Casino Royale Yakuza Wiki Fandom

Hey again, Chicken here.
Hope you've all been good, and that you're staying safe and chill as usual.
Update from last post: Still feeling poorly from lack of sleep, but a bit better than when I made the previous post!
Today marks the 7th attempt at requesting for Yakuza: Like a Dragon. Perhaps most of you already know, but Like a Dragon is also the 7th game of the series. The reason why I number each of these posts is to personally keep track how many times I've written down the request, and to make sure I don't write the same thing each time. I can be a bit forgetful, moreso with the lack of sleep these days...
For those uninitiated to Yakuza, the game is basically like a scorsese gangster movie, where every 30 minutes in you are interrupted by an episode of the simpsons. (and guess what... I love scorsese movies and simpsons episodes.)
So, what makes this game and series shine for you?:
As you already know from my previous posts, I love Yakuza as a series. I'll try to summarise my previous points.
1) The games are all fantastically written and have a well thought out story. It can be gritty and intense, and it can be hilariously carefree.
2) Gorgeous cinematography and hype battle scenes. Also, brilliant emotional voice acting. Some highlights of mine from previous titles include facing down Kuze and Majima. I was also in tears about Makimura Makoto. ;;
3) Soundtrack that gets you PUMPED, sad, happy and laughing into oblivion.
4) The sheer vastness of activities you can do. (Eg. With Yakuza 0 alone you have access to mini games such as: Running a cabaret club, real estate, Playing UFO Crane Catching, Arcade Games, Gambling Games, Pool, Casino Games, Darts, Batting Cages, Bowling, Catfight Bets, Pocket Circuit, Participating in Shogi, Mahjong, Card Collecting, Telephone Club, Karaoke, Disco, Fishing, sneaking challenges, training sessions.)
5) Epic, memorable and hilarious side quests that have me cackling for decades (and sticks with me). For example, I can never unsee this particular cutscene.
6) Open World brimming with beautiful, crazy, stylish, tragic and all kinds of other things between. Its got glitz, glamor, decadence and can also be very rough and brutal.
What really makes me excited about Yakuza 7 is all of the above, aaaaaaand:
The fact that its got RPG mechanics and a brand new protagonist and narrative to follow. Ichiban's hair is goofy as hell and I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to it, but I love it lmao. From what I hear, he's also a more approachable, unprofessional, and flawed character than Kiryu, who is one of my favorite characters. I love characters that are flawed, they feel more human to me. I can already imagine this game having a lot of drama and heart like previous titles before it.
Ichiban is also super nerdy, and I dig that. He builds his heroic impulses around a lifelong love of Dragon Quest, to the point where every time he enters street combat, he imagines that he’s fighting monsters and evil creatures. It's kind of interesting, and it makes me wonder if it's only him that sees the world and fights in this way. It also shows in the now "turn-based" JRPG combat, a genre I absolutely adore.
Like a Dragon seems to have several brand new features that look extremely exciting. You can summon various people and creatures using your telephone, kind of like a stand or a persona. There's also a mechanic called Life Experience that Ichiban needs to nurture throughout the gameplay, as it would boost his stats as he battles across various dungeons and through real life situations. You can romance different team members (and it can turn out terribly for you like in persona if you decide to date, say, many members of your team). Also, you can go-kart, and play a traditional movie theatre minigame too, where you have to fight to stay awake! Also, this cutscene. Pure gold.
TLDR; In this particular title, you play as unemployed former yakuza with chuunibyou syndrome, and will be facing off against the Omi Alliance man , among other interesting folk.
Why are you having trouble affording it? Why can’t you just "buy it"?
Since before my last request, google has done nothing but show adverts of Yakuza: Like a Dragon available to purchase... and it hurts since I cannot afford it at present. Google enjoys tormenting me.
I work on a teacher's salary in Japan, which isn't very much. While I'm lucky to have a job as it is at the moment, the salary is mostly going towards paying off student debts, rent, gas/electric bills. The little that me and my partner are saving up in terms of cash is going towards a place to live together once our work program is over. The savings are also going towards documents to finalize our marriage at the registry office, and towards our visa after our work program concludes, since we are both from 2 different countries.
We can't really afford to even get wedding bands at the moment. We won't bother with a ceremony until post corona/post getting an apartment/post gaining stability in jobs/home etc. The work program ends on August 2021, but our current visa expires on April 2020. We don't live anywhere near our embassies to have our notaries signed or our visa handled, so we have to travel by multiple trains and buses to get there and back. The travel is long and is expensive, and it has us travelling between regions. Presently, we are stressed and worried... and trying to figure out a plan on how to do this during a worldwide pandemic as safely as possible (especially with health risks and going completely broke from making the trip there and back), as we need those documents before our contract ends. Our contract doesn't allow us to have a car. Even if we did have a car, the trip is very costly.
Having the game would help more than you know. I could relax and blow off some steam after a really long day at school teaching, and use the time playing to continue practicing my Japanese listening skills even while at home. I'm doing everything possible to stay immersed with learning Japanese, and this would be something that would help.
その他 (Other):
Here's my Steam ID if you want to take a look at my profile. You're always welcome to message me here, on discord, or on steam.
I won't be requesting games for quite a while once I finish requesting for Yakuza: Like a Dragon, since I'll be primarily focused on completing the game, the marriage, work, and other things too. I might even post updates of where I'm at in-game, but probably in the Yakuza subreddit and probably trying to keep spoiler-free.
I promise to pay this forward one day if someone ever gifts me the game. When that happens, I'll make sure to make the giveaway and have the amount of this future price set at the same price as Yakuza: Like a Dragon! Just know... I cannot do this until I am financially stable... but consider this a promise that will be upheld.
This sub can hold me accountable for this promise, but I'll be sure to keep to the promise made anyway as thanks to everyone for being so welcoming and kind since I joined this subreddit!
Thanks for reading, and take care people.
Chickenarla / Carliewarliee
P.s. If some of the sentences don't make sense, I apologize in advance. I've been living off 3-hour sleep every day for almost 3 weeks now, and it's taken a toll on my health. I don't know what is causing it, but I have a doctors appointment tomorrow!

