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| On the biography of Kiryu Kazuma episode 3. |
Genre: Brawler/adventure.
There were substories as well but most of them were pretty forgettable. The only ones I liked
Also the moment I saw a guy holding ice cream I was like no i'm not going to do this...
One other thing that bothered me there was no jingle when a substory starts and ends...I got so used to that from other RGG games that it just felt off when its not there.
Anyway the game was an experience and I dare say its just a wreck like on one hand
They kept throwing shit at you in chapter four that the game actually lost its momentum
Developer/publisher: Sega.
Platform: Switch.
Official Site: N/A.
Platform: Switch.
Official Site: N/A.
Release date: 20-8-2019.
Uh yea I decided to get started on the next entry in the yakuza series and it is an
experience alright, it was step down from 0 and the kiwami's in almost every way
but in terms of Kiryu's character and some parts of the plot its actually pretty decent still.
I do think the last bit of the game just wrecked itself like a train going off the rails.
**I feel like I need some permanent disclaimer that this is just a blog where I ramble
about games I play, a place to write some thoughts on the wall. If you don't like it
then close the tab, you can always play it yourself and form your own opinion.**
Pro's
- Kiryu's character in general.
- The stuff with the orphanage was pretty wholesome.
Con's
- The pacing, mostly in chapter 3/4/10.
- Massive infodump in ch9 of 40+ min in length.👎
- Combat is pretty basic, high encount rate for no reason.
- Substories be quantity over quality more stinkers than goldies.
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| Kiryu trying to catch a break mission impossible. |
Graphics, okay here is where I am fairly chill as this was a PS3 game.
The scene direction is still good but... it can be a bit lacking coming from the kiwami's.
Movement doesn't feel too good either... its kinda janky now but grew on me.
The last scene of the game were poorly remastered or carried over
from the original, mostly everything else was pretty well done.
Like it was not HD at all, I could see the bitrate/jitter which is not good.
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| Do you love 40 minute+ infodumps? and a random fight for absolutely no reason? |
You know its bad when you gotta step away from the game in the first chapter
to assess the situation and change your mindset to continue... but since I was bored
and was in the mood for late night yakuza drama I said sure why not? or more like
I had to set my expectations straight because we be back in ps3 era guys.Y3 gets a pass(as in it okay) from me if you're here to see more of Kiryu's life, his character positively
improved in this game and to me he's no longer this deadpan grunt I thought he was in Y0.
As a game it has its fair share of faults and I could see some people dropping it esp in ch4. If you
can power through that it shouldn't be too bad, the game is about the same length as yakuza 1 or 2.
I think if they ever remake this game they should do away with the stupid golf minigame
or remake it so that its no longer clunky and its just some QTE stuff at that part in the story
while also fixing the cabaret stuff because hooboy its complicated here.
More ramblings after the jump, I try to be mostly spoiler free but I had to vent
so if you want to play this game and want no spoilers at all do not read further.
couldn't stay dead and plot thickens crickets. Kiryu's girlfriend Sayama decides
career goals are important and is off to the USA. Oof that didn't last long at all did it?
From the beginning I thought the game was kinda cheap and well as turns out
Yakuza 3 apparently had a shorter development time compared to most other entries
so if this game feels off to you that is one of the reasons why.
Story wise it didn't really flow well till end of ch4 which is where it picked up again.
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| Aniiiiikiiiiiiiiiiii~~ |
Also there was less voice acting, idk if this was a ps3 era thing but suddenly
RGG had about as big of a budget for voice actors as falcom does. I know there's
always been some scenes unvoiced especially substories but in Y3 the voices
just drop out more than I remember them do in 0, y1&2kiwami's.
This was especially bad in chapter 7/8 where it would go from an unvoiced scene
to voiced scenes again and again, like it was all part of the same scene anyway.
It was so jarring I was like oh were they on a budget? Also it is really obvious
what is an FMV scene and a ingame scene, the latter tends to be not voiced.
The other thing I didn't like was the 40+ minute infodump in ch9 like damn
that's a whole lot to take in and it can be pretty confusing when taking it all at once.
