Kiryu going to a hostess club: ''i'm just here to relax and talk to someone'' Yakuza 2 NPCs going to a hostess club: ''i'm just here to say how ugly this carpet is''
"JINGWEON could be here" he thought, "I've never been in this neighborhood before. There could be JINGWEON anywhere." The cool wind felt good against his bare chest. "I HATE JINGWEON" he thought. Rouge of Love reverberated his entire car, making it pulsate even as the 949.52 yen sake circulated through his powerful thick veins and washed away his (merited) fear of koreans after dark. "With a car, you can go anywhere you want" he said to himself, out loud.
Just commenting as I see it, when I see the "Remember the events of last year? No." thing, I think of it in the sense of "No, I don't remember the events of last year." That interpretation just seems a lot funnier to me.
@@AgentDanielCross "uh errr.... I mean ignore the bad words Uncle Kaz just said. Ryuji is a very bad man and this is how he is paying me back for being bad"
I still have the 150 page FAQ guide for this game. I remember printing it on my school's copy shop and someone freaked out of the amount of bullshit I was printing.
I wonder how many of those pages were the "legal notices plz don't copy without permission" or extremely dated unfunny jokes or the table of contents or the intro.
I haven't finished the video yet, but the thugs not picking fights with you indicates you've unlocked an "encounter boss". these are minibosses that show up once you've fufilled a quota of thugs beaten up. you have to find them, beat them, then you can continue doing random thug battles until you unlock the next one. I'll admit it's one of the worst side distractions in this game, there's little to no hints or explanations and the bosses that spawn are totally random and too hard to find. defeating every boss is even more of an obnoxious grind than the club minigames.
Having replayed 2, I can say this isn't entirely true. The game has an exp cap per chapter where the limit makes encounters disappear when the criteria meet (like 12 bars of exp being the limit for chapter 1). The amount of upgrades you put into your also affects this. Basically, if you're "overleveled" or reach the exp cap, chances are you won't get encounters for the chapter. Any time I see there are no encounters, I could not find a single encounter boss in either city. So in a way, the street bosses don't really affect encounter rates much. Either way, its a very weird detail.
pretty late but Ive just finished 2. apparently on some chapters there just wont be random encounters, regardless of encounter bosses, cant remember which ones are affected though. For real, once ive got to Chapter 6 or smth, the encounters outright stopped until just before ive got to the final chapter. The encounter boss from (or supposed to spawn in) Chapter 7 only spawned at that point as well. It's honestly a dumb system but KINDA understandable since it can be easy to max out shit close to ending the game.
To be fair, 0 majima is fucking terrifying, kiwami hes primarily holding back the whole game and even in his final fight thats...definitely not his whole moveset. K2 seems more for the fuck of it, and he barely seems phased after the fight, lost or not. In 3, seems more like a formality than an actual fight, 4 i mean, do YOU wanna gut your sworn brother like a fish after suffering the days of guilt and sorrow as to their circumstances? I wouldnt be in much a fighting mood myself, plus saejima just kinda collapses so at least hes still a scrapper, and in 5, he was fucked up himself, not in good condition, and yet he had the energy to, yknow, summon shadow clones for some reason. Hes just built different. That, and it could be anybody, a street thug or a deity, you are the player, you WILL win. So no matter who you are playing as, your character comes out on top.
It could be that the jingweon shown being massacred was just a side branch or they just recruited more members in the time it took to get to Yakuza 2 I personally believe that they are just very good at playing dead
@@gonb5434 One of those bullets fixed a crick in a Jingweon lieutenant's back, the other smashed a lamp and a senior enforcer is kind of miffed about that, another guy had the phone shot out of his hand while he was on the horn arranging a date...
The Yakuza series is how you make a game that is both a weird niche masterpiece full of Japanese cultural weirdness and stereotypes and a story experience that is well written, that hits the major high points of any good crime story, and has characters that are believable and wacky at the same time. The Yakuza series would never be a book, movie or comic and could only exist as a video game and damn it if it doesn't do what it set out to do in stunning fashion. With Zero and Kiawami 1 & 2 out and selling well for the first time in the west I hope that the series gets the Kiwami treatment so that people that missed it the first time around can experience it.
Never played any of the games, never had any interest in playing them looked grindy and kind of boring. I watched the first video in this series and thought well the story looks kind of neat, saw that Yakuza 0 was on a deep sale and thought "ehh I've spend a lot more for a lot more retarded shit". Oh boy had I been wrong, this series of games is just pure awesome and now I'm going through the rest of the games with glee, I just hope we get localizations of the spin off games as well, as they look fucking awesome as well
@Tehsnakerer I wish you would not worry about your videos being too long. One of the reasons I like your channel is that so many of your videos are so long. Maybe I'm in a minority, but I prefer long form content that goes really in depth over short videos. Most creators only make short videos, so its great when I find a channel that makes good quality long form content like you do.
for people who, like me, enjoys a team doing a little "hommage" to the past at 6:18 the cheeky dialogue is actually a nod to the previous translation team who worked on the franchise, that's why the thug says "something might have gotten lost in translation" because in the japanese version kiryu just says "i'm very sorry" in the second dialogue choice it's thanks to devileon7's channel and the community i know that >v>'
I loved the club management so badly that when Goda was goading me towards the final, bomb-filled show down, I replied to him "Sorry bud, my totals just came in, can you postpone that?"
