If a man threw a log of wood on the ground only to furiously chisel out a carving of him kicking another man’s ass in front of me- I’d probably flee the state
I love Minami’s line “If you are who the boss thinks you are, we’re about to get our asses kicked.” Says a lot about how loyal Majima’s men are and the general tone of his family.
Despite Minami being designed to clearly be a goon you can comfortably root against, he's got some depth to him that's very surprising and humanizing for "henchman #1." I do really enjoy that the rank and file in this game arent the same guy copy pasted 300 times and then unique models for important characters only. Aka Warhammer syndrome.
I know Yasuko’s death is meant to be sad and all and doesn’t quite land, but Saejima’s scream at her death blew out the speakers on the relic of a TV I was playing on and I have never been able to keep a straight face at that scene since.
it always annoyed me that whenever someone gets shot and dies in yakuza, kiryu runs to catch the victim whilst the guy with the gun waits. i love that tanimura disarmed the guy with the gun instead.
I absolutely love the scene with Saejima at the Coliseum. Particularly when he talks about how he dreams about killing every night. Talking about his fists bashing their heads in, the sound of their bones cracking, and things that did not really occur. It really shows how much the guilt affected him, and even when it turns out that he's "innocent" it doesn't erase those years of guilt he faced. For 25 years it was reality for him that he had murdered 18 men, and the guilt he faced due to it was a powerful burden that had weighed on him to the point that it can't just be washed away once he eventually learns he technically wasn't the one who ended their lives.
Well honestly bones probably did break. Dude bulldozed them even without the gun. Plus close range rubber bullets are still high velocity objects at close range so probably some internal damage and brusing. Not to dog on the moment tho. I agree. It probably ate him up inside out hundreds of times. Over and over seeing men's faces right before their final moments. Even if he didn't actually kill he didn't know about the plan and totally did commit to it. Honestly really sad.
And we dont know how many other violent acts he's had to commit in prison have melded into his memory, each one driving the true event a little further away and the nightmare a little closer. Classic PTSD symptoms. Portrayed with subtlety? In a Yakuza game? Its more likely than you think.
Yeah even just watching the little part of it makes us tear up **The voice actor was amazing, really getting across the pain and horror the action has caused him!** __Of course played up for the game but it really feels like a man that was forced to live with that guilt and live with the fact the world will see him as a ruthless killer. Playing 0 the picture they used made us think thats what he was since you see him with a gun in his mouth and what looks like a snarl. Seeing him actually cry out like he does showing us he's more then some brute and that he is very human.__
And even before that it was kept hinted at with every time someone mentions his past, his face looks like he's about to cry. Each one of those moments have been shown to be a gut punch to him.
There's a line in a Yakuza 6 substory where Kiryu says sometimes, if you keep a lie going for long enough, it becomes real. I think the way Saejima was completely unmoved by the revelation that he didn't actually kill anyone is what inspired that line. For 25 years, that lie was real to him, and the damage has long since been done. Saejima can't be anyone other than the man who killed 18 people.
A little tip for the final Tanimura fight, his grapples are actually the best thing you can do there because you are invincible during the animations which allows you to avoid the gun shots, I personally chipped away at every bodyguards health with grapples and heat actions until it was 1 on 1 with Munakata
Weapons like the broadsword from the Pawn Shop make it super easy as well, it took me just one of those to cut up most of the bodyguards + a ton of Staminas to heal and spam heat actions to widdle the forces down easily
I feel people would have been less negative on the rubber bullets twist with Saejima if the story didn't have like 6 more identical "they got shot but they're still alive" twists later on. It's downright comedic by the time it happens twice in the span of a few minutes in the finale.
Also, I feel like he kinda skipped over how stupid it was how most of those yakuza hit by the rubber bullets...just pass out? Like yeah Saejima bashed some of them but why did only one guy start moving around long after Taiga left?
I honestly think it is utterly stupid and irredeemably dumb and I'd never even heard of it until this video and his defense of it. The magic rubber bullet. Yikes. That alone kills any interest I would have in continuing to play the games after 0. Though the cartoonish melodrama didn't help. I can admit that the Yakuza games are just not made for me...
I like the twist, my only problem is HOW did they get the rubber bullets? I know it says that Shiguichi took the bullets, but how did it get to Dojima? Majima got the guns and bullets from them, so was Dojima on the plan, but decided to back out, and some idiot decided to give him the bullets anyways because Dojima didn't tell him? It's confusing. Other than that, I liked it.
Poor Majima looks like absolute shit in this game. You can see he's tired from babysitting Daigo and the rest of the clan. Only when he's fighting Saejima it seems like he's happy, like he's back in his element.
I feel like Kiryu's speech wasn’t about him being tired of helping people, it was about being tired of helping everyone he could all the time. He spent years propping up the Tojo, helping out all over town, he tried to leave it behind and just help out a few kids but the calls to action kept coming and he doesn’t have it in him to let them ring out
The rubber bullets twist isn't stupid the first time it happens, the issue is there's like 2 more times in the game that rubber bullets get used and the audience is still expected to be shocked.
I think it's hilarious the second time cause Arai just doesn't realize that he didn't shoot with an actual bullet. It can kinda work with Saejima cause he was too busy fighting to notice but how tf did Arai not notice the lack of blood. Also didn't shoot Munakata in the face like Ihara. It's just very odd
The cruelest part of Saejima’s prison break section is that Reguard is an unlockable skill, and if you didn’t decide to get it in the first few levels you get before Saito, you’ll realize every hit guard breaks, and by extension every combo is unblockable. I would know because I did that
Honestly, genuinely, as you don't get this enough I'm sure, thank you. Thank you for making the type of content you do with the quality and care you exhibit, thank you for being willing to make long videos, thank you for starting out at all, and thank you for continuing to do it all this time. Your content and quality are quite genuinely above most of what I subscribe to and your videos have drastically improved the quality of life for me as I watch/listen and rewatch/relisten to them all the time. Your insights are refreshing, interesting, and unbiased, your tone is informative and tends to follow trains of thought in a way that feels so much more natural for my ADHD brain to focus on and digest, and your work ethic putting out these lengthy videos at the rate that you do with the sheer volume of opinion and thought is astounding. Seriously, thank you.
these videos are seriously the best coverage this series has ever gotten both in and out of youtube. seeing TV tropes get taken the piss out of is always good. almost disappointed that the Y5 video won't be as long since it's my favourite, lol hope you're doing well during covid!
@@GenAqua from what i hear he is doing kiwami 1 in the same video as yakuza 0 (since from what i hear from comments, on his patreon streach goals {i think thats what it is} he had the two put together so i am going to assume his going to do kiwami 2 with yakuza 6, i could be wrong tho
Massive props for making a review this long and in depth on Yakuza 4. You changed my mind on a lot of things including the “thing” and I am curious to see how you tackle Yakuza 5 take your time though we all want these videos to be as good as they can.
"I'll make a video on Yakuza 5, and it won't be as long as this one." - Proceeds to make a Yakuza 5 video that's twice the length of this one. Kudos man, really like these analyses you're making. Can't wait for Y6.
Not going to lie, that's just awesome and I love it. Man just busts out the chisel and plank of wood. Fits him like a glove given his age and world view.
Another point about the rubber bullets, in the coliseum, Saejima talks about hearing the crunch of bones during the hit, which we see from the cutscene never actually happens, so obviously the trauma of what happened (or at least Saejima's understanding of events) lead to him having a false memory of what happened that day
This is absolutely fantastic analysis, the one thing I really want to thank you for is finally giving Sugiuchi his due, he's such a a fascinating character and I'm sad at how I almost never even see him get discussed. He almost feels like an inverse version of Kawara, a cop who does stern by-the-book work for what ultimately turn out to be insidious reasons, and instead of getting his emotional resolution and leaving a legacy, he watches his whole world collapse around him, and is ultimately forgotten in death. Such a tragic character, and (IMO) a great boss fight too.
I think this might be one of the best videos I've ever seen. The utter size of it and the detail and quality consistent throughout the entire thing. Seriously, it hooked me very hard, I was unable to do anything else but to sit through this for those 3 1/2 hours, with undivided attention.
Watching you start small with a mention from W, reviewing Yakuza one only to still be reviewing Yakuza years later, albeit larger in audience, has been a rare constant in my life. Thank you.
I dislike the rubber bullets twist not because of it being an asspull or anything, but I think it sort of dampens the impact of Saejima's character. Having him be someone who has killed and regrets it would give him a sort of ideological rivalry with Kiryu to match their physical one, as well as reaffirming the strength of Kiryu's ideals given that he's someone who's come so close to that edge. Saejima's arc could also have been more focused on redemption, finding personal atonement and all that. Still, great review. Nice to hear someone discuss the stories of these games in a way that isn't just "too much talking = bad + confusing"
And the twist could've been that xxxxxxxxx just finished them off after saejima couldn't kill them all with body shots. munakata seeing that their were an incorrect amount of guns and they were finished off with headshots
Oh and one thing that never sat well with me after learning about Yakuza 3 is Hamazaki's death. Lots of stories, but Yakuza in particular, love to have villains redeemed by their deaths, which I've always found as a cop out. If the audience liked the villain, they get to see them do something likable and heroic, but if they didn't like the villain, then they still get to see them die. Hamazaki is an honest attempt at a redemption, that gets played out to the end, makes me like a character who I kind of respected but didn't really like from Yakuza 3, and then kills them off. Yakuza in general just seems to have an inability to see through any character's full story, so even characters that don't get killed off inevitably end up tossed aside, such as Arai and Kido.
I actually liked that Hamazaki didn't get that big melodramatic speech on his deathbed (he got it through Haruka, though). Though the way he died is so weird, somehow off-screen death felt strangely fitting. And his idea was kinda sound, about not letting some thugs ruin something they've built. Even though in Kiryu's case his orphanage was way better legacy than some incompetent clan.
