In so, so many of Nanba's meal chats he annoys someone in the group and every time it is between one and all three of funny, charming and/or earnest. I love the banter between these idiots so much, it's honestly become a highlight of the game for me.
+5
PaperLuigi44My amazement is at maximum capacity.Registered Userregular
Oh my god, the equivalent of unlocking new jobs is amazing
+2
JacobkoshGamble a stamp.I can show you how to be a real man!Moderatormod
Btw, everyone, don't sleep on Sujimancy. If you fully awaken and level the five Kiwami Sujimon Ichiban can equip them and they have like 999 magic power apiece. Ichiban does as much damage with a 35 MP cast as Kiryu does with his Dragon ultimate.
I'm into the postgame Big Swell dungeon and it's really neat. Each time you complete one of the dungeon segments you get a long (10 minutes?) cutscene of the gang hanging out and goofing off. Like a long interactive denoument. It's a really nice way to gradually ramp down from the high of the climax, flex all those levels and gear you accumulated but didn't get to use, and detach from the game. It's helping a lot with that post-game listlessness.
I have Ichiban as a Sujimancer but I dressed him up in Adachi's shiny suit, and it lends an air of "wrestling promoter" to the move set that I really think is additive
I have Ichiban as a Sujimancer but I dressed him up in Adachi's shiny suit, and it lends an air of "wrestling promoter" to the move set that I really think is additive
I did him in Date's trenchcoat for that Constantine vibe
0
AtomicTofuShe's a straight-up supervillain, yoRegistered Userregular
Nanba is absolutely the George Costanza of the group
Idk if this is what Zavian is referring to but the game's caught the eye of the anime virgin outrage mill with dweebs on youtube and the steam boards whining about woke localization, "censorship," betraying the TRUE SPIRIT OF AUTHENTIC NIHON etc. A lot of it is focused on (of course) a woman employed at the localization studio who from what I gather also worked on some JRPGs or official anime subs that these people had been mad about in the past, and a lot of the rest of it is focused on Yong Yea.
I will be honest, the idea that Like a Dragon is getting criticized for suddenly becoming woke or progressive is very funny to me, considering the games have always been about the marginalized in Japanese society.
Oh yeah it's absolutely outrage tourism. It's all the same people who freaked out when Skullgirls removed panty shots or whatever, they have no attachment to Yakuza at all.
I only recently learned about the phrase 'tourism', and I kind of hate it, since I got called one for criticizing Yu-No... even though I've been playing VNs since the 90s.
Beat this game last night. Still needs time to fully sink in, but early thoughts are that while I think I liked the main story of 7 more, this game had some really good character moments that elevated the narrative. I don't think the main villains were as compelling as some of the other games, but a lot of the other new characters like Tomizawa, Chitose, and Yamai were really good.
I really liked what they did with Kiryu in this game. When they first announced the dual protagonist structure of the game I was a bit disappointed. Kiryu has had his time in the sun and I didn't want him to constantly come back and overshadow Ichiban. I felt it would hinder this franchise from being able to move forward. Turns out I didn't have to worry. Kiryu's story here does a great job of wrangling the different threads of his story into a satisfying bow while also giving him some real character development.
Gameplay wise it's 7, but improved in basically every way. The only real issue I have with the combat is that sometimes I don't want to do a combo or weapon attack, but can't get near the enemy without triggering one of those. I also can't think of a minigame that I dreaded doing, which it feels like every Yakuza game has at least one.
Good game.
FFXIV: Agran Trask
+2
DemonStaceyTTODewback's DaughterIn love with the TaySwayRegistered Userregular
Chapter 8
holy butts it's like a whole nother game over here!
I didnt realize just how much Kiryu specific stiff there would be over here.
This game is insane.
0
DemonStaceyTTODewback's DaughterIn love with the TaySwayRegistered Userregular
Thing I wish they did that was also an issue in the last game:
Let us see the current star rating of an area from the map.
It can be a bit annoying needing to taxi to each area to figure out what level it is.
DemonStaceyTTODewback's DaughterIn love with the TaySwayRegistered Userregular
As someone who was also iffy on the split parties and Kiryu stuff...
Damn it is really well done. I am having way too much fun just running around with Team Kiryu right now.