I did notice Sayama has a more Korean look to her. Might just be me though idk if it's an intentional choice or if I'm noticing something that isn't there.
I'm surprised to see how faithful her K2 face is to the original (and more detailed, compared to the other characters in this game), her Y3 face looks like someone else.
I would highly recommend the Japan only HD collection if you want to play these over Kiwami. The frame rate goes from 30 to 60FPS. Tweak things like Yakuza 1's lock on and letting you store items at telephone booths. They even improve some boss fights like adding shooting baseballs that damage both sides in the bating cage fight with Majima
Hopefully someone will do a ROM hack with English subs, because these games are VERY story heavy and you miss 90% of the game without the subtitles IMO.
I definitely appreciate a lot of the changes that Kiwami 2 made after seeing this. Especially Majima’s much better goatee, lol. Kiwami 2 is definitely more beat-for-beat than I would’ve ever expected, though.
@@MidlifeCrisisJoe The Go-Ryu invasion is especially weird in K2 since the finale if (K)2 and the Snake Flower invasion in 3 is pretty much what you'd imagine it to be
@@amarson2322 I am of the opinion that they aren't good remakes of the og, but are average yakuza games. the Kiwamis are less remakes and more re imaginings, with kiwami 1 being the guiltiest one out of the two. throwing out most of the original tone and setting og 1 had in place of Yakuza 0 but again. Which makes it cleaner and easier to jump into, sure, but makes it sterile basically. im also ignoring the atrocious amount of re used movesets in both kiwamis for important characters. hayashi deserved the treatment in og 2.
Just reached the stabbing bit in Kiwami 2 - man, the music in the remake during that scene is downright horrendous. The version here had so much more oomph with it's jazzy soundtrack.
This series is great. Even though I'm pretty familiar with the games, it's nice to hear your analysis. I really like your style in general. Very informative but also entertaining.
Love the use of Shoji Meguro's work as background music: Keiichi Okabe notwithstanding, Persona/Catherine and Like a Dragon series are everything soundtracks should aspire to be.
1:14:50 The cleanest cuts and edits in this review. Man, Tartarus is such a good song. Enjoyed the review too. Yakuza 2 is a good game. Good stuff as usual.
getting to watch your yakuza videos after i've finished the respective game is always a treat, ended kiwami 2 yesterday and couldn't wait to watch your video on it the next day. thank you so much for your detailed videos on these games!
it's worth noting that there are a lot of ties between the yakuza and Japan's construction industry (the government has been trying to crack down on this more recently but I have no idea how successful they've been in that endeavor), so the fact that Majima is running a construction company is likely meant to hint that he hasn't exactly gone straight.
Can I thank you for still helping grow interest in the Yakuza community man, I've been a fan of this series since I was 7 back in 2006 with Yakuza 2 and to see you cover it with a great deal of finesse and a great attention to detail in this day and age is fulfilling to say the least, I and I'm sure many others are very grateful...what's your favourite entry in the series? (I had to ask, it's my nature as a hardcore fan to find out haha)
It's a bit of a mixer, 4 is likely my favourite overall, though it has reasons in that the plot is so ludicrous that I adore it, and after having played 3 first it's the entry that really got me into loving the series, 5 for wealth of content and the the general quality of that content, and 0 for how refined, slick, and just filled with personality it is
i played kiwami 2, and the finale was sad of course, but I haven’t cried or anything. But seeing those scenes here, brought tears to my eyes for some reason. I must say, you have made a great video, again! Three down, two to go
The main villains in at least the first few games are a foil to Kiryu: Nishikiyama is a reflection of Kiryu should he go past the Despair Event Horizon, Ryuji is a corruption of Kiryu's noble traits and Mine is a dark reflection of Kiryu's self-destructive desire to help others.
This is cliche, but you deserve more views. For me, it was a great way to pass an hour and a half. Looking forward to more. Personally I would wait until the Yakuza 3 remaster, because they said they're re-translating the whole thing and adding back in a HUGE amount of content cut from the English release.
Most of the music used in this video is from the Persona series. Specifically Persona 3 and 4. There are also some tracks from the game Katherine sprinkled in there
20:31 the FUNNIEST fucking scene i've seen so far (1/4th of the way through 3, started at 0) The way that Kiryu just shrugs of the bottle is the pinnacle of comedy.
You know hearing all this Persona music makes me wish that someone like Kiryu, Majima or maybe even Ichiban would show up as a social link in a future Persona game. Also yes I am aware of the Yakuza costumes in Persona 5 Dancing in Starlight, Ann dressed as Majima makes me think that she'll turn into the Mad Dog herself.
They should do it the same way they added Lars into Naruto. Have it be an adaptation of the character to match the setting. Since Persona is all demons or shadows they could do the creatures on their backs, themselves as demons similar to what Tokyo Mirage Sessions did, or do shadowy humans like in 3-4 and have them resemble the characters.
