Yakuza 5

You should play all the games idiot, they are all damn good.

also, for what it's worth, i have literally never been able to figure out pachinko or mahjong, but i think that's one of the best parts of yakuza is that you don't really need to do those things. there's still plenty of other shit to do (i lost myself in fishing in yakuza 4 for like three hours and didn't even notice)

Every now and then I boot up some yakuza game just to play Koi-Koi.

i know how you feel. i fire up yakuza 4 for the golf every month or so

Always a dumb nigger.

The Haruka part will probably be my greatest trial in vidya.

I gave pachinko a second try because I got a text message telling me it was my lucky day. Not only can't I still figure that shit out, I felt braincells dying just from looking at the damn thing for more than a couple of minutes.

Finish 4 if nothing else. I recommend starting from 1 for anyone else.

Normally I'd agree, but only 4&5 were on PSPlus, and I don't have the funds to try the others.

Nigga, 3 ain't that expensive. And if you can't afford the first 2, there's always emulators.

Technically its just 2, one got a remake with more content.

Mahjong is great. I always play it whenever i play yakuza. It's just a more complex version of western card games like rummy.

Just learn the numbers on that one set and don't be tempted into exposing your tiles and you're good to go.

It's not a remake. Not technically, either.

That hasn't been localized. Unless you know nip, you're fucked.

It's worth it at full price so you can bet it's worth it for "free".
Finish Yakuza 4.

This.

Yakuza 4 introduced the best character in the series

You can literally just use the Yakuza 1 guide or watch someone who already beaten the game.

NOOOOOOOOO!
It's not a fucking remake you dunce. Not everything in Kiwami is lifted straight from 1. There is some new shit in there.

just add it to your library you lazy nigger

They changed a bunch of stuff in Kiwami. I've played through Yakuza 1 three times now and even I was having trouble figuring out what new stuff it wanted me to do. For example, the funeral section where you need to get a mourner's badge to slip through the back of the HQ is completely different. The part where you save the puppy is also changed. I haven't gotten much farther than that though.

The combat system is weird as well. They start you off with everything unlocked, and after Kiryu gets out of prison they take it all away. The only way to level up the Dragon of Dojima style is to fight Majima like 200 times.

Kiwami is more of a remix than a remake. I don't think it can replace the first game for newcomers.

Bumping

'least bump with Yakuza shit

...

Wait, they seriously changed the funeral section part? It's weird what they have changed and what they haven't.

Wait, Yakuza 4 was on PS+ at one point? Fuck, I still haven't played that because I couldn't find a physical copy and I thought the file size was too big even though I'm fine with downloading Yakuza 5 right now.

How good is that after coming off of Y3 and Dead Souls?

Y4 was on PS+ February last year, only reason I remember was because I played it on Valentine's Day.

And yeah they changed the funeral section. It wasn't a HUGE change but it threw me for a fucking loop because how you get the badge itself is a lengthier process that was hard to parse since I can't read moonrunes.

Bumping with some noobish questions/doubts:
1 - there's a technique that let's you do a throw after a 'Finishing Blow'. How exactly does that work?
2 - I learned a technique from Sosuke that's a sort of counter but, unless I'm getting things wrong, the input overlaps the cinematic kick special (Triangle while holding R1).
3 - how do I perform the Essence of Ass Crushing on Riku ?

I'd also ask for some general pointers for the taiko drum and karaoke mini-games because I'm absolutely dreadful at rhythm games but I suppose it's just a matter of practice.

For Taiko Drum Master all you have to do is spam the right color with both sides of the controller.

