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Would Yakuza be in an even better position if Ishin had gotten localized?

Lindsay

Lindsay

Member
Nov 4, 2017
3,143
Currently it seems ta be in really good shape worldwide following 0's release plus all thats followed! However thats now an not a 4~ years ago! Thinking back towards the dawn of the current gen there was a decent amount of talk about how bringing Ishin over woulda been a no-brainer success early in the PS4's life. Thoughts were how it'd have lil competition an also how it'd safely bring new players into the series. After all it wasn't a sequel an the thinking was that makes it a good entry point (sound familiar?). Plus it was the first Yakuza to hit a new generation system! Not exactly a bad arguement right?

Instead it got snubbed! As prior to the super lttp localization of 5 was released, 0 and (by accident?) Kiwami got announced for the west! I'm not thinking Sega was playing some long game in knowing the next upcoming mainline game would be what really sells people on the series due to it being a prequel. Nor will I say they fluked into success but there was prolly some luck involved, along with years an years of fan shilling! Either way, 0 ended up doing what a buncha people thought/hoped Ishin would do!

But if Ishin had gotten a chance would it have made good on those hopes? Does anyone who was on that bandwagon feel the series would be going as strong or even stronger right now if it had made it overseas late 2014 / early~mid 2015? I don't think it woulda sparked as much buzz as 0 did. Its entirely possible the game woulda sold/reviewed poorly/lukewarmly like previous games had, and later on 0 lights a fire in peoples butts to get into Yakuza anyhow. Thats still a net gain overall since it means one extra game got localized! But I wanna say holding back an re-debuting the series with a prequel to the mainline games was prolly the right call in the end.
 
Video Games Are Dumb

Video Games Are Dumb

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Oct 25, 2017
6,033
Milwaukee, WI
Nope! I think Yakuza was already a hard sell. A subseries would only have made it more confusing!
Zero worked because it cut away all the backstory and could be summed up as a "Vacation in 1980's Japan"
 
DocSeuss

DocSeuss

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Oct 25, 2017
1,784
Ishin would be a harder sell for the reasons Sega stated (lots of references no one outside of Japan would know).

If anything, ishin is in a better position now because of Yakuza 0, not the other way around.
 

Deleted member 12790

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Oct 27, 2017
24,537
Yeah, Yakuza's been working hard since the beginning to shrug off it's "You must be THIIIIIS Japanese to play this game" reputation, something like Ishin wouldn't help that at all.
 
iconoclast

iconoclast

Member
Dec 15, 2017
152
I love Ishin but no, it wouldn't have helped the series one bit. It probably would have sold worse than any of them, given the niche appeal of the setting. I don't blame Capcom for skipping the Great Ace Attorney games either, though it obviously sucks for fans of either series.
 
Tohsaka

Tohsaka

Member
Nov 17, 2017
6,801
PS4 had hardly any Japanese games at the time back when Ishin released, it probably would've done well enough. We're also getting three samurai games next year, so Sega could've beaten them all to the punch if they had bothered to localize it.
 
ASaiyan

ASaiyan

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Oct 25, 2017
7,228
Actual picture of OP:
vector-cartoon-salt-to-wound-isolated-vector-id805030346

The Ishin localization dream is long dead :(. At this point I feel like I'd better off trying to learn enough Japanese to stumble through my import copy, lol.

I don't think it would've helped popularize the Yakuza series in the West because it was decidedly a spinoff. Even if it took off at launch due to the lack of other titles people would just approach it like, "Oh, cool samurai game", and not necessarily come back for the modern-day gangster version.
 

Deleted member 16908

Oct 27, 2017
9,377
I only bought Yakuza 0 because I knew I wouldn't have to know anything about the series to be able to enjoy it.
 
Cantaim

Cantaim

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Oct 25, 2017
33,484
The Stussining
Unfortunately no the yakuza series needed Yakuza 0 in the west first so people could have a good starting point for the series on modern hardware. Now I wouldn't be opposed to getting Ishin now though as I hear great things about it.
 
Jimrpg

Jimrpg

Member
Oct 26, 2017
3,280
0 was the right entry point.

That said, they MUST bring over Ishin now and Kenzan as a HD remaster. Use a kickstarter if you have to. Bring these games over.
 