Great take. Gotta remember too that this was 2008 when we finally got it ported to US. This game came out in Japan in 2006, one year before Mass Effect. I mean, the writing and storytelling standards were so low back then. We didn't have high expectations in general. Mass Effect was the first to open up a new way to experience storytelling that bled into other games that came after it. The amount of thought and consideration put into Yakuza 1 and 2 was immense compared to what we were used to. Especially when NA was not considered high priority/quality translations back then. Often we'd get just awful very basic ports. But the writing and consideration came through even the translation. Yakuza will always be one of my favorite series of all time. I remember seeing comparison screenshots to the real location the game is based on. And the details were so spot on. And they didn't have to do that, but took the extra time to do it. It definitely made for a more immersive experience.
I disagree, there were still plenty of franchise that had good written back then from the us and Japan alike. Like Metal Gear, Silent hill, The og fallouts, KTOR 1+2, Halo, God of war, Shadow of the Clossus, Ico, Final Fantasy,
Final Fantasy has been doing story based games since the late 80s, plus a bunch of other games from the time How were the storytelling standards low in the mid 2000s when a lot of highly regarded games are from the 90s
@@chronica6457 You can't point out exceptions to a rule and disregard the rule. If you wanna talk about 90s games, most NES games were simple gameplay crash grabs with no story whatsoever. PS2 catalogue similar. What was the overall story of Contra? of Qbert? What was the impact of Need for Speed on plot? Even when you had good stories, translations would often make them garbage by the time the west played them.
I know this may very well be very far down the line from now, but I think there is enough interest for you to revisit this in your longer form. Either the same game or the remaster I would be happy with. I'd love to see your extended review and synopsis of the plot. Thanks once again Snakerer, you're the Kiryu of Yakuza reviews and truly Like a Dragon
I've been binge-watching your reviews all week and I'm halfway through your first Yakuza playthrough, guess I'll be watching this one not soon after I'm done :D
Has anyone ever thought of how Kiryu manage to scrape up funds to not only afford that apartment him and Haruka lives in, but also manage to provide for the both of them?
Dame Da Ne Guy: Eeeeeyikes! isnt there Dame D-enough room for the Yakuza 2 of us in this town?? Ryuji: only one guy who's Like A Dragon can rule the tojo clan
Very well done video the hour and a half just flew by. Best yakuza 2 rewiew I have ever seen. The only thing I slightly disagreed with is the problem with super armor on enemies and some bosses while I did find it tedious on normal foes on bosses there are several ways to go around this for example: during the fight with the guy who pulls out the pipes save your heat until the 2nd phase then grab the cones on the side and hit him till the weapon is on its last durabillity point and then perform the heat action since weapon attacks ignore his armor just build up heat with every swing and this way you can bypass the 2nd phase almost completely. As for the 3rd phase a good strategy is too dodge an attack and then punch twice to agro him into doing his heavy attack at that moment go behind him and grab him this always works since grabs from behind cant be blocked. As for everything else your rewiew has an excellent pace and you never waste time by pointleslly repeating something youre the only person I saw go this in depht in analysing the substories and how well they develop the people inside kamurocho and sotenbori. Good job youve more than earned my sub.
I finished Kiwami 2. And thank merciful Kami-Sama the hostess club minigame in Kiwami 2 isn't as bad as Club Marietta in the original Yakuza 2. Also, I SUCK AT MAHJONG AND OICHO KABU. And I wish Kaoru and Kiryu had stayed together 😭 Am currently on 3..hoo boy. Edit: had to restart, cause got my own PS4. Finished 0, Kiwami 1, and am currently working on Kiwami 2. But I'm currently residing in the black hole that is The Sims 4. Edit #2: Finished 0, Kiwami 1, Kiwami 2, the PS4 port of 3, and am currently on 4, but don't know when I'll get back to the series, cause I work 5 of the 7 days in the week, but maybe I'll get back into it soon.
Hearing all this Persona music I really hope we get Persona retrospective like this Yakuza one. One off videos on one of the other SMT videos would be awesome as well.
I was thinking how cool it would be to have a host club minigame in Yakuza. I've only played the remake of Yakuza 2, I didn't know there was one in the original. Still, I would've preferred the same kinda minigame like the hostess one from Y0 and YK2 but with hosts instead so I guess it's not a complete loss.
I got into these games with zero I'm in 5 right now and played the kiwami versions of 1 and 2 So.its weird but oddly charming to see the ps2 games when I'm used to the same scenes but in a ps4 engine
There's a game that you may (probably not) find enjoyment from playing, it's a GTA clone that only stands out because Vin Diesel is the main character. It's called Wheelman, as I said its a GTA clone set in gangland Barcelona. Do what you want with that information (for your own sanity, probably nothing).
I'm about ten minutes in and I jumped to this one after the Yakuza 1 video (and after part four of the yakuza 5 video) and I had already forgotten who...Shindo(?) was. Wow. Anyway, I don't know why you don't have hundreds of thousands more subscribers. These videos are stellar, my guy! Also, whoever complains about the length is a coward.