Karaoke is the easiest version of all the yakuza games I've played so far, I think you only need 900 points to get legendary dragon rank or whatever it's called. You just need to practice, I'm also bad at rythm games but once you practice a little bit you'll get the hang of it.

nigger its worth full price. but you should finish the other games first in my opinion

Fun fact, Yakuza 5 is the only digital game I ever bought full price. It's also the only game I ever pre-ordered.

i assume you're talking about kiryus combo enders, they use a little bit of heat and you get a different throw depending on the length of the combo, they have I-frames out the ass so use them when fighting crowds

i bought yakuza 1 and 2 in a bargain bin one day for the shit of it, i've purchased every yakuza game full price after that

I'm going through Yakuza 1 at the moment and I absolutely fucking hate the lack of lock-on. Coupled with no real camera controls some battles become a real shitfest. Coll music tho.

That's Yakuza 1 for ya. Hang in there, it get's better with the sequels.

y1 has not aged gracefully, especially with the sequels improving upon the system massively. you won't regret banging it out though.

It's one of the hardest games to go back to play through, since it has a nice story and OST but the combat is weak because it comes from small beginnings.

Try and make do with it, because 2 is a huge step up in every way, in terms of story, battles, and you actually have more control over your character, and each game gets much better in terms of gameplay with more things to do.

yakuzafan.com/post/148365704343/long-time-yakuza-super-fan-chelsea-contacted-me

Not related to Y5 itself, but an interesting read for people wondering about Yakuza 6 and the future of the series. Doesn't seem like they're planning out Y7 at all, though I wouldn't be surprised if they want to interest more people in it.

Been playing TDM a bit more and I'm starting to reach the conclusion that it's impossible to play it properly by just using one button. I guess that's the one thing I learned.

A grab at the end of the combo string then? Dang it! The description had me thinking it was a grab after KOing the enemy as a way of crowd control. In hindsight, that's kinda silly…

Thanks, anons.

Side note, my suspicions about the game's difficulty spike proved true. Been curbing street thugs but the first few proper opponents (Sosuke, Yahata and that gaijin for the Victory Road qualifications) have been quite the handful. They use the basic techniques of parrying, countering etc quite often.
Also having some trouble dealing with thugs when surrounded as I tend to get hit while my back turned a lot and there doesn't seem to be much one can do about it. Overall, I roll and drop kick a lot to keep mobs apart (or try my luck with that Heat Action that lets Kiryu knock down 3-4 enemies).

Best way of dealing with being surrounded is to grab an enemy and throw at the others, this way you get i-frames and knock down most of the enemies in a single attack. When fighting against an enemy that parries and counter the best way is to block until the finish their combo and then attack 1 and 2 and then either grab and throw or go back to blocking and countering if possible. The game is way too easy, even on the hardest difficulty.

If you hold R1 you get a sort-of lock on. It's not that great in Yakuza 1 outside of boss fights, but it's there.

That shit's unreliable at best. Fucked me over too many times in Komaki's tennis ball test.

Komaki's tennis ball test is the exception, not the norm.

bampu

What is your favorite essence attack? Weapons would have to be superglue while fighter would have to be Saejima's essence of clothesline.

I'm only at 10% completion and I've seem so many cool stuff, it's really difficult to name one. So far, I'd say the beer keg one; a bit lengthy but you look like a total boss walking about and tossing kicks at the guy's head.
I also love the basic throw of tossing one enemy on top of a downed one. Simple but really cool.
The bike against downed enemies is also absolute savagery. Break the bike on the guy and then Bruce Lee stomp him.
And, of course, there's the Essence of Ass Crushing. The enemy taking those disjointed steps after having the tail bone broken is a nice detail.

With everyone having all these cool moves, I wonder if a Max Anarchy-styled spin off would be a good idea? Yakuza battle royales of 16 people going ape shit on each other…

I'm playing that game right now using my friend's PS plus. I'm about 17 hours in and I'd say it's pretty damn fun. Not a huge fan of the combat but the stories keeping me involved and I love the mini games especially karaoke

I would say Tatsuo's "My Essence of Dragging"
That looked like it hurts

Sounds like a pain in the ass.

Anyone had a webm of Tatsuo's climax heat?

It's better than AssCreed and BamHam.

(checked)
Totally true. More engaging aswell.