0
DemonStaceyTTODewback's DaughterIn love with the TaySwayRegistered Userregular
edited February 2024
Quick question as googling is useless, do the EX floors of the dungeons open up after you beat the normal ones or is that some kinda silly post-game thing?
They unlock when you beat the first three stages; not sure if you also need to have rescued everybody up to that point, because I made sure to do so.
(Also rescues are always on floors X2, X4, X6, X8, and X9, so on the other handful of floors you can dash to the exit).
Milski on
I ate an engineer
+2
DemonStaceyTTODewback's DaughterIn love with the TaySwayRegistered Userregular
Fuck yea!
Thank you for that. I was a little worried there because I really wanted to do all the floors.
Now I know I also shouldn't be trying to save the third section fir end game haha.
0
Johnny ChopsockyScootaloo! We have to cook!Grillin' HaysenburgersRegistered Userregular
I finally made it to Dondoko Island, and now within me live two wolves. One wolf wants me to go back to Hawaii and get on with the game, and the other wolf really wants me to get more stars for my resort.
And both wolves can't help but laugh at the DIY animation every single time it happens, specifically Ichi's face and the noise he makes when he's using the drill.
DragkoniasThat Guy Who Does StuffYou Know, There. Registered Userregular
On Chapter 10 and definitely overleveled at this point.
I'm gonna focus on finishing up all the sidequests and Kiryu stuff then probably make a beeline for endgame since I'm trying to be done before Rebirth comes out.
Beat the game. Probably going to write up more detailed thoughts later, but I think overall things open strong and the character beats and emotional beats that work are the best in the series, but the actual plot is pretty weak at all points after the split with extremely weak antagonists. Gameplay and minigames were generally pretty excellent, so overall one of the stronger Yakuzas but probably not dethronong 0 as "the one where everything works the whole game"
I ate an engineer
+4
DragkoniasThat Guy Who Does StuffYou Know, There. Registered Userregular
edited February 2024
Yeah I think I agree.
Also it kind of felt like the Hawaii setting was underutilized as for the most part you still only really interact with other Japanese folks.
I would say the game is more of a send-off for Kiryu which is fine but everything else plotwise ends up feeling like padding as a result.
Beat the game. Probably going to write up more detailed thoughts later, but I think overall things open strong and the character beats and emotional beats that work are the best in the series, but the actual plot is pretty weak at all points after the split with extremely weak antagonists. Gameplay and minigames were generally pretty excellent, so overall one of the stronger Yakuzas but probably not dethronong 0 as "the one where everything works the whole game"
Ending spoilers
That's pretty much where I'm landing where I think 7 is still top for me.
Ebina representing all the people the Yakuza have harmed and who don't want to see them have a second chance at life has a lot of potential. I think the main thing that hurt Ebina as a villian is how you see him a bit at the start of the game and then you spend 40 hours in Hawaii and forget he exists. So when you go back to Japan they have to rush his heel turn and not give it the time and development it deserves.
Bryce and the cult are just bad. There's no reason they had to take an actual deity from native Hawaiian beliefs and make them a crazy death cult. You could have still had Bryce as the head of an orphanage using it as a front for his criminal syndicate. It would have worked just the same and not felt gross. Instead I think the cult stuff actively works against the big themes of the game.
Having this game be focused on the aftermath of the Tojo and Omi breaking up makes a lot of sense. A lot of the early beats were focused on how society is set up to make it near impossible for Yakuza to go straight and how that pushes them back to the life they are trying to leave. How the two largest Yakuza groups disappearing overnight leaves a vacuum that somebody is going to try to fill. I really wish the game focused more on that instead of a bunch of the game being "woah everybody in Hawaii is a secret brainwashed cultist."
So I either sold or turned to scraps the Housekeeper's Mop, and I'm not sure if it's possible to get another one. Does anyone know? I'm in post-story mode and I've checked every pawn shop to see if they're selling it, no dice. The crowned enemy that drops it isn't respawning.
Yeah the only thing that makes the cult stuff less offensive is that by the time that really shows up the writers seem to have completely forgotten the story isn't located on some extra southerly Japanese island.