@@ThorneAshwell That's a blanket starement. Death can serve as a perfect conclusion to a character just as well. It all depends on execution. GoT in particular showed both ends of the spectrum, with perfect deaths like Ned and Tywin, and well, everything else for the other extreme
3:17 Considering this describes me, I suppose I should do just that. I've played through 0-4 and generally, I absolutely love this series as it has become my second favourite video game franchise of all time. As for my individual thoughts... Yakuza 0: My first taste of Yakuza, and still my favourite. Its world is expressive, I find its period depiction charming and the sub stories, main story and gameplay from 0 are still my favourite in the series. Yakuza Kiwami: A bit less fulfilling, but I honestly was expecting that. Regardless, it still managed to tell a good story even with its questionable pacing and had similar gameplay to 0, which I was personally fine with. The sub stories were the major aspect of it that I was disappointed with. Yakuza Kiwami 2: I'll be honest, I'm not the biggest fan of the Dragon engine. Moving into this game after Kiwami felt rough, and to be honest, I still haven't perfectly adjusted to its gameplay. It simply feels far too wonky and imprecise, not to mention the poor framerate when playing on a normal PS4. Despite this, I was still able to enjoy this game over Kiwami, and mainly because it practically improved on every other aspect, including the main story, sub stories and minigames. Yakuza 3: It's alright. I found the general gameplay feel better than Kiwami 2, but the overall combat felt less interesting. The story had strong points, mainly Mine who is my favourite villain so far, but it was also quite illogical. I must admit though I actually found the sub stories in this game to be some of the best in the series so far, but I understand that's an unpopular opinion. Either way, there was a decent amount of disappointment with this entry. Yakuza 4: Probably on par with 2 in terms of story and sub stories, both of which I found to be entertaining but not without their flaws. As for the story being over-complicated, I felt it was more so simply under-explained. However, 4 has the edge in terms of gameplay when compared to Kiwami 2, due to the different gameplay styles serving as a major improvement from 3. I know I probably wasn't meant to write this much and nobody probably cares, but oh well. I'll be interested to play Yakuza 5 and seeing how you tackle it. Although, from what I've heard I'm questioning how exactly you'll cover it in less time than you did this game, but we'll see.
Kiwami 2 story is fun but in my opinion it is not better than 1. I like how personal 1 felt to Kiryu, whereas 2 didn’t. That said, 2 does have better substories and mini games. Too bad the karaoke doesn’t match up
@@sheevpalps3846 I feel like 2/K2 feels less personal in retrospect, because Sayama was written out so quickly, when she could have become a recurring side character with a lot of importance to Kiryu.
@@anaveragegamingchannel1843 Not only that, but Kiryu is fighting for something each game. In 0, it's Kazama/his Yakuza prestige, 1 it's Nishikiyama/Haruka, for 3 it's his kids and the Ryudo family, etc. In 2, he just decides to support the Tojo Clan after all they've done by leaving Haruka behind. He also acts really out of character at some moments, like praising Shimano and Dojima to Daigo or kissing Sayama before he "dies" when Haruka is waiting for him in the helicopter.
I love this. I played Yakuza 0 then the two Kiwami's. Then i herded about the remastered of 3,4, and five. I just finished 6 when i found this and love this game. I love how this game finally gave me details of what took Majima's eye since I was waiting for it since 0. This video was very amazing and I can't wait till you get to 5.
Hamazaki became one of my favorite characters because of his redemption arc in this game, how he learned to trust others and led Saejima and Kiryu to trust him as well was a super nice end to his character since he was barely even used in 3 I love this game, it's my favorite so far
I'll be honest, as time went on, I couldn't for the life of me distinguish Sugiuchi and Katsuragi from each other, probably due to the latter's lack of prominence in the video by comparison. Like my brain just processed the series of events as "Sugiuchi survived somehow and grew out his hair and changed his voice".
Yakuza 4 was my introduction to the series, I couldn't understand what was going on, who these recurring characters were and why they were important, or the motives behind some characters' actions; yet I couldn't help but be entranced by everything the game had to offer: the world, the story and substories, the flair of battle, the characters, all of it made me want more. Seeing you review this game and the series as a whole makes me appreciate it all the more. Love your videos man, hope you're doing well.
I know I'm 4 months late to the party, but I do feel like mentioning that the Amon fights in 4 are actually probably some of the easier ones. Comparing the fights in 4 to the ones in 0 or even 5, they aren't ultra difficult. They're still hard but they are some of the easier ones by comparison. Only other thing I can say is that I've really been enjoying this series! Its nice seeing a series I love being talked about in such a detailed and clear way.
Fr, I used to have trouble with the saejima one but I just kinda used two staminans with Rage armour and went to town. Took me less than a minute. I realized how easy this one was. Amon is kind of a bitch tho
in fairness to tvtropes, which I do love, I think the problem is people sensing something is wrong with a twist and not knowing how to frame it. For me, I was bothered by the idea of rubber bullets at close range not being lethal. A blank at close range can be a lethal.
That's fair, but given the amount of times a punch should do more damage in cutscenes that it actually does im willing to accept it, some people have a higher sense of suspension of disbelief
I think this is the longest RUclips video I have seen that held my attention fully from start to finish. I sat down and watched this for 3 and a half hours, yet I enjoyed all of it. For that, I commend you, the snake
I legit thought when Yasuko was found at the club I was like, it’s just a lookalike right it’s not actually her right? When I found out it was actually her I was like bro wtf is that plot convinience
I'm glad I wasn't the only one thinking this when I saw this play out. I was like "Ah, they're doing this set-up, alright, a bit cliche but Yakuza/Like a Dragon is full of them so I'll bite," but, nope, it's Lily/Yausko despite claiming she was leaving town immediately. Also, I'm sorry, but why would she leave the 100 million yen in her trunk? In a town that is full of criminals and deviants? (With a substory that directly involves a thief breaking into cars as well?) One of my biggest problems with the main story of Yakuza 4 is the amount of plot convenience this game relies on. I fully accept that sometimes you need these for the sake of the story. They aren't bad, but when the narrative seems to be full of them, it just muddies the water in terms of story structure. A few examples would be the aforementioned Lily just casually working in some random hostess club... that also happens to be one of the few Tanamura was exorting monthly tributes from since they knownly hired illegal immigrants which is a federal crime in Japan. Sejima and Hamazaki both not only survive falling into the sea but end up at Morning Glory of all places. This wouldn't be so bad if Okinawa wasn't a go-to hotspot for beaches and sun. There are tons of beaches dotting that beautiful island nation, and they just happened to wash up at Kiryu's beach? How convenient. It's just a lot of these smaller plot holes and conveniences that kinda drag the game's narrative down. Still a great game, and a vast improvement over 3's combat system, but Yakuza 3's story was, in my opinion, better than 4's simply because they didn't try to make it this grand web of lies, corruption, betryals and inner clan conflict. It was just a simple conspiracy involving a shady crime organization from America... that's it. Sure there was inner clan drama and politics, but they didn't try to make it into this deep multi-web conspiracy, and it was still interesting, still fun to go through. 4's story felt bloated and had pointless reveals. I don't mean to bash the game, I enjoyed it so much more over 3. What brought Yakuza 3 down was the combat, especially coming from Kiwami 2. But the story and substories made up for it in some regard. Here, the story is interesting, but it felt like the writers tried to do too much at once and not a lot landed for me because of the decision to have four protagonists.
Thank you. I been waiting for long super in depth Yakuza video series and you made my days. Please keeping it up just so i can i can hear these as I game
Yakuza 4 was my first Yakuza game. I loved it. And while it was great even for someone who hadn't played it before, I missed out on a LOT of series fan-service. Especially the fight between Saejima and Kiryu didn't have the effect on me it absolutely SHOULD have.
Hey man, been watching your videos for a while and I have to say, between this, your Greedfall video, and your Neuro video, your recent work has been absolutely stellar. I've already rewatched this particular set of videos twice now, and I was surprised to find that the length of them never felt indulgent or overly detailed, keeping a good sense of pacing throughout the long runtime and keeping me engaged with a good sense of when to switch from synopsizing to discussing game systems to thematic analysis in a way other channels often struggle with. You've been very quickly becoming one of my favourite channels, and I'm beyond excited to see what you'll bring to the table in your next project. Keep up the good work!
@@czarkusa2018 I've watched all of his videos, and as much as I enjoyed his older work, his recent stuff has been fantastic, with substantially better scripts being a huge part of the improvement. His writing has been consistently getting sharper, wittier, and better paced. He's always been good at portraying the experience of playing a game in retrospect, but his thematic analysis and humor has been getting more and more time to truly shine
Honestly the next one could be 10 hrs for all I care. I'm loving watching these as play them. Personally like having things to watch/listen to for longer periods of time
Late to this, but my girlfriend just played 3-5 after playing 0, Kiwami, and Kiwami 2. She didn't like how stiff the characters were, and got frustrated when attack animations would continue while missing enemies. She enjoyed 5 the most, it did feel closest to 0. I started with 4, so I love this video. Thanks for sharing. I loved the 4 character plots coming together. Going back to it after playing 0 through 3, I found my new context made it more enjoyable. Loved going through it a second time.
Not sure why my brain was sure this was going to be some 6 hour thing, all the parts felt so thick with detail. This is definitely going on my 'things to listen to when grinding through games' playlist
Came back after finishing, just to say I'm glad you appreciated how over the top and ridiculous the story gets. Especially the rubber bullets! I loved the rubber bullets. That was a fun plot twist. I've already played this game twice, and your video made me feel like it would be worth it to go back and experience the substories, along with the whole story, one more time. ALSO Saejima may be slow, but once he finds a motorcycle to throw, the fight is over in seconds and I loved that everytime.