IrishNinja

IrishNinja

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Oct 27, 2017
9,837
Vice City
nah, it's dope but it's a spin-off of a niche series

i could see a better argument for Kenzan! last gen, it was an early PS3 title (when the drought was real) and the series was still not very well known (although i wouldn't have been surprised if more folks at the time might've taken it for a way of the samurai/etc title)
 
Frozenprince

Frozenprince

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
9,158
No, Kenzan and Ishin are the most Japanese'y of all the games, the cultural penetration requires a level of weebness heretofore unknown or someone has to live in Japan and speak Japanese in which case there's no reason to have them localized.
 
KraytarJ

KraytarJ

Member
Nov 14, 2017
1,580
No. 0 only blew up the way it did because it was a fantastic entry point to a long running and (at least from the outside) impenetrable series. Localizing Ishin before 0 would have just added another failure to the series before its big break.
 
UnluckyKate

UnluckyKate

Member
Oct 25, 2017
10,600
I do believe, having Ishin in the first year of PS4 could have help. The game is amazing and a great samurai action rpg would have been an easy sell in the drought of the first year of the PS4
 
MattyG

MattyG

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Oct 25, 2017
2,031
Absolutely not. I think they could get away with it now, though, and it would probably do excellent
 
shadowman16

shadowman16

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Oct 25, 2017
32,256
Nah. 0 was successful due to being the best possible starting point for people to get into the series. That and it had a number of great moments like Nugget, Miracle Johnson and some great mini games that kinda exploded on social media - which helped push the game forward in public perception (or at least, that's how I saw it). Ishin unfortunately didn't have moments like these in its side stories (which are actually fairly tame from a series standpoint). Ishin does have an amazing story though, but one thing that'd be lost on newbies is all the call backs to previous Yakuza games with its guest appearances an musical remixes - characters from 1-5 all show up in one capacity to another and newbies would get 0 of these references - Akimoto showing up late in the story would get no response from new comers, Kiryu giving Ryuji's butt a good smack (literally) in the naked bathhouse brawl wouldn't seem anywhere near as funny without the history the two shared in Yakuza 2, and not to mention the entire final set of battles where (heavy end spoilers)
even foreigner Andre Richardson of Black Monday shows up, and hey, is that Jingu popping up in the ending as the emperor of Japan?

If anything, Ishin might do better if its released after 5 is localised on the PS4. People will get all these references and might appreciate it more.
 

Thebeast!

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Mar 18, 2018
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Another issue what would you call it in english. The name works in japanese but not in english
 
Sumio Mondo

Sumio Mondo

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Oct 25, 2017
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Releasing the spin offs before the mainline series cost them the last time with Dead Souls/Of The End so I bet that played a part in it not getting released as well. The series has never been in a better position than now.
 
Lynchian Anomaly

Lynchian Anomaly

Member
Oct 25, 2017
6,317
I feel like Ishin being released at the start of this generation would have been a positive. There was barely any games and it could have been a way to introduce the series again without the 5 games of lore. Obviously Zero is a better introduction to the series now.

Still a shame that so few have got to play Ishin. It's got a great story and I think the combat is still the best in the series.

Maybe they'd give it the Kiwami treatment now?
 
8bit

8bit

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Oct 27, 2017
5,390
No way, they couldn't get people on board when zombies were de rigeur so Edo Japan would have been an even harder sell.
 
shadowman16

shadowman16

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Oct 25, 2017
32,256
Anung said:
Maybe they'd give it the Kiwami treatment now?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

In what way? Its already running at 60FPS and has tons of content, not quite sure what could be "Kiwami'ed" from there. Just a straight localisation would do, but if they were up for making edits I have some suggestions:

Make friendship gauges fill faster, they took forever to fill in the Japanese version.
Cut the requirements for the completion list in half (or even by two thirds). Interacting with dogs/cats is a complete waste of time. Now do it 300 times!
Balance the difficulty in late battle dungeon levels better. When you can get 2 shot'ed on easy difficulty with the best armour you know your difficulty is a tad unbalanced!
 

Deleted member 8593

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Oct 26, 2017
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I don't think so. But with the series experiencing a revival in the West, it would be the perfect time to localize it (including a PC port).
 
LinkStrikesBack

LinkStrikesBack

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Oct 27, 2017
16,460
The series definitely wouldn't have been in a better position than it is now with a super hardcore (relatively) entry.

