There are plenty of memorable locations in video games, places we love exploring and spending time in. Whether it’s Hyrule from The Legend of Zelda or The Citadel in Mass Effect, so many games fill us with memories of their wondrous locales. Despite this fact, rarely do we see a game series that truly shows a location evolving and changing. This is something that the Yakuza series does an exceptionally good job of, and its main city Kamurocho is as important to to the franchise as its main character, Kazuma Kiryu.
Ever since the first Yakuza game’s original release in 2005, we’ve been exploring Kamurocho as the main location in almost every single Yakuza game. For those who might not be aware, Kamurocho is actually based on the real red-light district of Tokyo, Kabuki-cho. The city in the Yakuza games is painstakingly modeled after Kabuki-cho, with different building names and changes to the layout, of course. Still, the similarities are striking and there are some impressive videos you can find detailing that fact.
Console Creatures writes, "Here's our ranking of the best games in the Yakuza/Like a Dragon franchise.""
Haven’t played all the Yakuza games. my absolute favourite is Yakuza 0. Thumbs up with this list
Yakuza: Like a Dragon and Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth are a fucking joke and not Yakuza games. These are just superficial turd-based "RPGs" that spawned out of an April Fool's gag only to become full fledged shit shows that ruined the series. And the most pathetic thing is that even as JRPGs goes, these two are not even good.
"But they sold more!!" So did Taylor Swift and Pokemon!!!
So fuck these two games and bring back the real Yakuza.
😂😂😂 They're not even good jrpgs.😂😂
They're just low quality Taylor Swift-like trash for the UwU masses. What a tragedy...
Obviously just an agenda because they changed the combat. They're literally the same under the hood apart from the combat (which is also amazingly done) So yes they're yakuza games.
"They're literally the same under the hood apart from the combat." C'mon, dude. Now you're just saying stupid shit just to win the argument. They changed the actual genre of the game and you're saying that it's literally the same game under the hood? It literally isn't. Even you have to read that and admit that's the dumbest shit you could've said.
What's next? Change Grand Turismo to instead of driving the cars yourself, you use Cards in order to give commands to your car so it can do unique moves in order win races? But as long as you keep the graphics, car customization, licenses, and everything else as is then it's "literally the same under the hood apart from the 'racing'?" 🤦
And this is the train of thought of the UwU generation right there. And another reason why the Yakuza franchise has been ruined.
I rest my case.
Did you miss the part where I said apart from the combat? Because apart from that they literally are.
I've actually really enjoyed Yakuza 7 it doesn't take itself seriously but the story was great. Combat wasn't that fleshed out but it was enjoyable overall.
I get why you'd bate it going from a beat em up to turn based but they kind of explain it with kasuga having brain damage and seeing everything like Dragon Quest again game doesn't take itself seriously at all kind of mirrors earthbound in a lot of its tone.
Again, if this was a one-off I wouldn't have cared. They have a history of doing that. And that's fine. But they instead scraped the original series and started another one in its stead, while using the franchise's history and name recognition as a springboard. That's just fucked up. Why didn't they just made a new IP instead? Why piggyback on something so unique as the Yakuza franchise?
How would it go if they turned Grand Turismo or Tekken or Hitman into a Card Battle game moving forward instead? Not good right?
Now, I understand that Yakuza so happens to fall into a niche category, so the backlash was minimal since the cross pollination with fans of turd-based is unfortunately too much. And you guys drowned us out without a doubt. But now we have no Yakuza, and no game or franchise like it, while you people gained another mediocre JRPG in a sea littered with millions of them. Awesome.
You know how long we waited for Sega to give a damn about the franchise and actually bring it back to the West? Only to now be pushed aside cuz "UwU!! Anime Turd-Based Sells!!" Yeah. Pretty shitty stuff. And, yeah, I'll forever be salty about it.
Again, make this a different IP and bring back the actual Yakuza franchise. There's plenty of ways to evolve the series without having to sacrifice it at the altar of Persona, Anime and all the Monies.
You know it's true.