Kiryu going to a hostess club: ''i'm just here to relax and talk to someone''
Yakuza 2 NPCs going to a hostess club: ''i'm just here to say how ugly this carpet is''
"They're both so stubborn, they could live in a house with no walls and the roof would stay up"
I'm stealing that line
Such a good line
"JINGWEON could be here" he thought, "I've never been in this neighborhood before. There could be JINGWEON anywhere." The cool wind felt good against his bare chest. "I HATE JINGWEON" he thought. Rouge of Love reverberated his entire car, making it pulsate even as the 949.52 yen sake circulated through his powerful thick veins and washed away his (merited) fear of koreans after dark. "With a car, you can go anywhere you want" he said to himself, out loud.
My favorite rendition of that meme
I wish I knew its name.
@@diegordi1394
:^)
Kiryu wakes up to realize he's a Japanese, and now he( and everyone around him) gonna speak in Japanese from now on.
Till Yakuza 7 (and the Judgement series).
@@nicktoons125 I never played those with the English dubs, just felt wrong after 7 whole games of Japanese.
@@davetucker-dale3242 100% Understandable.
@@nicktoons125for what it’s worth the dubs from Judgment onward are really good
"I peacocked your mom."
~Kazuma Kiryu
Just commenting as I see it, when I see the "Remember the events of last year? No." thing, I think of it in the sense of "No, I don't remember the events of last year." That interpretation just seems a lot funnier to me.
That's a hilarious interpretation.
"I got hit a lot in the head what were you expecting"
I’m trying to imagine Kiryu bringing back a whole sofa to Okinawa for the orphanage that he stole from Ryuji 😂
"Uncle Kaz, why did you bring that sofa with you?"
"Cuz fuck Ryuji! He owes me for all the shit he has done!"
@@AgentDanielCross "uh errr.... I mean ignore the bad words Uncle Kaz just said. Ryuji is a very bad man and this is how he is paying me back for being bad"
He is the only dragon and because of that he can claim the now dead other dragon's property
Welp... glad the Caberet Club management in Zero is just Dinner Dash on steroids and I love it.
It's a big improvement
It is a game by itself * - *
I want a mobile phone version of it that I can play at work or on the train lol it’s amazing
I’m gonna try dinner dash based on your comment
i do enjoy it, but they do need to get new carpets in the grande
I still have the 150 page FAQ guide for this game. I remember printing it on my school's copy shop and someone freaked out of the amount of bullshit I was printing.
I wonder how many of those pages were the "legal notices plz don't copy without permission" or extremely dated unfunny jokes or the table of contents or the intro.
I did the same with a 100% guide for Persona 4. I figured the 100% would be as tough as Persona 3 and prepared accordingly
I love how Sengoku looks like a weasel given human form.
Glad to see his design in the remake is faithful to the original
@@noriakikakyoin1423 it's also faithful in like a dragon Ishin
I haven't finished the video yet, but the thugs not picking fights with you indicates you've unlocked an "encounter boss". these are minibosses that show up once you've fufilled a quota of thugs beaten up. you have to find them, beat them, then you can continue doing random thug battles until you unlock the next one. I'll admit it's one of the worst side distractions in this game, there's little to no hints or explanations and the bosses that spawn are totally random and too hard to find. defeating every boss is even more of an obnoxious grind than the club minigames.
Ah, thank you for the explanation, I really didn't pick up on that at all.
Having replayed 2, I can say this isn't entirely true. The game has an exp cap per chapter where the limit makes encounters disappear when the criteria meet (like 12 bars of exp being the limit for chapter 1). The amount of upgrades you put into your also affects this. Basically, if you're "overleveled" or reach the exp cap, chances are you won't get encounters for the chapter.
Any time I see there are no encounters, I could not find a single encounter boss in either city. So in a way, the street bosses don't really affect encounter rates much. Either way, its a very weird detail.
@@blackwind677 so in conclusion it's entirely random and even worse than I thought it was
Kiwami 2 definitely improves this particular aspect.
pretty late but Ive just finished 2.
apparently on some chapters there just wont be random encounters, regardless of encounter bosses, cant remember which ones are affected though.
For real, once ive got to Chapter 6 or smth, the encounters outright stopped until just before ive got to the final chapter. The encounter boss from (or supposed to spawn in) Chapter 7 only spawned at that point as well.
It's honestly a dumb system but KINDA understandable since it can be easy to max out shit close to ending the game.
i noticed that majima gets an easier fight in each game, and it ties into the plot of him getting soft in y5
To be fair, 0 majima is fucking terrifying, kiwami hes primarily holding back the whole game and even in his final fight thats...definitely not his whole moveset. K2 seems more for the fuck of it, and he barely seems phased after the fight, lost or not. In 3, seems more like a formality than an actual fight, 4 i mean, do YOU wanna gut your sworn brother like a fish after suffering the days of guilt and sorrow as to their circumstances? I wouldnt be in much a fighting mood myself, plus saejima just kinda collapses so at least hes still a scrapper, and in 5, he was fucked up himself, not in good condition, and yet he had the energy to, yknow, summon shadow clones for some reason. Hes just built different. That, and it could be anybody, a street thug or a deity, you are the player, you WILL win. So no matter who you are playing as, your character comes out on top.
@@lordsickomode and then he goes balls out in 7
As many Jingweon survivors as pop up in the plot, I gotta ask: did _any_ of the Jingweon actually die?
