GRcade

rinks wrote:Hello dears. Is Yakuza 0 the right place to start with this series?

Yes, without question.

rinks wrote:Hello dears. Is Yakuza 0 the right place to start with this series?

Unequivocally. Being the very earliest point in the timeline, there's very little, if anything, that relies on prior knowledge of the series.

It also fleshes out the relationships that appear in 1, which makes the story hit that much harder.

Excellent, thank you.

You can skip 0 and miss nothing of value to the overrall narrative and series.

rinks wrote:Hello dears. Is Yakuza 0 the right place to start with this series?

Yes and it's widely regarded as the best in the series. Best story, supporting cast and probably the combat too. I take it that's it up on Game Pass now?

Completed 3 and 4 so far. In 3 I loved the Okinawa orphanage stuff but the overall story with the whole land dispute/military stuff blah blah blah was pretty boring. Something about the combat felt really off too and I'm not sure what it was, easily the least fun in the series.

4 was great though. Akiyama is one of my favourite characters and his combat style was really satisfying. Saejima is such a badass too. The finale of this one has to be one of the over-the-top, cheesiest ones of them all.

Just over half way through 5. Jesus Christ, Saejima's chapters in this were so strawberry floating boring. I read a lot of complaints about this game regarding the minigames being forced into the story and those chapter's definitely suffer from it the worst so far. Having said that, Haruka's chapters with the idol stuff are so good, wouldn't mind a whole game like this tbh

Mafro wrote:

rinks wrote:Hello dears. Is Yakuza 0 the right place to start with this series?

Yes and it's widely regarded as the best in the series. Best story, supporting cast and probably the combat too. I take it that's it up on Game Pass now?

Are you implying I’m a cheapskate? (Yes.)

Banjo wrote:You can skip 0 and miss nothing of value to the overrall narrative and series.

But doing so means you would miss out on meeting up with Mr Libido!

Not to mention the first part of the brilliant cabaret club side quest (which concludes in Kiwami 2).

Right, so nothing of value being lost.

I'm still bummed out by how disappointed I was in 0. Wish I could join the consensus but it's a real weak entry for me. I'm only onboard for 7 for the new start and change in mechanics (though the apparent cameos by previous characters is a major turnoff for me). 0 (and Kiwami) turned Majima into the Jack Sparrow of the series to me; an enjoyable side character who is unable to carry a story by himself, and was a sellout retconning of his character, just like Kiryu. Shallow fanservice.

Oooh, finally gotten the smiley reponse from Mafro!

(Not sarcasm, just I've generally been in agreement with you whenever I see you respond to posts like that).

Bought myself Yakuza Kiwami 2 and Yakuza 6 in the current sale for £12ish each. Used a voucher code to reduce that to £21.

This might be a stupid question, but what is the correct order to play the games in? Despite having just finished 0 and describing it as a 4/10 tedious slog, I have a growing urge to continue the story.

Numbered. It's a chronological story that continues on from each previous entry, so go in numbered order. They do contain video summaries of past games if you don't care to play every last one. 0 is a bit of a weird outlier in that despite being a prequel set at the earliest point in the timeline, it has almost zero (ha) impact on the events following it.

Banjo wrote:Numbered. It's a chronological story that continues on from each previous entry, so go in numbered order. They do contain video summaries of past games if you don't care to play every last one. 0 is a bit of a weird outlier in that despite being a prequel set at the earliest point in the timeline, it has almost zero (ha) impact on the events following it.

Cheers, Banjo. Am I right in thinking that Kiwami is effectively 1 and Kiwami 2, er, 2?

Yup! They've added scenes to both to tie 0 into them a little bit more as well as some new content. I can only comment on Kiwami 1 which is hit and miss; the story cutscenes are really good (they focus on Nishiki), but the new side content bloats the game a fair bit (Pocket Racer returns and there's a prolonged Majima Everywhere gimmick that starts fun but gets tedious, plus makes no contextual sense within the story of the game). Thankfully as it is the 'first' game it's considerably shorter than the others, it's less than half the length of 0 if you go for all the sidequests.

Johnny Jalfrezi wrote:This might be a stupid question, but what is the correct order to play the games in? Despite having just finished 0 and describing it as a 4/10 tedious slog, I have a growing urge to continue the story.

If you didn’t like 0 then I dunno if you should bother with the rest of the series.

Mafro wrote:

Johnny Jalfrezi wrote:This might be a stupid question, but what is the correct order to play the games in? Despite having just finished 0 and describing it as a 4/10 tedious slog, I have a growing urge to continue the story.

If you didn’t like 0 then I dunno if you should bother with the rest of the series.

Hey, it just means I might not be the only weirdo.

Wait so they've actually borked the bowling in Yakuza 3? I managed a perfect game in Yakuza 0 and I'm failing completely here.

I still need to get round to playing Yakuza 5 but I understand it's the longest one and I'm not sure I'm up to it. I actually found I had to push myself through 4 as, compared to the others, it felt a bit stale.

4 was the last one I finished and I've definitely started streamlining through them, I can only go bowling or play darts so many times before it wears a bit thin. I took one look at Saejima's dojo management substory because you have to as part of the plot but never went back. I need a bit of a break between them as yeah, it can become a slog but the story is so melodramatic and silly that it still pulls me along.