Now that I’ve had a day to sit on my thoughts of the game I will make an actual non-shitpost review.
This game is a mess. I wasn’t kidding when I said this is the MGS4 of the series. An extremely ambitious, earnest, heartfelt celebration of the series that has extremely high highs but also constantly falls on its face with extremely stupid writing.
The pacing is some of the worst we’ve seen from RGG. For a game that can easily be 100+ hours long it is both too long but also too short in areas. It constantly pulls you away from the main story to do very involved mini game/sub system tutorials but then has no time in the final hours to wrap up most of the story. At least 4 of the main characters this game is about don’t show up in the final cutscene. You just have to be told about what they are doing from a mouth piece so we can wrap shit up. Kiryu is just kinda left in this weird limbo as they don’t explain what the fuck got them to this point with an achievement titles “man who reclaimed his name”. It genuinely feels like there is either an entire chapter or at least a huge segment of one missing from the end. One of the main villains just stops showing up for 10+ hours only to be seen again in a cut away and is completely unrecognizable for at least another few hours. They then try to do the coin locker scene again with them and it feels completely unearned because they haven’t done anything. The two main villains you do fight are extremely forgettable and underwhelming. One is given what you’d imagine to be a super important connection to Ichiban but it never comes up. The two share a single cutscene at the start of the game and that’s it. Why was it even a plot point to begin with then???? So many plot threads just go no where or are left extremely unsatisfying as they hand wave them away so it can’t be viewed as “a plot hole”. I seriously think how they structure their stories needs to change because I don’t think the Yakuza writing formula they’ve had for 2 decades translates to a 100 hour JRPG. Imo the best way to enjoy the main story of these games is when you can just progress the plot freely and not be bogged down by side content or busy work. I usually save that stuff for premium adventure so the story isn’t so “start and stop”. But you can’t do that in these games because of the rpg leveling and just how the story constantly blocks you to do other shit I am currently not interested in. No RGG I don’t give a fuck about your Pokémon clone and it’s 30 minute+ forced tutorial I just want to get on with chapter 4 please.
Most of the cast has nothing to do in this game which would be fine if they didn’t force them to have boring ass drink links you need to do to make them objectively better in gameplay.
The gameplay needs massive changes going forward because Jesus Christ was I sick of the multiple grinds it imposes. The long battles they do in this game are terrible. In previous entries you’d have a long gauntlet where you’d have to fight to a location and they do this here but they constantly make you take the most out of the way route and block off better ones with excuses like “there are dudes over there!” Only to send you down an alley with 7 fights. If 9 does the same formula 8 repeated from 7 I might just drop the series. I do not want to go back to scrounging for money and being locked out of jobs till chapter 5 again. I do not want to have to do massive material grinds for good gear. I do not want to have 80% of the moves you get to be fucking useless because they aren’t an AOE and don’t deal elemental damage.
Highlights of this game is everything they do with Kiryu outside of the final chapter. Life links are overall goated outside of some implications of how no one reacting to Kiryu being alive despite you are only able to see them after Kiryu is broadcasted on national news to be alive.
There is honestly too much to talk about with this game So I’m just gonna end it by saying this: I’ll look back on the good in this game as some of the best but I never want to replay this game ever again. Also this game only makes Gaiden look even dumber and further cements it at as a $50 scam. Yokoyama fucking lied Hanawa is not important and he fucking knew that.
Mark my words that this game while currently being hailed as the best game in the series, that its perfect and other things like that will be looked back on a lot more negatively once the honeymoon phase is over, once hypebeasts move onto the next thing, once people won't freakout if you have anything negative to say about it. It won't be a hot take or "being contrarian" to think that the game is mid, super front loaded and falls apart in the end. It's fine if you do think its perfect and its your favorite game or whatever but the amount of people who lose their shit when you have anything negative to say about this game or gaiden is seriously annoying.
This game also made me get into a car accident so fuck it lol
This game is a mess. I wasn’t kidding when I said this is the MGS4 of the series. An extremely ambitious, earnest, heartfelt celebration of the series that has extremely high highs but also constantly falls on its face with extremely stupid writing.