I watched this. All of this. 3 hours, 30 minutes and 20 seconds for the game that I never had a chance to play in a series that I deeply cared - and I felt like the time I watched this didn't go to waste. It's a deep insight into Y4 as a whole and the entire series for comparisons. And you know what? I stumbled across this video RANDOMLY. Your channel has some, good shits that I wouldn't have find normally at anywhere else. For this video, or an in-depth review : Your commentaries, your opinions, everything about it is just so good. And you don't even put a mid-ad roll in the video. It's 100% uncut, purely materialized. This makes me love Yakuza even more. Words cannot describe this alone - you have to watch this. 3 hours, 20 minutes and 20 seconds. It's long, but for a game like Yakuza - this would have been dragged for longer. But you did your best to compress it and still makes it as good as possible to enjoy, to understand and to - most importantly - express your opinion. And I watched all of this shit for 3 fucking hours and nearly a half, what the fuck? I enjoyed it so much. I wish I had the chance to fully experience the rest of the series - from Yakuza 3 to Yakuza 6. But for now, patience is the key. Looking forward for your Yakuza 5 in-depth video as well as 6. And fuck TV Tropes.
Love the time and effort you put into this. Informative as heck and your way of analysis is so cool. You deserve much more credit, thanks for the great content.
@@cleversmart0303 Yep and he left the industry both for the stress of the accusations and because of the way Japanese culture works meant that even though it was false, he might as well have actually done it because you have to be perfect in everything, even in things you can't control.
These Yakuza's critiques have become my reward for finishing each game in the series. I'm a relatively new fan of the series, but I already hate how many people kind of trivialize the series as being just silly games with silly protagonists: I love the emotional depth of each game's story and it's the main reason I'm a fan of the series (I still try to complete as much of the side content as I can). I appreciate these videos because they always give justice to the stories, defending them from some superficial arguments against them. Funnily enough, while Yakuza 3's video helped me understanding some of its themes, I didn't need that for Yakuza 4, despite its more convoluted plot: it's not that difficult to wrap your head around Arai's multiple betrayals when you understand that, like Daigo, he wanted to rebuild the Tojo from the ground up. The rubber bullets twist is not as bad as people liked to think, but the story still has too many contentious points, making me liking it less than 0, 2 and 3. Even so, it has so many good moments: I actually liked how Hamazaki's death was portrayed (especially as it serves as a way for Haruka to understand Kiryu's willingness to forgive people) and I think Akiyama false death was both funny and a nice subversion of much of previous games' sad scenes. It will be a while before I'll play Yakuza 5, but I'm excited to being able, for once, to see the next video(s) in the series as soon as it comes out, assuming it's going to be about Yakuza 0. I'm especially interested in seeing how Sagawa will be analyzed, as I think it's one of the most misunderstood characters in the series. I'm looking forward to it!
Thank you for making these videos so in depth. I’ve wanted to experience the story in some capacity myself but financial constraints have really made it near impossible to get into the older games for the most part. I plan to give them a proper playthrough in the future but I’m glad I can walk away from these videos appreciating what the series does vicariously through a well worded and well spoken review like this.
I first found your channel from your Playing Yakuza 1 video. I've been amazed at how well you can keep someone watching your hour plus videos, they are extremely well paced. I appreciate the deeper analysis on the ramen shootout since I remember the internet reaction to the reveal, it wasn't very pretty; I think it would've sat better to people if the story didn't repeatedly shoot characters only to have them reappear later on. Thank you for making this series, I look forward to seeing your video on Yakuza 5, as well as any other videos you make!
When I made my first comment I was around 3/5th of the way through the video and was in a call, so I couldn't fully formulate my thoughts. Now that I have the time, let me say that I REALLY enjoyed the entire video and I'm gonna be a subscriber from now on. Not only was it very well written from an interpretative standpoint, the humour and jokes you sprinkled in were also VERY funny with how well they were timed or a part of the meta-narrative of the review itself. I'm normally not a fan of long videos because I dislike long sitting and listening (more of a dialouge guy, well, socratic dialouge, where I go "Yes, Socrates, that is correct" once in a while), but I've thoroughly enjoyed it. Especially the interpretation and analyzation of the Rubber Bullet twist and the implications within was VERY well written and thought out. While I always liked this twist, even I sometimes thought that it feels far fetched at certain points. I tend to forget, that, as you put it, "A character making a mistake or miscalculation is not a fault of the writing". Since the characters themselves imply their unhappiness with the results, it now becomes clear to me that... well, that's exactly what was the case. I might show this video to a friend of mine who I've been trying to get into Yakuza (he loves Metal Gear Solid, so I thought Yakuza was just his wavelength). All in all, I'm glad ya went balls out on this video.
as someone who started off with kiwami about 5 years ago, forgot that i owned it like halfway through and picked it along with the rest of the series back up at the beginning of this year, the transition from kiwami 2 to 3 was rough and probably ended up making me dislike 3 more than i probably would've. to be honest the more i think about my time with 3 the more i appreciate it's more personal story that relates more to it's main character than most of the other games. yakuza 4 though has always been my least favorite for having by far the worst story in my opinion, the least interesting side quests and side content in general, the worst final boss by a mile, and only having one city that you play in across 4 different characters. of course it introduced saejima and akiyama who are amazing as well as improved the combat system that would go on to be one of my favorites in 5 (which is still an incredibly flawed game but i do absolutely love it). also i loved all the stuff with hamazaki in this game, though i do wish you got at least one more scene with him before he dies. yakuza 4 is the most boring one to me easily, but it feels blasphemous to call any yakuza game "bad", i just feel this one didn't stack up to any of the others.
I love this video essay series on Yakuza and have rewatched a few times. It's witty, thoughtful, and thorough. I played through the series and watched these as I went to help process and organize my thoughts as well and see your perspective. Great work 👍
You do a good job defending the rubber bullets twist. I still don't really like it, but now I don't have any strong argument as for why lol. I think the real issue is the rubber bullets themselves being a weird mechanism for that kind of twist. The twist itself is so over-the-top, but the idea of rubber bullets is kind of grounded (at least, its a grounded idea to me), so it invites extra questions like "What if Saejima shot Katsuragi in the eyeball?" and it just comes off as unnecessarily set-up for the viewer instead of the characters. You could tweak a few things around and have the twist be more or less the same, like maybe Saejima has real bullets, but his bosses gave him a picture of the target that turns out to be the wrong guy (so he wouldn't know Katsuragi and his boss were hiding somewhere else).
I say this liking the rubber bullets: the issue with them I noted was that it makes Saejima feel less interesting, in a way. He's meant to sort of oppose Kiryu, and him having killed 18 people makes that work a lot better. The reveal he didn't kill anybody feels... off. That said, I did notice the soup wasn't blood the first time, and made a mental note of it, but assumed the bullets still killed for some reason. The reveal was more of an "aha!" for me than anything else.
Yakuza 4 was my first game in the series, and I had assumed all Yakuza games had this type of melodramatic Lifetime movie plot. It seems to me a lot of fans who weren't niche fans from the PS2 days either got started on Y0 or Y4. Y0 for obvious reasons, but I think Y4 because the early PS2 games were very janky, Y4 had the rain graphics as a way of advertising the power of the PS3, and for people who knew very little of Yakuza, Y3 was the "bad one" because of the cut content in the English version.
I started the series with Yakuza 0, went through kiwami 1, kiwami 2 and yakuza 3 remastered. Currently on 4. It definetly was a shift, going from kiwami 2 to yakuza 3 remastered. The way it controls, makes you really aware that you are playing a game from the ps 3 generation. But at least for me that was the biggest thing to get used to. I enjoy good graphics but they've never stopped me from enjoying older games. Additionally it was already a pretty big shift from kiwami 1 to kiwami 2. Dragon engine Kyriu controls vastly different than kiwami 1 kyriu. On the other hand I found a lot to appreciate about yakuza 3, while it's not quite there yet, but the fun sidestory design of yakuza 0 finally shows it's head again in yakuza 3 with some of the better sidequests, while only the few sidestories that were added specifically for the kiwami games have this quality in kiwami 1 and kiwami 2. Though being used to the very well designed mega-sidequests, like host club management and real estate, from 0 and kiwami 2, the hostess maker sidestory in yakuza 3 is a bit jarring. Especially since it is soooo long. Do the same thing, but 5 times in a row with different women. Yakuza 3 in general has a bit of a quantity over quality issue. A lot of it's systems are fun, but have way too much repetetive content. 10 different hostesses to date. The restaurants have twice or even three times as many food items on the menu compared to previous games and now there is no perk to eat without being damaged. And you can only eat 1 thing at a time. Kiwami 2 actually had a similar problem with the bouncer missions that just. would. not. end.
That part at the skyscraper really needed imogen hill playing over it for how many people get shot in derpy melodramatic ways. Also Majima, Kiryu and both of the Saejima's are looking pretty good and moving well for people at least in their mid 40's, probably closer to early 50's. XD
@@edwardarroyo884 Majima is one year older than Saejima and four years older than Kiryu. As for how well they move, well, you underestimate the power of Staminan X
As someone whos been slowly but surely getting through the series starting with 0 and playing them in chronological order, I've honestly been having a blast. I've greatly appreciated this series of videos, as they've been incredibly fun to watch while reflecting on the games, contrasting my opinion and seeing the games in ways I didn't consider. Though in answer to your question, my brief opinions are: 3 was decent, 4 was awesome, 5 was pretty good, haven't played 6 yet and I am very excited for 7
I've just beaten Yakuza 4, and instead of pondering about the game, I'm watching your review/retrospective/analysis/essay/opinions on it. And man, Saejima made me very emotional, despite not being the best character to play as. The coliseum cutscene, him meeting Sasai, there's something on looking at a big man cry with emotion that touches me.
not sure if you will discuss this when you get to Yakuza Zero: Kuze: Kiryu... You plan on making an enemy of the Tojo Clan? Kiryu: You lay one goddamn finger on Makoto Makimura... and I'll bury the Tojo Clan. I'll crush it down to the last man. This I swear to you! kind of puts Daigo in an interesting light. kiryu's fuck up? or subconcious fulfillment to his Oath of Enma?
