Trim it down, to the best parts
Gaiden is essentially what they advertised, a small Kiryu...I mean Joryu adventure after the events of Yakuza 6 and during Yakuza: Like a Dragon story.
The story in this bite-sized adventure can very much rival mainline entries if you ask me. I'd recommend you to play Yakuza 6 to really understand what is going and why Kiryu ended up making deals to dissapear from his past life since it's pretty much a continuation of the latter. Unlike previous games it's not that convoluted and is pretty straightforward, it knows it's scope and plays with it nicely. At least, do it for the ending. Hits so much harder once you know who are those kids.
Don't think this game will have a lot of content on it's shoulders, in fact only the basics remain while some of the rest gets ditched or removed. And that's perfectly fine, this means this game has it's focus on the story first, content second. And while there is side-content to be enjoyed it's as basic as it gets. An excuse to level up, basically. During the story we'll meet this red haired chick "Akame" that gives us some missions to complete, this is how Gaiden handles substories and it mixes it with a completion tab. After completing a mission, we'll be gifted with both points and cash. To unlock new abilities you'll need both of them; Cash and Points. As I said before, it mixes both the completion tab and substories under one simple label "The Akame Network".
In case you have played The Kaito Files, the Lost Judgment story expansion you'll get a very similar feeling regarding it's scope, which differs from the main game. While in Gaiden we don't have clearly a game to be based on unlike The Kaito Files and Lost Judgment, it mannages to stand on it's own, even with a Frankestein-like structure. Technically speaking, Gaiden uses the latest rendition of the Dragon Engine which has seen several improvement over the years since it's debut with Yakuza 6. It takes elements from a lot of RGG games, like a ton and they're not afraid to say it so. Most of these assets went up being used in "The Castle", which if you have played previous Yakuza games you may recognize it as "The Colliseum".
"The Castle" is a free-for-all battle showdown where you can recruit fighter that can help you to overcome challenges. Familiar faces avaible as troops are definitely present in this mode. It's as complete as any Yakuza side-mode is and I wish they could expand more on this concept. Basically Mugen in a Yakuza game. It's the definitive timesink of this title and arguably the most fun I had with this game.
Combat takes huge inspiration from a lot of past Yakuza games, and it doesn't try to reinvent the wheel. Even some Judgment and Lost Judgment mechanics makes it's first appereance on a mainline title. "Yakuza Style" is the signature style Kiryu has been using since the series began. Heavy charges, strong punches. It's somewhat close to Kiwami 2 combat system. And then we have "Agent Style", think of "Crane Style" from the Judgment games but with a few extra "Gadgets" added on top. The Gadgets are the key in this fighting style and it makes fighting hordes of enemies much easier to manage, while on bosses is ineffective at best, useless at worst. I'll be honest, the combat is not as good as Lost Judgment even if it releasesed two years after it. It's not as polish as you may expect and there is a lot of bullshit moments to occur, specially on boss fights. That's why I say "The Castle" is great, it doesn't requiere precision in the amount of chaos that is hapenning there and combat generally favours going against hordes of enemies rather than a simple oponent.
Gaiden feels like the series "Greatest Hits" album, carefully selecting the elements that makes this series unique. It does come at the cost of not feeling fully-fletched and having a unique "something" that makes each title special, but for a small sized adventure is a perfectly serviceable title to have while waiting for Infinite Wealth.
Gaiden is essentially what they advertised, a small Kiryu...I mean Joryu adventure after the events of Yakuza 6 and during Yakuza: Like a Dragon story.
The story in this bite-sized adventure can very much rival mainline entries if you ask me. I'd recommend you to play Yakuza 6 to really understand what is going and why Kiryu ended up making deals to dissapear from his past life since it's pretty much a continuation of the latter. Unlike previous games it's not that convoluted and is pretty straightforward, it knows it's scope and plays with it nicely. At least, do it for the ending. Hits so much harder once you know who are those kids.
Don't think this game will have a lot of content on it's shoulders, in fact only the basics remain while some of the rest gets ditched or removed. And that's perfectly fine, this means this game has it's focus on the story first, content second. And while there is side-content to be enjoyed it's as basic as it gets. An excuse to level up, basically. During the story we'll meet this red haired chick "Akame" that gives us some missions to complete, this is how Gaiden handles substories and it mixes it with a completion tab. After completing a mission, we'll be gifted with both points and cash. To unlock new abilities you'll need both of them; Cash and Points. As I said before, it mixes both the completion tab and substories under one simple label "The Akame Network".
In case you have played The Kaito Files, the Lost Judgment story expansion you'll get a very similar feeling regarding it's scope, which differs from the main game. While in Gaiden we don't have clearly a game to be based on unlike The Kaito Files and Lost Judgment, it mannages to stand on it's own, even with a Frankestein-like structure. Technically speaking, Gaiden uses the latest rendition of the Dragon Engine which has seen several improvement over the years since it's debut with Yakuza 6. It takes elements from a lot of RGG games, like a ton and they're not afraid to say it so. Most of these assets went up being used in "The Castle", which if you have played previous Yakuza games you may recognize it as "The Colliseum".
"The Castle" is a free-for-all battle showdown where you can recruit fighter that can help you to overcome challenges. Familiar faces avaible as troops are definitely present in this mode. It's as complete as any Yakuza side-mode is and I wish they could expand more on this concept. Basically Mugen in a Yakuza game. It's the definitive timesink of this title and arguably the most fun I had with this game.
Combat takes huge inspiration from a lot of past Yakuza games, and it doesn't try to reinvent the wheel. Even some Judgment and Lost Judgment mechanics makes it's first appereance on a mainline title. "Yakuza Style" is the signature style Kiryu has been using since the series began. Heavy charges, strong punches. It's somewhat close to Kiwami 2 combat system. And then we have "Agent Style", think of "Crane Style" from the Judgment games but with a few extra "Gadgets" added on top. The Gadgets are the key in this fighting style and it makes fighting hordes of enemies much easier to manage, while on bosses is ineffective at best, useless at worst. I'll be honest, the combat is not as good as Lost Judgment even if it releasesed two years after it. It's not as polish as you may expect and there is a lot of bullshit moments to occur, specially on boss fights. That's why I say "The Castle" is great, it doesn't requiere precision in the amount of chaos that is hapenning there and combat generally favours going against hordes of enemies rather than a simple oponent.
Gaiden feels like the series "Greatest Hits" album, carefully selecting the elements that makes this series unique. It does come at the cost of not feeling fully-fletched and having a unique "something" that makes each title special, but for a small sized adventure is a perfectly serviceable title to have while waiting for Infinite Wealth.