The soft reboot of zero and Kiwami is exactly what the series needed to expand, wether they knew it at the time.
 

Genehunt

Alt-Account
Banned
Aug 21, 2018
8
Honestly, probably not. Isshin is great fun but it is very different to the standard series fare. It makes references to class order and nuanced Edo era lifestyles. It just wouldn't work (besides the kick ass gameplay).

Just import it and play along to Salty Yen's video playthrough, or KHH Subs incredibly in-depth translation guide. This has been a viable solution for years, and it's super cheap on ebay.
 
skeezx

skeezx

Member
Oct 27, 2017
20,322
it's one of the few localization snubs i can sympathize with. would be nice if they could bring it over after the fact but if priority places it behind kiwami 2 and the pc ports i'll take the latter
 
Nightengale

Nightengale

Member
Oct 26, 2017
5,712
Malaysia
Not really, for the reasons stated above.

That being said - if Yakuza series maintains its precedent, there is the likelihood that there'll be another Ishin/Kenzan style game shortly next-gen: and by then, localising that game as a 'medieval spin-off' of the Yakuza series could work really well.
 
StuBurns

StuBurns

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Nov 12, 2017
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For me, those two are the only ones I've really wanted, because I can be confident they're isolated titles. I don't feel like I need to play half a dozen long RPGs.
 

Deleted member 16876

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
39,148
Perhaps if it came when the PS4 first came out.

Yakuza 0 was the one to appeal to most people due to how unique of a setting it has and for being a great starter point.
 
newmoneytrash

newmoneytrash

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Oct 25, 2017
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I don't think so, but at this point they should just do it anyway

They're going to go from releasing *three* Yakzuza games this year to having none (except the PS4 version of 3-5 I guess) next year, so just do it for fun

Please Sega

Please
 
chrominance

chrominance

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Oct 25, 2017
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I don't know how anyone would've thought it would help the series to release Ishin before 0. Let's say the best-case scenario happens and Ishin is a success. What's the next game you put out? "Hey all, we heard you really enjoy this game about samurais, so here's another game in the series involving Yakuza in modern-day Tokyo!"

No one wonders if maybe that would've been a hard sell?
 
Kurtofan

Kurtofan

Member
Oct 28, 2017
1,086
I don't understand how people can stomach so many of those games lol, they're very similar.
 
OP
OP
Lindsay

Lindsay

Member
Nov 4, 2017
3,143
Seems mostly unanimous that things worked out better without it than could have been with it! I never had any interest in the game myself but as stated agree that it stinks it didn't come over for people who did want it.

chrominance said:
I don't know how anyone would've thought it would help the series to release Ishin before 0. Let's say the best-case scenario happens and Ishin is a success. What's the next game you put out? "Hey all, we heard you really enjoy this game about samurais, so here's another game in the series involving Yakuza in modern-day Tokyo!"

No one wonders if maybe that would've been a hard sell?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Ya thats a real good point. Can't say what other people were thinking in that regard. I wasn't one of the people pushing for the game, buy my idea was to give it a brand new title without Yakuza in it. Prolly woulda helped sell Ishin on its own an not be stuck with the baggage the main series had at the time.
 
Revuhlooshun

Revuhlooshun

Member
Oct 29, 2017
10
I don't know if it'd be in a better position than it is now, but it certainly wouldn't have hurt the franchise, contrary to what many are stating/implying here. If that turd of a game Dead Souls couldn't kill off the series, then how much could Ishin have hurt, especially when there wasn't much to play on the PS4 for the first year it was out?

Ishin is a fundamentally sound game, and I reject the idea that you need a degree in Japanese history to appreciate it -- I certainly didn't have one when I played it. If anything, I went in to be a bad ass samurai and came out with a genuine curiosity about the time period and wanted to learn more about it, much like I did with Assassin's Creed Origins.
 

Deleted member 13155

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Oct 27, 2017
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Ishin and Kenzan are great Samurai games but they are extremely Japanese and tackle certain things that would likely be neutered. I beat Kenzan and I think it deals with child prostitution.
 
Lyonaz

Lyonaz

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Oct 27, 2017
496
That Yakuza Kiwami 2 survey gave me hope for a Ishin western release, god knows I spammed affirmative and positive answers regarding that game.
 
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