I've wanted these Yakuza Samurai games to get a western release since I've learned of their existence. Playing Ishin, I certainly enjoyed it but I think it's on the lower end of the series. I was surprised that I didn't like the combat as much because I do think style switching in great. I just don't like the focus on weapons. I like hand-to-hand fighting in Yakuza so the swords and guns interest me less. There is a brawler fighting style but it is incredibly useless in this game. I didn't hate the combat. I certainly had plenty of fun setting up heat moves but it's far from the heights of the combat seen in 0, 5 and Lost Judgment.
I love going through the completion list in these games and it is a bit of a drag. This is mainly because of the crafting. There's a lot of stuff to craft and it costs a lot of money so you need to grind out chicken race betting. The seals, which are buffs you can add to equipment, can be very annoying to acquire. There's also a lot of materials that you need to grind out the same battle dungeon for ages. I know I don't have to be a completionist but I really do enjoy playing these games this way. The rest of the content is still pretty good. A lot of the familiar minigames show up such as gambling games, singing, dancing which are still fun. They have a farming and cooking minigame with its own story involving Haruka which is great. There's a lot of friends to interact with and plenty of fun substories to find.
The story takes a while to get interesting. I wasn't that motivated to see it through in the early parts of the game but it starts to come together in the latter have. I did enjoy the who's who of Yakuza characters throughout. It was fun seeing what roles the familiar characters would play. It was nice that they added characters from 0, 6 and 7 into this remaster which wouldn't have existed when the original release came out even if it meant some other character had to be replaced. Looking at the list of replaced characters, it mostly seems like an upgrade but I haven't played the original release to be sure.
Despite sounding mostly negative, I do still think this is a pretty good game and I'm glad we finally got it. I'm still eager to play Kenzan so I hope it gets a western release at some point.
I love going through the completion list in these games and it is a bit of a drag. This is mainly because of the crafting. There's a lot of stuff to craft and it costs a lot of money so you need to grind out chicken race betting. The seals, which are buffs you can add to equipment, can be very annoying to acquire. There's also a lot of materials that you need to grind out the same battle dungeon for ages. I know I don't have to be a completionist but I really do enjoy playing these games this way. The rest of the content is still pretty good. A lot of the familiar minigames show up such as gambling games, singing, dancing which are still fun. They have a farming and cooking minigame with its own story involving Haruka which is great. There's a lot of friends to interact with and plenty of fun substories to find.
The story takes a while to get interesting. I wasn't that motivated to see it through in the early parts of the game but it starts to come together in the latter have. I did enjoy the who's who of Yakuza characters throughout. It was fun seeing what roles the familiar characters would play. It was nice that they added characters from 0, 6 and 7 into this remaster which wouldn't have existed when the original release came out even if it meant some other character had to be replaced. Looking at the list of replaced characters, it mostly seems like an upgrade but I haven't played the original release to be sure.
Despite sounding mostly negative, I do still think this is a pretty good game and I'm glad we finally got it. I'm still eager to play Kenzan so I hope it gets a western release at some point.