As of now, i completed 0, Kiwami 1, and since yesterday, Kiwami 2. Im a PC player so i just hope we will ever get 3, 4 5, and 6...
The good:
Graphically speaking, it looks fucking beautiful! Its a massive jump from the old Yakuza 3 styled engine.
The story is great, i love the new cast, and every twist was an actual surprise for me :P There´s a whole lot of lore that new fans like me can really apreciate.
Its nice to see that Daigo is not the litle shit he was in Yakuza 0 anymore. Also i love Sayama! Hopefully she sticks around for a long time.
The Majima saga was everything i really wanted from a story perspective. A great epilogue to all the stuff from 0. My heart almost dropped the first time i saw Tateyama-San...
The main sidequests (Majima Construction and Four Shine) are also awesome:
I love tower defense style games! And since i got the DLC i got to play this minigame with all the main cast from the game, definetely a bizzarre experience...
The Cabaret Club is back! this time with Kiryu as the manager. I noticed that he tends to tease the girs a lot more that Majima used to do back in Yakuza 0. The minigame itself is bassically the same thing as in 0, i really didn´t notice any big difference besides the new commentator (Repetitive as all hell i might add) and the difficulty spike at the very end. It´s nice to see that you are actually fighting the girls and not some stick-in-the-ass that commands them. Granted, they are all sent by the same guy to compete agains you, but you get what im saying right?
Out of all the girls, Koyuki is my favorite, mainly because of how much of a goofball she is, just like Yuki back in the day.
The whole dating-multiple choice minigame is still here, and this time Kiryu actually speaks! unlike Majima who only talked to the girs through text. The whole thing is going to take a lot of your play time, so you better get used to it! The activities you can do with the girs are kinda limited, so i wouldnt get my hopes up too much on that part.
All of this should be enough insentive for you to buy the game. Just remember to play 0 first, or else there´s a lot of stuff you are not going to understand.
The Bad:
Qloc is the studio in charge of the PC port, and i really had hope with them after they saved Mortal Kombat X from being a trashfire and converted it into an actually playable game... but nope, the game is really, really heavy on resources. And i dont get it, there´s games that look much more demanding that K2 and they run much better.
This new Dragon engine is beautiful and all of that... but man, the combat mechanics really took a hit! It becomes extremely repetitive. You either punch in 3 lights and a heavy, or 2 lights and a heavy... or maybe 2 lights and 2 heavies with the ocational throw. I really miss the other styles from 0 and K1. This is a really watered down style, and if you come from playing the previous games, you are going to miss a lot of moves Kiryu used to have.
The ragdoll physics are funny and all of that, but it becomes rather annoying after the 100th time you get hit and you fly across the room like a fucking sock pupet. It kind of kills the flow of the combat.
Also, enemies tend to block your moves... a lot. I dont know if it its because im playing on Hard, but its almost impossible to get a full combo on these guys without them blocking it! Im not saying its bad (For once, its nice to see them actually trying to defend themselves) but cmon, atleast give me some guard-breaking moves (Besides the drop kick and the Extreme Heat)
The heat actions are also pretty limited (those "ally heat actions" are lazy as hell) but the extreme ones that you can only do to bosses are awesome.
In the Majima saga you get to play as Majima (Duh) but his movepool is extremely limited: No weapons, no upgrades, and only like 2 heat actions, so dont expect to have the same depth as in Yakuza 0 with him. He´s only here for you to play an epilogue of 0´s events, nothing more.
The substories, in my opinion, are pretty dull. 90% of them are: You meet someone, you cross paths with some low life thugs, you beat the shit out of them, and the sidequest is done. Of course, there are highlighs, but this particular style of substory is much more common than in Kiwami 1 or 0.
I love that you get to fight alongside Sayama, or Date, or Yuya, or even Granny white, and at first i was worried about their health bars... but then you realize that they are basically inmortal, so it kinda ruins the ilusion.
There´s also some inconsistency with the character models when it comes to aging. Both Kawara and Sayama´s foster mom for example have younger versions of themselves for past events, but then you see that from the main cast the only people who have aged are Kiryu back in Kiwami 1, and Haruka, who is a bit more taller than in K1. Everyone else (Majima, Date, Shimano, Kazama, Tateyama, Yuki, etc) looks exatly the goddamn same both in the 80´s and in the mid 2000s!
There´s a lot of new minigames, but at the same time some of the best stuff from previous games is missing (Pocket Circuit is nowhere to be seen for example). The returning minigames have been refined (Darts, Karaoke, Golf, UFO Catcher, the whole Casino stuff) so that´s great i guess...
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Conclusion:
I never played OG Y2 so i dont know if this is a worthy remake or not, but i enjoyed it.
Most of the stuff is carried from Yakuza 6, so if you come from there, you´re gonna have a great time. But if you come from K1 you are going to be a little bit dissapointed because the game is kinda lacking on content and the combat is not as smooth as you would like. It´s a budget title, and you are going to notice it.
The story and the main sidequests are what makes it worth playing through the whole thing, trust me.
At the end of the day, its another Yakuza game, so you are going to buy it, i know you will lol. Just beware that if you´re going to play it on PC, the recommended specs are the only way to go.

