A fun detail about Nishiki's tattoo: In the old days in Japan, the red ink for tattoos was derived from poisonous substances, so it hurts like a BITCH. That means that the more red you have in your tattoo, the more of a tough guy you are for being able to take the pain. IMO that fits Nishiki pretty well, since he's obsessed with his image and showing off his power
I love that the English Dub for Yakuza 7 managed to track down Kiryu's English voice actor from the first games and cast him again. It's nothing short of amazing.
Not only him, Bill Farmer (who played Date and is also the offical voice actor of Goofy) returned. They even tried to get Mark Hamill and John DiMaggio as Majima and Kashiwagi respectably but both declined for various reasons.
@@joshuaatehortua7352 He has done a lot of voice work over the years so sometimes roles he played doesn't enter his mind. Plus if you look up how the dub was made for 1, you honestly can't blame him for forgetting. They just recorded the dub with no context for the actors and did it as fast as possible. So it's no wonder that the dub was bad, it's just that it's hard for Mark Hamill to put in a bad performance.
@@backtoklondike Aw man, would've absolutely ruled if Hamil reprised the role. Majima being voiced by fucking Luke Skywalker has always been one of my favorite tidbits about the series.
"YOU HAVE NO EVIDENCE! YOU'RE BLUFFING SO LET ME GIVE YOU SOME ACTUAL FUCKING EVIDENCE OF MYSELF SHOOTING MY ILLEGAL GUN AT A POLICE HELICOPTER FULL OF OFFICERS!"
Crime dad, with special importance sometimes placed on your dad being sad. If the game awards people were told that Yakuza 7 was actually a sad dad game, it would've won every award.
@@ryanhernandez1877 Resident Evil was originally called Biohazard in Japan, so RE7 is combining the two different names of the franchise. Also I believe it's called Biohazard 7: Resident Evil in Japan.
@@RycoreXIII It's really weird. Biohazard actually is more of an appropriate title since the zombies are caused by bioweapons, while 'Resident Evil' implies some supernatural element, yet resident evil actually works for the seventh installment due to wondering around a house of a corrupted and psychopathic family, an 'evil residence' if you will.
@@sexualyeti7023 Yeah, you're right. "Resident Evil" only really made sense for any of the RE games that took place in mansions and other similar locations. Although there are marketing reasons for why both Yakuza and Resident Evil were given completely different names in the West. For Resident Evil, there was concern about releasing a game called Biohazard in the west because they were worried about potential copyright infringement lawsuits, as there was a band called Biohazard around that time, so they changed the name of the games to avoid any possible legal trouble. As for the Yakuza games, Sega's Western marketing department thought that selling a game called "Like A Dragon" about a man who fist fights criminals to protect a child and find his long lost lover would be tough. So their solution was to rebrand it as the Japanese equivalent to GTA and Mafia. IMO this was the opposite of what they should've done, because even today, the franchise still hasn't managed to completely shed that false stigma of being a GTA clone.
Its pretty damn impressive how well they updated the models and kept their looks in Kiwami. They had a vision and kept it consistent all throughout the series, thats some real passion.
@@rimaq_ too bad that it resulted in an ugly bastard child that is Kiwami 1. Adding majima everywhere and combat styles from zero was such a big mistake. I would play Yakuza original on ps2 over kiwami any day of the week.
Kiwami characterizes Majima some more with the introduction of the Dragon fighting style and only able to improve it by fighting him in "Majima Everywhere" events. He comes off less of a psychopath who wants to kill Kiryu, and more of a weird friend/rival to Kiryu who just wants to spar with him. He's also much more light-hearted and actually kind of funny. This is coming from a new-comer of the series.
It's an odd thing, since every game has made him more and more sympathetic and generally likeable, so when it swings around to a total remake of the first game where he's originally more intimidating and psychopathic it goes for mixing the two.
i got a real goku and vegeta style of rivalry between the two. both wanting to use the other to improve but one is way more willing to kill the other compared to the other one which is generally more powerful and forgiving.
But even as a when I played the kiwami for the first, it felt off when the original scenes played. Original had him characterized as a deranged and unhinged lunatic. So when they play after the majima everywhere's, it just feels unnatural and tonally off. It's strange. This is one of the few bad tonal clashing in the series. And this series is praised for tones clashing
@@teneesh3376 and it also undermines his fake death, in the original you go quite a while believing he's dead and when he show ups again its impactful. With majima everywhere, you immedeatly know hes not dead and his return has zero impact.
@@eldenlean5221 oh yeah. That fight sequence before majima came back felt so forced. Even when plauing kiwami before the original, something felt wrong
I think the original intention behind the back tattoos were that they did actually grant their bearers slight supernatural powers in the form of heat. In the early games, the only enemies that ever have a heat aura or use heat actions are other yakuza with back tattoos. That always made the "dragon and carp" thing hit a little differently for me. Same with Ryuji's dragon in Yakuza 2. That seems to be the case up through Yakuza 3 at least.
Date is voiced by Sam from Sam and Max Hit the Road. What the hell is with that voice actor and playing overly cynically bent but ultimately well-intended police?!
@@jlfajsdlfjaslfdj I mean, maybe he does. We're operating off the assumption that he doesn't remember it off of a screenshot somebody sent him of Majima, instead of something SIGNIFICANTLY more useful like some actual audio of Majima from Y1.
@@LordRobaZe Not really? He's not going to remember the look of a one-off character he played in 2005, who didn't even have a huge presence in the game. Mahima shows up, like, three times in Y1. The intro, the batting cages, the whorehouse. What he's most likely to remember is his recording sessions, which he would probably recall if he had got to hear his performance instead. Prolific voice actors obviously play a lot of characters. It's strange to expect them to remember the *look* of every single one of them, considering they spend less time looking at the character than we do.
I feel it would be great if you worked on the story in the same detail as you did with this video in the future. It doesnt harm the video and makes it more interesting as the story is what i love about the Yakuza games.
Duly noted, I do worry that people would get bored or if the recap gets dry, but on the other I do also worry I don't present enough information or miss necessary set up for later twists and turns. I'm glad to know you're good with it though.
Im not sure if that Sidestory was in the original but the Assasinatiom Order by Sera is actually explained really well in a Sidestory in Kiwami. Essentially Sera knew someone would try to kill Kazuma for being a Patriach killer and therefore decided to send a Hitman himself to claim that this was his and only his Job, he wanted Kiryu to survive and by only expulsing him be able to comr back to the clan after he was out of prison.
gambling only giving you prizes to go to the pawn shop with is cool because thats how gambling really works in japan due to weird legal loopholes. ps we miss you
Mark Hamill as Majima is proof that it doesn't matter what language you hear him in, Majima is always the best thing. IIIIIKKKUUUU DEEEEEEEEE, KIRYU-CHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-
Coming back to this video after seeing the start of the first of the Yakuza 5 coverage. Have to say, this does feel like quite a beginning. From the way you tell the story, Yakuza One gives the feeling a very tense manhunt. Kiryu is with few allies, and the situation always seeming to develop more grimly as it goes on. And the Tojo feel like a different beast from what they'd be later entries. Even amidst the backstabbing and infighting, they feel like a constant threat. I'd have to say if you told that the man you play as here was going to be dodging rocket launchers later on, I'd be giving you looks. While there is a clear tone difference that goes between games, I feel it lends to a sense of progression as it went. Kiryu's come a long way from being exiled in disgrace for a murder he didn't commit. Just want to say thanks for covering this series, as well as other games in general. And I appreciate the depth in which you cover them. More than anything, I enjoy hearing your thoughts on the games's stories. It gives me something to chew on and stew. It's been a journey, and I'm happy to be allowed to join in for the ride. I apologize for the disjointed nature of this comment. It's two in the morning at time of posting.
