Game was better than I expected, considering it tends to be seen as the worst game in the series. I enjoyed the story quite a bit, although unfortunately the ending wasn't as good as in 2 (kinda hard to top that). Combat was fun overall, and exploring the two areas in the game was fairly enjoyable. Still didn't seem to have the same quality for the sub-stories like in 0, but they were a bit better than 1 and 2. Overall, I think I liked this game around the same level as Kiwami, maybe slightly better or slightly worse.

Overall a very solid game. The only really annoyances I had came down to enemy ai being overly aggressive sometimes when a boss was in a group of enemies. It also would have been nice to have more story time with each of the main characters. Otherwise everything was really good. The story was pretty great overall, having connections to past games which was nice to see. Each character was pretty fun and had their own style which was cool. None of them were really bad either, which I was surprised about. Definitely one of the better ones so far.

I think I've decided on giving a playstyle-dependent rating for it. The game has one of the best stories so far, and basically does 4's idea of having multiple protagonists to a much better degree. I'd say the only issue is that with how much side content there is, its difficult to balance the separate stories as you play through the game. If you actively do lots of side content, it can be easy to forget some of the things that happened a lot earlier in the story, and it further spaces out the time between playing each character. If you can ignore a decent amount of side content to push through the story, I think this game might work a bit better for you, but I can say it might work a bit worse if you can't (at least on an initial playthrough).

I think the new cast is really great, and I had a lot of fun experiencing the game with them instead of all the old characters. Seeing the returning cast was also really cool, and I think for the most part they did them justice. There is a slight issue with that part though, which is that a few of the returning cast aren't really supposed to be alive, which in one particular case is just kinda dumb. I can maybe understand the others, but one guy was literally shot in the head the last time he appeared in the series, so he really shouldn't be here. The soundtrack was really good, but I do wish they'd added probably 2 more battle themes for the main area, since that theme started getting old for me after a while. I also think the level curve towards the end is a bit rough. Some of the chapters can be pretty short, and the jump in levels can be a bit annoying, since it means having to find decent grinding places. I also appreciate the devs making it easier to finish all achievements this time around, by not requiring you do literally everything like they normally do. I've had fun experiencing a lot of different parts of this game, and I don't feel like getting 100% should be necessary for what I'd consider completion in this game. The shift to a traditional rpg is pretty cool, but I do miss the old combat. I also don't know why they got rid of QTEs throughout the game. They've been a big part of the series for a long time now (if not since the beginning), so their absence kinda sucks. Overall I think they did a great job, and I do think they made this game one that new players and series veterans can enjoy. I still believe the game is better as the last game played for now, since so many references and characters do appear in this game. There's definitely a lot of fanservice that would probably go over a new player's head.

This game is a huge improvement on the original (DQ1, not the original DQ2 on NES). The game had more music, and in my opinion, better music. Also had a lot of new monsters with cool designs, gave you a party of characters instead of just the hero, and had a lot more content this time around. The story overall leaves something to be desired still, but instead of being about 50/50 on gameplay and grinding like DQ1, it's closer to 80/20, which feels a lot better. The map was very big compared to DQ, with lots of towns and dungeons. Still lacking in bosses overall though (I think most were just in the final dungeon). Encounter rate is a bit high, but it's easily mitigated with quick save and actually makes grinding a bit easier when you have to. Overall, still an NES JRPG, but a pretty enjoyable experience all the same.

This game is a huge improvement on the original (DQ1, not the original DQ2 on NES). The game had more music, and in my opinion, better music. Also had a lot of new monsters with cool designs, gave you a party of characters instead of just the hero, and had a lot more content this time around. The story overall leaves something to be desired still, but instead of being about 50/50 on gameplay and grinding like DQ1, it's closer to 80/20, which feels a lot better. The map was very big compared to DQ, with lots of towns and dungeons. Still lacking in bosses overall though (I think most were just in the final dungeon). Encounter rate is a bit high, but it's easily mitigated with quick save and actually makes grinding a bit easier when you have to. Overall, still an NES JRPG, but a pretty enjoyable experience all the same.

Game was pretty fun, overall. A lot of the game wasn't necessarily easy, but it was cool actually making plans and strategies to work through those harder chapters. Game had a lot of cool and fun characters to use. The design overall works great, and there are lots of different aspects that make almost every character unique and usable in their own way. My only point of contention is not being able to manually rearrange units. I did find an option much later on to do so, but it seems like they didn't have it in the original game at all. A lot of the game is really difficult without being able to do this, and you basically just have to forgo using certain characters so that some units end up in better spots, especially when they're split up. Overall the game was great though, with lots of variety all around and a difficulty that in most cases felt pretty fair. Might be my favorite game in the series, but I'd have to let it sit before I can decide something like that.