First and foremost, I’m extremely happy with the activity we had in the sub over the past month. Not only am I happy with the amount of new posts every day but how some of you find the time to discuss other’s 12in12 lists and their progress posts. I hope we can all keep the activity going and make this an even greater sub to talk about our favorite hobby.
For the first time in about half a year, I had a ton of time in my hands. This might change over the coming months but for at least for one month I had 2+ hours available almost every day to spend on whatever I wanted to. In January, that was mostly games, so I have made a lot of progress and played a few great games to report on. Here it goes.
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Games I've Added - 3

• The Division
• What Remains of Edith Finch
• Yakuza 0

What Remains of Edith Finch was free on the Epic Store for two weeks, hope you didn’t miss it. Well, unless you don’t care for the Epic Store of course. Or maybe you haven’t heard the news at all that Epic is challenging Steam for the #1 PC gaming storefront. What’s the difference? The Epic Store allow devs to keep 88 % of the income, while Steam only allows for 70 % (just like Sony with the PS Store for example). Also, Steam is full of shitty games, the Epic Store is not (yet).
Anyway, enough of the Epic Store. I’ve purchased Yakuza 0 and The Division as the early unlocks for January’s Monthly Humble Bundle. By the way, The Division 2 will be available on the Epic Store but not on Steam. OK, now it’s enough.
After playing Yakuza Kiwami, I had to get the next game in the series, which is actually the prequel to the original, which Kiwami is the remaster of. If you haven’t played any game in this series yet, give Yakuza 0 a try. It costs a measly $12 (I got it for 10 on a discount) and you get 5+ more games, including The Division.
Also, the Jackbox Party Pack is currently free on the Epic Store. God bless the Epic Store. Or something. DISCLAIMER: This is not an endorsement for Epic. Please don't get offended by miniscule things like this, I was trying to make a joke. :)
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Games I’ve Quit/Abandoned – 2
The 12in12 “veterans” know about this section already but for anyone reading my style of progress update for the first time: These are the games I do not count towards my total completion. Maybe I got bored of them, maybe there were too many technical issues, sometimes I will realize that I don’t even own the games that I thought I did and sometimes a thing like the “Koch Media-gate” will happen like in last January (maybe someone still remembers that :D).

• 2Dark

This was free on IndieGala in late December. I’ve had this on my wishlist since it was released actually, it looked interesting enough. You play a man whose children were kidnapped and who, since then, made it his task to rescue other kidnapped children. It’s an indie stealth game and does have a few interesting ideas but at the end I was left unimpressed and too uninterested to continue.

• Little Nightmares

I wanted to like this game. I did like the art style a lot. The enemy design a lot. The soundtrack a lot. That’s about it though. The enemy AI is just horrible. Run past a guy? He sees you, of course. Walk past a guy? He sees you again. Fine. Sneak past an enemy? You still get caught. I’m guessing this is by design and maybe they can just smell you or whatever but retrying 10 times with a sub par checkpoint system got very annoying, even for a game of this length. Though I gotta admit, this game had one of the more memorable moments in recent games I’ve played between the main character and a rat. If you’ve played this, you might know what I’m talking about.
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Games I've Beaten - 6
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• DmC: Devil May Cry

Platform: PC
Playtime: 9.5 hours
I’m one of the guys who never played a Devil May Cry game before. Now you might think “That’s horrible!” but let me be the one to tell you that the only way you won’t have a grudge against DmC: Devil May Cry is, if you’ve never played a prior version of the game. So it all worked out in my advantage in the end. Most of us know Dante. Red jacket, gray hair, fights demons with a sword. I first saw him in SMT: Nocturne actually.
Because I didn’t play a DmC game before and didn’t have any prior opinion on Dante, I didn’t mind the switch to black hair in the reboot, DmC: Devil May Cry. So I didn’t focus on the game in the big picture of how it fits in with the rest of the series or what it had changed. I focused on the game itself and I had a great time.
Almost every hack and slash game I’ve played recently has been great. I’d put Metal Gear Rising in my Top 10 all time. DmC: Devil May Cry is no different. Slashing your way through dozens of demons is tons of fun and with the metal soundtrack blasting through your ear you feel hyped to destroy anything that dares to stand in your way. You get a ranking after each mission, the best you can get is SSS I believe. To do this, you need to use different moves to get the maximum amount of points. This forces you to switch things up, if you want a good grade, which is pretty good game design in my opinion.
The story revolves around Mundus, a demon prince, who rules over “Limbo City” by brainwashing its’ inhabitants. How? Through an energy drink. Yep, read that right. Dante is not affected by this because he is a Nephilim (half-demon, half-angel) and not a filthy casual human. Dante’s goal is to kill Mundus with the help of his brother Vergil, who Mundus doesn’t know about and Kat, a girl who joined Vergil in his mission. Dante’s mother was actually killed by Mundus, so that’s why Dante is very keen on getting revenge. It’s a solid story with a bunch of cool moments. In one scene near the end of the game, Mundus kidnapped Kat. In turn, Dante kidnapped Lilith, the carrier of Mundus’ son. During the exchange of the two, Vergil actually shoots Lilith in the stomach and kills the baby. Crazy and epic moment.
I started the game in German and just hate the voice acting. In movies and series, German voice actors are pretty good but it’s rare to find good voice actors in video games. The switch to English made such a huge difference 1/3 of the way through.
The game made me a fan for sure. I own Devil May Cry HD and will definitely play it this year. Pretty excited for DMC V now, even though I probably won’t buy it until at least 2020.
Rating: 9/10
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• Jazzpunk: Director’s Cut

Platform: PC
Playtime: 3 hours
On my wishlist for a few years. I bought it in December after realizing that some Steam functions were blocked because I hadn’t bought a game on Steam in over 12 months. I got it for a few euros on sale.
You’re working for an espionage agency and are given a bunch of weird infiltration missions. The game plays in multiple, short levels with a bunch of extra random things and side quests to do. For example talking to a wrestling champion on top of a random roof triggers a scene where you are in a wrestling cage. You just throw the guy on the tables nearby and win. There also was a robot prostitute in a different level. If you give her a coin that you can steal off a street musician, the game triggers one of the weirdest scenes ever. There’s an overarching story connected to all of this as well.
The game is full of movie and internet meme references and to be honest, they were just so unfunny most of the time. This made the game get tedious pretty fast, even if it only took 3 hours to beat. Apart from a few fun mini games like the wrestling match and the overall somewhat charming effect of this game, I wasn’t too fascinated by it.
Rating: 5/10
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• Mortal Kombat XL