The rest of the game was pretty much a trainwreck straight-up to the ending scene.
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| Majima was barely there but when he was present, it was a treat. |
There is also no pause button during cutscenes which is a criminal offense as they can be long
like imagine getting IRL aggro or really needing to go to bathroom or get a snack, damn can't pause.
The encounter rate was also rather high and it was hard to avoid them compared to zero
or y1/2 kiwami. I know you can't avoid them all but it felt like I fought more punks than usual.
They used markers for the story so I didn't get lost except for some random part in ch10
of following Haruka which could just have been a side mission, it had 0 value to the plot anyways.
This game is around 16hours but it took me 20+ hours but that's due to me actually
doing komaki, substories and revelations. I skipped everything else like that awful caberet stuff.
Speaking of cabaret, it is ass this time and I abandoned the substory related to it immediately
because hooboy I do not have the time and patience for this but you're welcome to try.
The golf minigame was pretty ass too but atleast when you had to do it during the story
you could just let Kiryu take an L there and fumble his turns, real dads take L's sometimes!
so gotta give RGG studio some credit for not making us have to win that and just keep it light&fun.
I guess I could complain about no longer being able to save anywhere as you
gotta do it at telephone poles like Y0... but this is fair especially for a PS3 game
so I will cut them some slack on that part, why did I mention it just because I guess.
Oh man its complain-o-jutsu o'clock and I didn't even get to the combat yet!
honestly don't get me wrong but I want to make it double clear some of the characters
like Rikiya and Mikio were really great, they were homies. Also its not all bad.
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| Welcome to blockuza 3. |
Speaking of combat its basic as heck, I played on easy as usual but I figure if
you play as anything but easy you're just gonna suffer, this is simply
one of those games that needed extra dev time and not get pooped out ahead of time.
Gonna add if you're the one blocking prematurely the enemy will just not do much of anything...
but low and behold you even press attack and they will start throwing punches. Its weird.
Anyway the blocking thing isn't so bad when you realize when you block or dodge it is
also very effective so its not just an enemy thing, if you ever wonder why this game
is called blockuza 3 it is because of that, blocking is a way of life over here.
Most of my complaints end here btw, there's some more in my final thoughts.
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| Atleast some of the dialogue was funny. |
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| Kiryu is full of shit and vinegar apparently... |
Honestly the best part about this game was Kiryu being a daddy like it added so much
character to him that was just missing till now so if you thought Kiryu's character
fell flat you should absolutely play this game because it makes him wholesome.
Sure the gameplay aspects can feel clunky or a step down but I can get passed it
and doing all of Komaki's training plus finding revelations helps a lot actually.
were the kidnapped ''patient'', lovelorn teenager or the one about the cursed locker.
Even then by chapter 9 I already had trouble remembering some of the early ones.
Of course there was a bump&scam rehash as well so I was like oh yea new and original
also Kiryu got himself right into a scam again, god help this man but i'm sure
he just wanted to know how those guys got his number/email. Water purifiers really?!
There however was one substory that actually was relevant to events in yakuza 1... we also
had one where that stupid korean popstar showed up again and of course his substory was ass
I bumped into someone trying to do it 1st time but got it on the second while squeezing Kiryu through.
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| I wish I didn't know........ |
If you skipped them you weren't missing out because they were bland
and most just didn't have the fun factor from the first two games and zero.
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| Lmao, then so be it. |
I just knew it was one of those ones and decided to ignore it. I may have done
around 30ish substories but most just weren't worth it. The ryukyu legends substories
I found fairly entertaining so only those get my full recommendation.
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| I had to go into a bikini bar for this but I regret nothing. |
The reason substories weren't that funny this time because they saved all of the hilarious stuff
for this thing called revelations in which Kiryu can learn new moves while
watching random shit on the streets and can post about it on his blog. Uh yea...
I managed to do all of them! some of them were pretty funny like that poledancer guy
but others were kinda like wtf was that? ...the final email you get from them was really nice tho.
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Final thoughts?!
part of the message the game's trying to tell is nice but it just went off the rails in the end
the best part of it is Kiryu's personal development and that's about it really.
