kiryu's last outing is such a sweet finale - while it definitely has some story flaws that can't be overlooked, the final result of a 6 month game that was initially meant to be DLC is very impressive, and i'll admit it left a much better taste than Yakuza 6 did.
i'll start with the gameplay, since dragon engine kiryu was a literal middle finger to the combat systems of the games that came before it. it's definitely an improvement for starters, the devs took the solid foundation of lost judgment and put kiryu's k2 moveset over it. obviously that means it's not going to be as fun as LJ's but i wasn't expecting that anyway. no slippery ragdoll physics also allows for some cool tech like juggling to make a return, along with some very cool combo potential that im sure the community will take full advantage of eventually. Even though i played on professionaI mode, the difficulty was stupidly easy - i know yakuza games aren't known for being hard, but there was never much of a challenge at all. yakuza style does crazy damage to normal enemies, and bosses can be cheesed through with extreme heat and mortal reversals (such a weird thing to keep from LJ). since you use money to purchase skills instead of XP, it was a given that skills would be easy to max out, especially with how easy it is to make money thanks to the akame missions and coliseum. speaking of those things, i'm so glad they brought back the giant castle from y2 and did something with it - felt so out of place in that game considering how it just pops in outta nowhere. akame's a nice addition too.
the story felt kinda pointless at first, but the many twists that happened throughout were funny enough to keep me interested. the story really started picking up in the last 2 chapters, when the game starts to merge with 7's story. also im so fucking mad that we never really see an emotional side of kiryu until now, apart from yakuza 3 (and i guess 5?), he never really had any heart-to-heart moments that made his character stand out, which is why the last cutscene, along with its references to y3 and 5 just hit so hard.
apart from me wishing the story was a bit more fleshed out, i'm definitely satisfied with this ending for kiryu, hopefully 8 is just as good, or even better.
i'll start with the gameplay, since dragon engine kiryu was a literal middle finger to the combat systems of the games that came before it. it's definitely an improvement for starters, the devs took the solid foundation of lost judgment and put kiryu's k2 moveset over it. obviously that means it's not going to be as fun as LJ's but i wasn't expecting that anyway. no slippery ragdoll physics also allows for some cool tech like juggling to make a return, along with some very cool combo potential that im sure the community will take full advantage of eventually. Even though i played on professionaI mode, the difficulty was stupidly easy - i know yakuza games aren't known for being hard, but there was never much of a challenge at all. yakuza style does crazy damage to normal enemies, and bosses can be cheesed through with extreme heat and mortal reversals (such a weird thing to keep from LJ). since you use money to purchase skills instead of XP, it was a given that skills would be easy to max out, especially with how easy it is to make money thanks to the akame missions and coliseum. speaking of those things, i'm so glad they brought back the giant castle from y2 and did something with it - felt so out of place in that game considering how it just pops in outta nowhere. akame's a nice addition too.
the story felt kinda pointless at first, but the many twists that happened throughout were funny enough to keep me interested. the story really started picking up in the last 2 chapters, when the game starts to merge with 7's story. also im so fucking mad that we never really see an emotional side of kiryu until now, apart from yakuza 3 (and i guess 5?), he never really had any heart-to-heart moments that made his character stand out, which is why the last cutscene, along with its references to y3 and 5 just hit so hard.
apart from me wishing the story was a bit more fleshed out, i'm definitely satisfied with this ending for kiryu, hopefully 8 is just as good, or even better.
3 Comments
Now I want to play it even more
get to it then chop chop
NOWITSREYNTIME17
6 months ago