Platform: Xbox One S
Playtime: About 10 hours (+- 2 hours)
The playtime divides itself into the story mode and a few fights against my brother + a few "tower" playthroughs. The tower is basically a mode in which you fight against 10 fighters in order with a fighter that you can select.
The story of Mortal Kombat X is what you'd expect out of a fighting game, I guess? I'm not very experienced in fighting game stories but this is what I expected going in. This being a basic hero's story and just a bunch of fights in between. This is my first Mortal Kombat game, so I don't know anything about each character's back story. But tell me, is it good storytelling to have all the characters talk like they've just read each other's Wikipedia page? "You are Raiden, the guy who stands for XYZ. How could you do the horrible thing you di?" - "Well, that's because of the one thing that happened 4 Mortal Kombat games ago. That's why I had to do what I had to do!" Of course, the dialogue didn't go exactly like that but that's the gist of it. :D Overexplaining everything.
The writers thought about all the newcomers coming in and that's not a good thing to do, if you want realistic dialogue. I'd have been totally fine with being kept in the dark somewhat because at some point, I'd know enough about the characters and their intentions to give a damn anyway. Especially since the pace of the plot started picking up after all the introductory Wikipedia bull crap ended and shit started happening.
Let me tell you though, Johnny Cage is such a horrible character. Like laughably bad. He easily has the worst one liners of any video game character ever and that's basically all that is coming out of his mouth. This guy makes fun of any situation, while everyone is busy fighting for their lives.>! In one scene, Johnny is bleeding and as his daughter comes to help him, he says "Blood...is supposed to be inside the body" or whatever, I played with german dubbing, so the translation might be a bit off.!< At some point I just started laughing every time he said something because I knew it would be stupid and that's what it always was. I gotta tell you though, I had to use him against my friends just to see how stupid his pre-fight interactions with the other characters would be. Didn't disappoint.
The fighting is extremely enjoyable, with a ton of combos to master and a bunch of fatalities and "X-Ray" moves to enjoy. X-Ray moves build up as you get hit more and more often to give you the chance to get back into the fight and show bones breaking. Pretty brutal. Fatalities are just 10 times more brutal and looking at a new one has always been fun. I'll definitely get back to this game at some point. Also, I don't know how I haven't mentioned this yet but this game has QTEs done so poorly. I've purposefully messed up many times. There is no penalty for failing. The ensuing scenes just don't make any sense anymore because even though your character gets hit all the time, the next scene shows you standing over your enemy victorious. This was really bad.
Rating: 6/10
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• What Remains of Edith Finch

Platform: PC
Playtime: 2 hours
What remains of her indeed. A terrible curse has befallen the Finch family. Everyone dies in terrible circumstances. A lot of them at a pretty young age even. When you go into the pause menu, you’ll see a family tree that shows a lot of the members in the Finch family die at a pretty young age. Only great grandma Edie has done a great job avoiding her fate.
You play as, surprise, Edith Finch, who revisits her childhood home. By going through each room, you read about the deaths of your relatives. These are always presented in such a clever, unique and engaging way, in a comic book style for example. I also got one of my favorite quotes of the year out of this game. “And suddenly, I was a shark.” That part is probably the only time where I thought “Are you kidding me, game?”, especially with what ensued after that sentence. Other than that, I had a great afternoon spent on something I haven’t experienced in this way before.
I’m not an advocate for walking simulators, far from it actually but I can easily recommend this to anyone. I still don’t like the walking around parts in these games all that much but it was actually not that big of an issue here. The story was engaging enough to keep me motivated throughout but I still like more fleshed out gameplay mechanics in the games I play.
Rating: 7/10
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• Yakuza Kiwami

