Yakuza 4

[iconoclast]

Is out. Anyone else get it?

I'm installing it now.

[HyperZoneWasAwesome]

money is tight, but its on the to do list.
hell, I've still got to finish Y3 and I still want to day 1 it.

[demi]

Have to wait until after work to pick it up... but I wont play it for a while yet.

[Mr. Gundam]

One of my favorites from last year. Enjoy!

[Sho Nuff]

It's $40 at Best Buy today. I'm going during lunch.

Get hyped

[iconoclast]

I'm a few hours in. I'm liking it so far; Akiyama is a good character and the story is somewhat interesting. It gets off to a bit of a slow start though.

On a side note, Sega needs to stop putting so many spoilers in the opening videos of each game.

[Sho Nuff]

Fux, Best Buy is sold out all over the Seattle area. Guess I'll get it shipped to my nearest BB once it's in stock. Not like my backlog isn't embarrassingly huge anyhoo

[iconoclast]

This game is fantastic so far. At this point, I'm liking it a HELL of a lot more than Yakuza 3. Akiyama is still a great character and his fighting style is very fun. All of the side stories have been great, the hostess management is a nice diversion (and on a side note, is that how the Idolmaster games play? Could be fun), revelations are back and remain awesome. So far this game is everything I could want out of this series. I'd say there's a good chance this could top Yakuza 2, but I'll have to wait and see. Loving it so far though.

[iconoclast]

I just finished part 3. This game's story just took a Heavy Rain-level shit on itself. What the fuck.

Mega spoilers below:

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Okay, first of all, the blond haired yakuza. Tanimura goes to meet him and Sugiuchi reveals himself as the traitor. Sugiuchi then shoots the blond haired guy. Okay, fine. Then, after confessing to working with Katsuragi, the Japanese police force was apparently hiding inside the building the entire time ready to ambush him. First of all, why the fuck wouldn't they protect the blond haired guy? Give him a bullet proof vest or something. And more importantly, Sugiuchi goes on to say, "Japanese police can't shoot" then walks out of the door. WHAT THE FUCK WAS THE POINT OF SETTING UP THIS ENTIRE AMBUSH IF YOU'RE JUST GOING TO LET HIM RUN OFF?! OMFG. I am going to assume they just wanted an excuse to put a boat chase into the game.

Okay, next up, it turns out that Saejima's guns were loaded with rubber bullets, and he wound up killing no one. Now I'm almost 100% positive that when they first showed this cutscene at the start of Saejima's story, there was blood coming out of the guys he shot. And then, this is what bothers me the most about this scene, when Katsuragi was shielding Seiwa, completely defenseless, motionless, waiting to die, Saejima shoots him in the chest. Why would you not shoot him right between the eyes? Then you would actually see that you're not using real bullets. Ugh.

edit: actually, I just rewatched that Saejima scene through a grainy youtube video, and while there WAS blood coming out of some of the guys he shot, I guess you could pass it off as the rubber bullet just breaking the skin or something. So I'll let that part slide. But he seriously should have shot Katsuragi in the head.

[close]

This game was so good up until this point. Please someone tell me I missed something (or something has yet to be revealed) and this is NOT the most distinguished mentally-challenged shit I've ever seen.

[Mr. Gundam]

Keep playing.

Endgame spoilers:

spoiler (click to show/hide)

I thought it was so incredibly badass when the four Japanese dudebros ascend upon the Millenium Tower near the end of the game.

[close]

[iconoclast]

I won't click on endgame spoilers, but I'll just assume this gets explained after playing further. Good, cause they got some 'splainin to do.

Now to start Kiryu's story

Actually, the 1 thing that bothers me about Yakuza 3, 4, and maybe even future Yakuza games, is that Ryuji Goda (from Y2) is the only character that I've seen as Kiryu's equal. Even Yakuza 1 had this problem, but the villain in that game was still good because of his relation to the main characters. Maybe that's just me though.

[demi]

Picked it up today at KMart. Got Free Yakuza 3 and $10 in points.

[iconoclast]

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Now they expect me to believe that Akiyama has a big Scrooge McDuck vault in his rinky dink appartment, like he's just gonna sit on a HUNDRED BILLION YEN instead of putting it in a bank or something

[close]

this game. I am usually good with suspension of disbelief, but COME ON

edit: well they just addressed it with the flimsiest excuse ever. nice try, sega.

[iconoclast]

Well, the key difference is, that's completely awesome.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

It's not like Akiyama lives in a giant fortified mansion next door to Donald Trump. He keeps a hundred billion yen (which is every last bit of money he has) stashed away in the second floor of his shitty office building in the middle of the most crime-ridden city in the world. And all you need to do to access said fortune is hit a giant button that's "hidden" behind a book.

[close]

That's just dumb.

[Bebpo]

I've been browsing through the gaf thread and some of the reviews for the game and I'm really surprised to see so many people and reviewers scream bloody murder that the game is ninja gaiden master ninja levels of holy shit rage difficult.  Mainly because from the games I played in the series (1, 2, Kenzan) the difficulty was not particularly high outside a few bosses that were occasionally annoying but you'd bring health kits and weapons and be fine.

Is Y4 significantly more difficult than any other game in the series? 

[iconoclast]

Are they playing on EX-Hard or something? The game is pretty easy on Normal mode - I haven't died once. I kinda wish I started on Hard instead (like I did with Yakuza 3) because the AI is smarter and actually blocks & dodges, but I had to play on Normal for a trophy.

[HyperZoneWasAwesome]

is Y3 hard-Hard on hard or just not easy, as Yakuza tends to be normally?

I might have to give that a shot.

[iconoclast]

It's not that hard, but there are a few parts that can be pretty challenging (boss fights, huge gauntlet battles). The AI is just smarter since they actually block your attacks instead of standing there waiting to get smashed like on Normal mode.

Also, this game has some awesome music in it. Too bad you only hear most of the songs a handful of times, and most of them kinda sound the same. I need to go through the OST pretty soon:
[youtube=560,345][/youtube]