The pacing is some of the worst we’ve seen from RGG. For a game that can easily be 100+ hours long it is both too long but also too short in areas. It constantly pulls you away from the main story to do very involved mini game/sub system tutorials but then has no time in the final hours to wrap up most of the story. At least 4 of the main characters this game is about don’t show up in the final cutscene. You just have to be told about what they are doing from a mouth piece so we can wrap shit up. Kiryu is just kinda left in this weird limbo as they don’t explain what the fuck got them to this point with an achievement titles “man who reclaimed his name”. It genuinely feels like there is either an entire chapter or at least a huge segment of one missing from the end. One of the main villains just stops showing up for 10+ hours only to be seen again in a cut away and is completely unrecognizable for at least another few hours. They then try to do the coin locker scene again with them and it feels completely unearned because they haven’t done anything. The two main villains you do fight are extremely forgettable and underwhelming. One is given what you’d imagine to be a super important connection to Ichiban but it never comes up. The two share a single cutscene at the start of the game and that’s it. Why was it even a plot point to begin with then???? So many plot threads just go no where or are left extremely unsatisfying as they hand wave them away so it can’t be viewed as “a plot hole”. I seriously think how they structure their stories needs to change because I don’t think the Yakuza writing formula they’ve had for 2 decades translates to a 100 hour JRPG. Imo the best way to enjoy the main story of these games is when you can just progress the plot freely and not be bogged down by side content or busy work. I usually save that stuff for premium adventure so the story isn’t so “start and stop”. But you can’t do that in these games because of the rpg leveling and just how the story constantly blocks you to do other shit I am currently not interested in. No RGG I don’t give a fuck about your Pokémon clone and it’s 30 minute+ forced tutorial I just want to get on with chapter 4 please.
Most of the cast has nothing to do in this game which would be fine if they didn’t force them to have boring ass drink links you need to do to make them objectively better in gameplay.
The gameplay needs massive changes going forward because Jesus Christ was I sick of the multiple grinds it imposes. The long battles they do in this game are terrible. In previous entries you’d have a long gauntlet where you’d have to fight to a location and they do this here but they constantly make you take the most out of the way route and block off better ones with excuses like “there are dudes over there!” Only to send you down an alley with 7 fights. If 9 does the same formula 8 repeated from 7 I might just drop the series. I do not want to go back to scrounging for money and being locked out of jobs till chapter 5 again. I do not want to have to do massive material grinds for good gear. I do not want to have 80% of the moves you get to be fucking useless because they aren’t an AOE and don’t deal elemental damage.
Highlights of this game is everything they do with Kiryu outside of the final chapter. Life links are overall goated outside of some implications of how no one reacting to Kiryu being alive despite you are only able to see them after Kiryu is broadcasted on national news to be alive.
There is honestly too much to talk about with this game So I’m just gonna end it by saying this: I’ll look back on the good in this game as some of the best but I never want to replay this game ever again. Also this game only makes Gaiden look even dumber and further cements it at as a $50 scam. Yokoyama fucking lied Hanawa is not important and he fucking knew that.
Mark my words that this game while currently being hailed as the best game in the series, that its perfect and other things like that will be looked back on a lot more negatively once the honeymoon phase is over, once hypebeasts move onto the next thing, once people won't freakout if you have anything negative to say about it. It won't be a hot take or "being contrarian" to think that the game is mid, super front loaded and falls apart in the end. It's fine if you do think its perfect and its your favorite game or whatever but the amount of people who lose their shit when you have anything negative to say about this game or gaiden is seriously annoying.
This game also made me get into a car accident so fuck it lol
20 Comments
The opening of hours of LAD8 were some of the best, engaging and beautiful things to ever come from RGG, it was like the perfect epilogue to LAD7
But the further along the game went, the more it became apparent to me that you could've made this story shorter than Gaiden and not have lost anything meaningful while doing so, it's honestly such a shame to have some of Ichiban and Kiryu's best character moments in a story as boring and uninspired as this, especially with such an awful ending for Kiryu
But the further along the game went, the more it became apparent to me that you could've made this story shorter than Gaiden and not have lost anything meaningful while doing so, it's honestly such a shame to have some of Ichiban and Kiryu's best character moments in a story as boring and uninspired as this, especially with such an awful ending for Kiryu
both kiryu's side and ichiban's side of the ending was painfully unrewarding
that ending was so rushed
-what about the 2nd dissolution
-what about capt sawashiro
-what about ebina after he "disappeared" did they just let him go? was he arrested?
-what about majima and the other two guys, wtf was even their purpose
-why did this game edge twice on the idea of kiryu reuniting with haruka and go no where with it
like am i missing something?