Platform: PlayStation 4
Playtime: 25 hours
Depending on which subreddits you’re subbed to, you’ll have heard a few things here and there about the Yakuza series. If you’re subbed here, which I’m guessing you are, you’ll have heard of this a goddamn billion times. This game is definitely sharing the #1 spot with The Witcher 3 for “Game with most appearance in 12in12 lists". Everyone and their mother plans to play this game this year… and I love it. All the praise you’ve heard about the series this year is warranted in my opinion.
Kiryu Kazuma is the main character of the series. He is a member of the Yakuza and is on his way to a promotion to lead his own small family within the Yakuza when the game begins. He grew up in an orphanage, having lost his parents at a young age. His best childhood friend, Nishikiyama, grew up in the same orphanage as well.
The story really picks up a couple hours in, as Nishikiyama kills a family patriarch. Kiryu sacrifices himself for his friend and goes into prison for 10 years, while Nishikiyama gets promoted in Kiryu's place.
So at this point, I'm already completely engaged in the story already. The characters are all very interestingly presented, Kiryu is already likeable due to his calm, composed personality and THE DRAMA, oh THE DRAMA. Everything you'd like is packed into the first few hours, leaving you confused but fascinated. Through the duration of the story, there are so many well executed twists and turns to the plot. Each character's motivations are well explained and have a point in the grand scheme of the story. This leaves a ton of option for how the story could unfold and leaves you guessing as a player. Really checks all the boxes for me, though the "japanese trademark cringiness" is present here as well from time to time.
What I particularly love about this game is its' setting. Kamurocho is not the most beautiful and special place I've seen a game play in (it's not even the best setting in the games I've played this month :D) but I love how small it is. In a world where gaming marketing boils down to "this games map is 10x larger than XY's map" sometimes, this is a nice change to that. Kamurocho becomes recognizable fast and each little shop is part of at least a few missions. Every corner of the map has something for you to do.
You can either play through the story, do a total of 78 substories or play some mini games. The substories are hit and miss, some of them are hilarious but some just very basic "go here, do this" style missions. Each substory is supposed to act as a life lesson, like "don't fall for phone scams" or "don't fall for F cup breasts scams" (yes really). The mini games can range from basic casino games to a rock-paper-scissiors styled wrestling game (in which two women dressed in insect costumes fight each other) called "MesuKing". There is also Karaoke, Bowling and Darts for example.
The game manages to switch between serious and funny sections very well, which is something I was particularly impressed by. Going in, I expected this game to be something I'd like but it definietly exceeded my expectations. Such a fun game. Oh yeah, brawling and kicking ass was also a lot of fun.
Rating: 10/10
LAST MINUTE COMPLETION: Red Dead Redemption 2
Platform: PlayStation 4
Playtime: About 70 hours
(Just beaten this game. Not even updated my backloggery page, so this is a very special surprising completion I guess.)
I don't think anything that I'll write could do this game justice. This was such an emotional rollercoaster. A story as epic as any other in gaming. As someone who was disappointed when beating the original 2 years ago, I was completely blown away by Red Dead Redemption 2.
The character of John Marston didn't click with me that much in the original but I've found myself connecting with Arthur Morgan pretty quickly. The story of this game is about the Dutch van der Linde and his gang of outlaws after a failed robbery on a train in Blackwater. John Marston and Arthur Morgan are part of the gang, so this is basically taking place a few years before the original.
I don't really want to touch on the story too much, so that you can go into it as blind as possible but it really was amazing. Every single character is unique and so well written. You learn more and more about them as the story progresses and build up relationships with each of them. Some you will like, some you will hate. You all live in camps together. Whenever you return to the camp, you'll be able to listen to conversations between the characters. Characters will approach you and talk to you, reacting to recent events. Sometimes you'll have parties together. You can talk while playing poker together. You can have little talk sessions with the women, where Arthur just lets out what is bothering him. There is hours and hours and hours of this side content where you can just learn more about Arthur and the other gang members.
Their clearly went a ton of time into animations, as each one is as detailed as possible. Filling a plate with food, pouring coffee into a cup or chopping wood. Thanks in part to small details like this, this is easily the most immersive game I've played. AI daily routines contribute to this as well. Each NPC has a realistic routine that they follow, which breathes so much life into each of the games towns.
What else is there in this game content wise? You can spend hours fishing, hunting, playing games, doing chores around camp, being a bounty hunter, robbing coaches, looking for treasure, beating all the 90 challenges, collecting cards and a lot of other random things. There are so called random events in the game, which pop up when you're riding around randomly. These can be as simple as helping out someone who got poisoned by a snake to giving an injured woman a ride home. Even in these simple moments, Arthur will engage in interesting dialogue with the NPCs and give these short sequences extra meaning. All of this just helped immensely with the development of Arthur's character and led to me loving everything about his story.
Can't forget about the stranger missions, which are side missions where you meet random people. These are almost as detailed as the main story, as they use cut scenes as well. You'll meet colorful personalities and will be asked to do a bunch of random tasks for them. As you progress through the main story, you'll find out that even these side missions carry a big weight in the progression of Arthur's character and story.
Of course, other things to do include reading through all of Arthur's diary entries after every mission, reading through the dozens of newspapers that are released as you play, reading notes that you randomly find or reading through the shop's catalogs. These contain detailed entries an all outfits, food and guns that you can purchase. These will be overlooked by 99 % of the players but probably took 100s of hours to fully create. Also there is a compendium with 500+ entries on animals, guns, plants and bandit gangs. It's just amazing.
So yeah, that's the world of Red Dead Redemption 2. I haven't even told you the half of it yet. You got a shit ton to experience here. Well worth the $60 entry price and can be purchased a bit cheaper these days. I will 100 % go back to this game and replay the story, take my time to do all the little things and really delve into the lore of this. Also. there is one point in the story that was just incredibly shocking to me. When you ride into Saint Denis to do a Sadie Adler mission, Arthur just collapses all of a sudden without you having triggered the mission yet. So surprising and well done. There were a few parts where I got really emotional, especially thanks to an incredible soundtrack. May I? Stand Unshaken is probably my favorite song of the year. Also, did you like the Mexico ride in the original? Well, there are at least 2 rides with a way bigger effect on you for sure. Such good use of the music. Such a good game.
Rating: 10/10
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What I'm Playing in February
6 games beaten. I'm extremely happy. as I managed to beat RDR 2 after three months, found two series that are right up my alley in Yakuza and Devil May Cry and have a bunch of great games lined up for February and beyond.
PC

• Beyond Good and Evil - Next up on my 12in12 list. I got this back in 2016 I think, so it's time to play this finally. I'm worried about potential technical issues with this one. We'll see.
• Football Manager 2019 - Should maybe mention this, as I've spent 60 hours (!) with this in a month. I'm in my fourth season currently and not looking to stop. So much fun.
• Resident Evil 5 - Started this almost a year ago. On Chapter 4-2, so I'm guessing it'll take my brother and me another 6 months to finish this. :D

Playstation 4

• Persona 5 - Only game left to play on my Playstation 4 currently. Finally time to get back into this.

Xbox One S

• Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice - Next game on console after beating RDR 2. Has potential to be great.

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12in12 original list - Progress: (3/12)

• Batman Arkham City
• Beyond Good & Evil
• Bioshock Infinite
• Deponia Doomsday
• DmC: Devil May Cry - DONE
• Orwell: Ignorance is Strength
• Persona 5
• Red Dead Redemption 2 - DONE
• Resident Evil 5
• SOMA
• The Witcher 3: Blood and Wine
• Yakuza Kiwami - DONE

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My Yearly Stats:

• Games Added: 3
• Total Price: 9 €
• Games Removed: 2
• Games Finished: 6
• Games Left in the Backlog: 55

So far at +5 for the year. The goal was to be done with the backlog at the end of the year but that doesn't seem very likely to be honest. What would we do without a backlog anyway, right?
Best of luck to all of you for February, keep them posts coming. And if you've read all of this, you're obviously mental.. but thank you!

