18 reviews liked by pampkimz


The hearts of those you formed the deepest bonds with become your strength...

So, let's talk about Persona 4, shall we? In my humble opinion, its strongest suit is hands down its characters. The Dojimas absolutely steal the show with top-notch writing and amazing social links. It's funny, though—those characters don't have shadows, and maybe that's why they stand out so much as amazing parts. Shadows are supposed to be all about accepting yourself and facing your true beliefs (Which is completely ripped away for no reason later on in Namatames shadow, being the beliefs of the public instead of your true beliefs), but ultimately they just end up as character assassinations once you do their respective social links. Dungeons are… okay. Some are utter garbage in their theming such as Naoto’s and Kanji’s. Aside from that their okay, with a stellar dungeon for the culprit. So, is Persona 4 a masterpiece? Nah, not in my book. Is it the ultimate JRPG gem? Nope. But does it offer a cozy, feel-good ride with awesome characters and a decent theme? Mhm. Overall, I had a great time with it.

Edit: Coming back to this review and thinking about it more… I do not like this game. I think I was caught up in my first actual jRPG and the characters that I forgot I needed to enjoy a game to like it. The characters are good, enjoyable, but I just do not get it. Their shadows character assassinate them, their social links ham fist their way into doing a circle for their character arcs. It just feels… weird. For a game that got such critical acclaim to breathe new life into the persona series, I just can’t see it. So many features of this game seemingly hate the player for playing the game, dungeons are boring, grinding isn’t fun, this game is not fun. Persona 4 Golden apparently improves on a lot of my gripes for gameplay, but in return they kill parts of the story. I don’t know. Jrpgs have a lot to offer, this is bottom of the barrel in my opinion.


I finally finished Dragon's Dogma 2. I loved it, especially for the story, which was handled much better than the first chapter. The Arisen has even more importance than before, the choices in this chapter make you feel the weight of what you have done. I can't wait to start it again and try to get the other ending!

dad simulator :) would be 5 stars if the gameplay didnt infurate me at times

I took a break from Yakuza when i finished Kiwami 2 because i knew it would be an instant downgrade in graphics and it showed when i played it. The Graphics were not bad at all but the change was definitely noticeable. Every fight will be a blockfest but i felt it was a fine gameplay wise but compared to if you already played zero and kiwami, its the worse by default being the oldest engine. Story wise i think my favorite part of the game was seeing Kiryu being a father and also Rikiya as he was a great main supporting character to the game. i definitely think this game would benefit from a kiwami entry since i think the story is decent but suffers from being the oldest game in list of games if you are playing in order.

I have a theory that Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio makes their games according to the following algorithm:

10 Innovate in some way, and make a flawed game as a result.
20 Polish up the previous entry, ending up with a good game that reuses a lot of assets.
30 GOTO 10

Having played Kiwami 2, I believe Yakuza 6 is the "innovate" step of that algorithm, the main innovation here being the new engine. It is impressive for the first few hours: being able to fight basically anywhere, having a lot more freedom in movement, laughing when Kiryu sends goons flying with a well-placed dropkick, then laughing a lot less when the friends of said goons stunlock Kiryu. But the more you play Yakuza 6, the more you notice the sacrifices that had to be made to bring in all of that.
The big one is, of course, the whole northern part of Kamurocho. Majima's Kamuro Hills, casinos in Ryugujou, Sai-no-Kawara and even Champion Gai are unreachable, and no reason why you can't go there is offered in-game. Another loss is the weapon system - you can only use what you pick up during the fight. That would not be so bad on old engine - but in Yakuza 6 every weapon is less durable than a plastic fork. And even if you try to save the weapon charges, the engine might decide to obliterate it anyway, if you collide with some other surface. There are other, minor things that stand out (like the batting center having no background music, or the removal of side story markers), but the bottom line here is: Dragon Engine took away just as much as it brought to the game.
Unlike the engine and the gameplay, which are at least initially impressive, story is a shitshow all the way through. The cause is probably Yakuza 5 - writers needed to unwrap that ending somehow and create a new conflict, preferably on a similar scale. So we have 4 (four) criminal organizations present in the plot, two of them are openly at war with each other (at least that's what you're told) and you bet Kiryu's gonna beat them all up because their leaders misspelled Haruka's name or something. Oh, and all those protagonist candidates we had in Yakuza 4 and Yakuza 5? Gone. Daigo and Saejima at least get an official reason for being banned from participation, Majima just stays offscreen for the entire game for no reason (bet he was in that locked-off area in northern Kamurocho).
Kiryu's new sidekicks, the Hirose Ikka members are not bad per se, but the writers really try too hard to pull them close to Kiryu's level. Nagumo and the others are barely more than local thugs, who don't even have the balls to oppose their superiors - and yet by the end of the game they are treated as equals of Kiryu, Akiyama and other "legends". The "Men vs. Millenium Tower" shot, which was a staple since at least Yakuza 6 looks laughable here.
And the ending...probably had some emotional value, back when the game first released. Not so much now, thanks to the games that followed after *6.
So all that said, I'll give
Yakuza 6* 3/5 starts. Two of them for that minigame, where Kiryu types "O P P A I O P P A I" using only index fingers.