Everyone is entitled to their opinions…except for this one. I feel like you’re just arguing to argue. You can say you dont like it, but saying they aren’t yakuza games is nonsense. Theyre games based around the happenings of some yakuza-associated characters (and friends) with a very serious story and some very unserious and whacky side content. They honestly changed things up at the perfect time. And have also done a good job of dropping beat em up games often enough to keep crybabies like you busy too. Everyone wins..
I totally agree LAD Yakuza and infinite wealth should have been spun off to its own franchise doesn't mean that they can't still cross or exist in a shared universe. Might be a bad example but look at Mario there's platformers, RPGs, sports racing puzzles etc there's no rules saying your franchise must stay in its lane we could get different games with different branding subtitles etc to differentiate them
I actually like both styles of game however and feel they did the franchise dirty for many years in the west but it's one of those games you have to take whatever they are coming with at face value like I'm not sold on pirate Yakuza at all but project century looks amazing
But at its core I think the franchise is in good hands it's not like the other forgotten franchises Sega has at least they do something with it. Sega technically own shenmue and it took a Kickstarter and backroom deals for 3, Panzer dragoon - dead, as two examples
Shinobi could be and I hear it's coming back but mainly dead until official
Im About half way through infinite wealth and I have to say I'm not liking it as much as I did like a dragon Yakuza.
I hate dodko island what a chore the business management in lad Yakuza was simple easy and could be played on autopilot both are your main way of getting money for weapons mods etc but you have to spend forever on dodko island what a chore u hate it so much.
The game starts off trying to force a romance between kasuga and a previous team member not naming names for spoilers where there was zero romance in Yakuza 7 it was such a wtf moment
And so far I've only played up to dodko island which is killing me but the story isn't interesting at all so far I'm.hoping the pay off comes later.
WTMG's Leo Faria: "Don’t get me wrong; at the end of the day, this is still Yakuza Kiwami, and that means you can have a lot of fun with. I loved revisiting it, for instance. The great writing, characters, music, everything is here. But the Switch just isn’t the best place to enjoy this kind of game. From the unstable framerate to the short battery life, this immersive narrative brawler needs to be enjoyed on a big screen, with great visuals and framerate. Which you can do, if you play it on a PS4, PS5, or Xbox. As it stands, this Switch port is only recommended to die-hard fans of the franchise wanting to experience the game in a novel way. If this is your first rodeo with Yakuza, then play Kiwami elsewhere."
Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio director Masayoshi Yokoyama comments on Yakuza Kiwami Nintendo Switch sales and is very pleased.
One of my favorite series, ever. The Amazon Prime show is absolutely atrocious.
Even my wife pointed out the trailer for that either this morning or yesterday as she knows I like the games, but show looks like hot garbage from the trailer and I just know I'll regret every minute if I attempted to watch it.
Yea, I sort of want to finish it just because I started it, but it’s hard finding the motivation to keep going. It’s on the level of that Resident Evil live action show where it’s Wesker’s kids and the apocalypse happened.
I might be dumb, but do you know if there’s any way not to watch it dubbed? Like I love a lot of the voice actors in anime and games, but holy sh*t is it jarring listening to Nero overact as a live action person. Hell… I guess it doesn’t matter because I don’t think it’ll make the show any better. Real shame.
Fan of the Series, Action or RPG and I might get the Switch LRG Collection version.
Amazon's Like A Dragon: Yakuza is good in my opinion and can't wait to get the next episodes. Yes it's different, but if I wanted something so pure of the original take, I'd just play Kiwami or the original game on PS2.
I’ve not played it on the switch myself but I’d heard it was an awful port. Which is a shame because I thought it would be a nice fit on the console.
Couldn't get into the Yakuza series, even though it was a Shenmue clone. Surprised SEGA hasn't released a Shenmue trilogy, more so on the Switch. But all those Shenmue clones, it took years to finish off Shenmue with a 3rd game. Shenmue never even made it to the PS2, after SEGA ditched the Dreamcast. But out of the Yakuza series, I wanted to play Ryu ga Gotoku Kenzan, which was never released in Europe. Rumours of a remake, which is pointless when you can knock it our as part of a collection or whatever consoles.