Either that or Ichiban learns English really fast
A trap is for fish: when you've got the fish, you can forget the trap. A snare is for rabbits: when you've got the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words are for meaning: when you've got the meaning, you can forget the words.
Ichiban's mom is just such a boring Proper Japanese Lady, and it wouldve been waaaay more fun if she had turned out to be a lovable dumbass like her son. Or just like, anything to make her a bit more interesting?
Instead all she has is that somehow after 20+ years she never noticed that she worked at EvilCult&Crime Corp, despite almost no one in the organization trying very hard to hide it.
A trap is for fish: when you've got the fish, you can forget the trap. A snare is for rabbits: when you've got the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words are for meaning: when you've got the meaning, you can forget the words.
I think the biggest problem the game has overall is a lack of focus, an inability to make this sprawling two-setting, two-party, two-story (the main plot and Kiryu's sendoff) epic actually tie together in a compelling way.
Where the game chooses to actually focus is almost universally excellent. Ichiban's dumbass optimist hero persona shines through constantly in both substories and the main plot. The party interactions are almost always earnest, heartwarming, and/or hilarious (God, this game is consistently funny in a way basically no other games are). Tomizawa and Yamai are both standout new characters, and Chitose isn't too far behind. Kiryu's questline with Date and ending are a real, well-earned tearjerker and a much better and more deserved ending for the character than Yakuza 6. The cutscenes in the game, whether they're Yamai burning down a forest or Arakawa's rampage or the Baracudas roaming the streets and murdering people who get in their way, are all very well done and set the violent stakes of the game despite the goofy RPG vibes in combat and in most of the side content.
But at the same time, so much of that focus is misspent. Yamai's one of the greatest antagonists in Yakuza... but he's that way because you have 5 boss fights against him and about 50% of the Hawaii chapters revolve around him, despite his role in the plot literally being "not relevant". You spend a ton of effort and lose Kiryu to rescue Wong Tou, and then he literally sits in base as an uninteractive NPC for a chapter until he gets murdered. You spend a chapter getting Majima, Saejima, and Daigo to help out, and then they show up in the finale to help with a mook fight (with fewer mooks than normal, because you only have one active party memnber!). There's a good amount of emphasis on the brutality of the Baracudas, but in the end they are low level trash mobs and District 5 is irrelevant, but Dwight is a heavy who shows up for 3 boss fights and has basically no role beyond that.
On the flipside of things, so much of the main plot desperately needs more focus or attention. Akane and Lani are absurdly boring and you don't even get to spend enough time with Akane for Ichiban's "I don't really know if I think of her as 'mom', but I've got to see this through" bit to pay off. Literally the only interesting thing they do with Bryce is imply he gave a guy a gun rigged to explode in his first scene, but they do absolutely nothing else to explain why an openly evil man can have the entirety of Hawaii under control as a cult leader, and on that note they do absolutely nothing interesting with the fact the Baracudas and the cult are ostensibly evil mirrors of Ichiban by recruiting from the downtrodden and putting them to evil purposes. Also, the whole Palakena cult thing is stupid and shitty to begin with. Ebina gets very slightly more development, but still you've got like four Kiryu chapters to do so and in one of them you're literally put on a bus to go recruit the old gang and have a boss fight. Even the Hawaiian setting, while visually interesting, doesn't really matter much outside of the very start of the game and to justify the party split.
So there are a lot of really great character moments and scenes, but they rarely serve to really further the actual plot, and the weakness of the plot really weakens the impact of character moments that directly tie to it. Like, it's really hard to view Ichiban stopping Bryce from committing suicide as a particularly noble act when Bryce just... isn't a character; in comparison, the Ei-chan scene in the ending, while random, at least did feel like Ichiban making a conscious decision to forgive a real character we got at least some motivation from. And due to a lack of focus, a lot of things that feel like they should tie together don't; why is the obvious mirror between pulling the downtrodden into the Baracudas/cult and helping them as Ichiban tries to not explored? Why is there zero acknowledgment of the parallel between Kiryu's radioactive cleanup work and the whole radioactive waste disposal plan? Why is Ebina setting multiple people up to fail; Ichiban, Bryce, Sawashiro, etc. not given more thematic weight and tied to his plan to make sure the Yakuza can't reintegrate, and why is that plus his own feeling he'll fail pretty much all thrown in in the very last bit of the game?