...

gematsu.com/2016/08/yakuza-6-details-prologue

Bumping with news on Y6 and a couple of questions mostly related to nip culture.
What are hosts? Are they like pimps or bouncers? I didn't quite understand what that "line of work" entails. The one in Riku's questline was trying to trap girls in the sex biz but I suppose that was more about his ties with the mob.
Also, and this is something I've seen in JoJo too, is the "playing victim" shakedown routine common practice by gangs/mob in Japan?

Side note, while I admit it's mostly my lack of familiarity with the series, I'm not all that fond of the way time passes, or rather, doesn't. I'm at the end of Part 1 and hinted that I should tie up all loose ends. Just seems odd that in one evening I got about 15 cab runs, 5 races, about 5 trips to the hostess club, 4 dates with Riku and about a gazillion dinners.
Maybe in the next run, I'll plan things so the game flow feels a bit more organic and start avoiding fights because it looks like you can reach Lv20 without even throwing a punch.

Basically same shit as geishas. Entertainers you buy to have a good time with, simulating dates and all that. Officially they don't sell their bodies, but hosts of both genders are known to be fucking their clients often.

Hosts and hostess clubs are places you go to spend money so that an attractive person will sit next to you and talk to you. Their goal is to get you to spend lots of money and make sure you come back for more. They are real places in real life Kabukicho, so Yakuza has them in fictional Kamurocho. In Yakuza 2 and 4 you can manage your own hostess club, and in Yakuza 2 there's a big sidequest where Kiryu actually becomes a host.

I imagine the "playing victim" con doesn't work so much anymore in real life but it's a humorous setup for a fight in the games so it appears often.

As for time passing, Yakuza is a video game, and the developers know above all else that the video game should be fun to play They often forgo things like time passing realistically to make sure you're not stressed out over 100% completion.

In hindsight, I should have immediately made the connection because its the masculine form of the word but I guess the idea of men in that line of work never crossed my mind. Them roaming around town, picking up fights didn't help.
Been beating up manwhores then. Cool.

I get the idea of those sorts of places as we have those in these parts as well but, again, the idea of men working there didn't cross my mind.

I just wondered about that shakedown routine because I've seen it before in JoJo (on two occasions).

Maybe it was Kiriyu's substories that got me a bit worked up. Maybe next time, I'll try and do things like 10 cab runs and 3 races per chapter/day.
As for 100% completion, I don't think I'll be able to pull it through. But it is nice that there's so much stuff to do. The game reminds me of Shenmue; all it's missing for me is a toy capsule collection and a mp3 player to have tunes playing while walking around.

Is this your first Yakuza?

...

You can buy PS3s dirty cheap, you can't be so poor that you can't even afford that can you?

I don't recommend a 100% completion playthrough on your first time. When you get to the final chapter, you will realize why.

The games have new game plus and Premium Adventure anyways, don't they?

Yep.

Yakuza 5 doesn't have the option to create a New Game+ file from a Premium Adventure save file. So if you play Premium Adventure and choose to start a new game+ later all of the progress from Premium Adventure mode won't carry to your new game+.

Anyway… get it, it's Yakuza, and therefore it's good.

oh just fucking watch me

I have to imagine Yakuza games are a licensing nightmare. The sheer amount of advertisements and real world products on display would make porting it a real chore, or at the very least expensive. Dragon's Dogma PC couldn't get the Berserk armors, and that was just one license. Multiply that by 50 and it becomes apparent why they haven't bothered to think about a PC port for the Yakuza games.

It's not just real life products but actual people and stores and whatnot.

That's disappointing.

Do they have those options for the PS2 games as well? Because I'm already on Y2 but I want to play Y4 and 5 so badly.

There's one game technically like it on PC called Akiba's Trip which has real life stores and franchises which somehow made it over. Don't know why Yakuza can't.

That too.

Those options are available in every single game since the first one, don't you worry.