As it turns out, the Tojo didn't so much kill every Jingweon member as enter their HQ, fire a couple of shots into the lobby, and call it a day.
It could be that the jingweon shown being massacred was just a side branch or they just recruited more members in the time it took to get to Yakuza 2 I personally believe that they are just very good at playing dead
rubber bullets
@@gonb5434 One of those bullets fixed a crick in a Jingweon lieutenant's back, the other smashed a lamp and a senior enforcer is kind of miffed about that, another guy had the phone shot out of his hand while he was on the horn arranging a date...
@@terribledeadlinegameplay "Damn it Saejima, not again!"
-Dojima, probably
The Yakuza series is how you make a game that is both a weird niche masterpiece full of Japanese cultural weirdness and stereotypes and a story experience that is well written, that hits the major high points of any good crime story, and has characters that are believable and wacky at the same time. The Yakuza series would never be a book, movie or comic and could only exist as a video game and damn it if it doesn't do what it set out to do in stunning fashion. With Zero and Kiawami 1 & 2 out and selling well for the first time in the west I hope that the series gets the Kiwami treatment so that people that missed it the first time around can experience it.
Never played any of the games, never had any interest in playing them looked grindy and kind of boring.
I watched the first video in this series and thought well the story looks kind of neat, saw that Yakuza 0 was on a deep sale and thought "ehh I've spend a lot more for a lot more retarded shit".
Oh boy had I been wrong, this series of games is just pure awesome and now I'm going through the rest of the games with glee, I just hope we get localizations of the spin off games as well, as they look fucking awesome as well
It's like the Persona of beat 'em ups
Now a days this is not considered Niche.
Well, there is one Yakuza film.....never seen it though.
@@Xegethra the 2006 one with "weird" majima?
@Tehsnakerer I wish you would not worry about your videos being too long. One of the reasons I like your channel is that so many of your videos are so long. Maybe I'm in a minority, but I prefer long form content that goes really in depth over short videos. Most creators only make short videos, so its great when I find a channel that makes good quality long form content like you do.
The “you’re Japanese!” joke on Kiryu waking up gets a laugh every time and I feel it’s under-appreciated
for people who, like me, enjoys a team doing a little "hommage" to the past
at 6:18 the cheeky dialogue is actually a nod to the previous translation team who worked on the franchise, that's why the thug says "something might have gotten lost in translation" because in the japanese version kiryu just says "i'm very sorry" in the second dialogue choice
it's thanks to devileon7's channel and the community i know that >v>'
Hearing the Persona 3 music go on makes me REALLY want a Persona retrospective.
I thought I heard some Catherine music too.
@@zombiecarnivore yh the bar theme
Fuck the robot, Shinji.
I loved the club management so badly that when Goda was goading me towards the final, bomb-filled show down, I replied to him "Sorry bud, my totals just came in, can you postpone that?"
Yeah, I found it a great distraction compared to the Host Club which was mostly just checking a guide.
So does your Patreon need to be £0 for Yakuza 0?
I gave this comment its 100th like. Like for 200.
Yakuza 0 (& Kiwami) sit at $600
We got it to 200 guys. Let's get it to 300 now.
301 now
reminds me of the ol days of under 301 bug on yt
I remember the first time I played Yakuza 2. As soon as I heard Outlaw's Lullaby, I knew this game would be better than the first.
I did notice Sayama has a more Korean look to her. Might just be me though idk if it's an intentional choice or if I'm noticing something that isn't there.
Yeah....For spoiler reasons, you might be right. Play it or watch a let's play of it on UA-cam to find out.
@@GenAqua You were far from goddamn subtle. But then again, this IS a plot analysis.
thats because she is korean, and she is Ryuji sister
I'm surprised to see how faithful her K2 face is to the original (and more detailed, compared to the other characters in this game), her Y3 face looks like someone else.
@@inconemay1441 yakuza 3 they were like GET THIS BITCH OUTTA HERE NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
everyone when she left: :(
I would highly recommend the Japan only HD collection if you want to play these over Kiwami. The frame rate goes from 30 to 60FPS. Tweak things like Yakuza 1's lock on and letting you store items at telephone booths. They even improve some boss fights like adding shooting baseballs that damage both sides in the bating cage fight with Majima
Hopefully someone will do a ROM hack with English subs, because these games are VERY story heavy and you miss 90% of the game without the subtitles IMO.
Why not just play kiwami
@@jacobh2147 kiwami is bad
@@aidancorgi5608 why
@@aidancorgi5608 yeah why?
Yakuza 2: Carpet Hate Simulator 2k8
HAHAHA!! 😂
It’s the anti Persona 3
I definitely appreciate a lot of the changes that Kiwami 2 made after seeing this. Especially Majima’s much better goatee, lol.
Kiwami 2 is definitely more beat-for-beat than I would’ve ever expected, though.
Both of the Kiwami remakes pretty much try to do a shot to shot remake of the original games' cutscenes.