This isn't to say that the game is bad at all; as I said, there's a lot of good stuff there, and I've hardly focused on the minigames or gameplay or side content because that's all pretty top notch (wonky fight/equipment balancing in the midgame aside), but there's so much wasted potential with the main plot it's the easiest thing to focus on.
A couple of other things that didn't really fit in:
Bryce's VA in Japanese being forced to do almost half of his lines in English was a flatly bad choice. He does a fine performance in Japanese and is apparently pretty respected (he's Yamcha!), but the English is... oof.
Ichiban and Saeko's relationship is pretty well done here, but I think she gets done dirty by the game otherwise. She never even fights in any cutscenes despite being a full party member!
That said, the other party members coming in to defend Kiryu when he loses his energy against the Tojo legends was great, and I wish the finale of the game had been a bit better at integrating that sort of thing into the cutscenes since those fights mostly turn into the Kiryu show.
I ate an engineer
+5
JacobkoshGamble a stamp.I can show you how to be a real man!Moderatormod
So I either sold or turned to scraps the Housekeeper's Mop, and I'm not sure if it's possible to get another one. Does anyone know? I'm in post-story mode and I've checked every pawn shop to see if they're selling it, no dice. The crowned enemy that drops it isn't respawning.
@Pinfeldorf go to the pawn shop along the river in Honolulu (north center of the map). Any tier 5 class weapons that you've obtained but somehow lost (Housekeeper's Mop, Desperado's Revolver etc) will be for sale there
This management mini-game in Yakuza 7... I'm not sure I like this.
Update: I talked through with a friend while streaming for them on Discord and we puzzled out what most of the UI indicators mean for employees, which helped figure things out and get the money train rolling to get into the Top 50 at least.
So I either sold or turned to scraps the Housekeeper's Mop, and I'm not sure if it's possible to get another one. Does anyone know? I'm in post-story mode and I've checked every pawn shop to see if they're selling it, no dice. The crowned enemy that drops it isn't respawning.
@Pinfeldorf go to the pawn shop along the river in Honolulu (north center of the map). Any tier 5 class weapons that you've obtained but somehow lost (Housekeeper's Mop, Desperado's Revolver etc) will be for sale there
Just the 5-star weapons for unique jobs, it seems. I did fix my problem, though. Apparently the crowned enemy I needed to kill only spawns during the evening, and I had previously checked at night and day. What the difference between evening and night is, I couldn't tell you!
DragkoniasThat Guy Who Does StuffYou Know, There. Registered Userregular
edited February 2024
Hmm looking at spoilers from people who beat the game
Not really sure how much I'm gonna care about Eiji's redemption arc mainly cause he's been such a minor character up to the late game reveal.
Also it kind of feels like a retread of Y7, which doesn't help the whole feeling of Kasuga kind of getting pushed to the side so Kiryu could get a proper ending.
Also I have to agree the whole Lani thing falls flat. I get they want parallels to Haruka but the thing about Haruka is she actually had more than ten lines.
Like of course we are gonna save her cause we're the "good guys" but when that's the only real justification for it its hard to actually...care.
Hmm looking at spoilers from people who beat the game
Not really sure how much I'm gonna care about Eiji's redemption arc mainly cause he's been such a minor character up to the late game reveal.
Also it kind of feels like a retread of Y7, which doesn't help the whole feeling of Kasuga kind of getting pushed to the side so Kiryu could get a proper ending.
The Eiji stuff at the end isn't so much about him and is more about the type of person Ichiban is. One of the big themes with Ichiban in this game is how he truly believes in people taking accountability for their choices and getting a second chance at life. The Eiji scene is really an encapsulation of that and showing just how much Ichiban sees the best in people and believes in their ability to turn things around if supported.
I didn't really care about Eiji that much, but I thought it was a good character moment for Ichiban.
Hmm looking at spoilers from people who beat the game
Not really sure how much I'm gonna care about Eiji's redemption arc mainly cause he's been such a minor character up to the late game reveal.
Also it kind of feels like a retread of Y7, which doesn't help the whole feeling of Kasuga kind of getting pushed to the side so Kiryu could get a proper ending.
