Yakuza: Like A Dragon

[Nag]

To do any meaningful grinding you'll need to be in charge... I'm amazed the grinding isn't wearing on you @DisturbedSwan.... I thought you'd start to lose interest.

[DisturbedSwan]

I’ve been using the auto battle since about Chapter 7 for all random encounters ? 

 

I did do the first run of the Battle Arena properly but after that just to level up I set it to auto and loaded up TikTok on my phone ? that’s the only grinding I’ve done really.
 

I love just pottering about, if I see a bunch or dudes wanting a fight I’ll run into them, set it to auto and be back to wandering the streets of Yokohama 30 seconds after. 

[mfnick]

I’m surprised people grind so much in it to start with. I did that tower about 3 times and that was it. & I mainly did that just to get all the items. Didn’t grind at all apart from that which I didn’t really count as a grind at all. A couple of the late battles were difficult but still managed them. 
 

The extra towers after completion though. Fuck them. They would have taken hours of grinding to beat. 

[DisturbedSwan]

I did that tower about 3 times as well, and then another 7 times ? someone on Era said it’s best to be Level 50 for the Ch. 12 boss and I was only Level 43 at the time, so thought I needed to put some work in.

[Nag]

You'd be better off farming Invested Vagabonds in the sewers... I did that for an hour or two before finishing the story, just to hit lvl 70.

[AndyKurosaki]

I completely agree with Snaggletooth. I absolutely love the Yakuza series, giving up on this was not something I did lightly. Zero, and Kiwami 1 and 2 are some of my absolute favourite games of the last gen. But as much as I really tried to love this game, I just can’t. After a significant amount of time, I sadly realised I found it a chore to play. 
 

It’s good that some people are enjoying it. I’m just keeping everything crossed that it was a one off. As the rest of the series, to me, was vastly superior.

[DisturbedSwan]

12 hours ago, Nag said:

You'd be better off farming Invested Vagabonds in the sewers... I did that for an hour or two before finishing the story, just to hit lvl 70.

Cheers, haven’t ventured down to the Sewers yet aside from the story dungeons. Did fight one of those Vagabonds in a random encounter once though and went up about 5 levels after ? they’re pretty nuts. They reminded me of the Metal Slimes from Dragon Quest.

[DisturbedSwan]

Think I'm up to about 76 hours on this now.

 

Haven't got a whole lot else to do now in terms of side quests/activities etc. so was just mainlining the story for awhile, got up to Chapter 15. Has been excellent seeing all the twists and turns, trying to guess who killed 

Spoiler

Arakawa-San and then the shocking reveal that it was Tendo instead of Ishioda. It was obvious Kasuga & co. weren't dead after that bomb went off though. The cutscene after where he interrupts Aoki's live campaign broadcast was amazing, his face when he sees Kasuga and realises who it was is priceless. 

 

Aside from this I've been mopping up a few trophies. Firstly finishing off the Dragon Kart stuff, I only had one cup and a couple of rival races (knew the guy running it was Pocket Racer from previous games!) to do. Bought some of the other Karts, ended up using the Rapid Phantom and didn't have too much trouble, had to repeat the Dragon Cup once but the second time I nailed it, knowing the track layout etc. definitely helped. 

 

After this I found the last Honk-Honk lady I needed in Kamurocho, levelled up all of Kasuga's stats to their max thanks to a couple of the rise up! books I got with my Dragon Kart points. I then grinded for awhile in the Kamurocho and managed to get my whole party's job ranks to their max (level 30) which popped a few more trophies and then it was just the task of levelling Kasuga up to Level 70 that I had to do (or so I thought). Took about an hour yesterday evening to go from Level 62 to 70, I equipped one of the EXP boosting accessories and this definitely helped a lot, ignored all the items and non-Vagabond containing enemy groups and just ran back to the start to repeat the floor each time. 

 

All I've got left to do now is to get Ichiban Holdings past the 10,000,000,000 Yen mark in the Management mini-game and complete Chapter 15 (I'm assuming this is the last due to the trophy list on the PS App) and then I'm done. Depending on what level the rest of my party are after I've finished the game I may try the post-game dungeon (I believe you need them to be all Level 75-ish) but that's it for me. Sounds too much hassle to grind all the way up to Level 99 for the super crazy post-game dungeon. 

 

Really don't want the game to end though, and I think I'm going to end up having to drag myself off of it. Absolutely amazing game. 

[DisturbedSwan]

Finished this last week. 
 

Nothing much more to add from my last post. I absolutely adored it, it’s my current GOTY and one of my favourite entries in the franchise. 
 

If it wasn’t for the slow start the story took to get going it would’ve got a 10 from me. Loved Kasuga and his crew, getting to know Yokohama and the new combat system, was a breath of fresh air to me.

 

Can’t recommend it enough.

 

 

Spoiler

 

[mfnick]

Yea boi! Congrats. 

[AndyKurosaki]

Nicely done, glad you enjoyed it. Though I personally didn’t, I wouldn’t say it was a bad game at all, I just couldn’t get on with it despite my best efforts to do so. 

[DANGERMAN]

I'm approaching the end of this. I've been off for the past week so have rinsed it (started it a bit before that). It's funny going back through this thread while being 2 chapters from the end, I just assumed everyone loved it. So seeing the start of the thread where people were with how tired they are of it by the end, so maybe it is that I've got through it before having that temptation to drop it 

 

Same as everyone else, I like the characters a lot, none of them are Kazuma, and a couple of them don't get fleshed out enough, but they have a good dynamic, and in some ways it's a shame so much of the focus is on Ichiban rather than the whole team 

 

It's not my favorite of the series, but it's a good change, and I've been enjoying it a lot 

[AndyKurosaki]

I did eventually end up enjoying it, but the last few chapters, especially with their tanky bosses, were exceptionally annoying. Infinite Wealth thankfully scaled that difficulty back. Plus, it’s a lot more generous with money. My main issue with this game was I was often skint, and unable to afford the better gear. That was hindered by the fastest way to make money being the business management game. And I utterly despised that 😄

[mfnick]

I haven’t completed Infinite Wealth yet but I think I actually prefer this overall. I’m not slagging off Infinite Wealth at all but something about this one just clicked with me more overall - from memory anyway. 
 

I prefer the smaller, more focused single party. I still prefer going around Japan than Hawaii. I think the main story and “villains” were more interesting in this. & just the surprise of the changes they made with this helped too.

 

I had the opposite to you Andy regarding money too. I’m mostly skint in Infinite Wealth but didn’t really struggle in this. I think that’s down to the market mini game and kind of enjoying it in this whereas I could grind Dondoko but I really don’t want to engage with that shit anymore. I hate it.

 

Like I saw I’m not slagging IW off at all, it’s still a 9/10. I’ve put 50-60 hours in it so far and loving it. But I prefer this one. From memory anyway. 

[AndyKurosaki]

It’s cool, I can get where you’re coming from. When the series has been in one area for its entire length, a change to a new location can feel a bit jarring. I had the opposite experience to you. Dondoko Island, I absolutely loved, the business management game just went utterly over my head, and I despised it.  But I can totally get that Dondoko isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. But fair play to them for trying something different.

 

I might eventually go back to this again someday, as there’s plenty of stuff I never got around to.