One thing I hate about this series is how easily they kill off characters
some of it in this game was just unnnecessary, like for real.
I know some characters are just bad and yakuza don't play around but man...
it feels like some characters just get introduced to be thrown away immediately
or it feels that way cuz the game's pretty short so you already spend a limited time with them.
Substories weren't as great as in the previous games I played and if you're just here for the story
you can safely skip most of them and miss nothing, there's no jingle either.
The pacing can feel a bit weird as well especially early on because of the orphanage stuff
which turns this game into daddy simulator. It can be seen as a nice break from things
but more often than not it grinds the story progress to a halt in favor of time with the kids.
Uh just like IRL huh?
Chapter 4 was actually the worst at this since the game actually let's you know you have to go back
to some place but then stuff keeps happening preventing the main story to actually proceed.
It was actually really tiresome even if some moments with the kids were great but like
I kid you not a lot of the stuff thrown at you felt highly optional so I got annoyed.
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| This was just the tip of the iceberg and one more thing to happen that day. |
which picked itself up nicely once it actually got to proceed. The rest of the chapters were
actually paced better and it was interesting to get to the bottom of it but then ch10 happened
and I was like oh well its almost over whatever happens, happens! daddy Kiryu's in the house.
Then the story proceeds to hit like a truck the next chapter and i'm like was that really necessary?
IDK what to say of the overall plot though, but strangely enough I liked Mine(h)???
which is weird cuz I usually can't stand most villains in this series. It can be really good how
they builded the story from 1&2 but as of Yakuza 3 it just
feels like this all is part of
the biography of Kiryu Kazuma and its
not pretty.
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| Minimum Itemlvl No Echo. |
Honestly Mineh did not feel like a full villain, more like a misguided one. I also think a lot
of the plot in this game could have just been avoided had they just talked like humans but nooo
can't even move a hand and someone jumps a gun *eye roll*.
Anyways Rikiya was also great but yeaaa its sad how some things ended up. This game
just has some shit that just happened and I am not able to forgive the writers for it. Like yeah
the main villain be about to turn over a new leaf but nooo he decides to throw himself off a roof
with someone because Kiryu's too busy holding princess Daigo. Heroic but it made me go nooo.
On that note Rikiya is just wasted potential because my dude's supposed to be a viper
not a snake that doesn't bite. Still I do understand why it ended the way it did because
guys are just a little stupid but I didn't like it this time... I also can't believe the shit
that happened in the ending cutscene but guess it just shows the resentment some folks
got for Kiryu, I like how Hamazaki got off free aka the dude who blew up chinese restaurants
for shits and giggles but characters like Mine(h) can't ***king redeem themselves? alright.
Gonna laugh if Hamazaki somehow still redeems himself in some future game.........
I could care less about that richardson guy and his generic english voice but I'm getting heated
about Mine(h) and in a sense Ryuji didn't deserve his end either but he had like one braincell so at
the end of the day you could say Mine(h) and Ryuji share one. Should I include Nishiki as well?
**A day after I beat it I realized that if I get so heated over characters then it means I cared
and well can't save everyone nor can someone be responsible for whatever they decide
to do or not take the memo. I also should say I don't really follow the political
mumbo jumbo in these games, like sure I get some of it but after a bunch of these games
i'm ultimately just here for the characters and substories while riding along with the main plot.
6.5/10
Maybe this is too high... almost a 7 eh for the kids? if I was very harsh it'd be lower like 3/10
but I don't think this game is that bad either for such an extreme low score so a 6 is fine.
Dunno when I will play another yakuza game but not for a while, I mean the games
didn't come out at the same time you know? gotta let it rest for a bit but part of me
just wants to continue and see what happens next. Another part just says why should
I play all those games? so i'm just unsure. Gonna say 4-6 is backlogged till further notice.
Other games? we got kai no kiseki at the end of september, I also idk about
otome games, I finished 1 route in hanakare but I feel no rush for it so we'll see.
2-9-24 edit: fixed some stuff, just made stuff more clear as well as adding a disclaimer.
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