The Eiji stuff at the end isn't so much about him and is more about the type of person Ichiban is. One of the big themes with Ichiban in this game is how he truly believes in people taking accountability for their choices and getting a second chance at life. The Eiji scene is really an encapsulation of that and showing just how much Ichiban sees the best in people and believes in their ability to turn things around if supported.
I didn't really care about Eiji that much, but I thought it was a good character moment for Ichiban.
Yeah what makes it work for me is Ichiban is so sincere and wanting to give Eiji a chance to do something that isn't run for his life and die in a ditch, and the connection they had as friends just finally breaking down Eiji's belief that all Yakuza are evil and deserve to die.
And the scene with it, of Ichiban carrying Eiji on his back across the city, to give him that chance to turn himself in, is incredibly moving. In story even, as it reduces Eiji to tears.
As a character moment for Ichiban and as an ending scene, I think it works really well at selling the whole emotional through-line of the game, especially with the ending track more or less stating the themes outright. I also think that Eiji being mostly a bastard through and through works; the fact he feels irredeemable, the fact he thinks he's probably as irredeemable as he thinks Yakuza are, makes it even more clear exactly what kind of guy Ichiban is.
That said, execution-wise, I think it comes across kind of clunky because Eiji sort of drops out of the narrative a few chapters earlier and has no reason to be in Japan, so that plus his ragged appearance means I didn't recognize him at first; I thought he was one of the yakuza that Ichiban tried to help at the beginning of the game. It really feels like Eiri was supposed to have a real boss fight or at least a role on Nele island as a bit of connective tissue between him tear gassing a small child and the end credits scene. A single fight where Ichiban like, prevents Ei-chan from throwing a grenade that would blow both of them up or lets him flee on a chopper because he needs medical attention and they don't have time to care for him would make it work a ton better, but again, that's kind of the game not knowing quite where to put its focus IMO/
Posts
I'm into the postgame Big Swell dungeon and it's really neat. Each time you complete one of the dungeon segments you get a long (10 minutes?) cutscene of the gang hanging out and goofing off. Like a long interactive denoument. It's a really nice way to gradually ramp down from the high of the climax, flex all those levels and gear you accumulated but didn't get to use, and detach from the game. It's helping a lot with that post-game listlessness.
I did him in Date's trenchcoat for that Constantine vibe
Steam
I only recently learned about the phrase 'tourism', and I kind of hate it, since I got called one for criticizing Yu-No... even though I've been playing VNs since the 90s.
I really liked what they did with Kiryu in this game. When they first announced the dual protagonist structure of the game I was a bit disappointed. Kiryu has had his time in the sun and I didn't want him to constantly come back and overshadow Ichiban. I felt it would hinder this franchise from being able to move forward. Turns out I didn't have to worry. Kiryu's story here does a great job of wrangling the different threads of his story into a satisfying bow while also giving him some real character development.
Gameplay wise it's 7, but improved in basically every way. The only real issue I have with the combat is that sometimes I don't want to do a combo or weapon attack, but can't get near the enemy without triggering one of those. I also can't think of a minigame that I dreaded doing, which it feels like every Yakuza game has at least one.
Good game.
I didnt realize just how much Kiryu specific stiff there would be over here.
This game is insane.
Let us see the current star rating of an area from the map.
It can be a bit annoying needing to taxi to each area to figure out what level it is.
Damn it is really well done. I am having way too much fun just running around with Team Kiryu right now.
(Also rescues are always on floors X2, X4, X6, X8, and X9, so on the other handful of floors you can dash to the exit).
Thank you for that. I was a little worried there because I really wanted to do all the floors.
Now I know I also shouldn't be trying to save the third section fir end game haha.
And both wolves can't help but laugh at the DIY animation every single time it happens, specifically Ichi's face and the noise he makes when he's using the drill.
Steam ID XBL: JohnnyChopsocky PSN:Stud_Beefpile WiiU:JohnnyChopsocky
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
I'm gonna focus on finishing up all the sidequests and Kiryu stuff then probably make a beeline for endgame since I'm trying to be done before Rebirth comes out.