It is.
I know I should have played the others before. Since 2, I wanted to give the series a try but always ended up getting into something else. I need to learn how to sparingly cycle multiple games instead of sticking to one for ages.

Anyway, just finished Part 1. I'd say I didn't see that twist coming but I get the feeling there's a ton of surprises coming.
Glad Saejima is next. He's the character I wanted to play as the most.

Nice. I guess Saejima will be fine for you since you didn't play Yakuza 4. I started with 3 because I stumbled upon it by accident, I still haven't played the first two. It's all good as long as you're having fun.

gematsu.com/2016/08/yakuza-6-details-prologue

How was Haruka's arc in Y5 by the way? Was it basically pure suffering that will get continued in 6?

It's a shame that Saejima's section in Y5 is basically the same as his section from Y4, especially the first half. At least the atmosphere of the snow breaks up the monotony of the prison section.

Was a bit disappointed to see some unarmed Heat Actions are shared but then Essence of Clotheslining happened and I'm still grinning like an idiot.
Anyway, this game's needs a "Don't play on a empty stomach" warning. The food porn is almost on Vanillaware levels.

By the look of the trailer and the intro, I was expecting Shinada to be a drunken asshole with a huge grudge. He's easily my favorite character in 5 now.

I love the Essence of Clothesline. It's pretty fucking brutal. I love how it has a sort of "how can this get any worse", element to it. Is it just me, or do you guys not like any of the blade weapon heat actions? They aren't very stylish, and when I do them I'm pretty certain I've just killed a man.

Shinada's knife heat move is the best because it's the most hilariously brutal out of most of the heat moves besides maybe the sledgehammer.

The vast majority of Heat Actions are shared though. Essence of Clotheslining is one of my favorites along with the Tiger Essence of Braining.

As for the food they are actually pictures of real life food that is sold on the actual restaurants that actually exist in real life.

I thought I wouldn't like shinada the same way I disliked tanimura, how wrong I was. Also Takasugi best character.

Shinada is the best. Akiyama was an ok attempt at bringing in the "outsider" perspective to the whole Yakuza way of life, but all his shit was pretty much in the backstory. Disgruntled baseball man gets completely screwed over in the game and story, and his ending fight in his part and in the ending itself is him asserting himself by just punching random Yakuza dudes, and it's fucking rad as all get out.

Ripping a man's finger off with the pliers feels worse, I'd say.

Hey man, it's just his fingernail, not his whole finger! As far as nonstandard weapon heat moves go, I can't decide between the hot plate or the nails from Yakuza 0.

Akiyama was the hero's journey aspect of Yakuza 4. As was Shinada's for 5.

When I read the description, I didn't think Saejima would fling the enemy even higher before doing the clothesline and then there's the freakin' elbow drop. Here comes the Taiga Train! Choo choo motherfuckers!
That and using prone enemies as blunt objects. I love playing as Hideyoshi in Sengoku Basara so doing that shit again just sealed the deal for me.
As for blade weapon HAs, for me they simply don't feel as satisfactory as most blunt strikes. Though I won't say slashing a guy into confetti and then see him grovel for forgiveness breaks immersion since a lot of other HAs look like they break a neck or the spine.

Speaking of HAs, got the super glue one recently. I like that's there some goofy ones like that and running someone over with the bicycle.

Who the fuck thought it was a good idea

I would not have known about how good this series is if I didn't play the first 2 games on emulators on PC. As soon as I beat those, I went straight to my nearest fucking gamestop and bought the rest of the series for PS3. So just emulate the first 2 games if you're skeptical, bear in mind that the first is a bit rough around the edges but 2 addresses a lot of issues the first game has.

Anyone here played Kenzan or Ishin? How did you like them compared to the main series?

i won't get on your or anyone elses case for skipping prior games in the series as its been said before.