What i did to counter the bad dub was this amazing playlist that someone made that had the original Japanese Dub with the English subtitles ready on my phone for whenever a cutscene started
I feel like getting moved from the homicide unit to an organized crime unit for delving deeply into an organized crime-related murder isn't so much a demotion as a lateral movement for organizational reasons.
@@smokingone I don't feel the same way, but I can see why. I don't mind the dubs for Judgement and FotNS: Lost Paradise, but can easily see why people prefer the sub. Hell, I'm torn on when I eventually play Yakuza 7 to go sub or dub. I'll probably go back and forth.
@@kinnikudash385 it's hard to nail a dub and yakuza games are famous for their overacted male drama, which the english voice actors don't portray near as well as the japanese ones, and it may just be due to bad direction on segas part, but i far prefer the japanese versions.
Date's voice actor is the guy who voiced Sam in the Sam & Max: Hit the road! Man, I love his voice. But yeah, it's definitely a good thing they stuck with the japanese VO from here on out. ^^
Holy hell, the transition at 2:57, amazing! Jokes aside, once they port the games over to the PC or the Switch I'll be the first in the queue to get it! Those games look like the second coming of Buddha.
It's weird considering they're big violent crime thrillers but the Switch would make a really nice home for some of the Yakuza titles, hell the Wii U had HD ports of 1 & 2. But yeah, I'm ever hopeful these games will one day get a PC release.
Oh cool, didn't know the Wii U had those ports, shame they did poorly. Anyways, I wonder if your translation guide will help you with this: あなたのヴィデオはとてもすごいですよ。これチャンネルがたい好きだ。実は、今年日本に行きますから、毎日日本語をたくさん勉強します。
It would be nice to have the original untouched versions of the first 5 on Switch, to play on the go. I don't think 6 or Kiwami would run on it though. There was a PS3 version of Zero to port.
I've been watching this review in pieces while I played through Kiwami, mainly so I could see what was copied from the original and what they changed (and to hear Snake's thoughts on the story as I went through it). A great review as always. I have to say, separating the story and gameplay sections in the timestamps was such a nice move, so thanks for that. Can't wait to do the same thing for the rest of the series.
This was in Kiwami rather than actual yakuza 1, but When I got to the Cho-han bit with Haruka, the entire thing was so incredibly confusing for me because I'd guess what Haruka guesses, and we'd lose. Every time. And then suddenly we lose and Kiryu is all suspicious after that specific loss, and none of it made sense to me until my friend explained that she's supposed to be right with her guesses. it just glitched for me.
Story wise this game probably the one Yakuza game the team have zero thought for a sequel that it causes too much people die that wasn't really needed in the first place like Reina, i mean let be honest here the mama of New Serena is 100% Reina in different skin because "oops Serena might be an important spot in Kamurocho for the MCs but Reina died so how we bring her back"
Whelp, this video took up my boring time at Christmas! Well done Snake, fantastic to see this finally and you know my love of the series (3 and onwards). It's interesting to see how it all started, may be a bit difficult for me to adapt to but thankfully the story is usually a good time.
Good to hear from you again Tem, I think most people came into the series at 3 (I was one of them, only played the earlier titles after 4) and it's strange to go back to but quite a rewarding experience to see how many characters got their start, and the plot does indeed hold up.
Thanks to Kiwami that explained Nishiki motivation in this game and it’s pretty heartbreaking and you can see where Kiryu coming from in this game some of character still have some problem however
"I'll start going lighter on later entries if people want" Meanwhile, the Yakuza 5 video: 7:21:05 (To be clear, that's exactly what I want, I just think it's funny)
53:18 in Kiwami that guy instead of holding an SMG is one handing a Galil Assault Rifle, which fits the wacky nature of the later entries WAAAAY more, as one handing a heavy rifle like that is ridiculous.
I'd recently been looking for a good Yakuza retrospective, and I just now discovered this. What a good video! I'll be watching any others you have too :D
In my own writing, I've always used "it's worth noting" and "mind you", but never once thought to just use "mind". I tried it out for the first time tonight, and it feels like a really great simplification, so I remain very glad that I continue to watch your videos. One of these days when I actually have extra cash, I need to subscribe to your patreon.
That's good to hear, while I can't be certain of it I think just saying "mind" in place of "mind you" is a mostly English contraction? I've not heard people from other backgrounds say it much
I'm one of those who have been playing Yakuza since the very first one, and I thought it was a good game at the time. I haven't played it in a long time, but I have played Yakuza Kiwami recently, which I guess pretty much renders this game obsolete.
I'm a bit late to the party, but not only does Kiwami NOT render this game obsolete, it's such a sloppy, rushed mesh that constantly has issues with the original game's design and 0's design clashing in spectacularly frustrating, tedious fashion, with absurdly obvious filler thrown into a game that REALLY didn't need it. It also practically commits character assassination against Nishiki, transforming him from having been so deeply cynical and distrustful that he frankly ruined any hope he ever had of getting any sort of real fulfillment outside of attaining power, and into... well, a bitch, that cries and grovels constantly and just becomes mean because he's really mad that everyone keeps telling him he sucks and Kiryu was better. I would classify Kiwami as the one and only *BAD* game in the series (well, maybe Dead Souls is bad, too, I dunno, haven't played it yet), with the original Yakuza being... well, it's not good either, it's very annoying at times, but it feels SO much more cohesive and it's less of a slog to get through. I'm not likely to ever recommend either version of the original story to someone to play, I'd instead just tell them to watch it, but if they really had to play one of the two, I'd recommend the original over Kiwami easily.
@@innoclarke7435 I fully agree with what you said except for the Nishiki extra info. Making him “a bitch” did give him some personality, a fragile side, that we don’t really get to see from any characters except for Kiryu and Majima (we don’t even see much of those sides from the later protagonists). Giving him some extra backstory, although lacking, made the final fight and the general Nishiki character as a whole stand out more. Really wish they would have added more backstory to him though.
@Good Hunter Sounds to me like you need to get good, bro lmao. It's stiff, but just being even slightly adaptable will render it not much of an issue. And the camera? I don't even remember the camera being a problem. Sounds like a you issue. But hey, a significantly larger issue is Kiwami's truly awful boss fights(possibly the worst in a series with a number of not very good boss fights) with multiple health bars and regeneration, there's also inordinate amounts of padding, enemies that seem to block more than in Y3, while also breaking combos on a whim, two of the fighting styles just aren't very effective, the list just goes on and on and on. Kiwami 1 is nothing more than a game bad at being Yakuza 1 and ALSO bad at being Yakuza 0, with additional mechanics thrown in like Majima Everywhere that don't even cohesively work with the story of the game its in, and exists *purely* to pander to people that jumped into the series with Yakuza 0 that think Majima's character is all about him being le foonii majima XDDDD, even though Majima isn't particularly goofy in the vast majority of the series. Of all the games in this franchise that I've played (Y1, 2, 3, 4, 5, Kiwami, 6, Kiwami 2, Judgment, FotNS), Kiwami 1 is the *only* one I'd say is straight up a badly designed one. It's a total fucking waste. And unlike Yakuza 1's rough edges which can at least be somewhat excused by being from 2005 and the first in the series, Kiwami came around 11 years later, as the **10th** game in the series that they'd done. There's just no excuse. Prefer whatever version you like, I don't care, but just because you're too inobservant or have low enough standards not to notice Kiwami's glaring faults doesn't mean it ain't a fuckup.
