Yeah, to be honest I thought the combat in the Yakuza games was merely okay, fun at times but I felt some of the fights ended up going on for too long. The move to turn-based is actually a positive for me, if done well.
-
Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
Yakuza: Like a Dragon - Review Thread
- Thread starter Thiago
- Start date
Yeah, to be honest I thought the combat in the Yakuza games was merely okay, fun at times but I felt some of the fights ended up going on for too long. The move to turn-based is actually a positive for me, if done well.
As long as you engage with a decent amount of side content, which you should normally be doing in a Yakuza game anyway, grinding won't be much of an issue.
This is good to know. I'm playing 0 right now and I'm just not that into the combat. It gets the job done and is hilarious to watch certain things play out, but I find it to be really stiff. Maybe it gets better later (I just finished Chapter 6). Everything else though is just A+!
any talk of grinding should feel like concern trolling as the best game in the franchise, 0, has massive grinding. the final styles in that game are literal money sinks for development
If you only want to pay once, buy on Xbox :)
Buy Yakuza: Like a Dragon Day Ichi Edition - Microsoft Store en-IE
Pre-order Yakuza: Like a Dragon to receive The Legends Costume Set DLC. Become Ichiban Kasuga, a low-ranking yakuza grunt left on the brink of death by the man he trusted most. Take up your legendary bat and get ready to crack some underworld skulls in dynamic RPG combat set against the...
www.microsoft.com
As you can see, the game has Xbox Series, Xbox One and PC all listed as platforms under the digital purchase. I think there was a thread here about it too, a few days ago.
I think it was Y4, which was my first, and the final boss was handing my ass to me because I didn't grind/level up a lot lol
Except there's not excessive grinding, because the game is designed in such a way that if your doing the side content alongside the main stuff you'll be overpowered more than underpowered. It'd really be no worse than other games if you'd basically run to the end of the game ignoring all points to level up/learn moves and then suddenly realise you screwed yourself over (which I see people do far too often, especially with Yakuza 3 and 4)
And heck, if you did want to over level yourself, there's several points in the game that are so hilariously abuseable that you could jump tens of levels within an hour should you feel so inclined.
Same here. Looking at these reviews, it's not looking like the game is going to be enough of a new experience to convince me to deal with the change to turn-based combat, especially going off of the gameplay I've seen so far...
This is going to be the Yakuza game that I actually finish, I can feel it. For some reason I always bounced off the other games I could try.
If you only want to pay once, buy on Xbox :)
Buy Yakuza: Like a Dragon Day Ichi Edition - Microsoft Store en-IE
Pre-order Yakuza: Like a Dragon to receive The Legends Costume Set DLC. Become Ichiban Kasuga, a low-ranking yakuza grunt left on the brink of death by the man he trusted most. Take up your legendary bat and get ready to crack some underworld skulls in dynamic RPG combat set against the...www.microsoft.com
As you can see, the game has Xbox Series, Xbox One and PC all listed as platforms under the digital purchase. I think there was a thread here about it too, a few days ago.
oh snap, tyvm!
It's not totally disconnected but it's as much of a fresh start as you need. New charcter, new location, new story. I think there are specific callbacks but the Yakuza 0-6 story is done.
This should be fine for a new player.
No, far from completely disconnected (quite the opposite). The plot takes place after Yakuza 6, has certain character plots picked up after 6, has some cool stuff picked up from 5, and part of the overall plot will have giant changes to certain main things since the very first game that will completely change certain things in the game universe going forward.
And discourse instantly shut down should feel like pretending new people don't come into this industry every single day and be informed of whatever a game offers. Book of woe humble brag aside, pretending isn't what should happen in gaming reviews. Context across content so new and old gamers can understand the offering without randomly knowledge gating it is the only way to move forward.
Difference is that 0 never stopped you from going furthur in the story. You can grind money for Kiryu's fighting style if you want but you are not forced to do it. I would also argue that Majima's final style isn't a grind because you are doing the mini game.
Meanwhile this game basically makes you stop and grind if you want to continue if you didn'twant to do the side stuff. You need to do the side stuff to level up so you can avoid the grind, unlike Yakuza 0.
On my 3900x + 2080 Ti, I can maintain 4K60 with high settings, but I don't use this build for my 4K gaming. On my 2700x + RTX 2080 Super, which is what is connected to my TV, I can hit 50-60 FPS (or higher) with the following settings;
Texture Quality: 8x
Texture Filtering: 8x
Shadow Quality: Med (no noticeable difference from high)
Geometry Quality: Med
Realtime Reflections: On (disabling frees up some fps)
Motion Blur: Off
SSAO: On
Render Scale: 94%
Anti-aliasing: Off (don't need it at 4K)
Depth of Field: On
Multisampling: Off (don't need it at 4K)
It does lower some of the pop, but unless you're looking just to complain, you won't see a huge difference.
I was going to move my 2080 Ti to my TV PC build whenever i got a hold of an RTX 3080, but we've seen how well that's going.
Last edited:
sounds good mate thanks! should be fine with my 3080 then. wasn't sure because I heard the dragon engine is incredibly taxing
Glad to see that the first turn-based Yakuza is being received well outside of Japan. Those scores are very much in line with the previous few entries in the series... good enough for me!
Oh please, people have screwed themselves over in the previous games by going in under leveled or unprepared. Heck, 0/Ishin on hard mode have some hilarious points right at the beginning of the game where you can easily get stuck in the first long fight (which in Ishin especially, is pretty long) with no health, no health drops (on hard mode stages) and sparse checkpoints. So if your last save (if you even made one) is not right before you go to the long fight, you could be screwed.