Yakuza 5 is a phenomenal game and well worth any ammount of money you are sure to have a blast playing through it.

however if you or anyone else has a passing interest in this series i seriously reccomend starting from the beggining, emulate the first 2 and pick up 3 - 5 for cheap and then you too can come in these threads and yell at people for not starting at 1 and cry with us as we fear that the latest game in the series won't get localised, its a great time.

the japanese version of 5 didn't have a reminisce option the english version does, no idea whats in it though as i have never selected it

Yakuza 5 doesn't have Reminisce for the previous games for some reason. Really strange.

Y4 is leaps and bounds better tahn 3 and espeacially dead souls. the only i thing i really liked in 3 was the story after all the orphanage busy work, Rikiya is one of my favorite characters through out the whole series. the fact that alot of content was censored and cut in 3 also makes me dislike it just on principle.

(checked)
By its own the game is still pretty enjoyable. Just did Saejima's dream sequence and that was so much fun. The karaoke date was out of this world, both the support and proper performances but especially the former. Again, I love the fact the game doesn't take itself too seriously. Incidentally, I wonder if anyone walked into the hostess club with 10,000,000 and DIDN'T immediately order the most expensive thing? :^)
I'm even starting to get the hang of rhythm games instead of having my brain shut down halfway through.
As things go, this might encourage to give the other titles a try. The characters are very interesting so there's always that itch to see what else they are or were up to.

Side note, while exploring before going to the big ass house, I found the underground Purgatory. I know it's a series mainstay but this being my first Yakuza game, it still made quite a impression. There's just something oddly otherworldly about it.

You're probably the only person who enjoyed that part.

It's not really a mini-game if you can't come back to it later.

You know compared to the prison in Yakuza 4, I actually prefer 5's prison section.

To be fair it wasnt like the minigame was hard, it just felt out of place.

Good to hear, just ordered a copy of 4. Planning on marathoning Yakuza 2 in the meantime.

I won't let you die yakuza thread-chan.

bump

...

I wonder how many cigarettes he smoked to get a voice like that.

Why is Tatsuo so fun to play?

That sounds really fucking pathetic.

its just a classier version of hooters

I dunno, you're paying for a not-date. You're paying for a woman to pretend to be interested in you, and fill her with overpriced food and drinks. Do you even fuck?

Depends on the girl, and depends on how loyal of a customer you are. If they think having sex with you will get you to come back more often and/or spend more money, sometimes the girls will concede.

Thats just how it goes in Japan. I just wonder if its a classier version of those maid cafes which I still have to wonder are fake or real.

That sounds sleazy as fuck.

That's really sad. Can confirm the maid cafes exist, though.

I heard they've cleaned up a lot in the past few years. There's always going to be that element though.

It's not like strip clubs don't exist in Japan either. Different strokes for different folks, I guess.

I honestly wonder if the food they serve is any decent, are they rather pricey with lackluster service or something? I can assume getting a bunch of girls to play pretend for Otaku aint cheap

I'm not even sure they serve food. I think it's just drinks and "gift items" that you buy.

Does 4 ever pick up? I just gave Lily the money and it's getting pretty boring and repetitive. Does it get better?

Is 4 your first game?

First Yakuza? Yes.

Thats the thing, almost all the Yakuza games have really slow build ups, but at least have good pay offs.

People told me that about FF XIII. They lied. Are you lying to me too?

The Yakuza games don't take an incredibly long time to beat, with the exception of Yakuza 5. Usually 20-ish hours, more if you like to waste time exploring and more if you use New Game+ features.

Post Minigames? Somehow driving Taxis, and making noodles seems to be fun.

I posted bowling a while ago so have batting cages

He's not lieing but if you do all the side stuff first you'll be pretty OP for the early parts because of all the street thugs you'll be beating the shit out of. Generally once you get to requiem that's when you should do all the side stuff if you're a completionist since you have all 4 protagonists now.

The slow build up is due to the nature of the story, noir styled themes all around even when it get's really light hearted.

bump

If you look up what it's really like, a lot of them use it like legit therapy at a shrink or something.

