pinned.
Funny thing is that I did consider making this but I was watching the rgg summit with some buds, and reading fate stay night (multi task wooo)
4 is my favorite too, and 3 as well. They’re the most soulful. Yakuza 5 and 7 are also great and I’ve warmed up a bit to Yakuza 8 despite its faults.
Both ps2 Yakuzas are banger. The kuryhou games as well.
I also wanna play dead souls and Kenzan, they seem fun.
I’d recommend binary domain. Good story.

 

[Jayonnaise6105 Jayonnaise6105]

Cool, pinned.
Funny thing is that I did consider making this but I was watching the rgg summit with some buds, and reading fate stay night (multi task wooo)
4 is my favorite too, and 3 as well. They’re the most soulful. Yakuza 5 and 7 are also great and I’ve warmed up a bit to Yakuza 8 despite its faults.
Both ps2 Yakuzas are banger. The kuryhou games as well.
I also wanna play dead souls and Kenzan, they seem fun.
I’d recommend binary domain. Good story.

Based on recent convos, I did think you might beat me to the punch if anyone was going to hehe

Dead Souls is fun, but very different and weird in its own way. I'm not sure about Kenzan getting an English release, but who knows?

Still gotta check out Binary Domain. I have it, just haven't gotten around to it

 

[Turbo Kid]

I've wanted to jump into this series for a long time, but there are so many games and it seems like they are all a big time sink.

 

[Jayonnaise6105 Jayonnaise6105]

I've wanted to jump into this series for a long time, but there are so many games and it seems like they are all a big time sink.

Yes, and no. The main stories themselves aren't terribly long. Although, I guess that depends on your perception of "long" hehe They can be 100+ hours if you go for completion, but 20-30 hours if you focus on story and maybe do a bit of side stuff

 

[Yousef Yousef]

I've wanted to jump into this series for a long time, but there are so many games and it seems like they are all a big time sink.

They kind of are, won’t lie. I’m mostly at where I am now because I played them as they come out, rather than binging them all at once.

 

[Stare best girl]

I only played 1 and 2, 1 was good and 2 was very good, I wish play later games but... I don't have something to play them

 

[Klonesixfour]

I love the Yakuza/Like a Dragon Series so much. I started off with 0 and just started playing in order. (Just finished Kiwami 2 so this new release is perfect.) Out of all the ones i've played so far I really enjoyed 0 the most. (Maybe because it was my first lol) but I love 80's settings, especially during the 80's economic bubble on japan at that time.

 

[Jayonnaise6105 Jayonnaise6105]

I only played 1 and 2, 1 was good and 2 was very good, I wish play later games but... I don't have something to play them

That's a shame. They are mostly on GOG, but I don't know what PC specs you would need

They kind of are, won’t lie. I’m mostly at where I am now because I played them as they come out, rather than binging them all at once.

That is a good point. I did the same, and I replay some here and there but I've never binged them either. That'd probably cause some burn out..

 

[Yousef Yousef]

That's a shame. They are mostly on GOG, but I don't know what PC specs you would need

That is a good point. I did the same, and I replay some here and there but I've never binged them either. That'd probably cause some burn out..

Yeah, I did also try to do my fair share of completion. I’ve at least 3 Yakuza plats.

 

[Turbo Kid]

Yes, and no. The main stories themselves aren't terribly long. Although, I guess that depends on your perception of "long" hehe They can be 100+ hours if you go for completion, but 20-30 hours if you focus on story and maybe do a bit of side stuff

I might give the series a shot, it's just hard to find time to play long games these days. It's one of the reasons I play more indies and retro stuff. Even when I'm posting here it's usually while I'm at work LOL.

 

[Jayonnaise6105 Jayonnaise6105]

Yeah, I did also try to do my fair share of completion. I’ve at least 3 Yakuza plats.

I only have the plats for Infinite Wealth & Pirate Yakuza because they made them a lot easier to get

 

[Yousef Yousef]

I only have the plats for Infinite Wealth & Pirate Yakuza because they made them a lot easier to get

Those are my next. They seem pretty straightforward but I’ve hit a huge burnout point last year cuz Y8 came out during Ramadan and it was hard to play it while fasting. Took too much energy.