@Good Hunter Whoa, whoa, whoa, the fuck. Did you just say Kiwami is better than Yakuza 2? I'm used to people saying Yakuza 3 is bad. That's also objectively incorrect, but I expect people to have bad takes about that game. But Yakuza 2 is a big step up from Yakuza 1 and still stands above a number of other games in the series. Honestly, you saying that makes it sound like you haven't even played the original Yakuza 2. That game's straight up one of the best on the entire system. It's kinda fucked up that anyone would throw the game under the bus like this, damn.
1:17:35 that was explained in a side quest. Or...at least it was, in Kiwami. But it seemed mandatory enough for me to assume it's in the original as well
I wonder if the voice actors were shown the original scenes before acting out their lines because im most certain they weren't, its not like the acting is bad. The Delivery is completely alien to the context of the scene. Its like an alternate scene is going on at the sound studio while they were recording.
When I first played this game, I often ended up in boss battles with only a sliver of health and no healing items because I was being stupid about stocking up. I had to do the fight with the guy in the red shirt with dual pistols without getting hit once and holy shit I got pretty flustered, but I eventually beat it abusing the low health heat move and completed the game. Yakuza 1 is weird in that even though I love the franchise I would also not recommend it to anyone, the game doesn't get it's stride until 2 and even then 2 is still a little clunky compared to later entries even if it is a massive improvement over the first game in nearly every single way. Thank fuck Kiwami exists so I can recommend that instead. Ishin localization never ever though.
My jokes about translation guide aside I know I've still got to import Ishin (and maybe Kenzan) at some point. For these reviews I'm going to try and go light on healing items, and maybe bump up the difficulty on later entries when the combat is a bit more smoothed out, really challenge myself on them. (Especially because I was watching a ton of EX-hard bossfight videos before editing)
I'm not sure if this was in the original or just a Kiwami addition, but there's a late-game substory that actually does explain the whole prison assassin thing.
Kashiwagi I think is played by John DiMaggio (Bender the robot) Wow...the caliber of the acting is pretty impressive! Too bad the translation is so poor.
Nice video, a pleasure to watch and I thank the author for being so thorough about the story, the narration and the story itself got me hooked in a 2 hour long video which felt like breeze by the end of it.
I just beat kiwami 1 so now I can finally watch this video. I'm currently playing through the series and I'll each video in your series as I beat each game
Many people like Yakuza 0 because it showed what great buddies Kiryu and Nishiki were, which made Yakuza 1 all the more tragic. But for me it made his betrayal questionable. Yes, he's been through some shit and Kiwami showed it, but he already realized in 0 that he's living in Kiryu's shadow and it appeared he accepted it (in fact, HE'S the one that said he's useless without Kiryu). Not to mention he had a HUGE debt to repay after Kiryu took the blame for Dojima's murder. And the first thing he does once Kiryu gets out of jail is what? Sending his goons after him? I really don't buy it.
Oh my fuckin god yes. I am so happy you made this review. Since i've heard that you were a Yakuza fan I was waiting for reviews of them. I can't wait to watch it.
Wonder of he's workin' on more Yakuza videos. LOL That's too funny "You have no evidence! You're bluffing!" *Him and heavily-armed thugs at his flanks open fire on the Police chopper* Please tell me that's some intentional humor.
I've gone through this video series many times, and I really like seeing the perspective of a long-time fan of the series. I played all of the games on Xbox starting in 2020, so I come with a totally different experience. I've only played the much updated and reworked versions of these games.
Wow, I never knew that car shootout was in the original game. I thought they added it in kiwami, mainly because 0 has a very similar segment and kiwami incorporated a lot of content from 0
I've recently played through all of the mainline Yakuza games. Not the original PS2 releases, and I've thought about it, but I honestly don't know if I can go back and do any of that. A big problem with that is the combat. I can deal with natural jank from past games well enough, but having already played Kiwami, I just don't know if I want to deal with it. Maybe if I can turn the difficulty to easy or something, but even then you still have to participate in the fights. Which is fine, to be clear. Normally I prefer to play on normal with my games, but the bosses in the Yakuza games almost always felt unfair and tanky. Sometimes they were fine, but turning the game to easy meant that I didn't have to spend half-an-hour fighting the same dude that I can't even get a hit in on. I know that people like to refer to Kiwami's combat as "Yakuza 0.5", which makes sense and I thought the same, but I still feel like I'd prefer it infinitely over the original. Half the game is fighting as well, so it's no like you can just avoid it-- which I wouldn't want to do in most games. Kiwami 2 felt great on normal, but most of the games weren't. The other big problem is the voice acting. It's always going to be touched on, because of how bad it is. To make it clear, I don't think any of the issues with the voices is down to the actors themselves. Maybe to some degree that could be the case, but the direction that they were supposedly given is so ungodly bad that it doesn't matter how good or bad any of them were. I do genuinely believe that an English dub would work just fine, I mean Yakuza: Like a Dragon did it well. It wasn't perfect in that game, but it wasn't bad by any means. Just if they actually let the voice actors do their job, then I think that this dub would have been good. Though a lot of the chosen voices don't fit as well as I'd want them to-- not that that matters given the quality. That and the terrible translation effort. So yeah, it had potential, sad. If I could play a version of the original Yakuza with fixed combat and a Japanese dub, then sure, I'd give this version a shot, but I don't know, man. That's why I'd personally always recommend Kiwami in terms of overall enjoyment.
There is a HD remaster of the original Yakuza 1. And 2 which absolutely mitigates the issues with the combat and it never came to the states unfortunately. So if you feel like porting the remasters then go right ahead but the only flaw about this is is that it released on the PS3 and the Wii u (which nobody talks about by the way.)
Hey I’m here to say I love Yakuza and even tho I already played watching you explain it fully especially with the non remastered version really makes me appreciate how far it’s actually came
Nice in depth review, i've never played the first Yakuza so it's really cool to see how much of an upgrade it got with Kiwami. Great series of games! Majima plays a much bigger part in Kiwami and he's fucking hilarious.
This is a pretty solid review. Although if I could add an addendum, if anyone is considering playing this series from beginning to end, get Zero first, then Yakuza Kiwami. I think the only missing things from the ps2 port is certain quests, for example I dont recall the painting and book quests from Kiwami, then again I didnt finish every single quest. So maybe I'm wrong, still it adds more depth, especially in consideration to Nishiki adding some scenes in the game that showcase his transformation from the Nishiki from the beginning of the game, to the more ruthless man you end up finding, it makes him more sympathetic. Double for Zero.