@@MidlifeCrisisJoe those are just nitpicks, kiwamis are great
@@MidlifeCrisisJoe the first paragraph of your reply I can kind of agree with. Anything after that is just personal preference
@@MidlifeCrisisJoe The Go-Ryu invasion is especially weird in K2 since the finale if (K)2 and the Snake Flower invasion in 3 is pretty much what you'd imagine it to be
@@amarson2322 I am of the opinion that they aren't good remakes of the og, but are average yakuza games.
the Kiwamis are less remakes and more re imaginings, with kiwami 1 being the guiltiest one out of the two. throwing out most of the original tone and setting og 1 had in place of Yakuza 0 but again. Which makes it cleaner and easier to jump into, sure,
but makes it sterile basically. im also ignoring the atrocious amount of re used movesets in both kiwamis for important characters. hayashi deserved the treatment in og 2.
This must take so much work. Much respect.
If people enjoy it it's worth it
Definitely worth it IMO. Love your content.
Just reached the stabbing bit in Kiwami 2 - man, the music in the remake during that scene is downright horrendous. The version here had so much more oomph with it's jazzy soundtrack.
47:47 Wow the actual hatred in you voice makes me want to play the game more then anything else.
This series is great. Even though I'm pretty familiar with the games, it's nice to hear your analysis. I really like your style in general. Very informative but also entertaining.
Right before Kiwami 2 drops and in comes Snake with a gloriously informal 25K sub celebration!
GoneRampant kiwami 2
?*
40:50 a yes, my favorite part of childhood: Playing in the park while the local town drunk yelled at us coz he had a hangover.
Never change Yakuza
had a bad day man, i needed this
Hope you enjoy it
you bet your sexy voice I will!
Love the use of Shoji Meguro's work as background music: Keiichi Okabe notwithstanding, Persona/Catherine and Like a Dragon series are everything soundtracks should aspire to be.
You are such an under appreciated channel!
1:14:50
The cleanest cuts and edits in this review.
Man, Tartarus is such a good song.
Enjoyed the review too.
Yakuza 2 is a good game.
Good stuff as usual.
Glad to know "I peacocked your mom" was a prompt in the original.
Can we all appreciate the fact that Yakuza 2, one of the best Yakuza games came out the same year Sonic '06, one of the worst Sonic games came out?
For a second I didn't understand the comparison, until I realised they were both made by Sega.
@@classydoctor5864 Yup
@@classydoctor5864 honestly that's how I feel when I remember Sega publishes the Total War games. Because by God is Empire the Sonic 06 of the series
Its the worst in the series beside yakuza 4 and 5
@@markhirsch6301 you guys must be v young. Sega have an amazing back catalogue.
To be fair canonically that is Kiryu reaction to anything going bad with the orphanage, he is just a real bonafide dad for them
the first of these conviced me to get both 0 and kiwami 1 so gonna put this one off until i get through kiwami 2
I held off watching either until beating the Kiwami's, so watching these could help me see how similar/different they are.
@@Redblaze27 Yeah same here. Just beat Kiwami 2 a couple days ago.
Ayy one year has passed but did you enjoy Kiwami 2?
17:50 I think you should start making dub patches for Yakuza games because this performance's freakin' impressive, buddy.
That Terada QTE is the *only* QTE I've ever failed unintentially because I was spamming buttons to hit him then the beam showed up
Had no idea you were planning on reviewing the entire series. Going to put this on hold, though. Gotta beat Kiwami 2 first.
In the span of 2 weeks ive binged all of your videos and have only watched you
Glad you enjoy them and hope this video stands up
As always no doubt in that
It's a remarkably easy thing to do. I just keep clicking new videos, and they never end. Such bliss...
I thought I was the only one who forgot Shindo actually exist in Yakuza Kiwami and 1
getting to watch your yakuza videos after i've finished the respective game is always a treat, ended kiwami 2 yesterday and couldn't wait to watch your video on it the next day. thank you so much for your detailed videos on these games!
it's worth noting that there are a lot of ties between the yakuza and Japan's construction industry (the government has been trying to crack down on this more recently but I have no idea how successful they've been in that endeavor), so the fact that Majima is running a construction company is likely meant to hint that he hasn't exactly gone straight.
it still surprises me that you only have 25k subs
hell, this video only has 5k views
this channel is a hidden gem, never stop
He picked the best time to upload this video lol
It was a bit of a happy coincidence, I only realised a few days ago "Ah shit, Kiwami 2's nearly here!"
Can I thank you for still helping grow interest in the Yakuza community man, I've been a fan of this series since I was 7 back in 2006 with Yakuza 2 and to see you cover it with a great deal of finesse and a great attention to detail in this day and age is fulfilling to say the least, I and I'm sure many others are very grateful...what's your favourite entry in the series? (I had to ask, it's my nature as a hardcore fan to find out haha)
It's a bit of a mixer, 4 is likely my favourite overall, though it has reasons in that the plot is so ludicrous that I adore it, and after having played 3 first it's the entry that really got me into loving the series, 5 for wealth of content and the the general quality of that content, and 0 for how refined, slick, and just filled with personality it is
Great way to sum that up, but the "reasons" in Yakuza 4's ludicrous plot can be summed up very elegantly, RUBBER BULLETS SON!
@@Tehsnakerer Are you gonna cover Kiwami 1 and 2?