Also it kind of felt like the Hawaii setting was underutilized as for the most part you still only really interact with other Japanese folks.
I would say the game is more of a send-off for Kiryu which is fine but everything else plotwise ends up feeling like padding as a result.
Ending spoilers
Ebina representing all the people the Yakuza have harmed and who don't want to see them have a second chance at life has a lot of potential. I think the main thing that hurt Ebina as a villian is how you see him a bit at the start of the game and then you spend 40 hours in Hawaii and forget he exists. So when you go back to Japan they have to rush his heel turn and not give it the time and development it deserves.
Bryce and the cult are just bad. There's no reason they had to take an actual deity from native Hawaiian beliefs and make them a crazy death cult. You could have still had Bryce as the head of an orphanage using it as a front for his criminal syndicate. It would have worked just the same and not felt gross. Instead I think the cult stuff actively works against the big themes of the game.
Having this game be focused on the aftermath of the Tojo and Omi breaking up makes a lot of sense. A lot of the early beats were focused on how society is set up to make it near impossible for Yakuza to go straight and how that pushes them back to the life they are trying to leave. How the two largest Yakuza groups disappearing overnight leaves a vacuum that somebody is going to try to fill. I really wish the game focused more on that instead of a bunch of the game being "woah everybody in Hawaii is a secret brainwashed cultist."
Either that or Ichiban learns English really fast
Instead all she has is that somehow after 20+ years she never noticed that she worked at EvilCult&Crime Corp, despite almost no one in the organization trying very hard to hide it.
I think the biggest problem the game has overall is a lack of focus, an inability to make this sprawling two-setting, two-party, two-story (the main plot and Kiryu's sendoff) epic actually tie together in a compelling way.
Where the game chooses to actually focus is almost universally excellent. Ichiban's dumbass optimist hero persona shines through constantly in both substories and the main plot. The party interactions are almost always earnest, heartwarming, and/or hilarious (God, this game is consistently funny in a way basically no other games are). Tomizawa and Yamai are both standout new characters, and Chitose isn't too far behind. Kiryu's questline with Date and ending are a real, well-earned tearjerker and a much better and more deserved ending for the character than Yakuza 6. The cutscenes in the game, whether they're Yamai burning down a forest or Arakawa's rampage or the Baracudas roaming the streets and murdering people who get in their way, are all very well done and set the violent stakes of the game despite the goofy RPG vibes in combat and in most of the side content.
But at the same time, so much of that focus is misspent. Yamai's one of the greatest antagonists in Yakuza... but he's that way because you have 5 boss fights against him and about 50% of the Hawaii chapters revolve around him, despite his role in the plot literally being "not relevant". You spend a ton of effort and lose Kiryu to rescue Wong Tou, and then he literally sits in base as an uninteractive NPC for a chapter until he gets murdered. You spend a chapter getting Majima, Saejima, and Daigo to help out, and then they show up in the finale to help with a mook fight (with fewer mooks than normal, because you only have one active party memnber!). There's a good amount of emphasis on the brutality of the Baracudas, but in the end they are low level trash mobs and District 5 is irrelevant, but Dwight is a heavy who shows up for 3 boss fights and has basically no role beyond that.
On the flipside of things, so much of the main plot desperately needs more focus or attention. Akane and Lani are absurdly boring and you don't even get to spend enough time with Akane for Ichiban's "I don't really know if I think of her as 'mom', but I've got to see this through" bit to pay off. Literally the only interesting thing they do with Bryce is imply he gave a guy a gun rigged to explode in his first scene, but they do absolutely nothing else to explain why an openly evil man can have the entirety of Hawaii under control as a cult leader, and on that note they do absolutely nothing interesting with the fact the Baracudas and the cult are ostensibly evil mirrors of Ichiban by recruiting from the downtrodden and putting them to evil purposes. Also, the whole Palakena cult thing is stupid and shitty to begin with. Ebina gets very slightly more development, but still you've got like four Kiryu chapters to do so and in one of them you're literally put on a bus to go recruit the old gang and have a boss fight. Even the Hawaiian setting, while visually interesting, doesn't really matter much outside of the very start of the game and to justify the party split.