I half agree, I'd say it's down to what an individual wants from the series, I started at 3 back around 2010 and am a huge fan now. People can approach series any number of ways and each game in the series is fairly self contained outside of some character continuity. Going from 0 onwards in chronological order I also recommend to most newbies but you will have some gameplay whiplash, going from 0's style in 0 + Kiwami to Dragon Engine in K2 and then backwards to a refined early series style with 3, 4, and 5. There are issues and benefits regardless of how you play through the series at this point.
Does anyone else find it hysterical that when Majima takes that girl hostage, Kiryu sounds more like he's scolding a puppy than pleading/demanding he not kill her?
Whether in English or Japanese It does come off as that and sometimes I think this is also at the same time him being so done with majima's shenanigans and cutting to the chase.
I've only played one yakuza game way back when at a friends place and it was quite glorious indeed. The first ones seem pretty clunky for sure, but its great to know that the series has been only improving as time has gone by. Real glad too that they dropped the whole english dub thing. It just doesn't work when yer doing yakuza stuff. ORRAAAAA. I also love how you manage to see so much good in games that can be so damn frustrating to play at times. I wish I still had that patience. I did some years go when I went through some really weird and obscure PC titles. Some actually good/passable games and then some truly awful ones. It felt like that once you left the 2006-2010 era and went to newer, awful titles, they were just mostly pure suffering and I feel like I burnt out all my patience when it comes to good, but quite often frustrating to play games. One can endure the madness only for so long!
I don't know if it's a good quality for analysing or critiquing games but I do try and see the good in these things and don't like to be overly negative unless a game rubs me the absolute wrong way, I'm also admittedly quite easy to please in a few ways
I'm surprised you took the Jingu revelation at face value. I always thought it was implied Kiryu's adopted Dad set that up to cover for her pregnancy. It was always too coincidental that Haruka is aged 9 ten years after the events of the prologue. Kiwami seems to debunk the idea Kiryu is Haruka's father, with an added bit at the beginning. Which sadly leaves the most likely explanation that she is a Dojima. The translation in Kiwami says "He forced himself on Yumi" and not "He tried to hurt her" like it was here. Haruka possibly has claim to a high ranking place in the Tojo clan.
i do go with a bit of the translation but I perhaps should have been a bit clearer that I don't take the idea that Dojima "hurt" Yumi to just be hurting her, considering the translation I thought evven just saying hurt really heavily implied what Dojima really did, or tried to do, and thought that'd be pretty clear. I genuinely hadn't considered Dojima being Haruka's father, it would give a bit of an extra layer to Jingu's treatment of Haruka and Mizuki, it's definitely interesting. I will admit I have only played the opening few hours of Kiwami, after finishing the review I had a bit of burn out on Yakuza and didn't want to push it further what with 6 coming out soon. Thank you for your comment.
The length and amount of detail in your videos, along with you narration are the reasons I enjoy them so much. You definetly should keep the level of details, maybe even expand on some things you may deem important. I, personally, wouldn't mind. Thank you for the vids, best regards.
![Blox Fruits Dragon Rework Update [Full Stream]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/EqDAp8udhm0/mqdefault.jpg)
"Nicknamed the madman of Shimano" Mad dog ya daft fuck, absolute madman
I was about to make an angry comment. Now I have nothing to get mad about! Damn you.
Damn 2 more to go
And maybe 0 at some point😔
@@rastas_4221 As someone ignorant of this series, yes that's exactly his name to me.
*absolute mad dog
A fun detail about Nishiki's tattoo: In the old days in Japan, the red ink for tattoos was derived from poisonous substances, so it hurts like a BITCH. That means that the more red you have in your tattoo, the more of a tough guy you are for being able to take the pain. IMO that fits Nishiki pretty well, since he's obsessed with his image and showing off his power
Looking at Kuze's tatoo, it makes alot more sense on how he was able to endure all those fights with Kiryu.
Raising the number of random encounters is the most realistic way alcohol was ever done in a game.
and gta4
@@Bagginsess Which I much prefer to 5. Drink driving in that was hilarious.
@@Grandmastergav86 loved drunk cop chases.
"Oi, you wanna fight?" *every drunk person, ever*
@@Bagginsess The ragdoll really was, the drunk driving wans't.
I love that the English Dub for Yakuza 7 managed to track down Kiryu's English voice actor from the first games and cast him again. It's nothing short of amazing.
Not only him, Bill Farmer (who played Date and is also the offical voice actor of Goofy) returned. They even tried to get Mark Hamill and John DiMaggio as Majima and Kashiwagi respectably but both declined for various reasons.
@@backtoklondike Mark Hamill didn’t even remember voicing Majima 🥲
@@joshuaatehortua7352 He has done a lot of voice work over the years so sometimes roles he played doesn't enter his mind. Plus if you look up how the dub was made for 1, you honestly can't blame him for forgetting. They just recorded the dub with no context for the actors and did it as fast as possible. So it's no wonder that the dub was bad, it's just that it's hard for Mark Hamill to put in a bad performance.
@@backtoklondike Aw man, would've absolutely ruled if Hamil reprised the role.
Majima being voiced by fucking Luke Skywalker has always been one of my favorite tidbits about the series.
@@raspymorten You mean Japanese The Joker?
"YOU HAVE NO EVIDENCE! YOU'RE BLUFFING SO LET ME GIVE YOU SOME ACTUAL FUCKING EVIDENCE OF MYSELF SHOOTING MY ILLEGAL GUN AT A POLICE HELICOPTER FULL OF OFFICERS!"
"Surely he used all his bullets doing that dumb shit" Kiryu thought to himself as he left him unconscious
VIDEEJIMOGAYMES logic checks out. 10/10 best plan ever.
And so the rule that everyone, that is not Daigo, gets dumber the moment a gun it drawn begins
Five years. Man, your quality has gotten massively better.
And so it begins...
... The crime dad odyssey.
Crime dad saves the kids every year
The Crazy Kazzy Chronicles.
Crime dad, with special importance sometimes placed on your dad being sad. If the game awards people were told that Yakuza 7 was actually a sad dad game, it would've won every award.
I just realized, since it's called "like a dragon" in Japan, Yakuza 7 (Like a dragon) is literally doing the Resident Evil 7 Biohazard thing.
What's the Resident Evil 7 Biohazard thing?
@@ryanhernandez1877 Resident Evil was originally called Biohazard in Japan, so RE7 is combining the two different names of the franchise. Also I believe it's called Biohazard 7: Resident Evil in Japan.
@@RycoreXIII It's really weird. Biohazard actually is more of an appropriate title since the zombies are caused by bioweapons, while 'Resident Evil' implies some supernatural element, yet resident evil actually works for the seventh installment due to wondering around a house of a corrupted and psychopathic family, an 'evil residence' if you will.
Both are the seventh mainline games of their respective series too
@@sexualyeti7023 Yeah, you're right. "Resident Evil" only really made sense for any of the RE games that took place in mansions and other similar locations. Although there are marketing reasons for why both Yakuza and Resident Evil were given completely different names in the West. For Resident Evil, there was concern about releasing a game called Biohazard in the west because they were worried about potential copyright infringement lawsuits, as there was a band called Biohazard around that time, so they changed the name of the games to avoid any possible legal trouble. As for the Yakuza games, Sega's Western marketing department thought that selling a game called "Like A Dragon" about a man who fist fights criminals to protect a child and find his long lost lover would be tough. So their solution was to rebrand it as the Japanese equivalent to GTA and Mafia. IMO this was the opposite of what they should've done, because even today, the franchise still hasn't managed to completely shed that false stigma of being a GTA clone.
