It's hard, one of the hardest games and almost impossible without a walkthough. It's a great two-player game in which someone reads the walkthrough and the other person tries to find the location of the frickin' scythe embedded in wall.

The only other issue I can think of is the English voice acting, which is dreadful to the point of hilarious. HOWEVER, Siren is one of my favourite games and the voice acting only adds the utterly surreal atmosphere already mastered here.
Siren is all about the dreamy, textural aesthetic, the cutscenes take the Silent Hill film grain the next level with use of scratchy desaturated overlays, accompany the most peculiar facial animations which blend real photos of the actors faces to create uncanny facial expressions. It's a total fever dream.
Well, more of a nightmare when you're pitted against zombie-like 'shibito' who behave like people but love murder and make weird noises .
The key to the game is stealth, introducing a rare example of 2nd person gameplay that is sightjacking, allowing players to see through the eyes of their hunters. When you are killed by a shibito, you watch yourself die through their eyes as they cackle like children. This is almost as nightmarish as what the game has in stock for you further in, when the human shaped corpses morph into MUCH worse things that evoke the films of David Cronenburg or Brian Yuzna's.
The small Japanese village of Hanunda is a character in itself, beautifully realised and endlessly unnerving as the gorgeous soundtrack hollows through it. Much like the early SIlent Hill games, Siren is distinctly Japanese in its approach to horror, which, I suppose, excuses the borderline-Yorkshire accents of the badly dubbed characters. In terms of atmosphere, I would even argue the Siren games consistently match the same feeling of dread as even the best Silent Hill games.
Truly terrific stuff.

I'm developing Stockholm's Syndrome with (Forbidden) Siren.

As Paul from 'Petscop' said; "This f*cking game"

==

Now that I've completed it, I can say this game is... addicting and unfair.

Some of the puzzles are almost impossible to solve. And believe me; I'm not speaking about the classic "try every item you have with every interactive object you find", that can work SOMETIMES.

It's one of the hardest games I've ever played, it took me like 2 hours to pass through the third mission, just getting used to its mechanics.

It has something that makes you wanna play it, I felt really dared by it. Maybe it's the story, maybe it's the cool graphics, loved that weird aesthetic decision. I also love Japanese horror games that are not at all ashamed to be Japanese and this is one of the japanesiest, very J-Horror in the sense that the characters feel very contemporary. It's creepy and tense, but not the creepiest. As you'll probably have to replay the same stage dozens of times (not exaggerating at all) you end up not feeling fear at all until the next scenario.

It's a very cool gimmick to play with so many different characters that, surprise, HAVE A PERSONALITY AND CHARISMA, they're not the usual blank slate of Generic Main Character thats usual in survival horror. I really loved playing as the little gir, Harumi Yomoda, she has one of the most terrifying scenarios.

Unfortunately, I had to look for a guide more than 5 and less than 10 times. I can say that maybe a third of this times, I couldn't have solved it by myself even with all the time of the world. Well, maybe adding 10 more hours of game, and this game is LONG, it took me 40 hours to beat it.

But I don't know, I've played lots of survival horrors and Siren is a very special one.

It's so hard and unfair that is almost broken, but you learn to love it despite its flaws and despite that this game most of the times hates you, the player. As a toxic person, it will reward you sometimes for instance not making you start the stage from the beginning, but that's it.

Oh! They told me that when they ported the game to modern PS you could see other people's achievements. Most of people didn't get to the point where you can select mission, maybe thats the first fourth or fifth of the game (the easy part), so if you got to the ending, feel proud like me.

based.

In all seriousness this game refines all the rough edges of the original game to a sleek razors edge. A prime example of "The Perfect Sequel." Comparing this game to its remake, Kiwami 2, only further shows the amazing pacing the first 2 games had that was ruined with the excessive amounts of bloat in their lesser remakes. I don't care what anyone says this game has aged amazingly and anyone who says its unplayable is wrong. Of course its not without its issues like missable substories but its still easily one of the best entries. Ryuji Goda still remains the best foil to Kiryu the series ever had

Bring back Sayama, Nagoshi, you fucker. I miss my wife

THIS IS HOW IT HAS TO BE

Yakuza 2 was a game that I was eagerly anticipating checking out. I’ve heard from a lot of people that it was the peak of the franchise, and it was part of the reason I wanted to go through the mainline games this way. After playing it, I can safely say that I really enjoyed it. I’m impressed that a sequel this good came out such a short time away from the original. That said, I wish I was a bit more head-over-heels with it, I didn’t get as much of a “best to ever do it” feeling from the game aside from some highlights.

To start with talking about the environments, I’d like to point out that I was mistaken in my previous review since this game also uses the fixed camera angles of the original. Now that I know the context of the production of this game, I have no idea why I thought they’d shift completely to modern Yakuza’s camera after less than a year. Knowing about its short development time helped me understand a number of choices with the game. The reuse of several locations from the first game, the reappearance of Kamurocho shops in the brand-new Sotenbori, I was able to understand from a technical perspective how and why these choices were made given that it had to come out in under a year. But I think what makes it interesting is the way they help tie into the artistic vision surrounding these locations.

The reuse of already existing shops in Sotenbori can be seen as a symbol for how the city has fallen into a fever of consumerism, with recognizable brands expanding to it. An NPC by a larger establishment talks about how that area used to be a huge theater square in his days. I think this minor detail is also indicative of how much times have changed in the 10 years Kiryu has been locked up from the world in Yakuza 1. As for the re-use of locations from the first game, the way they’re handled has an impact of showing how the city has changed after Kiryu left Kamurocho last year, in some ways directly because of Kiryu’s actions. Even when changes are minor, you still get to see both Kiryu’s reflection on them, but also how newcomer Sayama reacts to learning about these locations. This is most notable when you revisit Purgatory, but I won’t really give away how since I know some people who might read this want to eventually play this game. The game’s generally really smart about having things be familiar, but different.