 

[Jayonnaise6105 Jayonnaise6105]

I might give the series a shot, it's just hard to find time to play long games these days. It's one of the reasons I play more indies and retro stuff. Even when I'm posting here it's usually while I'm at work LOL.

That's fair. I mean, I'd always recommend someone to try one but I can understand if they don't have the time, or the money, or the patience. Or just aren't interested in some cases hehe If you get around to it, cool. If not, that's also cool

Those are my next. They seem pretty straightforward but I’ve hit a huge burnout point last year cuz Y8 came out during Ramadan and it was hard to play it while fasting. Took too much energy.

Infinite Wealth was straightforward, but a bit of a grind for me, because I have the base version with no DLC. So getting Ichiban to level 70 without the bonus DLC dungeon or extra level boosting items took forever!

 

[bjork]

I might give the series a shot, it's just hard to find time to play long games these days. It's one of the reasons I play more indies and retro stuff. Even when I'm posting here it's usually while I'm at work LOL.

For what it's worth, you can save often outside of big story events, and in most cases there's a big spot on the map so you can see where that will trigger. It might take a long time collectively, but the only long play sessions (depending on what you consider long) would be the big event progression.

As for me, I saw the original trailer and a guy hit another guy with a bicycle and I was sold. Got it that a few days after it came out in 2006 and played through it, that US dub was not what I would call the best. Missed a couple of coin lockers (I only know this bc I recently found a printed out list of them, which I had marked off as I went, and somehow still messed it up), but otherwise thought it was fun.

I own physical copies of 2, 3, 4, and Dead Souls, but have never played them. I have 0-6 and the first Like a Dragon on Steam, but I've only ever poked around for awhile at Zero, and it's really good. You can just go beat guys up, or challenge a girl's score in the arcade, or go knock the shit out of some little kids at this toy car racetrack. There's a lot of stuff to do. I don't know if it continues in the later games, but every time I find a girl's card in Zero, I google her name with "jav" to see the titles of the pornos she was in. It's never normal shit. It's always like, "my lactating tits shot all over the principal's wife's ass? omg" or something. So funny.

I intend to sit down and play through them all at some point, but I get too sidetracked by deep dives into other stuff. In Zero, I was up to the point where the focus shifts and there's a minigame that I think you only need to do once, but it's better if you do it a lot, and then something else came out and I forgot about Yakuza. But one day, I'm gonna do it all. Mahjong and all that.

 

[sneakyguts]

i cant wait for kiwami 3

 

[Yousef Yousef]

i cant wait for kiwami 3

Same yeah

 

[Jayonnaise6105 Jayonnaise6105]

For what it's worth, you can save often outside of big story events, and in most cases there's a big spot on the map so you can see where that will trigger. It might take a long time collectively, but the only long play sessions (depending on what you consider long) would be the big event progression.

As for me, I saw the original trailer and a guy hit another guy with a bicycle and I was sold. Got it that a few days after it came out in 2006 and played through it, that US dub was not what I would call the best. Missed a couple of coin lockers (I only know this bc I recently found a printed out list of them, which I had marked off as I went, and somehow still messed it up), but otherwise thought it was fun.

I own physical copies of 2, 3, 4, and Dead Souls, but have never played them. I have 0-6 and the first Like a Dragon on Steam, but I've only ever poked around for awhile at Zero, and it's really good. You can just go beat guys up, or challenge a girl's score in the arcade, or go knock the shit out of some little kids at this toy car racetrack. There's a lot of stuff to do. I don't know if it continues in the later games, but every time I find a girl's card in Zero, I google her name with "jav" to see the titles of the pornos she was in. It's never normal shit. It's always like, "my lactating tits shot all over the principal's wife's ass? omg" or something. So funny.

I intend to sit down and play through them all at some point, but I get too sidetracked by deep dives into other stuff. In Zero, I was up to the point where the focus shifts and there's a minigame that I think you only need to do once, but it's better if you do it a lot, and then something else came out and I forgot about Yakuza. But one day, I'm gonna do it all. Mahjong and all that.

I played through Zero recently. Can confirm was weird and good Nearly 20 years of playing these games and I still have no idea how to play Mahjong. I had to do it for a side quest in one of the spin-offs and I spent like 8 hours straight just trying to wrap my head around it