Damn, Kashiwagi went from being voiced by Bender to being voiced by Solid Snake.
That's... Honestly kind of cool.
"Kept you waiting huh?"
I Mean Majima is Luke fucking Skywalker
@@Dexter037S4 And is now Jotaro Kujo.
@@diegordi1394 and is also in the japanese dub for a thomas the tank engine episode
@@diegordi1394 which is pretty funny since Dio's VA came in to voice the Majima dlc in Kiwami 2
Several years later we'd find that it was mostly bad direction for why Kiryu sounds strange, as the English VA for Kiryu is pretty good in Y7
Same guy
@@champion1859 yeah that's the point of the comment, that it's the same va and it sounds better now
Over a decade of experience between the recordings of yakuza 1 and 7 probably plays a role too
Doesn't really matter, but good to know... I guess? Pluto is dwarf planet. That's about as relevant to the discussion of the game.
@@yoel9396yakuza 1 was the dude's first ever acting role too. Between 1 & 7 he had several roles one of which is Alex Mercer from Prototype.
Its pretty damn impressive how well they updated the models and kept their looks in Kiwami. They had a vision and kept it consistent all throughout the series, thats some real passion.
based strange journey pfp
Depends the character. Sera looks nothing like the original. Kazama in the other hand is almost identical.
@@yusukeelric that's bc some had Zero influence, the changes were made to connect better with 0 while also keeping 1's original vision
@@rimaq_ too bad that it resulted in an ugly bastard child that is Kiwami 1. Adding majima everywhere and combat styles from zero was such a big mistake. I would play Yakuza original on ps2 over kiwami any day of the week.
@@blindeyedblightmain3565 You're a major minority in the community, it seems
Kiwami characterizes Majima some more with the introduction of the Dragon fighting style and only able to improve it by fighting him in "Majima Everywhere" events. He comes off less of a psychopath who wants to kill Kiryu, and more of a weird friend/rival to Kiryu who just wants to spar with him. He's also much more light-hearted and actually kind of funny. This is coming from a new-comer of the series.
It's an odd thing, since every game has made him more and more sympathetic and generally likeable, so when it swings around to a total remake of the first game where he's originally more intimidating and psychopathic it goes for mixing the two.
i got a real goku and vegeta style of rivalry between the two. both wanting to use the other to improve but one is way more willing to kill the other compared to the other one which is generally more powerful and forgiving.
But even as a when I played the kiwami for the first, it felt off when the original scenes played. Original had him characterized as a deranged and unhinged lunatic. So when they play after the majima everywhere's, it just feels unnatural and tonally off. It's strange. This is one of the few bad tonal clashing in the series. And this series is praised for tones clashing
@@teneesh3376 and it also undermines his fake death, in the original you go quite a while believing he's dead and when he show ups again its impactful. With majima everywhere, you immedeatly know hes not dead and his return has zero impact.
@@eldenlean5221 oh yeah. That fight sequence before majima came back felt so forced. Even when plauing kiwami before the original, something felt wrong
I think the original intention behind the back tattoos were that they did actually grant their bearers slight supernatural powers in the form of heat. In the early games, the only enemies that ever have a heat aura or use heat actions are other yakuza with back tattoos. That always made the "dragon and carp" thing hit a little differently for me. Same with Ryuji's dragon in Yakuza 2. That seems to be the case up through Yakuza 3 at least.
Date is voiced by Sam from Sam and Max Hit the Road.
What the hell is with that voice actor and playing overly cynically bent but ultimately well-intended police?!
He's damn good at the noir cop
He's also Goofy, so I guess he's not that overly cynical.
I love the idea of Sam muttering 'I'd be in deep sh*t, yeah!' for some reason....
@@Legendary231 Holy _shit._
I KNEW HE SOUNDED FAMILIAR
Reina didn't grow up in the orphanage with them yumi did, nishiki introduced kiryu to her for the first time in 0
mama
"where do you get invincible goons?" the same place where you get Ryu: the Sunflower Orphanage.
I really enjoyed the in-depth look at the story here. Don't hesitate to do the same with later entries, I certainly wouldn't complain.
Nishiki: "Yumi, don't be an idiot..."
Yumi: "NO!"
Wonderful.
Hoping the yakuza 7 video is titled "yakuza: a tad bit like a dragon"
Or Like A Dragon: A bit like a Yakuza
"Yumi... don't be an idiot."
"No!"
That translator guide joke made me laugh so hard.
Mark Hamill was a couple voices in this game, I never knew.
He also doesn't remember it lol
@@jlfajsdlfjaslfdj I mean, maybe he does. We're operating off the assumption that he doesn't remember it off of a screenshot somebody sent him of Majima, instead of something SIGNIFICANTLY more useful like some actual audio of Majima from Y1.
@@innoclarke7435 I feel like if he really cared about doing the character, hed remember what that character looked like either way.
@@LordRobaZe Not really? He's not going to remember the look of a one-off character he played in 2005, who didn't even have a huge presence in the game. Mahima shows up, like, three times in Y1. The intro, the batting cages, the whorehouse. What he's most likely to remember is his recording sessions, which he would probably recall if he had got to hear his performance instead.
Prolific voice actors obviously play a lot of characters. It's strange to expect them to remember the *look* of every single one of them, considering they spend less time looking at the character than we do.
@@innoclarke7435 so then if he doesnt remember he obvs didnt care about doing the char
Ah, Yakuza 1. So many fucks. So. Many. Fucks.
49:40 I always found it funny that instead of setting up a nice room in the luxurious underground Kage gives them a place in a homeless tent instead.
1:16:18 Hallelujah it's raining Yen
Oh boy, a Yakuza series of videos. This is going to be a good ride.
>TFW still no AboeUp Feet nudes
Oh fuck. A video on Yakuza that's almost one and a half hours long? This should be a treat!
EDIT: It was.
Noice
I feel it would be great if you worked on the story in the same detail as you did with this video in the future. It doesnt harm the video and makes it more interesting as the story is what i love about the Yakuza games.
Duly noted, I do worry that people would get bored or if the recap gets dry, but on the other I do also worry I don't present enough information or miss necessary set up for later twists and turns. I'm glad to know you're good with it though.
Im not sure if that Sidestory was in the original but the Assasinatiom Order by Sera is actually explained really well in a Sidestory in Kiwami. Essentially Sera knew someone would try to kill Kazuma for being a Patriach killer and therefore decided to send a Hitman himself to claim that this was his and only his Job, he wanted Kiryu to survive and by only expulsing him be able to comr back to the clan after he was out of prison.
gambling only giving you prizes to go to the pawn shop with is cool because thats how gambling really works in japan due to weird legal loopholes. ps we miss you
Mark Hamill as Majima is proof that it doesn't matter what language you hear him in, Majima is always the best thing.
