Definitely not perfect but it's still pretty damn good.
I'm not really sure how I should really describe the story and how it compares to the first game's but I still very much liked the story here. The slight continuity that LJ and Yakuza share were nice little nods that just kinda say, "yea that shit in Yakuza 7 happened."
When it comes to gameplay it's also mostly all improved either by quite a bit or just marginally. It's nice to see that they got rid of the consistent 95% speed that just happens in Judgment's combat while also improving the combat a decent bit. Don't worry about rushing to put thousands of skill points into combo speed upgrades as they don't exist anymore. The base combo speed is already solid. Crane actually feels like a decent style to use now and I think that's all I need to say about combat. Snake style was cool but I didnt really bother with it too much besides parrying so I could get the anti-knockdown buff.
The game doesn't have too many side cases with only 42 of them but instead you get the school story shit with it's own overarching plot. The school story stuff was decent but most of the minigames tied to them were whatever. They were a decent little distraction and a nice way to make a bunch of sp over time. I think had I not done the school story stuff, I wouldn't have at least a 3rd of the skills that I unlocked.
Still has some of that minigame reuse but the tailing doesn't last nearly as long and none of them are anywhere near as bad as tailing Higashi close to the end of Judgment, chase sequences are also slightly less jank. The stealth minigame was boring as shit and the less said about that the better. The faux-Uncharted climbing sections also weren't as bad as I was expecting, they're typically only a minute or two long and there aren't too many of them, you'd think they get progressively longer considering 3 of the upgrades are for increasing your grip meter but Im sure that shit was probably put in for people who are physically disabled and actually need a bit more time to do inputs.
Overall a nice improvement over Judgment.
I'm not really sure how I should really describe the story and how it compares to the first game's but I still very much liked the story here. The slight continuity that LJ and Yakuza share were nice little nods that just kinda say, "yea that shit in Yakuza 7 happened."
When it comes to gameplay it's also mostly all improved either by quite a bit or just marginally. It's nice to see that they got rid of the consistent 95% speed that just happens in Judgment's combat while also improving the combat a decent bit. Don't worry about rushing to put thousands of skill points into combo speed upgrades as they don't exist anymore. The base combo speed is already solid. Crane actually feels like a decent style to use now and I think that's all I need to say about combat. Snake style was cool but I didnt really bother with it too much besides parrying so I could get the anti-knockdown buff.
The game doesn't have too many side cases with only 42 of them but instead you get the school story shit with it's own overarching plot. The school story stuff was decent but most of the minigames tied to them were whatever. They were a decent little distraction and a nice way to make a bunch of sp over time. I think had I not done the school story stuff, I wouldn't have at least a 3rd of the skills that I unlocked.
Still has some of that minigame reuse but the tailing doesn't last nearly as long and none of them are anywhere near as bad as tailing Higashi close to the end of Judgment, chase sequences are also slightly less jank. The stealth minigame was boring as shit and the less said about that the better. The faux-Uncharted climbing sections also weren't as bad as I was expecting, they're typically only a minute or two long and there aren't too many of them, you'd think they get progressively longer considering 3 of the upgrades are for increasing your grip meter but Im sure that shit was probably put in for people who are physically disabled and actually need a bit more time to do inputs.
Overall a nice improvement over Judgment.