This review contains spoilers

As with the other games in the franchise it has high highs and low lows but a lovable cast of characters that make up for the weaknesses in plot and gameplay.

On the gameplay end this one is dragon engine again which I like significantly better than the alternative used in the rest of the series sans kiwami 2.

Story wise, it starts out strong with the introduction of some lovable new characters, but falters towards the end when it tries to redeem a domestic abuser, and then Kiryu seems to learn none of the lessons the game seems to be trying to teach him.

Despite the Dragon Engine's first steps, I was really really into this game during the first half; the story was very engaging, especially knowing that it's supposed to be the end of Kiryu's saga, and I got very good Yakuza 3 vibes from Onomichi and it's very lovable set of characters.
Unfortunately the story lost me a bit in the middle. I think there are too many instances where you get hours of cutscenes interrupted by 10 minutes of gameplay, and dialogues never felt this long in the series. Everything being voiced is a problem to me, as I used to read non-voiced text way faster than they talk and I could have my own pacing. It feels weird doing that now that they actually talk and that it's all presented as proper cutscenes despite the janky animations, so I just listen to them and get bored fast.
I do really like the ending (and by that I mean it made me tear up) but I feel like I would have enjoyed the game more if it was solely focused on Kiryu and Haruka without necessarily another big conspiracy. All the characters are great tho.

Now about this Dragon Engine : The game looks very very pretty, that's a thing. Lights are particularly well rendered. Fighting looks very cool, very fluid and all, but it's very sloppy and gets worse when you're up against more than 10 guys, which happens a lot. Also kiryu's moveset seems to be lighter than ever, which makes combat feel very very repetitive.
Minigames and activities are still pretty fun (I was surprised by the fishing), but Clan Creator is way less interesting to play than the one in Kiwami 2, and Baseball team management has 0 tutorial somehow ?

It's a bit sad for a game that's supposed to be that important in the series to feel rushed and unpolished like that. But it still has it's great moments.
Not sure how I'll look back on this one.
I'm curious to see what's next, I hope it was worth it to do more Kiryu stuff and negate this very clear send-off haha

I WILL learn how to play mahjong

This review contains spoilers

Now outta my way, YOU MEAT SACKS!