IIIIIKKKUUUU DEEEEEEEEE, KIRYU-CHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-
Snakera: “I will go lighter on the later entries”
Me after finishing the 8 hour Yakuza 5 video: 🫠
Coming back to this video after seeing the start of the first of the Yakuza 5 coverage. Have to say, this does feel like quite a beginning. From the way you tell the story, Yakuza One gives the feeling a very tense manhunt. Kiryu is with few allies, and the situation always seeming to develop more grimly as it goes on. And the Tojo feel like a different beast from what they'd be later entries. Even amidst the backstabbing and infighting, they feel like a constant threat.
I'd have to say if you told that the man you play as here was going to be dodging rocket launchers later on, I'd be giving you looks.
While there is a clear tone difference that goes between games, I feel it lends to a sense of progression as it went. Kiryu's come a long way from being exiled in disgrace for a murder he didn't commit.
Just want to say thanks for covering this series, as well as other games in general. And I appreciate the depth in which you cover them. More than anything, I enjoy hearing your thoughts on the games's stories. It gives me something to chew on and stew. It's been a journey, and I'm happy to be allowed to join in for the ride.
I apologize for the disjointed nature of this comment. It's two in the morning at time of posting.
What i did to counter the bad dub was this amazing playlist that someone made that had the original Japanese Dub with the English subtitles ready on my phone for whenever a cutscene started
I feel like getting moved from the homicide unit to an organized crime unit for delving deeply into an organized crime-related murder isn't so much a demotion as a lateral movement for organizational reasons.
Honestly, with better direction, the dub could've been alright. The voices fit, but they sound dead inside.
Don't forget the bad mixing. Skintaro Kazuma is always peaking. There's also one scene with Haruka sounds like she's underwater
I always felt the same way, havi9ng watched one of those 'movies' aka all the cutscenes just played in order
i wouldn't play a game like this dubbed, it takes all the character away
@@smokingone I don't feel the same way, but I can see why. I don't mind the dubs for Judgement and FotNS: Lost Paradise, but can easily see why people prefer the sub.
Hell, I'm torn on when I eventually play Yakuza 7 to go sub or dub. I'll probably go back and forth.
@@kinnikudash385 it's hard to nail a dub and yakuza games are famous for their overacted male drama, which the english voice actors don't portray near as well as the japanese ones, and it may just be due to bad direction on segas part, but i far prefer the japanese versions.
Date's voice actor is the guy who voiced Sam in the Sam & Max: Hit the road! Man, I love his voice.
But yeah, it's definitely a good thing they stuck with the japanese VO from here on out. ^^
Holy hell, the transition at 2:57, amazing! Jokes aside, once they port the games over to the PC or the Switch I'll be the first in the queue to get it! Those games look like the second coming of Buddha.
It's weird considering they're big violent crime thrillers but the Switch would make a really nice home for some of the Yakuza titles, hell the Wii U had HD ports of 1 & 2. But yeah, I'm ever hopeful these games will one day get a PC release.
Oh cool, didn't know the Wii U had those ports, shame they did poorly. Anyways, I wonder if your translation guide will help you with this: あなたのヴィデオはとてもすごいですよ。これチャンネルがたい好きだ。実は、今年日本に行きますから、毎日日本語をたくさん勉強します。
It would be nice to have the original untouched versions of the first 5 on Switch, to play on the go. I don't think 6 or Kiwami would run on it though. There was a PS3 version of Zero to port.
Whelp, now with the kiwami games, plus 3 - 5 coming to steam january 28th 2021, and 6 coming late march i guess you oughta be pretty happy
"Yakuza 1 is dry"
*throws man into pond*
I've been waiting for this since you showed Yakuza boxes in one of your videos
T H A N K Y O U
It took some time but you can't fight the Yakuza
I've been watching this review in pieces while I played through Kiwami, mainly so I could see what was copied from the original and what they changed (and to hear Snake's thoughts on the story as I went through it). A great review as always. I have to say, separating the story and gameplay sections in the timestamps was such a nice move, so thanks for that. Can't wait to do the same thing for the rest of the series.
loved this. just finishing up my first playthrough of kiwami so this was great timing.
Great video. I got into the series with 0 coming out in 2017 and have been a fan since then.
This was in Kiwami rather than actual yakuza 1, but
When I got to the Cho-han bit with Haruka, the entire thing was so incredibly confusing for me because I'd guess what Haruka guesses, and we'd lose. Every time. And then suddenly we lose and Kiryu is all suspicious after that specific loss, and none of it made sense to me until my friend explained that she's supposed to be right with her guesses. it just glitched for me.
And that's how we got to know everyone's favorite ex-yakuza: Kazuma "Never Killed Anyone" Kiryu
Story wise this game probably the one Yakuza game the team have zero thought for a sequel that it causes too much people die that wasn't really needed in the first place like Reina, i mean let be honest here the mama of New Serena is 100% Reina in different skin because "oops Serena might be an important spot in Kamurocho for the MCs but Reina died so how we bring her back"
Maybe Nishiki would be less evil if he had literally anybody on first name terms with him. Not his oath brother or even his adoptive dad lol.
The 10 billion yen being such a big deal is so funny after playing Like a Dragon Gaiden
Whelp, this video took up my boring time at Christmas! Well done Snake, fantastic to see this finally and you know my love of the series (3 and onwards). It's interesting to see how it all started, may be a bit difficult for me to adapt to but thankfully the story is usually a good time.
Good to hear from you again Tem, I think most people came into the series at 3 (I was one of them, only played the earlier titles after 4) and it's strange to go back to but quite a rewarding experience to see how many characters got their start, and the plot does indeed hold up.
Thanks to Kiwami that explained Nishiki motivation in this game and it’s pretty heartbreaking and you can see where Kiryu coming from in this game some of character still have some problem however
yeah like equalizing the benefit of characterization by breaking majima's instead
"I'll start going lighter on later entries if people want"
Meanwhile, the Yakuza 5 video: 7:21:05
(To be clear, that's exactly what I want, I just think it's funny)
53:18 in Kiwami that guy instead of holding an SMG is one handing a Galil Assault Rifle, which fits the wacky nature of the later entries WAAAAY more, as one handing a heavy rifle like that is ridiculous.
I'd recently been looking for a good Yakuza retrospective, and I just now discovered this. What a good video! I'll be watching any others you have too :D
In my own writing, I've always used "it's worth noting" and "mind you", but never once thought to just use "mind". I tried it out for the first time tonight, and it feels like a really great simplification, so I remain very glad that I continue to watch your videos.
One of these days when I actually have extra cash, I need to subscribe to your patreon.
That's good to hear, while I can't be certain of it I think just saying "mind" in place of "mind you" is a mostly English contraction? I've not heard people from other backgrounds say it much
The start of an amazing series of games. I'll always remember my first time with Yakuza. Good Times.
I'm one of those who have been playing Yakuza since the very first one, and I thought it was a good game at the time. I haven't played it in a long time, but I have played Yakuza Kiwami recently, which I guess pretty much renders this game obsolete.
I'm a bit late to the party, but not only does Kiwami NOT render this game obsolete, it's such a sloppy, rushed mesh that constantly has issues with the original game's design and 0's design clashing in spectacularly frustrating, tedious fashion, with absurdly obvious filler thrown into a game that REALLY didn't need it. It also practically commits character assassination against Nishiki, transforming him from having been so deeply cynical and distrustful that he frankly ruined any hope he ever had of getting any sort of real fulfillment outside of attaining power, and into... well, a bitch, that cries and grovels constantly and just becomes mean because he's really mad that everyone keeps telling him he sucks and Kiryu was better.