Yeah I am wondering if we will be sold an epilogue as dlc within a year or were they really just gonna leave us with this super half baked ending
kiryu slicking the hair back and putting the suit on while receive you plays is, like, the most kino thing ever, and then he just gets fucked by how rushed the whole epilogue feels. it's so rough
i'm happy he lived and i think it was the right decision in concept, i'd heard some people saying if kiryu didn't die in this game with the way they set up everything it'd feel cheap and i just don't agree. but how they went about it was atrociously bad and the narrative of the daidoji arc across gaiden and this game really didn't justify picking him back up after 6 which was a pretty perfect ending for him
i'm happy he lived and i think it was the right decision in concept, i'd heard some people saying if kiryu didn't die in this game with the way they set up everything it'd feel cheap and i just don't agree. but how they went about it was atrociously bad and the narrative of the daidoji arc across gaiden and this game really didn't justify picking him back up after 6 which was a pretty perfect ending for him
Fair critique, but when was the last time you played Yakuza 5? Feel like most of the complaints here also apply to 5, a game on your favorites panel.
2021 was the last time I’ve played yakuza 5 for any degree more than a few minutes to get footage and I know exactly what you are probably thinking with these two so let me explain why they are different to me. In 5 the biggest blemish in its pacing is easily Saejima’s section with the mind palace bullshit to give you some time to explore the city he will eventually have access to. As for the character unique mini games each of these all pertain to the character’s main story. You aren’t pulled away from Kiryu’s story to do a taxi mini game that’s just his daily life now as Suzuki. Saejima is on the run and hiding in this small mountain village while waiting to be able to get down the mountain so we have to scavenge for food. Haruka is an idol now. Shinada is a broke former baseball player so here is a baseball mini game.
As for the final villain he can be extremely underwhelming if you don’t realize he is the personification of the game’s theme and subtitle. He is the pursuer of the dream and before their final fight Kiryu tells him “I’ll be the mountain you must overcome to reach your goal” and when he beats him he says “come back stronger when you want to try again I’ll be waiting”. A more apt comparison for the shitty undercooked villains of 8 is Munakata from 4 who basically has the same plan as Ebina.
As for the final villain he can be extremely underwhelming if you don’t realize he is the personification of the game’s theme and subtitle. He is the pursuer of the dream and before their final fight Kiryu tells him “I’ll be the mountain you must overcome to reach your goal” and when he beats him he says “come back stronger when you want to try again I’ll be waiting”. A more apt comparison for the shitty undercooked villains of 8 is Munakata from 4 who basically has the same plan as Ebina.
The other thing about 5 compared to 8 is that you can just b-line the main story if you wish and can ignore every bit of side content and hit end credits no problem. In 8 that is next to impossible if you want to have a good time because if you skip out on side content then you will be underleveled, undergeared, broke and have useless ai party members with shit builds.
Between Tomi, Chitose, Yamai and ESPECIALLY Eiji I feel like they have Ichiban lean way too far into his talk no jutsu powers this time around. The ending of this game really left me with the impression that both villains were meant to be fought by Ichiban and they forgot they needed to do something with Kiryu so they had him fight Ebina instead. Like Ichiban would care about Sawashiro and what happened to him but why would Kiryu care? I also feel like they just made Ichiban look completely stupid in the ending with how he just lets himself get beat up for Eiji and then makes a fool of himself with Saeko. I don't know how i'm supposed to take this guy seriously anymore
I mean, shouldn't that be an incentive to do as much as the side content as possible so you'll be prepared for the main story boss fights? Something (the side content) that the developers put so much time and effort into that they rather not want you to skip all of it. (I think the Honolulu side content is some of the best in the entire series)
The grind can be done in the dungeons tho, and they seem to have been made specifically for that. Also I really don't mind grinding, the same way the action yakuza games had a way for you to "choose your own difficulty" (eg. healing usually needs you to pause the game and break the flow, sometimes you may have a shortcut but it's your decision, the game makes you choose if you want to play with or without healings) the leveling creates it own set of difficulty, leaving you with less and less room for error. I quite like the grind in rpgs tbh
I sure love being forced to do shit I find repetitive and boring so I can properly enjoy the story. Nothing says enjoyable content more than grinding and the completion list.
nah the completion list is BS (not that it wasn't before) but... Yeah? I don't really mind the grinding at all, it's much better with kiryu tho, you level up pretty fast in yokohama
he is spitting so much fax rn
Oh hello @MikoMango I think i've seen you around here
@MikoMango I didn'th think so tho, I just got reminded that I've once seen you in this website
Skill issue
yakuza 8: style over substance
not a lot of good takes here
mayaheemayahoo
2 months ago