Yakuza 0 is the most popular entry of the franchise and it is widely considered to be the best one. After beating Yakuza 0, it became one of those games where i sit through the credits looking like a sad idiot, and that's one of the highest praises that i could give to a videogame. It's also a game where it felt like the hours flew by, i could sit down, boot up the game and then BOOM! 4 hours gone.
You have 2 playable protags: Kiryu and Majima. Yakuza 0 is a prequel set in 1988 where we get to see Kiryu before he became the dragon of dojima and Majima before he became the mad dog of shimano. Both Kiryu and Majima have multiple fighting styles that you can switch whenever you want during fights. I already talked about Kiryu's fighting styles on my kiwami review so i'm not gonna do that again.
Thug style is quicker and more accurate than Kiryu's brawler style but it does less damage and it doesn't have a very wide range making it not good against group of enemies, but if you're fighting only 1 enemy then you can easily kick their ass.
Slugger style is absolutely op, you have a bat that is good for literally everything, and slugger can tear down bosses with ez.
Breaker style is EASILY my favorite style in the entire game, even tho it isn't very good against bosses, it makes fighting groups of enemies a walk in the park. I didn't unlock the 4th style because the management games really suck! But you know what doesn't suck? That's right the disco minigame. On the disco minigame you get to pick between a bunch of songs that have 3 difficulties, and once you pick a song it is time to murder the dance floor! You take control of a silly little avatar that you have to move and hit a button on the tile it shows up on. The more steps your avatar takes the more points you get when you hit a button on the correct time. You can also have dance battles but no matter how hard you try you will never beat the GOAT Miracle Johnson.
You also have a fever meter which is really helpful to earn some points. Also quick hot take but queen of the passion is the best disco song, and yes i even prefer it over friday night. The bosses in this game were surprising really great, all the yakuza games i've played so far had mostly alright bosses with some exceptions of course. Anyways here are my favorite bosses of the game:
1.Keiji Shibusawa and Lao Gui.
It's very hard for me to decide which i one i prefer, they both have sick ass movesets that change and dope arenas that also change! Both of them also have amazing boss intros and an awesome theme.
2.Hiroki Awano
FINALLY I GET TO BEAT THE CRAP OUT OF THIS CLOWN
3.Kuze (final fight)
Oath of enma is genuinely a top 3 boss theme for me, and goddamn this fight made me realise how fucking cool Kuze is.
4.Homare Nishitani
Majima before Majima
5.Masaru Sera
Sera has one of the coolest fighting styles imo and i personally found this to be the hardest boss in the game.
The substories in this game are on par with Y5's substories which is saying a lot! More games should have sidequests where you have a dance battle with Michael Jackson. ALSO MY BOI SHINJI GOT HIS OWN SUBSTORY.
Ok now lets talk about the story, and oh boi what a story. Kiryu and Majima have fantastic stories filled with amazing characters that are brought to life by awesome voice acting. Most of Kiryu's story is in kamurocho but most of Majima's story is in sotenbori which is a new city. Kiryu's story is fricking amazing. My favorite side character in this game is Tachibana.
At first Tachibana had an air of sketchiness to him and i never would have thought that this dude would later earn my trust and get me on the verge of tears TWICE. I still get sad knowing that Tachibana died before seeing his sister. Even Kiryu shed tears when Tachibana died.Y0 has some gud villains like Sagawa or Shibusawa but the one that stands on top for me is Kuze. At the start of the game Kuze is presented as an asshole but as you progress through the story and after so many fights with him, you discover that Kuze is the most respectable dojima family lieutenant and he is easily the most memorable out of the 3. If you pay attention on the dialogue of the final Kuze fight, you would notice that Kiryu starts to call him sir, so yeah even Kiryu respects Kuze. Shibusawa started off as the most respectable lieutenant but it turns out that he is a dick! But something good that Shibusawa did was getting his ass beaten by Kiryu which made Kiryu become the dragon of dojima. Awano is still a bit of an asshole but he gained a bit of respect when he saved Majima. Another scene that got me on the verge of tears on Kiryu's story is the last scene with Nishiki and Kiryu on chapter 6, this scene hits harder when you know the events of kiwami 1, and this scene in particular is when i started falling in love with Y0's story.Now its time for Majima's story which i personally found to be better than Kiryu's story. I am used to the crazy Majima that everyone knows and love, but like i mentioned before we see Majima before he becomes the mad dog of shimano which was very intriguing. My fav part about Majima's story is Makoto, a blind girl who is very important to the story of the game. Majima was hired to kill Makoto but he couldn't do it, but instead he did the opposite and helped her, and why did he do that? Love. Sadly at the end of the game Majima cuts his ties with Makoto, because he knows that being with Makoto could put her in danger. Wen Hai Lee was also an interesting character, he was an ally to Majima and Makoto and he also looks like a discount Saejima, but sadly he went out with a bang. Sagawa is a very underrated villain, similar to Kuze he is a character that i first despised but at the end he grew on me. I could keep gushing on and on about this game's story and characters, Y0 has without a doubt one of my favorite stories in videogames and Majima is easily one of my fav characters oat.
You can't make a review about a yakuza game without talking about its music. So is the Yakuza 0 ost any good? Well out of all the yakuza games i played this has my favorite ost out of all of them, and that is really impressive considering that both yakuza 4 and 5 are in my top 10 videogame OSTs. Anyways here are my favorite songs:
Pledge of demon is one of the 2 boss themes of Kuze, and this theme in particular certainly makes you feel like you are fighting a badass old man.
Reign plays when you kick everyones ass on the dojima hq as Majima, and oh my god this god tier song just made that already amazing moment so much better
Oath of enma is Kuze's 2nd boss theme and it only plays during his final fight, and i personally think that this is a better boss theme than pledge of the demon.
I've already said this before but i'll say it louder, QUEEN OF THE PASSION IS THE BEST DISCO SONG!
With vengeance is Awano's boss theme and it is on par with oath of enma for me.
Two dragons is Shibusawa's boss theme and idk man they just cooked with the boss themes of all 3 lieutenants.
Firelight plays during the 8th long battle and similar to reign it makes an already amazing moment even better. The leveling system is one of complaints about the game, i wasn't a very big fan of it and i wish they kept the leveling system of yakuza 4 and 5. Another complaint i have is that the 4th styles are locked behind those stupid and unfun management minigames. I don't have any other complaints about this game. It is crazy that i bought this game for 5 euros, for such a cheap price i got an excellent game that easily sneaked into my favorites.
10/10 not my favorite yakuza game but it is my favorite 2015 game