I would classify Kiwami as the one and only *BAD* game in the series (well, maybe Dead Souls is bad, too, I dunno, haven't played it yet), with the original Yakuza being... well, it's not good either, it's very annoying at times, but it feels SO much more cohesive and it's less of a slog to get through. I'm not likely to ever recommend either version of the original story to someone to play, I'd instead just tell them to watch it, but if they really had to play one of the two, I'd recommend the original over Kiwami easily.
@@innoclarke7435 I fully agree with what you said except for the Nishiki extra info. Making him “a bitch” did give him some personality, a fragile side, that we don’t really get to see from any characters except for Kiryu and Majima (we don’t even see much of those sides from the later protagonists). Giving him some extra backstory, although lacking, made the final fight and the general Nishiki character as a whole stand out more. Really wish they would have added more backstory to him though.
@Good Hunter Nope.
@Good Hunter Sounds to me like you need to get good, bro lmao. It's stiff, but just being even slightly adaptable will render it not much of an issue. And the camera? I don't even remember the camera being a problem. Sounds like a you issue.
But hey, a significantly larger issue is Kiwami's truly awful boss fights(possibly the worst in a series with a number of not very good boss fights) with multiple health bars and regeneration, there's also inordinate amounts of padding, enemies that seem to block more than in Y3, while also breaking combos on a whim, two of the fighting styles just aren't very effective, the list just goes on and on and on. Kiwami 1 is nothing more than a game bad at being Yakuza 1 and ALSO bad at being Yakuza 0, with additional mechanics thrown in like Majima Everywhere that don't even cohesively work with the story of the game its in, and exists *purely* to pander to people that jumped into the series with Yakuza 0 that think Majima's character is all about him being le foonii majima XDDDD, even though Majima isn't particularly goofy in the vast majority of the series.
Of all the games in this franchise that I've played (Y1, 2, 3, 4, 5, Kiwami, 6, Kiwami 2, Judgment, FotNS), Kiwami 1 is the *only* one I'd say is straight up a badly designed one. It's a total fucking waste. And unlike Yakuza 1's rough edges which can at least be somewhat excused by being from 2005 and the first in the series, Kiwami came around 11 years later, as the **10th** game in the series that they'd done. There's just no excuse. Prefer whatever version you like, I don't care, but just because you're too inobservant or have low enough standards not to notice Kiwami's glaring faults doesn't mean it ain't a fuckup.
@Good Hunter Whoa, whoa, whoa, the fuck. Did you just say Kiwami is better than Yakuza 2? I'm used to people saying Yakuza 3 is bad. That's also objectively incorrect, but I expect people to have bad takes about that game. But Yakuza 2 is a big step up from Yakuza 1 and still stands above a number of other games in the series.
Honestly, you saying that makes it sound like you haven't even played the original Yakuza 2. That game's straight up one of the best on the entire system. It's kinda fucked up that anyone would throw the game under the bus like this, damn.
1:17:35 that was explained in a side quest. Or...at least it was, in Kiwami. But it seemed mandatory enough for me to assume it's in the original as well
A feature-length analysis of Yakuza 1? Give it to me hard.
I wonder if the voice actors were shown the original scenes before acting out their lines because im most certain they weren't, its not like the acting is bad. The Delivery is completely alien to the context of the scene. Its like an alternate scene is going on at the sound studio while they were recording.
They weren't. For instance, Kiryu's VA didn't see the scene of Kiryu and Majima in the alley, until the game was released apparently.
Quality content dude, subcriber well earned.
Thank you kindly
That Sake joke was the fucking funniest shit to see.
Perfect gift for Christmas. Cheers, Snake.
No prob, hope you had a good Christmas
That part about majima liking honest people really makes sense after 0
When I first played this game, I often ended up in boss battles with only a sliver of health and no healing items because I was being stupid about stocking up. I had to do the fight with the guy in the red shirt with dual pistols without getting hit once and holy shit I got pretty flustered, but I eventually beat it abusing the low health heat move and completed the game.
Yakuza 1 is weird in that even though I love the franchise I would also not recommend it to anyone, the game doesn't get it's stride until 2 and even then 2 is still a little clunky compared to later entries even if it is a massive improvement over the first game in nearly every single way. Thank fuck Kiwami exists so I can recommend that instead. Ishin localization never ever though.
My jokes about translation guide aside I know I've still got to import Ishin (and maybe Kenzan) at some point. For these reviews I'm going to try and go light on healing items, and maybe bump up the difficulty on later entries when the combat is a bit more smoothed out, really challenge myself on them. (Especially because I was watching a ton of EX-hard bossfight videos before editing)
I'm not sure if this was in the original or just a Kiwami addition, but there's a late-game substory that actually does explain the whole prison assassin thing.
It's an substory exclusive to Kiwami.
"Bring that shit Kazuma!!!"
Kashiwagi I think is played by John DiMaggio (Bender the robot)
Wow...the caliber of the acting is pretty impressive! Too bad the translation is so poor.
Nice video, a pleasure to watch and I thank the author for being so thorough about the story, the narration and the story itself got me hooked in a 2 hour long video which felt like breeze by the end of it.
I just beat kiwami 1 so now I can finally watch this video. I'm currently playing through the series and I'll each video in your series as I beat each game
Majima is the definition of "Nobody gets to beat up my boyfriend but me" energy
56:20 A reverse version of “Dumbledore said calmly.”
Honestly I LOVED the way you covered the story, to the point that I would disappointed if you did not tackle the other games in the same way. Cheers
38:30 This killed me due to it being very much something the Yakuza series would do, and still does today
It's so weird realizing this video is 6 years old now
That car chase segment is a nightmare in Kiwami on Legend if you fail you need to do the long battle to save Haruka again.
Many people like Yakuza 0 because it showed what great buddies Kiryu and Nishiki were, which made Yakuza 1 all the more tragic. But for me it made his betrayal questionable. Yes, he's been through some shit and Kiwami showed it, but he already realized in 0 that he's living in Kiryu's shadow and it appeared he accepted it (in fact, HE'S the one that said he's useless without Kiryu). Not to mention he had a HUGE debt to repay after Kiryu took the blame for Dojima's murder. And the first thing he does once Kiryu gets out of jail is what? Sending his goons after him? I really don't buy it.
41:02 Haruka casually "bouncing" along with kiryu
That huge traffic cone is in every single game...
Oh my fuckin god yes. I am so happy you made this review. Since i've heard that you were a Yakuza fan I was waiting for reviews of them. I can't wait to watch it.
Wonder of he's workin' on more Yakuza videos. LOL That's too funny "You have no evidence! You're bluffing!" *Him and heavily-armed thugs at his flanks open fire on the Police chopper* Please tell me that's some intentional humor.
I'm recording 2 now
As he says, people get stupider around guns in Yakuza, every single time.
I heard Part 4 Jotaro theme from Eyes of Heaven. Your winning me over with music choice
Mark Hammil and Steven Bloom... with botched directing. Why even live?
The one dubbing Kiryu isn't actually Steve Blum, it's someone else.
Robin Atkin Downes is in it too, and holy shit it was the worst shit i have heard of him
Drake Doe You mean by sounding flatter than a board?