And unlike past Yakuza games, aside from the fact grinding is very much not a problem in this game if you just play it and don't rush it, its also the one game where you can over level yourself in record time.
I haven't played it yet, but the very existence of one of the playable characters has to be some kind of minor spoiler for 6.
the complaints feel all the more hollow when bringing up the hypothetical of not doing the minigames and substories. the exp and money bonuses from them in the previous games were important too in progressing. Having more health from being able to buy the appropriate skill saved money from having to buy stacks of staminan that was earned instead of having to grind out mobs in the streets for both.
tsk-tsking the game for suggesting you grind out levels for not engaging in the side stuff should also be a criticism leveled at the previous games. not even in terms of character progression, if someone dared to skip the side stuff people would take them to task for avoiding the soul of the franchise.
I was overpowered in yakuza 0 and understand the part side missions play in that. I'm just not too interested in the grind of JRPGs and I'm mainly basing this off the Metro review who over the years I've found their tastes align closely with mine. They've also highly rated 0 and enjoy the Yakuza series and have in the past praised the side content so that's not an issue.
https://metro.co.uk/2020/11/04/yakuza-like-a-dragon-review-gangster-squad-13535008/
This part in particular
Second the question since otherwise I'll probably get it on Steam. However, if there is cross-save, it will be super tempting to grab the Xbox/Windows Store version.
Thiago
RPGFan Review!
www.rpgfan.com
RPGFan Review!
Yakuza: Like a Dragon Review | RPGFan
For traditional RPG fans who were on the fence about Yakuza, the JRPG-inspired Yakuza: Like a Dragon is the perfect place to start.
www.rpgfan.com
I mean, I find that quote hilariously inaccurate and I base that on my 200+ hours with the import copy of the game. And as I already mentioned (and is seemingly ignored...) several times, if you really want to level up the game literally hands its levels to you insanely quick. You can max level yourself way faster in this game than in any previous game (bar maybe 0 if you abuse the Mr Shakedown glitch) but you'll never need to unless you wanna tackle the EX Hard optional boss.
Heck, a good 2/3 of the game lets you just do whatever you want in fights and you'll win easily. Its only the last part that sorta presses you to think about your party formation and properly use buffs/debuffs/classes to school the bosses (I say bosses, because the enemies are all really easy to beat). And seeing as you can retain moves from classes, meaning you can basically build up characters who can use every elemental attack in the game regardless of class, you can beat any boss fairly easy no matter the class you picked (so your not even punished for choosing the wrong class in the game, though some are better than others).
OP
OP
OP updated. Thanks!Thiago
RPGFan Review!
Yakuza: Like a Dragon Review | RPGFan
For traditional RPG fans who were on the fence about Yakuza, the JRPG-inspired Yakuza: Like a Dragon is the perfect place to start.
Even if you screw up in the older games, this wasn't an issue. A simple reload before the part you are having problems with can help you fix everything without any grind. First thing that came to mind is Yakuza 4 finale where if you go in unprepared you can have a bad time. The fix to this is buying a few drinks or items to help you out.
You are still not forced to go grinding for hours if you didn't feel like doing side content.
You can still get through it without issue though. I have a lot of friends who do play the series and sometimes they get hooked to the story and don't want to do anything else other than the story. They get by just fine. Of course if you play on the harder difficulty you are more likely to run into troubles but you never need to spend hours grinding to get through it.
I also disagree on the second part of your post. They are side stuff for a reason. Sometimes you are just not in the mood to do them so why should you feel forced into them? Heck some games vary in quality when it comes to side content. Especially the earlier games. A good example is Kiwami and Yakuza 3 where they have some good ones but a lot of them are not that good (Yakuza 3 in particular has some really great ones inbetween the mediocre ones. The game has 120 or so sub stories so I don't blame people for starting to skip them if they ran into the mediocre ones).
Damn, great reviews. I just get more sold on the turn-based combat every time I see and hear more about it. If I was finished Yakuza 0, I would grab this day 1 for sure, but I'm still debating whether to get this, Watch Dogs, or AC Valhalla first for Series X. Maybe I can still get both ;).
Great reviews ^^
One question, I played only Yakuza 0 and enjoyed, specially the quests, this new one is it in the same style (aside from the combat)?
One question, I played only Yakuza 0 and enjoyed, specially the quests, this new one is it in the same style (aside from the combat)?
It should be assuming you are talking about the sub stories and exploration.
Yes. Side stories and activities are still present and correct, and a nice mix of humor and drama. And the main plot is fantastic.
Yep, Yakuza: Like a Dragon has plenty of quirky sidequests. If you enjoyed those in Y0, you'll be pleased with what you'll find here.
I don't know if the IGN reviewer rushed the game but he says that he had to grind for 10 hours to beat the final chapters.
Sorta hilarious really, seeing as you can basically hit max level cap in a tiny fraction of that time (basically the game has three spots that if used for grinding have you incredibly overlevelled within an hour - one early in the game for those beginning chapters, one in chapter 12, and one in the final chapter that will easily get you max leveled within a couple of hours max). But then again it is IGN so I'd never put it past them to play a game badly.
I recall a lot of people who imported saying there's a big level gate right before the final chapter that makes you grind for a while so I don't think it's just the reviewer.