I'm gonna touch on Kiryu's relationship to the Tojo a bit in 5, 0, and 6 because similar moments happen. I sort of see Kiryu as having an ideal that he's aware the Tojo never fully live up to, he saw Daigo as a man who could genuinely steer it closer to the honourability he wanted but it's so full of rats at all times that it can never truly fit his ideals. Kiryu makes it clear time and again that it's less about the Tojo itself and more about what it means to be Yakuza regardless of clan affiliation, what Yakuza should stand for and all of that, and as he gets older and wants out of the life, he just wants these people out of his and Haruka's life but they keep dragging him back in. I've not finished 7 yet, on chapter 10, but I've heard some big stuff happens as it gets deeper.
I'm a newer fan who just finished the game, i really enjoyed this game, the variety of characters is a fun addition, you can tell that it is older in terms of gameplay, but you can tell that they improved so much from 3, I just have 2 or 3 games to finish in time for 7! My favorite moment when playing was when in a police scanner mission, I saved a man from jumping off a building by throwing him off of it.
The whole video is great, it's not missing a beat as far as the story explanation goes and it gets into very nice details, great scripts but some stuff about the gameplay is off, i'm not saying you're bad or playing yakuza wrong but some bits are obviously pointing out over a lack of understanding of the game mechanics. It's not big but i must admit the last Boss triggered me a little bit so here's why i think this Boss fight is bad but not in the way you explain in the video. I did it on Hard mode and forgot to load potions on him so i had to learn the WAY the devs intended the fight to be played. Tanimura is not very strong, i agree its only damaging tools are the extended heat moves on command. I haven't maxed him out too in my first playthrough cause the story started to feel a little bit too much so i wanted to finish it quickly on Tanimura's side. The key of that character is the good old core mechanic of 2D beat em ups : I-FRAMES, First of all, you have to ignore the Boss, he's useless, slow and have no armor/tools to beat you beside his ridiculous gun shots that (Compared to WAY MUCH worse armed enemies in the series) Have a very simple "tell" with audio cue and slow movement, even on hard mode, allowing you to dodge it 100% of the time. You have to unlock the roll though to make it easier cause sometimes the dash can mess up depending on your angle. Next the swarm of enemies, your only tool here against goons are, the MASSIVE I-frames you get from the extended grab. You grab someone into an arm lock, you're totally invincible during the process, everyone misses their attacks, you press again even while the Boss shoots you, you get more I-frames and avoid the rest, the movement causing enough knockback for the crowd to be spaced and allowing you to escape with dodges. You repeat this until you get the QTE, kill everyone but the elites. So there's like 2-3 elite guys, 2 of them are 100% grab free so you can play it extra safe and keep doing this strat on them too. One of the elite got sometimes an anti grab reaction, this guy is super fast, counter quickly and offers you little to no combos beside 1hit/Triangle/Heat however there's 3 things you can do, you can either do the short combo and stun him, leaving you enough time to go to the Boss for a combo, then get back to the elite. Do the grab thing with a small % of failure (you can get shot by the boss i guess here) or you can use the walls to counter him into a wall bounce and quickly follow up with a full combo + heat move. I found that fight very easy but i have to say those fights are terrible in a way cause they force the player to be only using 1 set of tools instead of being free to adapt and find strategies that suits their gameplay. You're forced to do the same action over and over and it feels like pretty much all the bullshit Amon fights in a nutshell. You have to exploit the cheesiest strats to get the best of them and for a main storyline Boss i find that extremely cheap (same as recycling QTE actions and previous Boss patterns and AI)
I'm so appreciative that a highly comprehensive video like this exists, especially since you reserve most of the space for analysis and theming. You brought up some parallels that passed me by when I played through this recently, so I wanna return the favor by bringing up something for the comments that stuck out to me but wasn't covered here. Something that really stuck with me as I was being introduced to each of the new protagonists is that just like each one's fighting style borrows from the base combat with a hard lean into a certain playstyle, thematically they each mirror an aspect of Kiryu that is seen as admirable/virtuous, along with its vulnerabilities. Akiyama is overly trusting and effortlessly strives to see the good in people but over and over again his trust is betrayed, not just in the past but presently with every major character in his part of the game aside from Hana, who he never acknowledges as he should despite how long she's been on his side. He might be virtuously trusting but he's repeatedly shown as a poor judge of character, much as Kiryu has been concerning the Tojo. As Suguichi states near the beginning of the game, waving around so much cash is a catalyst for crime itself and ultimately, Akiyama's war chest (that he never even bothered to lock up) is the prize that stirs the final conflict of the game, and it would have never been in jeopardy had he taken literally any precaution whatsoever against Kido instead of relying on their trust. Saejima's circumstances have obvious parallels but his biggest similarity with Kiryu is his unbreakable sense of loyalty and conviction, but much like Kiryu in the past, his convictions are easily manipulated and he has suffered greatly for it. Tanimura, like Kiryu, is a devoted caretaker who works to provide for underprivileged children that would otherwise fall through the cracks. Also like Kiryu, he has basically zero regard for self preservation to the point that Tanimura has no regard for reputation or even his own life if it was in service of Little Asia, even if his absence would be far more devastating than any short term reward could justify.
Wonderful comment, despite digging into the characters so much myself and even stirring more on the story in the years since I never really caught these aspects.
I was wondering why you hadn't uploaded in 3 months but that mystery's been cleared up. Sucks that youtube isn't showing your videos to subscribers but on the brightside now I have 3 and a half hours of yakusa goodness
If a man threw a log of wood on the ground only to furiously chisel out a carving of him kicking another man’s ass in front of me- I’d probably flee the state
who wouldn't
@@dusk7484 Anyone smart enough to realise that you're not facing the kind of person you can escape by leaving their general location.
I love Minami’s line “If you are who the boss thinks you are, we’re about to get our asses kicked.” Says a lot about how loyal Majima’s men are and the general tone of his family.
Despite Minami being designed to clearly be a goon you can comfortably root against, he's got some depth to him that's very surprising and humanizing for "henchman #1."
I do really enjoy that the rank and file in this game arent the same guy copy pasted 300 times and then unique models for important characters only. Aka Warhammer syndrome.
I know Yasuko’s death is meant to be sad and all and doesn’t quite land, but Saejima’s scream at her death blew out the speakers on the relic of a TV I was playing on and I have never been able to keep a straight face at that scene since.
not to suprising from a guy that large, probably can break a glass through sheer volume of yelling rather then pitch
Saejima is built different. I think he is on par with Kiryu.
it always annoyed me that whenever someone gets shot and dies in yakuza, kiryu runs to catch the victim whilst the guy with the gun waits. i love that tanimura disarmed the guy with the gun instead.
Still, Tanimura will always be a little bitch
@@thatrandomcrit5823 what’d he do!? 😭
@@totallycalixo He´s a parasite
@@thatrandomcrit5823 he’s a decent parasite tho
Just one of many reasons as to why Tanimura is a true goat.
I absolutely love the scene with Saejima at the Coliseum. Particularly when he talks about how he dreams about killing every night. Talking about his fists bashing their heads in, the sound of their bones cracking, and things that did not really occur. It really shows how much the guilt affected him, and even when it turns out that he's "innocent" it doesn't erase those years of guilt he faced. For 25 years it was reality for him that he had murdered 18 men, and the guilt he faced due to it was a powerful burden that had weighed on him to the point that it can't just be washed away once he eventually learns he technically wasn't the one who ended their lives.
Well honestly bones probably did break. Dude bulldozed them even without the gun. Plus close range rubber bullets are still high velocity objects at close range so probably some internal damage and brusing.
Not to dog on the moment tho. I agree. It probably ate him up inside out hundreds of times. Over and over seeing men's faces right before their final moments. Even if he didn't actually kill he didn't know about the plan and totally did commit to it. Honestly really sad.
And we dont know how many other violent acts he's had to commit in prison have melded into his memory, each one driving the true event a little further away and the nightmare a little closer.
Classic PTSD symptoms. Portrayed with subtlety? In a Yakuza game?
Its more likely than you think.
Yeah even just watching the little part of it makes us tear up **The voice actor was amazing, really getting across the pain and horror the action has caused him!** __Of course played up for the game but it really feels like a man that was forced to live with that guilt and live with the fact the world will see him as a ruthless killer. Playing 0 the picture they used made us think thats what he was since you see him with a gun in his mouth and what looks like a snarl. Seeing him actually cry out like he does showing us he's more then some brute and that he is very human.__
And even before that it was kept hinted at with every time someone mentions his past, his face looks like he's about to cry. Each one of those moments have been shown to be a gut punch to him.
There's a line in a Yakuza 6 substory where Kiryu says sometimes, if you keep a lie going for long enough, it becomes real. I think the way Saejima was completely unmoved by the revelation that he didn't actually kill anyone is what inspired that line. For 25 years, that lie was real to him, and the damage has long since been done. Saejima can't be anyone other than the man who killed 18 people.
A little tip for the final Tanimura fight, his grapples are actually the best thing you can do there because you are invincible during the animations which allows you to avoid the gun shots, I personally chipped away at every bodyguards health with grapples and heat actions until it was 1 on 1 with Munakata
yep, its broken and does decent damage. You can also spam parry to try and avoid shots.
It works even better when you camp in one of the corners so you can send enemies to the walls as well
Weapons like the broadsword from the Pawn Shop make it super easy as well, it took me just one of those to cut up most of the bodyguards + a ton of Staminas to heal and spam heat actions to widdle the forces down easily
This is how I got through the fight too
I just equipped the sacret tree armor set. But to compensate I didn't use healing items, it was a pretty nice balance and a good challenge
The only Yakuza game to feature a speed boat chase.
There should have been more
@@Tehsnakerer Hopefully 8 is nothing but.
You'd think there would be at least two more
seriously tho the boat chase is fun as fuck
And God bless Yakuza 4 for it.
Saejima really took the advice about switching to a sidearm being faster than a reload to heart
Blud came in strapped like Blackbeard
I feel people would have been less negative on the rubber bullets twist with Saejima if the story didn't have like 6 more identical "they got shot but they're still alive" twists later on.