The cutscenes in this game especially stood out to me in this game. Not only because of the localized version actually having japanese voices this time around, but mainly for the cinematography. Yakuza 1 was no slouch when it came to cutscene direction either, but the way scenes are shot, the camera movement, it’s so dynamic that it almost feels on the level of a feature film. It’s more cinematic to me than most modern games that herald themselves as cinematic experiences. The cutscenes that take place early in chapter 12 are some of my favorites in this regard. It’s impressive that there was this much of a noticeable jump between games.

I just want to cut to the chase with this point, combat feels so, so much better in this game. Almost all of the clunkiness of the original was shaved away for this. The tracking on combos is much better, Kiryu rarely ever feels like he heads straight towards the wrong way when an enemy slightly moves, aside from explicit dodging. Attacks and combos feel better to pull off with a decrease in end lag. I blamed a number of my bad experiences in 1 on PCSX2’s input delay, and while that still was a factor here, it still feels a lot more smooth to pull off. Another thing that helps is that you get to your skillset from the original fairly quickly, so the upgrades can quickly move onto newer abilities like leg throws and expansions of the heat gauge. I like how it feels like there’s more variety to heat actions. Even attacks on similar environments and conditions don’t always have the same animations, so they stay fresh. The gauge itself drains more slowly, which I thought was a nice change. I can see how someone would argue that it takes away from the rush of needing to quickly use it, but it can still be lost just as easily through being hit, and it encourages you to more easily chain heat attacks on enemies, which is incredibly satisfying.

The bosses of the game also lean more towards the dynamic feeling of fights like the Majima and Nishiki fights. Each phase of the multi-phase fights feels like it wildly shifts the battle’s dynamic. Easily my favorite example of this is the fight with Shindo. Following him around the Tojo headquarters, fighting him in several different environments, getting to a full-on sword clash in the garden, it’s a constant stream of excitement that always keeps you on-edge.

The story is a pretty great expansion of what the original had to offer. We get more of a look into pretty much everyone’s characters and how they view each other. Sayama is a great new inclusion, and I really like how she ties into the general mysteries of the game. The plot in general expands on the original’s theme of how consequences of the past affect us, even more notably with Kiryu. The events of the last game massively shook up the Tojo Clan and the underground world of Tokyo in general, and Kiryu has a feeling of responsibility to make things right. While the original was more noticeably dynamic for Kiryu’s arc, this one does a lot for showing who he is as a person. Even with his stoic nature and compassion for others, he’s still human, but only feels like he can be himself around people he really trusts, like Haruka and Sayama. Even if his arc isn’t as much of the main focus in this one, I really like how Kiryu was handled here.

I like a lot of Yakuza 2’s plot, but I don’t think I was as invested as I was with 1’s story. Maybe that’s because 1 being dubbed, despite its poor quality, helped my comprehension, maybe it’s because I was burnt out from playing three games in the series in rapid succession. I definitely want to look into this game more from a literary perspective. Something I am sure of is that I’m a bit mixed on the ending. Not saying anything specific, but there’s a few twists at the end that made me go “This didn’t really feel necessary”. (Something I know later Yakuza entries are infamous for) Thankfully, those didn’t take away from the impact of the final battle, or from the presence of Ryuji Goda. Ryuji is a great antagonist, he has some really strong parallels with Kiryu as a character. His final battle is fantastic, the vibe I got from it is sort of how I felt during the final battle of Metal Gear Rising. I don’t necessarily agree with the notion that he’s the best villain, I prefer Nishiki in 1 and Aoki in LAD, but he was still really strong. Yakuza is really good with its villains so far.

Yakuza 2 is a really solid step up from the original game mechanically, and I’m glad I finally got around to experiencing it. Like I implied before, I do kind of regret not giving myself more distance from it to avoid being burnt out near the end, but it’s still a really great game. Now I’ll probably take that lesson and wait a while before continuing the series.

The last time I was in town for a night out I saw a young man, drunk, being removed from a strip club. he made threatening gestures towards the bouncer before falling backwards through a bush into a concrete pot. We all laughed.

There was another night, I saw a woman hunched down to wee against a shop shutter before she lost her balance and fell onto her own waste, piss all over her skirt.

I saw a man in London having a wank on a moped. I was eating hash browns I had gotten from a mcdonald's near King's Cross. I just left him to it.

In Glasgow i saw two girls one night having a kiss. It was quite sweet. Its sad knowing that, that simple gesture of love shared between two people in certain places of the world could be dangerous to express publically, so I just thought it was nice. As I passed them I noticed they werent kissing but were infact digging their nails into each other faces, clawing at each other as if they were zombies, drunk out of their mind.

I was in a CEX and saw a junkie buying Spawn on DVD. I didn't say anything then, either.

A prostutite offered me her services one night as I was going home. I wasn't sure at what point of talking to a prostitute you could get arrested so I just hurried on nervously.

She told me she was cold.

My factory sealed copy of Ghost Trick had a pube inside the box.

The young man who fell over the bush. He uh... he died. He fell back and landed on his head, a bad hit in the wrong place, simple as that. Dead. His last moments on this earth were spent being dragged out of a stripclub and giving abuse and being laughed at. We were still laughing as he lay there before we realized.

Yakuza was released in 2006 for the Playstation 2 and received generally positive reviews