So there are a lot of really great character moments and scenes, but they rarely serve to really further the actual plot, and the weakness of the plot really weakens the impact of character moments that directly tie to it. Like, it's really hard to view Ichiban stopping Bryce from committing suicide as a particularly noble act when Bryce just... isn't a character; in comparison, the Ei-chan scene in the ending, while random, at least did feel like Ichiban making a conscious decision to forgive a real character we got at least some motivation from. And due to a lack of focus, a lot of things that feel like they should tie together don't; why is the obvious mirror between pulling the downtrodden into the Baracudas/cult and helping them as Ichiban tries to not explored? Why is there zero acknowledgment of the parallel between Kiryu's radioactive cleanup work and the whole radioactive waste disposal plan? Why is Ebina setting multiple people up to fail; Ichiban, Bryce, Sawashiro, etc. not given more thematic weight and tied to his plan to make sure the Yakuza can't reintegrate, and why is that plus his own feeling he'll fail pretty much all thrown in in the very last bit of the game?
This isn't to say that the game is bad at all; as I said, there's a lot of good stuff there, and I've hardly focused on the minigames or gameplay or side content because that's all pretty top notch (wonky fight/equipment balancing in the midgame aside), but there's so much wasted potential with the main plot it's the easiest thing to focus on.
A couple of other things that didn't really fit in:
Bryce's VA in Japanese being forced to do almost half of his lines in English was a flatly bad choice. He does a fine performance in Japanese and is apparently pretty respected (he's Yamcha!), but the English is... oof.
Ichiban and Saeko's relationship is pretty well done here, but I think she gets done dirty by the game otherwise. She never even fights in any cutscenes despite being a full party member!
That said, the other party members coming in to defend Kiryu when he loses his energy against the Tojo legends was great, and I wish the finale of the game had been a bit better at integrating that sort of thing into the cutscenes since those fights mostly turn into the Kiryu show.
@Pinfeldorf go to the pawn shop along the river in Honolulu (north center of the map). Any tier 5 class weapons that you've obtained but somehow lost (Housekeeper's Mop, Desperado's Revolver etc) will be for sale there
Update: I talked through with a friend while streaming for them on Discord and we puzzled out what most of the UI indicators mean for employees, which helped figure things out and get the money train rolling to get into the Top 50 at least.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
Just the 5-star weapons for unique jobs, it seems. I did fix my problem, though. Apparently the crowned enemy I needed to kill only spawns during the evening, and I had previously checked at night and day. What the difference between evening and night is, I couldn't tell you!
well lorne lanning's pretty right-wing
Also it kind of feels like a retread of Y7, which doesn't help the whole feeling of Kasuga kind of getting pushed to the side so Kiryu could get a proper ending.
Also I have to agree the whole Lani thing falls flat. I get they want parallels to Haruka but the thing about Haruka is she actually had more than ten lines.
Like of course we are gonna save her cause we're the "good guys" but when that's the only real justification for it its hard to actually...care.
I didn't really care about Eiji that much, but I thought it was a good character moment for Ichiban.
And the scene with it, of Ichiban carrying Eiji on his back across the city, to give him that chance to turn himself in, is incredibly moving. In story even, as it reduces Eiji to tears.
As a character moment for Ichiban and as an ending scene, I think it works really well at selling the whole emotional through-line of the game, especially with the ending track more or less stating the themes outright. I also think that Eiji being mostly a bastard through and through works; the fact he feels irredeemable, the fact he thinks he's probably as irredeemable as he thinks Yakuza are, makes it even more clear exactly what kind of guy Ichiban is.
That said, execution-wise, I think it comes across kind of clunky because Eiji sort of drops out of the narrative a few chapters earlier and has no reason to be in Japan, so that plus his ragged appearance means I didn't recognize him at first; I thought he was one of the yakuza that Ichiban tried to help at the beginning of the game. It really feels like Eiri was supposed to have a real boss fight or at least a role on Nele island as a bit of connective tissue between him tear gassing a small child and the end credits scene. A single fight where Ichiban like, prevents Ei-chan from throwing a grenade that would blow both of them up or lets him flee on a chopper because he needs medical attention and they don't have time to care for him would make it work a ton better, but again, that's kind of the game not knowing quite where to put its focus IMO/