It's downright comedic by the time it happens twice in the span of a few minutes in the finale.
It's a series where people get shot and stabbed and then shrug it off all the time. They might as well just have made all those shots non-lethal.
@@albertzinger7132 its amazing that people are even capable of death in this series. i love it tho
Also, I feel like he kinda skipped over how stupid it was how most of those yakuza hit by the rubber bullets...just pass out? Like yeah Saejima bashed some of them but why did only one guy start moving around long after Taiga left?
I honestly think it is utterly stupid and irredeemably dumb and I'd never even heard of it until this video and his defense of it.
The magic rubber bullet. Yikes. That alone kills any interest I would have in continuing to play the games after 0. Though the cartoonish melodrama didn't help. I can admit that the Yakuza games are just not made for me...
I like the twist, my only problem is HOW did they get the rubber bullets?
I know it says that Shiguichi took the bullets, but how did it get to Dojima?
Majima got the guns and bullets from them, so was Dojima on the plan, but decided to back out, and some idiot decided to give him the bullets anyways because Dojima didn't tell him? It's confusing.
Other than that, I liked it.
Also my favorite line is still "He fucking _legged it_ when he saw the brick shithouse of Sasai."
Late but i am adding this to the Wikia. Like anyone checks it
@@AgentDanielCross which wikia?
@@roys.1889 The Yakuza Wikia.
@@AgentDanielCross you fucking legend it's still there lmao
@@SoniKast Thanks!
Poor Majima looks like absolute shit in this game. You can see he's tired from babysitting Daigo and the rest of the clan. Only when he's fighting Saejima it seems like he's happy, like he's back in his element.
That’s what happens when every good and professional yakuza either leave such a life behind or die
@@yellowbirdie7182 some of them somehow did both
"I would take a whole game on Akiyama's customers." YAS. I would too.
As much as I love Saejima, Akiyama is the best introduction in this game.
Imo saejima is shit
@@arandominternetperson437 Saejimas part wasn't shit until Y5, pure filler even though I still enjoyed it
"Okay, lets cut to fuck-up vision, how's Daigo doing?" absolutely destroyed me, amazing video as always
Prison Guard: *Shoots man thrice.*
Prison Guard: "Why are you trying to kill me?"
I feel like Kiryu's speech wasn’t about him being tired of helping people, it was about being tired of helping everyone he could all the time. He spent years propping up the Tojo, helping out all over town, he tried to leave it behind and just help out a few kids but the calls to action kept coming and he doesn’t have it in him to let them ring out
Really happy you gave us all the videos together like this.
Has kept me sane at work.
I'm enjoying listening to these as I work
His analysis is actually analysis of things that's are happening instead of just describing what's happening on screen
The rubber bullets twist isn't stupid the first time it happens, the issue is there's like 2 more times in the game that rubber bullets get used and the audience is still expected to be shocked.
they are experimental rubber bullets after all, plenty of field testing is necessary to make sure they're good enough for the force
couldn't have said it better myself
It just ends up being funny more than anything, like there's no consequences 😂
I think it's hilarious the second time cause Arai just doesn't realize that he didn't shoot with an actual bullet. It can kinda work with Saejima cause he was too busy fighting to notice but how tf did Arai not notice the lack of blood. Also didn't shoot Munakata in the face like Ihara. It's just very odd
The cruelest part of Saejima’s prison break section is that Reguard is an unlockable skill, and if you didn’t decide to get it in the first few levels you get before Saito, you’ll realize every hit guard breaks, and by extension every combo is unblockable. I would know because I did that
Honestly, genuinely, as you don't get this enough I'm sure, thank you. Thank you for making the type of content you do with the quality and care you exhibit, thank you for being willing to make long videos, thank you for starting out at all, and thank you for continuing to do it all this time. Your content and quality are quite genuinely above most of what I subscribe to and your videos have drastically improved the quality of life for me as I watch/listen and rewatch/relisten to them all the time. Your insights are refreshing, interesting, and unbiased, your tone is informative and tends to follow trains of thought in a way that feels so much more natural for my ADHD brain to focus on and digest, and your work ethic putting out these lengthy videos at the rate that you do with the sheer volume of opinion and thought is astounding. Seriously, thank you.
ay fellow adhder
these videos are seriously the best coverage this series has ever gotten both in and out of youtube. seeing TV tropes get taken the piss out of is always good. almost disappointed that the Y5 video won't be as long since it's my favourite, lol
hope you're doing well during covid!
Yeah, I'm excited for the Yakuza 5 video. I wonder if he's gonna do small videos for Kiwami 1 and 2.
I’m sorry , what do you mean to tropes got taken the pods out of ?
@@GenAqua from what i hear he is doing kiwami 1 in the same video as yakuza 0 (since from what i hear from comments, on his patreon streach goals {i think thats what it is} he had the two put together so i am going to assume his going to do kiwami 2 with yakuza 6, i could be wrong tho
@Olathian Whiskey i am defiantly interested though that's defiantly gonna take a few sessions to watch
@Olathian Whiskey BASED
I can't wait for 2 years from now when he finally gets through yakuza 5
he do
yo come back its time
Massive props for making a review this long and in depth on Yakuza 4. You changed my mind on a lot of things including the “thing” and I am curious to see how you tackle Yakuza 5 take your time though we all want these videos to be as good as they can.
Throw more money at him and he'll make a 5 hour video about Yakuza 5 that only gets 30k views.
@@ohnoitsbart6387 you're wrong it was more like 7 hours
@@Jesus-101 I watched the entire thing it was probably worth the patreon money
@@ohnoitsbart6387 I'm sure it was really love his videos but I'm planning on playing it before watching
"I'll make a video on Yakuza 5, and it won't be as long as this one." - Proceeds to make a Yakuza 5 video that's twice the length of this one. Kudos man, really like these analyses you're making. Can't wait for Y6.
i felt like committing saejimas 18 kill streak when Whiskey and Rhapsody was called the worse track for a second lol
"his hirhito unmentioned friend, and his here-hit-ow goons"
Oh my god. This line is amazing. My third watch though saw this ^^
Saejima: oh cool I just learned a new move *let me just make a wooden sculpture of it*
Not going to lie, that's just awesome and I love it. Man just busts out the chisel and plank of wood. Fits him like a glove given his age and world view.
Another point about the rubber bullets, in the coliseum, Saejima talks about hearing the crunch of bones during the hit, which we see from the cutscene never actually happens, so obviously the trauma of what happened (or at least Saejima's understanding of events) lead to him having a false memory of what happened that day
to be fair he _does_ bash some dudes face in with the butt of his gun, that's probably gotta break a few facial bones.
This is absolutely fantastic analysis, the one thing I really want to thank you for is finally giving Sugiuchi his due, he's such a a fascinating character and I'm sad at how I almost never even see him get discussed. He almost feels like an inverse version of Kawara, a cop who does stern by-the-book work for what ultimately turn out to be insidious reasons, and instead of getting his emotional resolution and leaving a legacy, he watches his whole world collapse around him, and is ultimately forgotten in death. Such a tragic character, and (IMO) a great boss fight too.
I think this might be one of the best videos I've ever seen. The utter size of it and the detail and quality consistent throughout the entire thing. Seriously, it hooked me very hard, I was unable to do anything else but to sit through this for those 3 1/2 hours, with undivided attention.
It’s all fun and games until Majima does his Beyblade impression.
A SHORT MAN!
Watching you start small with a mention from W, reviewing Yakuza one only to still be reviewing Yakuza years later, albeit larger in audience, has been a rare constant in my life.
Thank you.
I dislike the rubber bullets twist not because of it being an asspull or anything, but I think it sort of dampens the impact of Saejima's character. Having him be someone who has killed and regrets it would give him a sort of ideological rivalry with Kiryu to match their physical one, as well as reaffirming the strength of Kiryu's ideals given that he's someone who's come so close to that edge. Saejima's arc could also have been more focused on redemption, finding personal atonement and all that. Still, great review. Nice to hear someone discuss the stories of these games in a way that isn't just "too much talking = bad + confusing"
And the twist could've been that xxxxxxxxx just finished them off after saejima couldn't kill them all with body shots. munakata seeing that their were an incorrect amount of guns and they were finished off with headshots
Oh and one thing that never sat well with me after learning about Yakuza 3 is Hamazaki's death. Lots of stories, but Yakuza in particular, love to have villains redeemed by their deaths, which I've always found as a cop out. If the audience liked the villain, they get to see them do something likable and heroic, but if they didn't like the villain, then they still get to see them die. Hamazaki is an honest attempt at a redemption, that gets played out to the end, makes me like a character who I kind of respected but didn't really like from Yakuza 3, and then kills them off.
Yakuza in general just seems to have an inability to see through any character's full story, so even characters that don't get killed off inevitably end up tossed aside, such as Arai and Kido.
I actually liked that Hamazaki didn't get that big melodramatic speech on his deathbed (he got it through Haruka, though). Though the way he died is so weird, somehow off-screen death felt strangely fitting. And his idea was kinda sound, about not letting some thugs ruin something they've built. Even though in Kiryu's case his orphanage was way better legacy than some incompetent clan.
Definitely agreed, this is the reason i dont like GOT, death isnt a climax, its an abrupt end. When a character dies their arc isnt finished, its cut.
@@ThorneAshwell That's a blanket starement. Death can serve as a perfect conclusion to a character just as well. It all depends on execution. GoT in particular showed both ends of the spectrum, with perfect deaths like Ned and Tywin, and well, everything else for the other extreme
*cough cough* Sayama
@@crim1188 literally the last season shows the other end of the spectrum
3:17 Considering this describes me, I suppose I should do just that. I've played through 0-4 and generally, I absolutely love this series as it has become my second favourite video game franchise of all time. As for my individual thoughts...
Yakuza 0: My first taste of Yakuza, and still my favourite. Its world is expressive, I find its period depiction charming and the sub stories, main story and gameplay from 0 are still my favourite in the series.