First, a fun video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2gkqwtv8h8
Yes, the environments are now even more destructible! :)
So I've been playing Yakuza Kawami 2 for about 10 hours, and I figured I would post my initial impressions to interest some folks in checking it out.
Why? Because it's really good! Like, fantastically good.
It may now be my favorite Yakuza. I've only played Y6 for roughly an hour, so can't compare there. There is so much to do in Kawami 2 it's mind blowing!
The combat system is a lot like Y6. Gone are the fighting stances. I do miss them every once in a while, but I think that's me being nostalgic bc the new fighitng system is fast, dynamic and fun. The fat has been trimmed. Random thug-fights are in-and-out.
There are SO MANY exciting things to do! Cabaret Club is back(Yes!), Bouncer missions where you run through a gauntlet of thugs to a final boss, Gang Wars which is kinda Tower Defense in nature, Area Combat is back where you go 1-on-1, Casino games, Sega arcade classics..., Toylets (you'll seeeeee), a separate Majia Saga campaign (not sure how long this is as I've not played it), Street Bosses will now appear after you've beaten down a certain number of roaming thugs in the streets, Photography (in a creepy, lame way)...
The photography thing is a strange one bc it feels out of character for Kiryu. You suppose to take photos of these softcore-ish videos and it's def a wtf moment so I'm passing on them. If you like camera modes in your games, the one here is great because the environments are gorgeous! They're so colorful and fun, I'll be sure to share some later today and tomorrow now that the embargo is up. Speaking of environments they are now somehow more detailed. Every time I first walked into a store I'd immediately go into 1st person mode and explored, reading magazine covers, candy and drinks labels, etc--lots to see!
Anyway, if you've made it this far--the game is great fun and the story is (mostly) riveting! If you're a Yakuza fan I think you'll love it.

I've been playing Yakuza Kawami 2 for about 10 hours, so since my review is pending, I figured I would post my initial impressions.
It's really good! Like, fantastically good. It may now be my favorite Yakuza. I've only played Y6 for roughly an hour, so can't compare there. There is so much to do in Kawami 2 it's mind blowing! The combat system is a lot like Y6. Gone are the fighting stances. I do miss them every once in a while, but I think that's me being nostalgic bc the new fighitng system is fast, dynamic and fun. The fat has been trimmed. Random thug-fights are in-and-out.
There are SO MANY exciting things to do! Cabaret Club is back(Yes!), Bouncer missions where you run through a gauntlet of thugs to a final boss, Gang Wars which is kinda Tower Defense in nature, Area Combat is back where you go 1-on-1, Casino games, Sega arcade classics..., Toylets (you'll seeeeee), a separate Majia Saga campaign (not sure how long this is as I've not played it), Street Bosses will now appear after you've beaten down a certain number of roaming thugs in the streets, Photography (in a creepy, lame way)...
The photography thing is a strange one bc it feels out of character for Kiryu. You suppose to take photos of these softcore-ish videos and it's def a wtf moment so I'm passing on them. If you like camera modes in your games, the one here is great because the environments are gorgeous! They're so colorful and fun, I'll be sure to share some later today and tomorrow now that the embargo is up. Speaking of environments they are now somehow more detailed. Every time I first walked into a store I'd immediately go into 1st person mode and explored, reading magazine covers, candy and drinks labels, etc--lots to see!
Anyway, if you've made it this far--the game is great fun and the story is (mostly) riveting! If you're a Yakuza fan I think you'll love it.