I clocked about 57 hours on 5 and I'm still hunting bears. But I dawdle a lot on every game I play.

The combat looks so much faster in 0.

The prison part was interesting, if not just for the brawl at the end. While I still haven't died, Kugihara was a tricky fight - I didn't know how to properly block his moves (sweeps in particular) and his guard seemed impossible to break. Also reminds me Shenmue's Chinese Gollum.
I'm surprised Baba pulled through so far. The kid feels like he has a bullseye painted on him. Prison move tropes, I guess.

Anyway, I can see why these games might not be for everyone. It's not severe, but it does have that MGS-esque pace with constant breaks. Admittedly, those breaks feel much more pronounced in Saejima's part than Kiryu's.
"Nigga, lemme just go shoot some deer!"

Prostitutes are also used as shrinks as well by customers when they're not the street corner whores completely ragged from drug abuse.

There's so much shit to do on your first time playing but after a few games you only check things out for anything new once you realize it's the same minigames but with various new touchups here and there.

There's some stuff I'm not even going to bother touching. Had one match of shogi and that was more than enough.

Anyway, new batch of characters for Y6 got introduced:
Takaaki Matsunaga (voiced by Ishimoto Doronzu) – A member of the Hirose family. He has a stern look about him, but does things at his own pace.
Naoto Tagashira (voiced by Yoshimasa Hosoya) – A wakashu of the Hirose family. He is an easygoing, but sensible man.
Kazuaki Iino (voiced by Nobuyuki Hiyama) – He has an inseparable relationship with the Hirose family’s Nagumo Tsuyoshi. He has feelings for Kiyomi, but she doesn’t give him the time of day.
Katsumi Sugai (voiced by Ryusei Nakao) – A man who heads the Tojo Clan’s Sugai group. He is a cunning man who was seemingly involved with the big fire in the Asia District.
Hyozo Iwaomi (voiced by Masane Tsukayama) – A man who in his lifetime built up a global-scale shipbuilding company based in Hiroshima. He is an elderly, but dignified man.
Kanji Koshimizu (voiced by Ayumi Tanida) – Himei Association wakagashira. He is the fighting type who craves for battles against the strong.
Koji Masuzoe (voiced by Wataru Takagi) – Boss of the Himei Association’s Masuzoe Group. Not only does he have a stern appearance and behave violently, he is also feared by his subordinates.
Big Rou (voiced by Junpei Morita) – Leader of the Chinese mafia. After the big fire in the Asia District, he launched his full scale advance on Kamurocho.
Han Jungi (voiced by Yuichi Nakamura) – A man driven to devastation by Kazuma Kiryu in the past, and the current head of the Korean mafia’s Jingweon faction.

gematsu.com/2016/08/yakuza-6-introduces-nine-new-characters

Apparently the guy who voiced Rikiya in Y3 is voicing a new character in this game. I wonder if the voices will be similar at all.

I wonder if they're gonna do something like they did with Yakuza 3, where it turns out Oyabun's brother is back.

I wonder if they're gonna do something like they did with Yakuza 3, where it turns out Oyabun's brother is back.

Also off topic, but Yakuza 4 and Dead Souls are on sale on PSN. Granted they only cost 5 bucks less but they're still great games, except Dead Souls which is hard to recommend

Saejima is the most op out of the protags so most of his fights should be easy.

I miss that headbutt pummel in Y1.

I started Yakuza, and I can stand the gameplay and the emulation glitches, but god, the dubs are horrible, I just got to Haruka and it sounds like a random Youtube fandub, it's awful, is there a way I can "patch" the ISO to have original the voice-over ?

I don't know. Thankfully Yakuza 2 doesn't have english dubs at all.

They bring it back as a heat move in Kiwami.

Shit.
And I searched everywhere but it seems nobody ever made a "undub" version, I only stumbled upon one guy who started to make one alone last month, so I guess we will never have one.

I really have things pilling up that make me want to skip the first one, I'll try to push through it a little more though.

