The yakuza series has always been a pretty interesting take on the GTA-style of games. The Japanese turned the GTA formula and polished it into something to call their own. Mostly by limited the open world aspects of the game and instead focused on a tight narrative with great characters and insane humor. While you couldn't jack anyone's car as Kazama Kyru in the previous games you were always a criminal who didn't understand what being a criminal meant. Mostly instead of robbing people and beating the shit out of them, you instead HELP people and beat the shit out of them. A very distinct difference.
In Yakuza: Like a Dragon, this main character confusion continues. You play Ishi a member of the local Yakuza family and your first task is to beat up a guy who sold Discovery Channel videos of animals fucking to high school kids by calling it crazy animal porn. You kick his ass, then tell your partner in "crime" to return the money to all the kids that bought education videos instead of the beastiality porn they wanted. I know fucking crazy right out the gate right?
What's great about this and the first few other objectives in the game is you instantly get a great understand on who your main character is, but you also like the guy. I've never seen a main character in a game become so instantly likable before. This is highlighted by the next task where you visit an older lady at the local bar who is drunk off her ass at like 2pm in the afternoon. She hits on you and then faceplants onto the floor. Here you are given choices of what to do. You can either help her or laugh at her, and depending on your choice you'll fill out personality gauges on Ishi. Kind of like a persona game where you have social stats like Kindness, Charm, etc. I really really like this system because not only is Ishi a fun and likable character on his own, but you have actual input on shaping his character even further as the game goes on which is just great.
Yakuza: LaD also differentiates itself from the previous titles in the series because it's now a JRPG. A full on turn-based JRPG. And you wanna know why? Because Ishi loves the Dragon Quest games, and when he fights his mind just pretends he's the hero of a Dragon Quest game which manifests the battles into turn-based JRPG battles. How fucking awesome is that. Even his partner watches this weird turn based fight with a look of like, "dude just fight like a normal person WTF?" It's amazing.
The typical JRPG things are there, attack, block, skills, and items. And winning fights earns you EXP for both your character and your job, which suggests a job system of some sort but I'm not entirely sure about that as I've not unlocked other playable characters or jobs yet. Leveling up earns you a screen that shows which stats increased and by how much and it makes leveling up feel that much more rewarding.
There is a lot of humor in Yakuza and this shows not only around the writing and the characters, but the skills as well. Ishi's first special attack is a comically exaggerated punch where he waves his arm in circles rapidly before smashed his fist into the enemies face.
I am playing this game on PC, but the next gen essence of this title is showing even when I'm not playing on a new Xbox. The load screens all have tips on them, explaining game mechanics and other hints......I think. I'm not sure because the game hasn't had a load screen longer than 1 or 2 seconds. So fast that i can SEE that there IS text, but no fucking idea what any of it says. I have a pretty decent PC, 32gb ram, RTX2080, gen 9 i7, like it's a pretty solid system that runs even current games at max settings at 60fps without issue. But I've never seen a game load as fast as this fucking thing does. Maybe developers have just figured out how to optimize the loading required or something, but even Ghost of Tsushima was showing signs of incredible loading speeds. Like a Dragon is bonkers in how fast it loads.
Anyway I'm only a couple hours into it and I fucking love this game already so....if you want a funny, fun JRPG, then check this game out 100%.
In Yakuza: Like a Dragon, this main character confusion continues. You play Ishi a member of the local Yakuza family and your first task is to beat up a guy who sold Discovery Channel videos of animals fucking to high school kids by calling it crazy animal porn. You kick his ass, then tell your partner in "crime" to return the money to all the kids that bought education videos instead of the beastiality porn they wanted. I know fucking crazy right out the gate right?
What's great about this and the first few other objectives in the game is you instantly get a great understand on who your main character is, but you also like the guy. I've never seen a main character in a game become so instantly likable before. This is highlighted by the next task where you visit an older lady at the local bar who is drunk off her ass at like 2pm in the afternoon. She hits on you and then faceplants onto the floor. Here you are given choices of what to do. You can either help her or laugh at her, and depending on your choice you'll fill out personality gauges on Ishi. Kind of like a persona game where you have social stats like Kindness, Charm, etc. I really really like this system because not only is Ishi a fun and likable character on his own, but you have actual input on shaping his character even further as the game goes on which is just great.
Yakuza: LaD also differentiates itself from the previous titles in the series because it's now a JRPG. A full on turn-based JRPG. And you wanna know why? Because Ishi loves the Dragon Quest games, and when he fights his mind just pretends he's the hero of a Dragon Quest game which manifests the battles into turn-based JRPG battles. How fucking awesome is that. Even his partner watches this weird turn based fight with a look of like, "dude just fight like a normal person WTF?" It's amazing.
The typical JRPG things are there, attack, block, skills, and items. And winning fights earns you EXP for both your character and your job, which suggests a job system of some sort but I'm not entirely sure about that as I've not unlocked other playable characters or jobs yet. Leveling up earns you a screen that shows which stats increased and by how much and it makes leveling up feel that much more rewarding.
There is a lot of humor in Yakuza and this shows not only around the writing and the characters, but the skills as well. Ishi's first special attack is a comically exaggerated punch where he waves his arm in circles rapidly before smashed his fist into the enemies face.
I am playing this game on PC, but the next gen essence of this title is showing even when I'm not playing on a new Xbox. The load screens all have tips on them, explaining game mechanics and other hints......I think. I'm not sure because the game hasn't had a load screen longer than 1 or 2 seconds. So fast that i can SEE that there IS text, but no fucking idea what any of it says. I have a pretty decent PC, 32gb ram, RTX2080, gen 9 i7, like it's a pretty solid system that runs even current games at max settings at 60fps without issue. But I've never seen a game load as fast as this fucking thing does. Maybe developers have just figured out how to optimize the loading required or something, but even Ghost of Tsushima was showing signs of incredible loading speeds. Like a Dragon is bonkers in how fast it loads.
Anyway I'm only a couple hours into it and I fucking love this game already so....if you want a funny, fun JRPG, then check this game out 100%.