25 years ago The Tojo Clan and Ueno Seiwa Clan are rivals for control of the Tokyo UnderWorld. The Tojo Clan learning that Yoshiharu Ueno (boss of the ueno seiwa) is going to have a party with his top men at a small ramen shop after his release from jail decide to put a hit on him. They select 2 young promising soldiers from some of their smaller families, Saejima Taiga of the Sasai Family and Majima Goro of the Shimano Family.
On the morning of the Hit Majima is called to a warehouse at the docks by Shibata Kazuo who tells him that Sasai (Saejima's Boss) is a traitor that fed the information about Yoshiharu Ueno to the Tojo so they would try to kill him and start a war, Sasai would then intervene in the conflict and use his Connection in the Ueno Seiwa to make peace and boost his clan up in the Tojo Clan Hierarchy.
Shibata urges Majima to not go and that if he does he will just end up dying for nothing but Majima says he can't betray Saejima because he is his sworn brother so Shibata has his men restrain him which leads to Majima Getting Stabbed in the eye after beating up most of them.
Saejima waiting for Majima to arrive sees Ueno and his men arrive and since this is his only chance to do his job he decides to perform the Hit alone. BUT it turns out the guns he was given were all loaded with newly developed rubber bullets so none of the Ueno Seiwa were killed by Saejima. The whole thing a scheme by Isao Katsuragi , who then proceeds to shoot all the knocked out Ueno Seiwa top brass except Yoshiharu Ueno so he can become the top lieutenant of the Clan.
Katsuragi then has his sworn brother and secret mole in the Tokyo Police force inspector Junji Sugiuchi (also the one that stole the rubber bullets for the hit from the Police Labs) fake a report saying Saejima really did killed the 18 Ueno Seiwa men. BUT Sugiuchi's superior Seishiro Munakata sees right through his botched report and tells him he wants to work with Katsuragi. Munakata then has Sugiuchi murder his partner inspector Tanimura Taigi while he was going to meet Saejima's step Sister Yasuko because he was getting close to uncovering the truth behind the Ueno Seiwa hit, leaving Tanimura's adoptive (learned from substory) 1/4 thai son Masayoshi an orphan to be raised by Zhao(chinese restaurant guy).
Saejima then gets the Death Penalty and is sent to jail to wait for his sentence to be carried out.
5 years ago Kazuma Kiryu is released from jail Saejima is still in jail 10 billion yen are stolen from Tojo Clan Events from Yakuza 1 happen Kiryu Beats the Shit out of The Tojo Clan. Kiryu becomes 4th chairman of the Tojo Clan Money explodes on top of Millennium tower and is sent raining down into kamurocho and a homeless man named Shun Akiyama picks up about 1 million yen from it all. he is later attacked by a group of punks and his money is stolen until a young yakuza named Hiroaki Arai who belongs to Kanemura enterprise (a group under the Shibata Family) comes and saves him. BUT it turns out the money stolen from the Tojo Clan was actually used to fund Okinawa penitentiary n. 2 (Super Jail for yakuzas) and that the money that blew up that night was NOT actually the 10 billion yen! (rewrites). Kiryu steps down from Being the 4th Chairman of the Tojo Clan 2 Years Ago Events from Yakuza 3 Happen Kiryu beats the shit out of all the Top Families of the Tojo Clan AGAIN Goh Hamazaki leader of the Hamazaki Family that was crushed by Kiryu, stabs him and is subsequently sent to jail.
Present day Akiyama is now a billionaire Philanthropist and expert face stomper who owns amongst other things a money lending business (sky finance), lends 100 million yen to A mysterious woman calling herself Lily(Saejima's sister Yasuko). Akiyama has a fight in a bar with 2 men of the Ueno Seiwa Clan (Ihara and Mishima) before Arai arrives and shit goes bad when Ihara pulls out a gun and shoots Arai then escapes, Arai later finds Ihara and shoots him in the face infront of Akiyama then runs away. Akiyama is arrested then questioned by Sugiuchi, then Akiyama meets Majima. Saejima Yasuko trying to get her brother released from jail made a deal with Katsuragi she either worked as an assassin for him going around killing people from the Shibata family or she paid him 100 million Yen. Saejima Taiga is transferred to Okinawa Penitentiary n.2 , there he meets with Goh Hamazaki who makes him take part in his escape plan. During their escape Hamazaki steals a file from the warden's office. Hamazaki and Saejima are just about to complete their escape when Hamazaki is shot several times by one of the prison Guard (Saito is a dirt bag) and they all jump into the Okinawan sea. Saejima washes up on the that's right infront of Kiryu's house(convenient). Kiryu and him have a manly tussle and then Kiryu helps him get to Kamurocho. In Kamurocho, Saejima meets Takeshi Kido who worked for Kanemura enterprises before Yasuko killed his boss. Saejima looks for his old boss (Sasai), but he can't find any traces of him so he has to enter a Fight to the death in Purgatory(underground casino) to get information from Kage the florist. He then goes to meet Majima have a fist vs knife fight in a batting cage. After the fight Majima explains what happened 25 years ago (see above).
Tanimura Masayoshi grew up to be a corrupted cop, still looking for the person who killed his father, he finds Yasuko Saejima but she is kidnapped by the Shibata Family and is taken to the docks. Tanimura goes to save her and there he finds Arai and Shibata Kazuo, we then discover that Shibata was the real traitor that was working with Katsuragi 25 years ago and that he has been blackmailing katsuragi with that information since then. BUT it turns out all this time Arai was really working for Katsuragi, and since Katsuragi didn't need Shibata anymore Arai had to dispose of him, so he murders Shibata as Tanimura watches from behind a door like a true hero. Tanimura then frees Yasuko and they go talk at Zhao's restaurant. Yasuko then tells tanimura about everything she has done to get Saejima out of jail and then decides to leave for okinawa where learned saejima is imprisoned (they don't know he escaped yet). Tanimura uses the 100 million borrowed by Yasuko to try and negotiate with Katsuragi but it turns out to be a trap, Katsuragi then reveals he killed the 18 Ueno men 25 years ago. Tanimura is saved when Sugiuchi arrives, he then escapes by fighting a bunch of dudes using the briefcase full of money. Tanimura goes to look up the files about the Ueno Seiwa men murder his father was investigating 25 years ago at the police HQ he then discovers that the one that did the investigation with his father was Sugiuchi. Tanimura returns the money and talks to Akiyama, he decides to lure out the traitor in the force by meeting with Mishima (guy who was with Ihara before he got shot in the face by Arai) BUT THEN Sugiuchi shows up and Kills Mishima, then other cops show up to arrest Sugiuchi but they can't because he is protected by somebody Important in the Force (Assistant commissioner Munakata) As Sugiuchi is about to leave Tanimura tries to stop him and follows a speed boat chase, then a Sugiuchi fights Tanimura. After losing Sugiuchi reveals that he was actually a yakuza all along and was katsuragi's sworn brother, as he is about to be taken in by Tanimura somebody shoots him and he dies, revealing there is another dirty cop on the force (who turns out to be Tanimura's Friend and Mentor, who commits suicide after lying to his boss about killing both Sugiuchi and Tanimura).
After a couple of days at sea Hamazaki ends up washing up on Kiryu's Beach just like Saejima (what luck!). After being patched up by Kiryu , He ask him to go back to Kamurocho to Help the Tojo Clan revealing he stole a file showing that the 10 Billion Yen stolen from the Tojo clan 5 years ago had really been given to build the Prison he escaped from! But Kiryu says he doesn't want help Hamazaki, unless he want's to turn himself in which Hamazaki decides to do but then they both meet Yasuko Saejima and decide to go talk to her about her first, then Saito comes to catch Hamazaki but Kiryu kicks his ass then escapes with Yasuko, then Hamazaki collapses from his gunshot wounds reopening.
Kiryu goes to Kamurocho with Yasuko to try and find Saejima, he meets up with Date leaving her with him while he goes to meet Majima. Majima is arrested by the Police. Saejima is captured by Katsuragi and its revealed Kido was working for him all along! Kiryu goes back to Yasuko but she ran away with Tanimura and Akiyama. Kiryu Fights Tanimura AND Akiyama. Yasuko is captured by Katsuragi and is taken away with Saejima.
Now you are up to date with everything that has happened in the Story. You can post questions if you want. sorry about the typos.