8mn17s
Why are the bad men out to get me ? Please tell me.
Whoever did her voice is garbage.

Just be careful, Saejimas exclusive minigame can take days worth of hours to do and it's the most inexplicable moment to come up.

I just started Saejima's Ch4. Yeah, there's certainly some odd moments like the tourism board guy handing him a camera and asking for contact info and Saejima's like "That sounds reasonable." despite the fact that his face is all over the news or people asking him to sit and wait and he's perfectly fine with that.
Then he's walking behind cops only to start fights just a couple of feet ahead.
He's also a pretty terrible Santa, letting kids have bats and nunchakus (that quest was fuckin' hilarious).
I'll keep an eye out for the mini-game. Been trying to do as much side stuff as possible. Gonna try to finish the treasure hunt and maybe finish Kaguya's "quest" before entering the bar because if this is anything like Ch3, the actual story content will be very short.
Speaking of Kaguya, I hope the other hostesses are better. Riku was grouching half the time I was with her and Kaguya, well, she's pretty and very easy to woo but a completely shameless gold digger.

And finally got to try some of the stuff I learned from that crazy old coot. When I thought things wouldn't get crazier than the clotheslines, Saejima's tearing out power generators and dropping them on people. And that wall rebound throw is just plain brutal.
Saejima is a monster truck that walks like a man.

Yeah the dub is awful but skipping 1 is a BIG NO NO. 1 is actually one of the more important ones. Every game links to it in some way.

Well shoot, Yakuza 4 came in the mail a lot sooner than I expected. Tempted to drop 2 right now and play that for a bit, already finished Yakuza 1 and 3 anyways.

The minigame is introduced automatically, you don't need to look for it it'll find you. It's basically another Princess Maker but replace princesses with the Karate Kid and it's alot less RNG. I S-ranked all the students, but it's really weird because you're basically watching NPCs fight instead of doing it yourself.

Please don't.

...

You'd have to have an iron will to avoid all of the side quests and minigames. It took me a week to stop fucking around with hostesses with Akiyama and it took even longer when I started messing aroind with Saejima. There's just so much shit to do in 4.

You eventually get all 4 of them available and then you can just do all the side stuff, I believe it's adventure mode.

Well, there's adventure mode, but in the finale chapter of the game, you can freely switch between the characters and cleanup any side content you want to before starting the actual finale.

who rapes little girls

The most uncomfortable thing about that scene is they made it look like Haruka wanted it

welcome to criminal underworld

please take seat over there

I found it funny more then anything in a black humor sort of way, the fact Kazuma took it in stride and now he's cagey about his little girl dating in the next game makes it more humorous.

I don't recall Haruka being anything but confused and maybe slightly worried for her own safety during that scene.

It helps that most quests can be done very quickly (especially if you're used to RPGs where that kinda stuff drags on for quite a while) and some side stuff can be fun, especially since they don't overstay their welcome. I avoided it like the plague but now I've been doing karaoke a lot, mostly in preparation for Haruka's part.

Wait, what?!
Say it ain't so, Taiga. Say it ain't so.

She was flustered and blushing

In Yakuza 4 Taiga is still only a few days out of prison, so of course the first time he sees a women in 25 years he almost rapes her. He stops before anything happens.

Nah, he just fell on top of her and sweated a bit.

Almost raped? Haruka's gonna be a nip Tori Amos, isn't she?

Just saw the scene on YT. It was a bit ambiguous at first but then he stands over her for what seems like ages and then the camera shows he has his leg keeping hers apart hinted that Tiger Essence of Dicking was about to happen.
It looked like Kiryu figured what happened too.

Majima a cute

Yeah, don't listen to him.

There's a difference between "dealing with a surge of sexual desires that have been suppressed and dormant for 25 years" and "almost raping someone". After about 10 seconds he comes to his senses and gets off of her.

It's called a joke.

It wasn't a very good joke.

