mfnick

This a million times over. I’ve played these same areas in Yakuza many times and spent literally hundreds of hours in them without getting bored. In fact I’ve just grown to love visiting these same areas over and over more with time. I know them intimately and that just adds to the experience. Whereas I get bored within 10 hours of most generic open world games. Especially Ubisoft ones.

I’ve already put 10 hours into this and immediately dropped AW2, BG3 and PoP Lost Crown for it. It’s a sickness. Loving it. So many amazing moments already - Nancy, the whole dating bit, Kiryu’s beautifully stupid Superman/Clark Kent reveal BS carrying on from Gaiden, Sicko Snap, making wind from being sexy. I could go on… Ah, just all so good. Wish the “thing” regarding Kiryu hadn’t been spoiled for me but it was still a strong moment. i know it’s hit and miss with people but as someone who dislikes the brawler combat on previous games, going turn based again is just fucking brill for me. I’m hearing the small changes they’ve made are sitting better with fans of the old games combat too? Particularly the positioning - what an excellent tweak. These are genuinely the funniest games in existence too. No other game has ever managed to make me laugh like these do. & nowhere near as often. My one gripe so far is actually language related too. I wish this one had a hybrid language setting - as in the characters speak in they native tongues as and when required and makes sense. With it being set in Hawaii, English actually seems the correct choice but they constantly refer to not being able to speak it. Ichi even has a part where he’s trying to speak English and they convey that by showing it in brackets in the subtitles. I think it would be a lot better if the Japanese characters stuck to Japanese with some broken English when right and Americans English. Unfortunately that isn’t an option. I’ve ended up on English since it just makes more sense for the setting. Plus Ichi’s English VA is really damn good and portraying him. Kiryu’s isn’t great & does stand out but it’s not actually hurting the experience.

Thanks! Was going to get this digitally but for £20 less it’s a no brainer.

Even back at release I remember the combat being my biggest issue with the original. Just way too much of it.

Yes @Nag!! It’s a fantastic game.

Hell yea stories matter to me in games. Andy has already mentioned a couple of my favourites. A lot of my fondest memories and games are ones which hooked me in because of the story. Some games it gets added unnecessarily- such as in racing games. I don’t need it. But it doesn’t detract at all and they can usually be skipped. So yea, give me all story all the time.

Shittinghell! I forgot to check on there.

HYYYPPEEE!!!

I personally preferred Ishin as 2023’s best Yakuza. Gaiden was a 7/10 for me. Although those last couple of hours was some of the best gaming I’ve had ever! Absolutely brilliant and beautiful finish to it.

That’s much better! Fair enough. Just seems even big Pokémon fans spend all their time slagging that game off though. Suppose can still enjoy it while recognising the myriad of issues.

Excellent overall winner! That Pokémon win though… yeesh.

Yea I felt done with MK1 a lot quicker than I did with X and XI.

Yea I enjoyed this game. Only took me 7 hours though but I didn’t bother with any of the optional skateboarding stuff & didn’t fight any randoms in the open area bits. I got my relationship as high as I could with 3 or 4 of them. Some of the Ex entrances and battles were really fun and visually cool. Liked the parts at home too. Good game, just not particularly special at the same time.

Put a bit of time into it now & it does eeem that has definitely solved it. I can confirm it’s fantastic.

Never had to do this for any other game though and I must have had auto HDR on since it was first rolled out. So it’s still on the game.

So turned off Auto HDR (&HDR10 to make sure) & it feels a lot better now. Really strange since this game doesn’t have HDR and doesn’t support Auto HDR so I wouldn’t think that’d change anything? But whatever, I can enjoy it now.

I need to check if I’ve got auto HDR on. Turning that off supposedly alleviates a lot of it, although it’s still there. Pretty certain I’ve already got that off though. That’ll teach me for buying a game digitally & day 1…

PSA - don’t get this on Xbox. There’s a really noticeable input delay. Thought I’d got a setting wrong on TV or something. Kept missing jumps and parries. But nope. Been complained about by a lot of people specifically on Xbox. PS5 and Switch are fine. FFS!! Can’t refund it either since I used a code.

Looking forward to starting this.

The problem with the combat as I’ve said before is I don’t understand half of what’s going on or what I’m capable of doing. I’ve watched quite a few videos and read a lot of idiot guides to it but I still just can’t grasp it. Doesn’t help it takes an age going through all the radial menus checking each ability. Like I say I can admire this game and what it’s doing but just not really for me and I’m past trying really. Also I really didn’t feel like I rushed Act 1. I genuinely don’t know what else I could have done. I had the whole map uncovered and spoke to just about everyone I care across but didnt have any outstanding quests apart from 1 or 2.

Explorer. Seeing as though I wasn’t enjoying the combat I just wanted to take in the story and setting. I spent an about 20-25 hours in act 1 - I actually explored everywhere I thought I could in that first map so I’m not sure how I missed so many quests or how people spend so long there. Act 2 I just really hated the setting but enjoyed the main story quest there so I basically mainlined that in under 10 hours. Act 3 I’ve spent 3ish hours in and just lost interest. I may return to it or just use a guide so I can see what happens but there’s just an overwhelming amount of shit to do in act 3 already & like I say I’ve lost interest so will probably just watch a video or something.

This is what confuses me about this game. The original was a success in making a triple A looking game with minimum budget and a very quick turn around. I remember the press using it as an example of alternative games that could be made to help reduce some of the spiralling AAA game costs and ridiculous development times. This one has become the complete opposite of that. Especially in development time. They’ve become the very thing the original’s development cycle was against.

Meh. Kind of interested in Hellblade. Been showing it for so long though I’m just not really bothered anymore. Wouldn’t normally be bothered about an Indiana Jones game, but got my eye on it purely because of Machinegames. But nothing shown got me excited.

30+ hours in, reached act 3 and I’m done with it now. I’ve been enjoying my time with it for the most part but it never got it hooks in me properly. I can admire everything it’s doing but I can’t says I’ve loved anything about it. I still don’t understand the majority of what’s going on and even though I’m winning battles I still don’t understand what I’m doing half the time. & now I’ve reached act 3 it’s it’s become really overwhelming. There’s just a million little quests and I can’t be arsed anymore. I’ve got too many other games to play which will probably be more my style. Good game but not necessarily for me.

Still majority physical for me - either online or places like Smyths and Curry’s. While I can still buy physical for ~£15 less than on the digital store and able to sell on via eBay or whatever I don’t ever see that changing. Especially these days where I need to watch my pennies more. Even I have started buying more digital though. Sales are a lot better than they used to be (although Sony are getting tighter with their 1st party games) & if its a game I properly hyped for and sure I’ll adore (reviews pending) like Like a Dragon and FFVII Rebirth I’ll get them digitally. I’ve just bought the new Prince of Persia digitally too as I was able to get it for £35 from CDkeys in XSX so I’m happy with that price. I would normally have waited for a sale on that but since it’s already kind of budget and I do want to show support for these smaller, focused titles when they actually do them. That’s the kind of game I’ve been wishing bigger companies would go back to doing inbetween their huge releases. Much more my kind of thing these days. Only thing Ubisoft have done of interest in years.