Much love to you and your videos, man. The detail and passion you put into them shows. Don’t worry about their length.
I've gone through this video series many times, and I really like seeing the perspective of a long-time fan of the series.
I played all of the games on Xbox starting in 2020, so I come with a totally different experience. I've only played the much updated and reworked versions of these games.
Honestly if you do such in depth videos for all the games it'd be delightful, watching this was mint
1:08:44
That man is floating. The Tojo clan has become too powerful.......
Wow, I never knew that car shootout was in the original game. I thought they added it in kiwami, mainly because 0 has a very similar segment and kiwami incorporated a lot of content from 0
Re-watching this after all your Yakuza videos gives me insight into how jarring the English dub can be
I've recently played through all of the mainline Yakuza games. Not the original PS2 releases, and I've thought about it, but I honestly don't know if I can go back and do any of that. A big problem with that is the combat. I can deal with natural jank from past games well enough, but having already played Kiwami, I just don't know if I want to deal with it. Maybe if I can turn the difficulty to easy or something, but even then you still have to participate in the fights. Which is fine, to be clear. Normally I prefer to play on normal with my games, but the bosses in the Yakuza games almost always felt unfair and tanky. Sometimes they were fine, but turning the game to easy meant that I didn't have to spend half-an-hour fighting the same dude that I can't even get a hit in on. I know that people like to refer to Kiwami's combat as "Yakuza 0.5", which makes sense and I thought the same, but I still feel like I'd prefer it infinitely over the original. Half the game is fighting as well, so it's no like you can just avoid it-- which I wouldn't want to do in most games. Kiwami 2 felt great on normal, but most of the games weren't.
The other big problem is the voice acting. It's always going to be touched on, because of how bad it is. To make it clear, I don't think any of the issues with the voices is down to the actors themselves. Maybe to some degree that could be the case, but the direction that they were supposedly given is so ungodly bad that it doesn't matter how good or bad any of them were. I do genuinely believe that an English dub would work just fine, I mean Yakuza: Like a Dragon did it well. It wasn't perfect in that game, but it wasn't bad by any means. Just if they actually let the voice actors do their job, then I think that this dub would have been good. Though a lot of the chosen voices don't fit as well as I'd want them to-- not that that matters given the quality. That and the terrible translation effort. So yeah, it had potential, sad.
If I could play a version of the original Yakuza with fixed combat and a Japanese dub, then sure, I'd give this version a shot, but I don't know, man. That's why I'd personally always recommend Kiwami in terms of overall enjoyment.
There is a HD remaster of the original Yakuza 1. And 2 which absolutely mitigates the issues with the combat and it never came to the states unfortunately. So if you feel like porting the remasters then go right ahead but the only flaw about this is is that it released on the PS3 and the Wii u
(which nobody talks about by the way.)
Hey I’m here to say I love Yakuza and even tho I already played watching you explain it fully especially with the non remastered version really makes me appreciate how far it’s actually came
"Don't Throw me I'm full of Dairy" Classic :D
Nice in depth review, i've never played the first Yakuza so it's really cool to see how much of an upgrade it got with Kiwami. Great series of games!
Majima plays a much bigger part in Kiwami and he's fucking hilarious.
This is a pretty solid review.
Although if I could add an addendum, if anyone is considering playing this series from beginning to end, get Zero first, then Yakuza Kiwami. I think the only missing things from the ps2 port is certain quests, for example I dont recall the painting and book quests from Kiwami, then again I didnt finish every single quest. So maybe I'm wrong, still it adds more depth, especially in consideration to Nishiki adding some scenes in the game that showcase his transformation from the Nishiki from the beginning of the game, to the more ruthless man you end up finding, it makes him more sympathetic. Double for Zero.
I half agree, I'd say it's down to what an individual wants from the series, I started at 3 back around 2010 and am a huge fan now. People can approach series any number of ways and each game in the series is fairly self contained outside of some character continuity. Going from 0 onwards in chronological order I also recommend to most newbies but you will have some gameplay whiplash, going from 0's style in 0 + Kiwami to Dragon Engine in K2 and then backwards to a refined early series style with 3, 4, and 5.
There are issues and benefits regardless of how you play through the series at this point.
@@Tehsnakerer yeah that is pretty true. I actually started from 4, so going from 4 to 0 and K1 was an easy transition. Fair point.
Does anyone else find it hysterical that when Majima takes that girl hostage, Kiryu sounds more like he's scolding a puppy than pleading/demanding he not kill her?
Whether in English or Japanese It does come off as that and sometimes I think this is also at the same time him being so done with majima's shenanigans and cutting to the chase.
Spot on description of the combat and great video overall as always.
I've only played one yakuza game way back when at a friends place and it was quite glorious indeed. The first ones seem pretty clunky for sure, but its great to know that the series has been only improving as time has gone by. Real glad too that they dropped the whole english dub thing. It just doesn't work when yer doing yakuza stuff. ORRAAAAA.
I also love how you manage to see so much good in games that can be so damn frustrating to play at times. I wish I still had that patience. I did some years go when I went through some really weird and obscure PC titles. Some actually good/passable games and then some truly awful ones. It felt like that once you left the 2006-2010 era and went to newer, awful titles, they were just mostly pure suffering and I feel like I burnt out all my patience when it comes to good, but quite often frustrating to play games.
One can endure the madness only for so long!
I don't know if it's a good quality for analysing or critiquing games but I do try and see the good in these things and don't like to be overly negative unless a game rubs me the absolute wrong way, I'm also admittedly quite easy to please in a few ways
I'm surprised you took the Jingu revelation at face value. I always thought it was implied Kiryu's adopted Dad set that up to cover for her pregnancy. It was always too coincidental that Haruka is aged 9 ten years after the events of the prologue. Kiwami seems to debunk the idea Kiryu is Haruka's father, with an added bit at the beginning. Which sadly leaves the most likely explanation that she is a Dojima. The translation in Kiwami says "He forced himself on Yumi" and not "He tried to hurt her" like it was here. Haruka possibly has claim to a high ranking place in the Tojo clan.
i do go with a bit of the translation but I perhaps should have been a bit clearer that I don't take the idea that Dojima "hurt" Yumi to just be hurting her, considering the translation I thought evven just saying hurt really heavily implied what Dojima really did, or tried to do, and thought that'd be pretty clear.
I genuinely hadn't considered Dojima being Haruka's father, it would give a bit of an extra layer to Jingu's treatment of Haruka and Mizuki, it's definitely interesting. I will admit I have only played the opening few hours of Kiwami, after finishing the review I had a bit of burn out on Yakuza and didn't want to push it further what with 6 coming out soon. Thank you for your comment.
both Dojimas body and Yumi were fully clothe in the cutscene so I always assumed Nishiki got there before Dojima could actually do anything.
Five minutes in, I forgot almost everyones names... RIP story absorption... ah well, I'll just nod my head at the flashing images.
You actually did it, what a Christmas present.
Powering through
The length and amount of detail in your videos, along with you narration are the reasons I enjoy them so much. You definetly should keep the level of details, maybe even expand on some things you may deem important. I, personally, wouldn't mind. Thank you for the vids, best regards.
ＳＨＩＮＪＩ！！！
I've been looking for this comment. I knew someone must have done this.
Based