After following this video for a bit on twitter, my legit delight at finally getting my greasy mitts on it cannot be expressed
Thank the heavens Club Marietta was replaced with Four Shine.
Yeah. It's an improvement.
i played kiwami 2, and the finale was sad of course, but I haven’t cried or anything. But seeing those scenes here, brought tears to my eyes for some reason. I must say, you have made a great video, again! Three down, two to go
The main villains in at least the first few games are a foil to Kiryu: Nishikiyama is a reflection of Kiryu should he go past the Despair Event Horizon, Ryuji is a corruption of Kiryu's noble traits and Mine is a dark reflection of Kiryu's self-destructive desire to help others.
Been saving this for watching, I binged all your longform video reviews to the point I ran out, made me so happy to see you pop up in my feed
Kiryu gets shot.
Kiryu : ''I needed some iron in my blood''
CSI Sunglass' moment
Most bullets are made out of a lead-antimony alloy
Heh, I got a Kiwami 2 ad before the video
mAceOfHearts whatis that
OH MY STARS AND GARTERS. I've missed you, Snakerer.
This is cliche, but you deserve more views. For me, it was a great way to pass an hour and a half. Looking forward to more.
Personally I would wait until the Yakuza 3 remaster, because they said they're re-translating the whole thing and adding back in a HUGE amount of content cut from the English release.
When?
Great video. I think Yakuza 2 is one of the best games in the series. Great story and the soundtrack is awesome.
I'm gonna need a music list for every background song used.
Most of the music used in this video is from the Persona series. Specifically Persona 3 and 4. There are also some tracks from the game Katherine sprinkled in there
20:31 the FUNNIEST fucking scene i've seen so far (1/4th of the way through 3, started at 0)
The way that Kiryu just shrugs of the bottle is the pinnacle of comedy.
I've been playing Persona 3 so when I heard that music used in the background I got really confused.
Goddamn it Snake, I've been bamboozled again.
I REALLY like these videoes, and I dearly look forward to the next one
These completely acceptable audiolevels, what is this?!
28:25 lmao yeah ryuji's clan just got smacked by two guys and one of them was daigo. doesn't that somehow sound worse than if it had just been kiryu?
Honestly? Getting smacked by a rookie who just showed up... Yeah, id also try to not look at that being something that just happened
So this review has done 2 things. I now want to play Yakuza 0-2 on steam and the persona ost works in Yakuza way too well.
Binge-watched! Thank you so much, man, it was tremendously entertaining. Don't ever quit, please.
"I've got a rad idea! KEEP STILL!"
You know hearing all this Persona music makes me wish that someone like Kiryu, Majima or maybe even Ichiban would show up as a social link in a future Persona game. Also yes I am aware of the Yakuza costumes in Persona 5 Dancing in Starlight, Ann dressed as Majima makes me think that she'll turn into the Mad Dog herself.
They should do it the same way they added Lars into Naruto. Have it be an adaptation of the character to match the setting. Since Persona is all demons or shadows they could do the creatures on their backs, themselves as demons similar to what Tokyo Mirage Sessions did, or do shadowy humans like in 3-4 and have them resemble the characters.
Majima is already, man can make shadow clones. He might already have presona powers.
Can we appreciate how Kiryu in the cinematic used a tiger drop to take down an actual tiger?
Great take. Gotta remember too that this was 2008 when we finally got it ported to US. This game came out in Japan in 2006, one year before Mass Effect. I mean, the writing and storytelling standards were so low back then. We didn't have high expectations in general. Mass Effect was the first to open up a new way to experience storytelling that bled into other games that came after it. The amount of thought and consideration put into Yakuza 1 and 2 was immense compared to what we were used to. Especially when NA was not considered high priority/quality translations back then. Often we'd get just awful very basic ports. But the writing and consideration came through even the translation. Yakuza will always be one of my favorite series of all time.
I remember seeing comparison screenshots to the real location the game is based on. And the details were so spot on. And they didn't have to do that, but took the extra time to do it. It definitely made for a more immersive experience.
I disagree, there were still plenty of franchise that had good written back then from the us and Japan alike. Like Metal Gear, Silent hill, The og fallouts, KTOR 1+2, Halo, God of war, Shadow of the Clossus, Ico, Final Fantasy,
Final Fantasy has been doing story based games since the late 80s, plus a bunch of other games from the time
How were the storytelling standards low in the mid 2000s when a lot of highly regarded games are from the 90s
@@chronica6457 You can't point out exceptions to a rule and disregard the rule. If you wanna talk about 90s games, most NES games were simple gameplay crash grabs with no story whatsoever. PS2 catalogue similar. What was the overall story of Contra? of Qbert? What was the impact of Need for Speed on plot?
Even when you had good stories, translations would often make them garbage by the time the west played them.
I know this may very well be very far down the line from now, but I think there is enough interest for you to revisit this in your longer form. Either the same game or the remaster I would be happy with. I'd love to see your extended review and synopsis of the plot. Thanks once again Snakerer, you're the Kiryu of Yakuza reviews and truly Like a Dragon
videos like this are why I love that I found this channel. I love long form videos like this, and only wish they were longer
Starts playing Persona music
I've been binge-watching your reviews all week and I'm halfway through your first Yakuza playthrough, guess I'll be watching this one not soon after I'm done :D
20:37
“Guess it’s time for a throwdown.”
