The other half of Ryuu Ga Gotoku 1&2 HD Edition, and holy shit was it ever worth it. Yakuza 2 is everything a sequel should strive to be. It makes everything better without making the formula unrecognizable: Bigger world, more sidequests, bigger story with tighter plotting and better pacing, music is more kick-ass, presentation is much more intuitive, and the combat is way more fluid. Also, found out that the Japanese title for Yakuza translates to "Like a Dragon," or "As Does a Dragon," which is very appropriately badass . For reference, I played through on hard mode, did 66% of the sidequests, and beat it in 36.5 hours.
The combat as been made much more fluid. Yakuza 1 compared to this game has a much heavier, weighty feel to it. Kiryuu moves much more quickly and snaps around to new enemies much more quickly than in the first game, allowing for a much greater nuance than in the first game. You keep a decent portion of the moves from the first game, but not all of them (and sadly not the recovery move from being knocked down, which is now a level 10 skill assigned to a different button ;_;). Finishers have also been improved immensely. Where the finishers you had to grab people for were very unclear where you could do them in the first game, now everywhere you can do them is highlighted on your radar, and holy shit is it worth it. They're crazy brutal looking, and the feedback on the controller vibrations really makes it even better. From back-dropping people onto the top of a park bench to launching them off of a bridge, finishers have never been so much fun. Combat is even better than the first one (somehow). Storytelling is also very much improved. The first Yakuza felt very much like it had a bunch of good ideas pushed into a kind of short story. It was very unfocused, and while I liked the main rival/villain, I never felt very committed to him. Yakuza 2 solves that problem with a solid A and B plotline structure. I had doubts about it at some points, but it handles it all very well by the end. The story also focuses on characters who the player really cares about. Haruka isn't in this too much, which I'm okay with because she was in the whole damn first game, but we even get a stronger female lead in the role of Sayama, which is a very nice change from the first game. We also get a lot more of Majima, whom is one of my favorites, and adds some much needed comic relief and zaniness to the otherwise quite serious story. I really don't wanna spoil much, but I will say that the plot this time around feels much more like a crime drama serial, where major plot twists and revelations are happening all the way up until the very end. The last few chapters are freaking crazy, but nothing was ever totally ripping through obvious plot holes. The presentation is much improved from the first game as well. You have a much larger pause menu from which you can check just about every collectible and markable thing you could possibly come across so far. You can't get super in-detail info about present quests you're on, but it gives you far better information in the blurb you get. There are no longer permanently miss-able locker keys anymore as well (mostly)! My only complaint is that one of the two very large cabaret club-related sidequests can be permanently fucked up if you don't know what you're doing, which can make you lose the last locker key, which is a bit of a ball-ache XP. Also, inventory management via item boxes is still awful and needs to be made more convenient. There are a few strange localization issues I've come across, in reading up about the games a little. For one, the orphanage Haruka (and for that matter Kazuma) grew up at is "Morning Glory" in the West, but it's Himawari (Sunflower) in the East. Another strange thing is that all of the big cat enemies have names in the Japanese version, but not in the West. Speaking of the big cats, holy shit are they crazy to fight. Not just from a perspective of it being silly, but how inhumanly strong it canonically makes Kiryuu. Assuming these tigers are adult Siberian tiger males, they're probably around 700 pounds. An adult tiger can run at speeds of up to 30 to 40 miles an hour. Kiryuu can not just stop one, but make it fly backwards with a punch when it leaps at him. That basically means that Kiryuu's punches can be the equivalent of being hit by a small car on the freeway . This game upped the silliness factor to almost Bond-movie-esque at times, and I loved every minute of it. Also, it's annoying as fuck that a lot of key locations have their names changed between regions. I read about these things like "Shangri La" or "The River Styx" and there are for certain nothing of those names in the Japanese games. Nevermind ridiculous name changes like how Sai the Hanaya is just totally renamed Kage until the 4th game. Verdict: Very Recommended. Even if Yakuza 1 wasn't really doing it for you, Yakuza 2 is a fantastic update which just might. It makes absolutely everything bigger and better designed, and is everything a sequel should strive to be. Yakuza 2 gave me a lot of vibes of "this is an entry that no sequel will be able to top," so we'll see if that holds up I suppose
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AuthorI'm an avid gamer who likes to detail their thoughts about what they play in the hopes it might aid someone else's search for a game to play. Archives
April 2024
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