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Post by toei on Mar 25, 2024 8:35:14 GMT -5
There was a open-world brawler series in Japan called Kenka Banchou where you can have a motorcycle in some entries but you have to follow all traffic laws, so that part reminds me of that. But then, this being Yakuza, things have to go crazy after that.
I'm still hoping to beat a Yakuza entry later this year (either 3 or Black Panther).
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Post by Ex on Mar 30, 2024 21:53:36 GMT -5
Started playing Gears of War 3 (released 2011) split-screen co-op with my wife today. We have previously beaten the first two games years ago.* Well this sure is more GoW alright. 7th gen dudebro as expected, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy split-screen co-op cover-shooters. We finished the first Act this evening.
*We beat GoW1 in 2015, I rated it 6/10. We beat GoW2 in 2018, I rated it 7/10.
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Post by Xeogred on Mar 30, 2024 21:56:10 GMT -5
I'll predict another 7/10 for this one. Think GoW2 always sounded like the fan favorite to me. I was done with the series after the first game. It was fine and a fun online co-op game with a friend but I didn't need more Gears of War after that.
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Post by Ex on Mar 30, 2024 22:07:34 GMT -5
I like GoW "okay" in general. It's not something I'd play solo, though. I get that. I'm playing it for the co-op, and my wife really likes cover-shooting games and sniping head shots. We beat a bunch of the other co-op cover shoots on 360 years ago. Like Fuse and the Army of Two games. The Army of Two games were great co-op fun, but again, not something I'd solo.
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Post by Xeogred on Mar 31, 2024 11:00:10 GMT -5
I went in optimistic and the early premise was amusing but I'm honestly not sure if I'll stick it out through Yakuza 5. Today I finished up Chapter 4 which concludes the Kiryu arc. This one is broken up like 4 and has multiple playable characters, for better and worse. They come with their own fighting styles and I remember this Saejima guy in Y4 I didn't like very much, more of a slow grappler type. Well he has four chapters next, then Haruka even has chapters in this game where her "fighting" moments are dancing minigames. The vibe I always got with Y5 is that it's just simply too long, too much going on. Do I really want to play through 12 more chapters of other characters to get to the final arc and play as Kiryu again? The story hasn't done much for me at all this time either. It's possible I'm still burned out, even though I haven't played a Yakuza game since 2018! I didn't realize it's been that long, but I beat THREE of them that year (6, Kiwami 1, and Kiwami 2 which I loved).
Going back to the old engine has been clunky too. Yeah we're old school gamers here. But it's kind of one of those moments where once I got into the feel of the upgraded Dragon Engine with Y6 and the Kiwami's, it's hard to go back.
Kiryu escapes death for the 20th time by the end of Y5 I'm sure, because he's still around in the new games. The Man Who Erased His Name looks like a fun spinoff and more than likely has better gameplay and refinements than Y5. Plus I have the first Judgement to checkout, which is still the real time beat em' up ARPG style too. But I think I'm most excited to get to Y7 and Y8 sooner than later now, since they're turned based Dragon Quest love letters. It's probably awesome rocking around with a cast of adult characters in this setting too.
So yeah. I've kept myself away from the new games, feeling like I had unfinished business with Y5. But I don't know now. This is very much a "been there done that" kind of series after a certain point. If this was the last Yakuza game, yeah I'd give it more effort to finish it off. But it's not and there's already a deluge of newer games that are probably better.
I'll sleep on it. lol
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Post by toei on Mar 31, 2024 11:28:35 GMT -5
Without having played it, I get the feeling that 5 might be the low point overall, ie in terms of bloat and inspiration. It's got the longest main quest of the action-based entries by a wide margin.
Looking at HLTB, 1 was just under 15 hours for the main quest, and 20 with extras. 2 and 3 are not much longer, but have more side content (by 3, main+extra is twice the main game, and completionist is out there). 4 gets to 20 hours. Still pretty reasonable. Then 5 explodes to 36 hours, before 6 scales way back down to 18. The Man Who Erased His Name is just 12. Obviously the turn-based games are long, but they're within the modern standards of the Japanese RPG genre.
And if I remember correctly, the growth in popularity in the West started around 6, 0 and the Kiwamis, right? That whole batch. It seemed like the series got some new energy around that time. Plus the multi-character approach doesn't sound so great (dance battles? I hate rhythm mini-games), and doing it a second time feels like they had run out of ideas. So maybe you're not so much burned out on the series as just playing a more tired entry.
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Post by Xeogred on Mar 31, 2024 19:57:26 GMT -5
Yeah, I think it was a combination of Yakuza 0 getting tons of praise on its release and Sega pushing all the games to PC around that era when it shot up to stardom. Y6 and the Kiwami's all swooped in quickly then as well. 0 and K1 being a nice way to get new fans onboard too. Now I was skimming the trophy completion percents on PS3/PS4 and it's easy to see how people kind of fall off by the chapter trophies and who actually completed these games. Looks kind of 50/50 overall.
~20 hours felt like a sweet spot to me and most of the Kiryu entries. Y0 was the major exception to me, I spent a whopping 72h 16m on that one, basically 99%'ing it. There were no doubt some annoying tough minigames I didn't bother finishing, or Mahjong. But yeah, Y0 is leagues above the rest to me and a must play. After that Kiwami 2 is probably my other top favorite.
Adding up all the ones I've finished, I have about 180 hours invested into this series. So that is a pretty wild.
I think the sad part to me is that I didn't like what Y6 did with some of the legacy characters and the plot in the end. So I was hoping going backwards to Y5 would kind of redeem that. But eh, ah well. Maybe not. It might be best to not stress too much how integral the continuity is between the games. They are kind of like stand alone chronicles, just with characters getting older and some relationship connections throughout. Could maybe view them as "seasons" haha. It is rather comical how Kiryu might have a potential female partner at times but then they disappear the next game, because they don't want to pin Kiryu down to anyone or make it seem awkward when you can still engage with the pervy side stories and minigames, lol.
So yeah... slim chance I'll continue methinks. Y5 probably is just a weaker entry. It's the vibe I've always got around it myself. Now instead of jumping into Y7 Like a Dragon or Judgement next, I should probably wait until I finish SMT Strange Journey or Y's VIII first. It was already a little ridiculous of me to be playing 3 JRPG's at the same time.
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Post by toei on Mar 31, 2024 20:21:31 GMT -5
Yeah, that's insane. You basically have a big t-bone on one plate, a half-chicken in another, and 6 tacos on a third. How are you gonna eat all that RPG?
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Post by Xeogred on Mar 31, 2024 21:29:53 GMT -5
Need to rethink my meal portions again.
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Post by Ex on Apr 6, 2024 21:27:56 GMT -5
Last night I felt like playing a PS3 game, as it's been four years since I last beat a PS3 game. Also felt like playing an FPS. So looked through my PS3 library for FPS games. I first fired up Haze. Made it about 20 minutes. Haze is abysmal, terrible... I understand why it put Free Radical out of business now. To the sell pile it went. Then I fired up Killzone, as in the original 2004 entry, by way of the Killzone Trilogy PS3 collection. Well it's kinda generic, but was better than Haze, so I finished a few missions. I may stick with it and finish it off, but compared to other 2004 FPS games like Far Cry, The Chronicles of Riddick, DOOM 3, Half-Life 2, Metroid Prime 2, Halo 2... Killzone is not particularly impressive for its time. Also made more progress in Gears of War 3 this evening. In a shooter mood lately apparently.
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