I take it you're not familiar with the fact that the position Taiga and her are in before he get's off is a staple of various rom coms and harem animus that utilizes sexual tension?

You make it sound like best daughteru is gonna date someone like Taiga

I meant your joke. It wasn't very good.

I wanted to bump the topic with some quip about Saejima's pent-up sexual frustration and how he's creaming Kaguya in the lanes because he can't do it in the sack and that to say the I'm really liking the bowling mini-game but damn PS3 just spooked me big time with a "This content will expire in 30 minutes." message.
The game closed by itself and I was fearing the worst but it restarted. Hopefully that will be the end of it. A quick search and I figured that if push comes to shove, I'll have to redownload the game then cancel the download to activate the permission key or something.
Downloading the game in the first place was already a pain in the ass. It's 23Gb but supposedly the console needs twice the free space to proceed.

Also, that substory with the little match girl. That one is always a gut punch in the feels. (Besides in Witcher 3, that one's hilarious.)

I have now learned I should probably not pursue taxi driving as an occupation.

Details user, let's hear it.

It takes every fiber of my being to not be a jerk in the conversations you get during Kiryu's taxi jobs, because I seriously am somehow supposed to give a shit about playing your fucking trivia shit. Giving the correct responses and having to not hit these retarded NPCs who can't just not cross the fucking road when the walk sign isn't on is hard enough in video games, I'm not going to try subjecting myself to it in real time.

While admittedly, you're supposed to suck up to your clientèle, there's some where the best answers are when Kiryu is more assertive or talks people into having a moment of introspection. There's also a few that end in brawls and one chase.
They do feel like a lot to do (if you want to split them evenly, it's something like 10 jobs and 3 races per chapter), if you're not aware there's a part near the end where you can tie loose ends.

And just finished Saejima's part. It certainly picks up the pace at the end but the writers have to start keeping their twist spaghetti in check; the player/viewer becomes conditioned to expect everything to be the opposite and things end up being predictable. That said, Saejima telling Baba he'd beat the fear of death into him gave me goosebumps.
Played a bit of Haruka's part. It's pretty much the nightmare I expected it to be.

Also, Park's "pep talk" was quite interesting, to say the least. "I know you can do it, Haruka because if you fail, I'm kicking all the orphans on the street." Where's a cunt punt prompt when you need it?

A bit of a random note but while dawdling around Tsukimino, by the central intersection IIRC, I could swear the main theme from Feel the Magic was playing (vid related). And now I got the damn song stuck in my head.

Haruka's segment is obviously an abrupt tonal shift, but stick with it, it's pretty fucking great. The dance battle and singing minigames are pretty easy, and once it gets going there's a surprising amount of plot progression.

Checking those digits. At this point I'm thinking I'd rather do all the sub and side missions for each character and leave bullshit like fishing for either new game plus or the holidays.

Ah I see, if it makes you feel better irl Taxi drivers that do what Kyriu does creeps people out. A dour quiet demeanor really is the most preferred way for a taxi driver to behave.

Kind of like how irl thugs are not hovering ever street corner policing how you're supposed to walk the streets.

I don't mind the change of pace, it's just that I'm terrible with rhythm games. Being doing the karaoke mini-game a lot and even though I've managed to get a 900+ score on both of Saejima's songs, there's still a lot of things where I need to improve, namely stop my brain from BSOD'ing a few seconds whenever I miss a input.

I like how one of Haruka's very first earnable abilities is acting cute to fuck with the opponent.

Assuming a Yakuza 2 remake does happen, what would people prefer? For it to be exactly the same and run on the same engine on 0/Kiwami, or for it to be completely different and run on 6's engine?

My first preference would be that they don't replace nearly every song with generic techno.

If they could re-use 0's revamped combat system like they did with Kiwami, that would pretty good.
And, I know it's asking to be pandered to but, would be nice if Ryuji's playable.

bumping, got it for myself even though don't got ps3. the 14 day trial really made it free.