Absolute genius.
I think the Millennium Tower might be the most bombed building in gaming
Has anyone ever thought of how Kiryu manage to scrape up funds to not only afford that apartment him and Haruka lives in, but also manage to provide for the both of them?
Man, rewatching this after rewatching your review of Y6, there are way too many Yakuza who enter relationships after slapping a woman in the face.
There is some slight input lag if your emulating the game, which messes up the QTEs. Atleast, that was my experience.
cookieface80 A way to fix this is to reduce audio latency to about 23. That should help out a lot :)
They stop fighting you based on your level, to prevent grinding and/or to make you want/need to search for the sub-stories to level up further.
what you said about the credits (in the "Conclusion part") was probably my most favourite line of a "review" video ever.
Ive recently been deep diving into the series and one of the highlights for me is when I finish one I get to watch your video on it
Throwdown...
Your punwork is always really good, me and the lads always seem to come away appreciating it.
Just in case you ever doubt yourself, lmoa
Dame Da Ne Guy: Eeeeeyikes! isnt there Dame D-enough room for the Yakuza 2 of us in this town??
Ryuji: only one guy who's Like A Dragon can rule the tojo clan
That Baby section still disturbs me...
Yakuza 2: Kinkshame Boogaloo
Very well done video the hour and a half just flew by. Best yakuza 2 rewiew I have ever seen. The only thing I slightly disagreed with is the problem with super armor on enemies and some bosses while I did find it tedious on normal foes on bosses there are several ways to go around this for example: during the fight with the guy who pulls out the pipes save your heat until the 2nd phase then grab the cones on the side and hit him till the weapon is on its last durabillity point and then perform the heat action since weapon attacks ignore his armor just build up heat with every swing and this way you can bypass the 2nd phase almost completely. As for the 3rd phase a good strategy is too dodge an attack and then punch twice to agro him into doing his heavy attack at that moment go behind him and grab him this always works since grabs from behind cant be blocked. As for everything else your rewiew has an excellent pace and you never waste time by pointleslly repeating something youre the only person I saw go this in depht in analysing the substories and how well they develop the people inside kamurocho and sotenbori. Good job youve more than earned my sub.
I was playing Yakuza Kiwami 2 and i noticed that Takashima seemed to be aged up about 20 years for some reason.
They changed the designs to match the actors more. They did this to Takashima, Kawara, and Kurahashi
I finished Kiwami 2. And thank merciful Kami-Sama the hostess club minigame in Kiwami 2 isn't as bad as Club Marietta in the original Yakuza 2. Also, I SUCK AT MAHJONG AND OICHO KABU. And I wish Kaoru and Kiryu had stayed together 😭
Am currently on 3..hoo boy.
Edit: had to restart, cause got my own PS4. Finished 0, Kiwami 1, and am currently working on Kiwami 2. But I'm currently residing in the black hole that is The Sims 4. Edit #2: Finished 0, Kiwami 1, Kiwami 2, the PS4 port of 3, and am currently on 4, but don't know when I'll get back to the series, cause I work 5 of the 7 days in the week, but maybe I'll get back into it soon.
It's always great to have you upload. Digging this shit
Hearing all this Persona music I really hope we get Persona retrospective like this Yakuza one. One off videos on one of the other SMT videos would be awesome as well.
I was thinking how cool it would be to have a host club minigame in Yakuza. I've only played the remake of Yakuza 2, I didn't know there was one in the original. Still, I would've preferred the same kinda minigame like the hostess one from Y0 and YK2 but with hosts instead so I guess it's not a complete loss.
Watching this made me wanna revisit this game. Also made me wish Kiwami 2 was a better remake. It's good, but I think I still prefer the original
I know this is an old video, but I wanted to ask what you thought of Kiwami 2 since it's quite controversial in the fan base from what I'm aware.
"Of course [he'll be fine]. It's Kashiwagi. Do you think a bombing would stop him?"
SPOILERS
does a CIA minigun count as higher than a bombing?
SPOILERS
with yakuza 7 i don't think so
I got into these games with zero
I'm in 5 right now and played the kiwami versions of 1 and 2
So.its weird but oddly charming to see the ps2 games when I'm used to the same scenes but in a ps4 engine
That Akimoto dude is a suicide jumper from 1. You get to meet him in sub-story if you have Haruka accompanying you.
There's a game that you may (probably not) find enjoyment from playing, it's a GTA clone that only stands out because Vin Diesel is the main character.
It's called Wheelman, as I said its a GTA clone set in gangland Barcelona.
Do what you want with that information (for your own sanity, probably nothing).
"Gta clone" is a bit of a stretch..
I'm about ten minutes in and I jumped to this one after the Yakuza 1 video (and after part four of the yakuza 5 video) and I had already forgotten who...Shindo(?) was. Wow. Anyway, I don't know why you don't have hundreds of thousands more subscribers. These videos are stellar, my guy!
Also, whoever complains about the length is a coward.
yessssss, the absolute lad is back
Love the random persona music throughout the video.