Yakuza Kiwami: A bit less fulfilling, but I honestly was expecting that. Regardless, it still managed to tell a good story even with its questionable pacing and had similar gameplay to 0, which I was personally fine with. The sub stories were the major aspect of it that I was disappointed with.
Yakuza Kiwami 2: I'll be honest, I'm not the biggest fan of the Dragon engine. Moving into this game after Kiwami felt rough, and to be honest, I still haven't perfectly adjusted to its gameplay. It simply feels far too wonky and imprecise, not to mention the poor framerate when playing on a normal PS4. Despite this, I was still able to enjoy this game over Kiwami, and mainly because it practically improved on every other aspect, including the main story, sub stories and minigames.
Yakuza 3: It's alright. I found the general gameplay feel better than Kiwami 2, but the overall combat felt less interesting. The story had strong points, mainly Mine who is my favourite villain so far, but it was also quite illogical. I must admit though I actually found the sub stories in this game to be some of the best in the series so far, but I understand that's an unpopular opinion. Either way, there was a decent amount of disappointment with this entry.
Yakuza 4: Probably on par with 2 in terms of story and sub stories, both of which I found to be entertaining but not without their flaws. As for the story being over-complicated, I felt it was more so simply under-explained. However, 4 has the edge in terms of gameplay when compared to Kiwami 2, due to the different gameplay styles serving as a major improvement from 3.
I know I probably wasn't meant to write this much and nobody probably cares, but oh well. I'll be interested to play Yakuza 5 and seeing how you tackle it. Although, from what I've heard I'm questioning how exactly you'll cover it in less time than you did this game, but we'll see.
I read the whole thing.
Kiwami 2 story is fun but in my opinion it is not better than 1. I like how personal 1 felt to Kiryu, whereas 2 didn’t. That said, 2 does have better substories and mini games. Too bad the karaoke doesn’t match up
Scary how this is my exact take on the series beyond the Dragon Engine complaint.
@@sheevpalps3846 I feel like 2/K2 feels less personal in retrospect, because Sayama was written out so quickly, when she could have become a recurring side character with a lot of importance to Kiryu.
@@anaveragegamingchannel1843 Not only that, but Kiryu is fighting for something each game. In 0, it's Kazama/his Yakuza prestige, 1 it's Nishikiyama/Haruka, for 3 it's his kids and the Ryudo family, etc. In 2, he just decides to support the Tojo Clan after all they've done by leaving Haruka behind. He also acts really out of character at some moments, like praising Shimano and Dojima to Daigo or kissing Sayama before he "dies" when Haruka is waiting for him in the helicopter.
Just as a note the tvtropes pages for Yakuza 4 and Ass Pull no longer have those entries
Wow you’re right. This man single-handedly vindicated the rubber bullets twist. He’s a goddamn legend
That's amazing
@@LongSinceDead1 no it's still shit
@@ravensflockmate objectively wrong. It’s good and you’d know that if you watched the vid lol
@@DavidHosey1 nope still shit
It’s funny how it’s harder to think of a time where Kiryu isn’t fighting the Tojo Clan
He’s been fighting them since 1988. His whole life has been fighting the Tojo
That thumbnail with each character's colour is sexy.
I love this. I played Yakuza 0 then the two Kiwami's. Then i herded about the remastered of 3,4, and five. I just finished 6 when i found this and love this game. I love how this game finally gave me details of what took Majima's eye since I was waiting for it since 0. This video was very amazing and I can't wait till you get to 5.
doesn’t yakuza 0 tell you the story about majima’s eye
@@lol-ct7xw yeah it does lmao
Hamazaki became one of my favorite characters because of his redemption arc in this game, how he learned to trust others and led Saejima and Kiryu to trust him as well was a super nice end to his character since he was barely even used in 3
I love this game, it's my favorite so far
You must have really been proud of that pun
I was, obnoxiously so
are you talking about the “you shouldn’t Shun your responsibilities, Akiyama” part?
@@RedCruuve he's talking about the title (Gone Arai)
@@taysirtm_ Im a big fan of the "Something to wine about"
That woodwork would work
I'll be honest, as time went on, I couldn't for the life of me distinguish Sugiuchi and Katsuragi from each other, probably due to the latter's lack of prominence in the video by comparison. Like my brain just processed the series of events as "Sugiuchi survived somehow and grew out his hair and changed his voice".
Yakuza 4 was my introduction to the series, I couldn't understand what was going on, who these recurring characters were and why they were important, or the motives behind some characters' actions; yet I couldn't help but be entranced by everything the game had to offer: the world, the story and substories, the flair of battle, the characters, all of it made me want more. Seeing you review this game and the series as a whole makes me appreciate it all the more. Love your videos man, hope you're doing well.
Really? Right after i watched them?
Well time to do it again.
I feel lucky that I haven’t watched any of the parts yet, now I’ve got it all in one package >:)
"Giving us the memo memo in the memo menu" I don't know why but this was just really funny and I had to rewind it a few times lol
I know I'm 4 months late to the party, but I do feel like mentioning that the Amon fights in 4 are actually probably some of the easier ones.
Comparing the fights in 4 to the ones in 0 or even 5, they aren't ultra difficult. They're still hard but they are some of the easier ones by comparison. Only other thing I can say is that I've really been enjoying this series! Its nice seeing a series I love being talked about in such a detailed and clear way.
Fr, I used to have trouble with the saejima one but I just kinda used two staminans with Rage armour and went to town. Took me less than a minute. I realized how easy this one was. Amon is kind of a bitch tho
in fairness to tvtropes, which I do love, I think the problem is people sensing something is wrong with a twist and not knowing how to frame it. For me, I was bothered by the idea of rubber bullets at close range not being lethal. A blank at close range can be a lethal.
That's fair, but given the amount of times a punch should do more damage in cutscenes that it actually does im willing to accept it, some people have a higher sense of suspension of disbelief
I think this is the longest RUclips video I have seen that held my attention fully from start to finish. I sat down and watched this for 3 and a half hours, yet I enjoyed all of it. For that, I commend you, the snake
I legit thought when Yasuko was found at the club I was like, it’s just a lookalike right it’s not actually her right?
When I found out it was actually her I was like bro wtf is that plot convinience
All the talk about skipping town. She's obvious just there so Tanimura could catch up with her.
I'm glad I wasn't the only one thinking this when I saw this play out. I was like "Ah, they're doing this set-up, alright, a bit cliche but Yakuza/Like a Dragon is full of them so I'll bite," but, nope, it's Lily/Yausko despite claiming she was leaving town immediately. Also, I'm sorry, but why would she leave the 100 million yen in her trunk? In a town that is full of criminals and deviants? (With a substory that directly involves a thief breaking into cars as well?)
One of my biggest problems with the main story of Yakuza 4 is the amount of plot convenience this game relies on. I fully accept that sometimes you need these for the sake of the story. They aren't bad, but when the narrative seems to be full of them, it just muddies the water in terms of story structure. A few examples would be the aforementioned Lily just casually working in some random hostess club... that also happens to be one of the few Tanamura was exorting monthly tributes from since they knownly hired illegal immigrants which is a federal crime in Japan.
Sejima and Hamazaki both not only survive falling into the sea but end up at Morning Glory of all places. This wouldn't be so bad if Okinawa wasn't a go-to hotspot for beaches and sun. There are tons of beaches dotting that beautiful island nation, and they just happened to wash up at Kiryu's beach? How convenient. It's just a lot of these smaller plot holes and conveniences that kinda drag the game's narrative down.
Still a great game, and a vast improvement over 3's combat system, but Yakuza 3's story was, in my opinion, better than 4's simply because they didn't try to make it this grand web of lies, corruption, betryals and inner clan conflict. It was just a simple conspiracy involving a shady crime organization from America... that's it. Sure there was inner clan drama and politics, but they didn't try to make it into this deep multi-web conspiracy, and it was still interesting, still fun to go through. 4's story felt bloated and had pointless reveals.
I don't mean to bash the game, I enjoyed it so much more over 3. What brought Yakuza 3 down was the combat, especially coming from Kiwami 2. But the story and substories made up for it in some regard. Here, the story is interesting, but it felt like the writers tried to do too much at once and not a lot landed for me because of the decision to have four protagonists.
Thank you. I been waiting for long super in depth Yakuza video series and you made my days. Please keeping it up just so i can i can hear these as I game
Yakuza 4 was my first Yakuza game.
I loved it.
And while it was great even for someone who hadn't played it before, I missed out on a LOT of series fan-service.
Especially the fight between Saejima and Kiryu didn't have the effect on me it absolutely SHOULD have.
Hey man, been watching your videos for a while and I have to say, between this, your Greedfall video, and your Neuro video, your recent work has been absolutely stellar. I've already rewatched this particular set of videos twice now, and I was surprised to find that the length of them never felt indulgent or overly detailed, keeping a good sense of pacing throughout the long runtime and keeping me engaged with a good sense of when to switch from synopsizing to discussing game systems to thematic analysis in a way other channels often struggle with. You've been very quickly becoming one of my favourite channels, and I'm beyond excited to see what you'll bring to the table in your next project. Keep up the good work!
I hope you've seen the Boiling Point analysis, it was really up there!
@@czarkusa2018 I've watched all of his videos, and as much as I enjoyed his older work, his recent stuff has been fantastic, with substantially better scripts being a huge part of the improvement. His writing has been consistently getting sharper, wittier, and better paced. He's always been good at portraying the experience of playing a game in retrospect, but his thematic analysis and humor has been getting more and more time to truly shine
Honestly the next one could be 10 hrs for all I care. I'm loving watching these as play them. Personally like having things to watch/listen to for longer periods of time
You know what is an ass pull: How the hell did Arai get away with shooting Munakata in his office in the police station?
Everyone at the station knows Munakata carries a gun with rubber bullets.
Late to this, but my girlfriend just played 3-5 after playing 0, Kiwami, and Kiwami 2. She didn't like how stiff the characters were, and got frustrated when attack animations would continue while missing enemies.
She enjoyed 5 the most, it did feel closest to 0.