Well, this was somewhat to be expected. Before playing the game, I had heard a lot of mixed reviews about the game, and I have to agree and disagree on different accounts. On one hand, the game was reasonably fun. There's a decent amount of content, as this is essentially a slightly smaller Kamurocho from Yakuza 4. I enjoyed being able to fight through the sectioned-off town as it slowly expanded throughout the game. I also liked the variety of weapons, and the upgrade system was pretty easy to keep up with while not needing to grind too much for different upgrades. Combat was pretty cool and stands out from the other games in the franchise. And then there's some of the negative aspects. For one, aiming and trying to manipulate the camera doesn't feel great a lot of the time. While there are tools to help mitigate this issue in the game (like the head tracking skills), they don't work at every single moment in the game, and when they don't, the fights can be really annoying. Now, most of the time they do work, but those times they don't do stand out from the crowd. Each character comes equipped with their own unique weapon, which adds some personality to each character. However, after you finish a character's chapter (with the exception of Kiryu), you can never use that character or weapon again for the rest of the game. This can especially suck because you can upgrade each of those unique weapons, which is a waste of resources if you are only doing a single playthrough of the game. Also, after finishing Akiyama's part of the story, every character is required to always equip their special weapon and a specific handgun. This limits your other weapons to only two slots, which really sucks when there are many cool weapons to use, and the handgun really isn't that great of a weapon to have around for most of the harder sections of the game. You can't even re-arrange those slots how you like, so you just have to get used to where they are. The game is also plagued by frame-drops. There were many sections that seemed to overwhelm the system, mostly when there were loads of zombies in a single fight. This issue just go worse the farther I got into the game, as you would start fighting more and more enemies. The story was also somewhat mixed here. I enjoyed the flow of the story quite a bit compared to similar games like Yakuza 4 and 5. Each chapter felt like it built upon the last, and for the most part when each new character was introduced it felt right. Unfortunately, the overall plot was not particularly interesting, and it heavily overshadowed by pretty much every other Yakuza game I've played. There really isn't a lot to it, which sucks considering how well-paced the events are. And sure, there were some cool set-pieces throughout the story, but the overarching narrative wasn't really interesting in the slightest. While this score places this Yakuza title as the worst in the series, I do think it has some aspects worth appreciating. For one, it is essentially a full-blown entry, complete with sub-stories and mini-games that fans can expect from each main title. This is also one of the only games you can play as Majima, and is the only game so far to feature Ryuji as a playable protagonist. There is decent fun to be had here, and it is a good distraction for fans of the series, but ultimately it isn't a game I would put above any other Yakuza title I've played.

For the most part, Kurohyou 2 is a direct improvement on most of what Kurohyou 1 has to offer. There are a few more styles this time, and towards the end you get a style that allows you to combine attacks from other styles (although you really don't have too much freedom in this). Each style comes with more drawbacks than in the first game, however, meaning each one stands out a bit more, but not always in a good way. For the most part, towards the end of the game, I had little issue using any style due to having a fairly high level, but early on the first few styles don't do a lot to help you compared to some of the ones unlocked later. I do like that this mechanic was added to make different styles have different uses outside of moveset alone, but it is a bit frustrating until you can either negate some of the negative effects or level up the stats you need to properly use them (especially stamina). The styles themselves are a lot more convoluted this time around. The first game basically had 3/4 tiers of styles, where mastering 2 styles from a tier typically meant you gained a style from the next tier. This is not the case in Kurohyou 2, however, where it feels kind of random which styles you need to level to get new ones (at least they tell you when you level up a style. The leveling system is much better this time, allowing you to raise your stats every level instead of making you buy them as upgrades in the first game. You also get a lot more exp from story fights compared to the first game, which helps a lot. The story this time around is about as good as the first game, if not a bit less interesting. Where the first game shows the growth of Ukyo Tatsuya, this game doesn't add nearly as much character development, but it does still have cool bosses and set-pieces throughout the story. Minigames are slightly better than in the first game, but are still fairly lacking. Battles also now have a partner system more often than in the first game, giving you another character to assist in certain fights. Overall, this game builds upon the foundation set by Kurohyou to great success in most places, and is generally a better experience than the first overall. Like the first game, this game is great if you enjoy the Yakuza/Like a Dragon series but want something a bit different than what the main series tends to offer.

This game has a lot to love. The combat system is really innovative for the series, giving you access to all sorts of fighting styles to make use of. Each one is somewhat unique, and you can max out different styles to unlock others, allowing you to use around 20 or so styles roughly. The story was also pretty cool, with a bunch of cool boss-fights. There are really just two areas that this game falls somewhat short. First of all, the minigames are really not the greatest in this game, especially compared to that of the main series. A lot of the returning ones are honestly pretty disappointing. The final boss was also just some dude you meet at the end, and not a character that felt deserved the role of a final boss. Overall, a fairly short and moderately easy game, and one that's worth playing if you enjoy the main series but want something a bit different.

From what I've seen, it appears that people think this is one of the better games in the series as a whole, and I sincerely hope that's not true. This game is hardly much of an improvement on the second game, making strides in combat through the job system, but not really improving anywhere else. There's still hardly any bosses (I think I fought 8, with 4 of them being at the end of the game). There's still hardly much for story. A lot of the game is spent just traveling around collecting specific items that you're just supposed to find. I feel like it would be real dumb without a walkthrough, mostly later on once you get a ship and have basically no direction since you can go almost anywhere. Towards the end some of the enemies got kinda annoying, then they got much better, and then they sprinkled some real shitheads at the very end. One enemy has a strong spell that hits the whole party, while also being able to revive other enemies. You can encounter a team of 4 of them at once. As far as the jobs go, it was kinda cool I guess? You can't even switch jobs until you reach level 20, which is likely about halfway through the game. Even then, the casters still learn spells until like level 41-43, so switching them early just means you don't get the best spells on them. Biggest complaint has to go to the lack of any real characters. The hero is silent, but so is the party since they're all characters you recruit/create. It makes the story pretty bland, which sucks because there are actual cool events in the story.