I started playing Yakuza with the third instalment of the series. In my opinion the series stayed pretty similar with regards to mechanics in 4 and 5. With Yakuza 0 and Kiwami they decided to revamp the combat system and skill progression. While I am glad that they are willing to experiment, I think that the new system presents some flaws.
Firstly, what happened to all the heat actions? This isn't directly related to changes in combat and skill progression, but it seems like the number of heat actions has been drastically reduced from previous entries. Admittedly some of heat actions in 3, 4, and 5 were so specific you could basically never use them (but if you did manage to do so, it provided a certain kind of satisfaction). However, there were a number of them that despite having pretty specific conditions, they could be reliably employed. For instance stuff like Saejima's heat actions that could be triggered after bouncing enemies, or slamming them into the walls, could be reliably activated (to great affect I might add) if you knew the combo system well.
In addition to there being fewer heat actions, they also seem to be significantly less powerful. In entries prior to Yakuza 0 the basic face stomp on a downed enemy was an easy and reliable means of dealing damage and dispatching vanilla enemies. Even bosses were reasonably susceptible to a mouthful of shoe leather. Yakuza 0 removes the standard face stomp and replaces it with a much less effective punch to the face. I find the power of the heat actions in 0 and Kiwami to be generally underwhelming. It just seems like they don't do much damage outside of a select few. The heat actions also aren't really evenly distributed throughout the styles. In Rush mode I don't believe you can stomp anyone's face.
I also don't really like the styles. I feel like the combat system in the Yakuza games have never been amazing or anything. However, 3, 4 and 5 were pretty fun to play. With 4, and 5 the playable characters all had movesets that were unique enough to make the largely repetitive combat pretty fun (except for Shinada—he is terrible). With Yakuza 0 and Kiwami instead of having one reasonably robust moveset, I feel like you get 3/4 (depending on if you were able to unlock enough stuff make fourth moveset usable) highly specialized and incomplete movesets. The styles don't seem balanced. It seems like Rush style deals no damage, but you need it against bosses because it is the style that allows multiple quick steps. Beast style seems mostly pretty useless there is a bunch of junk around. The "resist guard" seems pretty ineffective until you've obtained a lot of upgrades. In 0 I spent most of my time in Brawler style with Kiryu. With Majima I basically never used the Thug style, it was outclassed by the Thug style in terms of damage; and Breaker style is simply the coolest thing ever. In Kiwami I mostly used Brawler. After I had gotten almost all the upgrades the Dragon style was suitable for use against vanilla enemies, but it was still faster most the time to use Brawler. The only thing Dragon was really useful for was the Komaki Tiger Drop. Now, counter moves seem to have always been OP in every Yakuza game. However, because there were no other styles, you could work it into your combat more seamlessly. In Kiwami the Dragon style didn't really seem to have any effective means of breaking their guard (in the previous generation of games your main moveset generally gained a way to deal with guarded enemies) so the most effective way to deal with Majima, bosses, and the coliseum was just to spam Komaki Tiger Drop.
I also don't like the new progression system. In the old generation if you didn't avoid fights too often, and you did most/all of the substories, you were pretty much guaranteed to hit the level cap near the end of the game. Skill progression in 0 is tied to money, so I basically just had waste time while accruing more property. There were some activities to pass the time, but it really messes up the the flow of the game. In Kiwami after a certain point basically the only way to acquire new skills in a timely fashion is to fight Majima. This makes the vanilla encounter pretty much absolutely worthless. Substories don't give great experience.
Speaking of substories, can we please go back to having them marked on the map? It is kind of cool to be wandering around and suddenly encounter an event, or to see something unusual and upon investigating receive a quest. However, at the same time I am pretty I have walked by quests without ever knowing they were there. Also, the substories show up in place where there generally isn't much reason to ever go. It's fun to encounter them organically, but I don't think it worth the tradeoff of having to exhaustively search every bit of the city (or consult a guide) if you want to find all the substories.
It also feels like there are fewer minigames in the new generation of Yakuza.
Speaking of minigames: whoever decided to put car chase shooting sections in the game: FUCK YOU! No, seriously. I want to cut off that guy's pinky. The shooting sections are awful. I remember the one in 0 being really hard, but the shooting section is Kiwami is probably one of the hardest, and definitely the most frustrating things I have ever played. And also what kind of revolver holds 15 rounds? The revolvers that the Japanese police use hold 5 shots. I mean, it is kind of silly to get upset about a detail like that when whole game is unrealistic, but fuck it.
The one thing I do like is that enemies with guns, and knives can seriously mess you up. Although I feel like the final boss fight in Kiwami was really annoying because the enemies can just stunlock the shit out of you.
Also, does it seem weapons have been handled really poorly in all the Yakuza games? The limited durability thing is kind of annoying. I remember them feeling kind of necessary in Yakuza 3 because so many enemies had weapons and that was basically the only way to block them. However, I didn't really use them in 4 or 5. In 0 I used the electricity gun to farm Mr. Shakedown. In Kiwami you can readily get some powerful weapons, however the repair costs are absurd. The Goemen, which is just given to you for completing a bunch of story quests, costs 500000 yen to repair. That is a huge sum in Kiwami, since there isn't a means of gathering lots of cash. I don't know about the gambling house, but the two casinos don't offer platinum plates or things of that nature. There is also no pachinko.
Speaking of pachinko, they really need to bring that back. I don't why, but sometimes I want to play pachinko.
I love the Yakuza games. I don't there will ever be a point where I am truly dissatisfied with series. That being said, I think some of the changes they have made do not represent an improvement on the formula.
TL;DR:Where did all the heat actions go? The styles feel unbalance and lack cohesion. Fuck the shooting sections. I am glad guns and knives are now a threat to your person. Weapons still kinda suck. I LOVE PACHINKO!