I started with 4, so I love this video. Thanks for sharing. I loved the 4 character plots coming together. Going back to it after playing 0 through 3, I found my new context made it more enjoyable. Loved going through it a second time.
That makes sense. 0, K1 and K2 are all new engine games, so 3-5 feeling different is natural because the collection is just a remaster
Your channel needs to grow! You make such enjoyable and comprehensive content it's a mystery why aren't more people watching.
Not sure why my brain was sure this was going to be some 6 hour thing, all the parts felt so thick with detail. This is definitely going on my 'things to listen to when grinding through games' playlist
Overviewing the game only having completed 8% of it? CHARLATAN!
I kid, RUclips wouldn't be the same without you man.
Came back after finishing, just to say I'm glad you appreciated how over the top and ridiculous the story gets. Especially the rubber bullets! I loved the rubber bullets. That was a fun plot twist.
I've already played this game twice, and your video made me feel like it would be worth it to go back and experience the substories, along with the whole story, one more time.
ALSO Saejima may be slow, but once he finds a motorcycle to throw, the fight is over in seconds and I loved that everytime.
“Jingu Christ and the Twelve Armored Apostles” New favorite line
Hamazaki meeting Kiryu again was such a great scene.
I am so glad that you defended the rubber bullets twist. I agree fully that it gets undeserved hate.
I just finished 4. Even if I don't play 5-7, I would feel satisfied.
That walk to the Tower and the helicopter entrance is so badass ngl
I watched this. All of this. 3 hours, 30 minutes and 20 seconds for the game that I never had a chance to play in a series that I deeply cared - and I felt like the time I watched this didn't go to waste. It's a deep insight into Y4 as a whole and the entire series for comparisons. And you know what? I stumbled across this video RANDOMLY. Your channel has some, good shits that I wouldn't have find normally at anywhere else. For this video, or an in-depth review : Your commentaries, your opinions, everything about it is just so good. And you don't even put a mid-ad roll in the video. It's 100% uncut, purely materialized. This makes me love Yakuza even more. Words cannot describe this alone - you have to watch this.
3 hours, 20 minutes and 20 seconds. It's long, but for a game like Yakuza - this would have been dragged for longer. But you did your best to compress it and still makes it as good as possible to enjoy, to understand and to - most importantly - express your opinion. And I watched all of this shit for 3 fucking hours and nearly a half, what the fuck?
I enjoyed it so much. I wish I had the chance to fully experience the rest of the series - from Yakuza 3 to Yakuza 6. But for now, patience is the key. Looking forward for your Yakuza 5 in-depth video as well as 6.
And fuck TV Tropes.
Love the time and effort you put into this. Informative as heck and your way of analysis is so cool. You deserve much more credit, thanks for the great content.
I'm surprised he went the whole review without even bringing up Tanimura's face and voice change.
Yeah. It was do to the original voice actor under suspicion for drug possession.
@@GenAqua And it was proven to be false accusations too. Poor guy.
@@cleversmart0303 That ticks me off.
@@cleversmart0303 Yep and he left the industry both for the stress of the accusations and because of the way Japanese culture works meant that even though it was false, he might as well have actually done it because you have to be perfect in everything, even in things you can't control.
2:10:34 We dont see blood splatter at all when Saejima shoots them, but we do when Katsuragi shoots them
These Yakuza's critiques have become my reward for finishing each game in the series.
I'm a relatively new fan of the series, but I already hate how many people kind of trivialize the series as being just silly games with silly protagonists: I love the emotional depth of each game's story and it's the main reason I'm a fan of the series (I still try to complete as much of the side content as I can). I appreciate these videos because they always give justice to the stories, defending them from some superficial arguments against them.
Funnily enough, while Yakuza 3's video helped me understanding some of its themes, I didn't need that for Yakuza 4, despite its more convoluted plot: it's not that difficult to wrap your head around Arai's multiple betrayals when you understand that, like Daigo, he wanted to rebuild the Tojo from the ground up.
The rubber bullets twist is not as bad as people liked to think, but the story still has too many contentious points, making me liking it less than 0, 2 and 3. Even so, it has so many good moments: I actually liked how Hamazaki's death was portrayed (especially as it serves as a way for Haruka to understand Kiryu's willingness to forgive people) and I think Akiyama false death was both funny and a nice subversion of much of previous games' sad scenes.
It will be a while before I'll play Yakuza 5, but I'm excited to being able, for once, to see the next video(s) in the series as soon as it comes out, assuming it's going to be about Yakuza 0. I'm especially interested in seeing how Sagawa will be analyzed, as I think it's one of the most misunderstood characters in the series. I'm looking forward to it!
Gotta love the fact I knew that “knight of the wind” was playing in the mahjong parlor, before you even mentioned sonic.
I like that song.
Even in Yakuza 2 I never thought Daigo would have made a good chairman and this game proved it.
Kazuma really is a horrible judge of character
he's a typical video game protagonist in that regard, he trusts everyone because it rewards you with plot points, items and xp.
he also is responsible for choosing Terada to be the fifth chairman and we all know how that went
Daigo did nothing wrong
Except fucking over Majima
You dont fuck over the best protag
I mean, Daigo did decent in 5, I feel.
He saw something was wrong and went into hiding, acting out his own counterplan
1:47:11 Tehsnakerer just casually predicted a meme more than a year in advance
The intro to the Sugiuchi fight is still one of the best in the series, so exciting to watch.
Thank you for making these videos so in depth. I’ve wanted to experience the story in some capacity myself but financial constraints have really made it near impossible to get into the older games for the most part. I plan to give them a proper playthrough in the future but I’m glad I can walk away from these videos appreciating what the series does vicariously through a well worded and well spoken review like this.
Thanks for all these yakuza reviews I'm going through the whole series right now 👍
I first found your channel from your Playing Yakuza 1 video. I've been amazed at how well you can keep someone watching your hour plus videos, they are extremely well paced. I appreciate the deeper analysis on the ramen shootout since I remember the internet reaction to the reveal, it wasn't very pretty; I think it would've sat better to people if the story didn't repeatedly shoot characters only to have them reappear later on. Thank you for making this series, I look forward to seeing your video on Yakuza 5, as well as any other videos you make!
When I made my first comment I was around 3/5th of the way through the video and was in a call, so I couldn't fully formulate my thoughts.
Now that I have the time, let me say that I REALLY enjoyed the entire video and I'm gonna be a subscriber from now on.
Not only was it very well written from an interpretative standpoint, the humour and jokes you sprinkled in were also VERY funny with how well they were timed or a part of the meta-narrative of the review itself.
I'm normally not a fan of long videos because I dislike long sitting and listening (more of a dialouge guy, well, socratic dialouge, where I go "Yes, Socrates, that is correct" once in a while), but I've thoroughly enjoyed it.
Especially the interpretation and analyzation of the Rubber Bullet twist and the implications within was VERY well written and thought out. While I always liked this twist, even I sometimes thought that it feels far fetched at certain points. I tend to forget, that, as you put it, "A character making a mistake or miscalculation is not a fault of the writing". Since the characters themselves imply their unhappiness with the results, it now becomes clear to me that... well, that's exactly what was the case.
I might show this video to a friend of mine who I've been trying to get into Yakuza (he loves Metal Gear Solid, so I thought Yakuza was just his wavelength).
All in all, I'm glad ya went balls out on this video.
You are mad, but in a good way.
Man watching all of these yazuka is a wonderful way to spend the day off
"Just get used to 'Yume'."
Kono Giorno Giovanna Niwa *YUME* ga aru.
Is thAt a GODDAmED JojO referEnce
@@nancyabsalon9436 no
Started watching as I went to bed, woke up, continued, man was this long! But such a good video. Awesome man!
Going back and rewatching this after 5... the seeds of yume were sown into a large field and they reapped every last grain of it from 4 to 5.
as someone who started off with kiwami about 5 years ago, forgot that i owned it like halfway through and picked it along with the rest of the series back up at the beginning of this year, the transition from kiwami 2 to 3 was rough and probably ended up making me dislike 3 more than i probably would've. to be honest the more i think about my time with 3 the more i appreciate it's more personal story that relates more to it's main character than most of the other games. yakuza 4 though has always been my least favorite for having by far the worst story in my opinion, the least interesting side quests and side content in general, the worst final boss by a mile, and only having one city that you play in across 4 different characters. of course it introduced saejima and akiyama who are amazing as well as improved the combat system that would go on to be one of my favorites in 5 (which is still an incredibly flawed game but i do absolutely love it). also i loved all the stuff with hamazaki in this game, though i do wish you got at least one more scene with him before he dies. yakuza 4 is the most boring one to me easily, but it feels blasphemous to call any yakuza game "bad", i just feel this one didn't stack up to any of the others.
I love this video essay series on Yakuza and have rewatched a few times. It's witty, thoughtful, and thorough. I played through the series and watched these as I went to help process and organize my thoughts as well and see your perspective. Great work 👍
"It won't be as long as this video" he says, while I scroll down the suggested videos and see the Yakuza 5 video at 7 and a half hours long.
You do a good job defending the rubber bullets twist. I still don't really like it, but now I don't have any strong argument as for why lol. I think the real issue is the rubber bullets themselves being a weird mechanism for that kind of twist. The twist itself is so over-the-top, but the idea of rubber bullets is kind of grounded (at least, its a grounded idea to me), so it invites extra questions like "What if Saejima shot Katsuragi in the eyeball?" and it just comes off as unnecessarily set-up for the viewer instead of the characters. You could tweak a few things around and have the twist be more or less the same, like maybe Saejima has real bullets, but his bosses gave him a picture of the target that turns out to be the wrong guy (so he wouldn't know Katsuragi and his boss were hiding somewhere else).
I say this liking the rubber bullets: the issue with them I noted was that it makes Saejima feel less interesting, in a way. He's meant to sort of oppose Kiryu, and him having killed 18 people makes that work a lot better. The reveal he didn't kill anybody feels... off.
That said, I did notice the soup wasn't blood the first time, and made a mental note of it, but assumed the bullets still killed for some reason. The reveal was more of an "aha!" for me than anything else.
Yakuza 4 was my first game in the series, and I had assumed all Yakuza games had this type of melodramatic Lifetime movie plot. It seems to me a lot of fans who weren't niche fans from the PS2 days either got started on Y0 or Y4. Y0 for obvious reasons, but I think Y4 because the early PS2 games were very janky, Y4 had the rain graphics as a way of advertising the power of the PS3, and for people who knew very little of Yakuza, Y3 was the "bad one" because of the cut content in the English version.
Yoooooo, this is sick, man. You did an amazing job and you deserve every single view and subs for your amazing work.
Just wanted to say I love your videos and appreciate the time and effort it takes to put these videos out
I started the series with Yakuza 0, went through kiwami 1, kiwami 2 and yakuza 3 remastered. Currently on 4. It definetly was a shift, going from kiwami 2 to yakuza 3 remastered. The way it controls, makes you really aware that you are playing a game from the ps 3 generation. But at least for me that was the biggest thing to get used to. I enjoy good graphics but they've never stopped me from enjoying older games. Additionally it was already a pretty big shift from kiwami 1 to kiwami 2. Dragon engine Kyriu controls vastly different than kiwami 1 kyriu. On the other hand I found a lot to appreciate about yakuza 3, while it's not quite there yet, but the fun sidestory design of yakuza 0 finally shows it's head again in yakuza 3 with some of the better sidequests, while only the few sidestories that were added specifically for the kiwami games have this quality in kiwami 1 and kiwami 2. Though being used to the very well designed mega-sidequests, like host club management and real estate, from 0 and kiwami 2, the hostess maker sidestory in yakuza 3 is a bit jarring. Especially since it is soooo long. Do the same thing, but 5 times in a row with different women. Yakuza 3 in general has a bit of a quantity over quality issue. A lot of it's systems are fun, but have way too much repetetive content. 10 different hostesses to date. The restaurants have twice or even three times as many food items on the menu compared to previous games and now there is no perk to eat without being damaged. And you can only eat 1 thing at a time. Kiwami 2 actually had a similar problem with the bouncer missions that just. would. not. end.
3:08:26 I stand by my previous statement about my ambivalence towards that pun.
you'd think Arai would know what a bullet wound looks like on a man.
That part at the skyscraper really needed imogen hill playing over it for how many people get shot in derpy melodramatic ways.
Also Majima, Kiryu and both of the Saejima's are looking pretty good and moving well for people at least in their mid 40's, probably closer to early 50's. XD
I think their all around 41. Kiryu is 41 here so I’d assume majima and saejima are pretty close
@@skidzzthewiz9226 Majima is 4 or 5 years older than Kiryu with Saejima being a year or two behind Majima I believe.
@@edwardarroyo884 Majima is one year older than Saejima and four years older than Kiryu. As for how well they move, well, you underestimate the power of Staminan X
@@jorgehenriq Staminan Royales more like lol.
@@edwardarroyo884 now that's the real good stuff
As someone whos been slowly but surely getting through the series starting with 0 and playing them in chronological order, I've honestly been having a blast. I've greatly appreciated this series of videos, as they've been incredibly fun to watch while reflecting on the games, contrasting my opinion and seeing the games in ways I didn't consider. Though in answer to your question, my brief opinions are: 3 was decent, 4 was awesome, 5 was pretty good, haven't played 6 yet and I am very excited for 7
Tbh you like janky systems with interesting ideas:
That's RUclips in a nuthsell. well.. at least if we ignore googles idea of youtube..
TBF even TehSnakerer has his limits with how much jank he's willing to put up with, interesting ideas be damned.
I've just beaten Yakuza 4, and instead of pondering about the game, I'm watching your review/retrospective/analysis/essay/opinions on it. And man, Saejima made me very emotional, despite not being the best character to play as. The coliseum cutscene, him meeting Sasai, there's something on looking at a big man cry with emotion that touches me.
not sure if you will discuss this when you get to Yakuza Zero:
Kuze: Kiryu... You plan on making an enemy of the Tojo Clan?
Kiryu: You lay one goddamn finger on Makoto Makimura... and I'll bury the Tojo Clan. I'll crush it down to the last man. This I swear to you!
kind of puts Daigo in an interesting light. kiryu's fuck up? or subconcious fulfillment to his Oath of Enma?
I'm gonna touch on Kiryu's relationship to the Tojo a bit in 5, 0, and 6 because similar moments happen. I sort of see Kiryu as having an ideal that he's aware the Tojo never fully live up to, he saw Daigo as a man who could genuinely steer it closer to the honourability he wanted but it's so full of rats at all times that it can never truly fit his ideals.
Kiryu makes it clear time and again that it's less about the Tojo itself and more about what it means to be Yakuza regardless of clan affiliation, what Yakuza should stand for and all of that, and as he gets older and wants out of the life, he just wants these people out of his and Haruka's life but they keep dragging him back in.
I've not finished 7 yet, on chapter 10, but I've heard some big stuff happens as it gets deeper.
I'm a newer fan who just finished the game, i really enjoyed this game, the variety of characters is a fun addition, you can tell that it is older in terms of gameplay, but you can tell that they improved so much from 3, I just have 2 or 3 games to finish in time for 7! My favorite moment when playing was when in a police scanner mission, I saved a man from jumping off a building by throwing him off of it.
Thanks dude, I was super confused during the ending because I didn’t understand all the boss motivations. This video gave me what I needed to know.
The whole video is great, it's not missing a beat as far as the story explanation goes and it gets into very nice details, great scripts but some stuff about the gameplay is off, i'm not saying you're bad or playing yakuza wrong but some bits are obviously pointing out over a lack of understanding of the game mechanics.
It's not big but i must admit the last Boss triggered me a little bit so here's why i think this Boss fight is bad but not in the way you explain in the video. I did it on Hard mode and forgot to load potions on him so i had to learn the WAY the devs intended the fight to be played.
Tanimura is not very strong, i agree its only damaging tools are the extended heat moves on command. I haven't maxed him out too in my first playthrough cause the story started to feel a little bit too much so i wanted to finish it quickly on Tanimura's side.
The key of that character is the good old core mechanic of 2D beat em ups : I-FRAMES,
First of all, you have to ignore the Boss, he's useless, slow and have no armor/tools to beat you beside his ridiculous gun shots that (Compared to WAY MUCH worse armed enemies in the series) Have a very simple "tell" with audio cue and slow movement, even on hard mode, allowing you to dodge it 100% of the time. You have to unlock the roll though to make it easier cause sometimes the dash can mess up depending on your angle.
Next the swarm of enemies, your only tool here against goons are, the MASSIVE I-frames you get from the extended grab. You grab someone into an arm lock, you're totally invincible during the process, everyone misses their attacks, you press again even while the Boss shoots you, you get more I-frames and avoid the rest, the movement causing enough knockback for the crowd to be spaced and allowing you to escape with dodges.
You repeat this until you get the QTE, kill everyone but the elites. So there's like 2-3 elite guys, 2 of them are 100% grab free so you can play it extra safe and keep doing this strat on them too.
One of the elite got sometimes an anti grab reaction, this guy is super fast, counter quickly and offers you little to no combos beside 1hit/Triangle/Heat however there's 3 things you can do, you can either do the short combo and stun him, leaving you enough time to go to the Boss for a combo, then get back to the elite. Do the grab thing with a small % of failure (you can get shot by the boss i guess here) or you can use the walls to counter him into a wall bounce and quickly follow up with a full combo + heat move.
I found that fight very easy but i have to say those fights are terrible in a way cause they force the player to be only using 1 set of tools instead of being free to adapt and find strategies that suits their gameplay. You're forced to do the same action over and over and it feels like pretty much all the bullshit Amon fights in a nutshell. You have to exploit the cheesiest strats to get the best of them and for a main storyline Boss i find that extremely cheap (same as recycling QTE actions and previous Boss patterns and AI)
I'm so appreciative that a highly comprehensive video like this exists, especially since you reserve most of the space for analysis and theming. You brought up some parallels that passed me by when I played through this recently, so I wanna return the favor by bringing up something for the comments that stuck out to me but wasn't covered here. Something that really stuck with me as I was being introduced to each of the new protagonists is that just like each one's fighting style borrows from the base combat with a hard lean into a certain playstyle, thematically they each mirror an aspect of Kiryu that is seen as admirable/virtuous, along with its vulnerabilities. Akiyama is overly trusting and effortlessly strives to see the good in people but over and over again his trust is betrayed, not just in the past but presently with every major character in his part of the game aside from Hana, who he never acknowledges as he should despite how long she's been on his side. He might be virtuously trusting but he's repeatedly shown as a poor judge of character, much as Kiryu has been concerning the Tojo. As Suguichi states near the beginning of the game, waving around so much cash is a catalyst for crime itself and ultimately, Akiyama's war chest (that he never even bothered to lock up) is the prize that stirs the final conflict of the game, and it would have never been in jeopardy had he taken literally any precaution whatsoever against Kido instead of relying on their trust. Saejima's circumstances have obvious parallels but his biggest similarity with Kiryu is his unbreakable sense of loyalty and conviction, but much like Kiryu in the past, his convictions are easily manipulated and he has suffered greatly for it. Tanimura, like Kiryu, is a devoted caretaker who works to provide for underprivileged children that would otherwise fall through the cracks. Also like Kiryu, he has basically zero regard for self preservation to the point that Tanimura has no regard for reputation or even his own life if it was in service of Little Asia, even if his absence would be far more devastating than any short term reward could justify.
Wonderful comment, despite digging into the characters so much myself and even stirring more on the story in the years since I never really caught these aspects.
I was wondering why you hadn't uploaded in 3 months but that mystery's been cleared up. Sucks that youtube isn't showing your videos to subscribers but on the brightside now I have 3 and a half hours of yakusa goodness
A nice surprise, however unfortunate on my end, enjoy!