The Yakuza series

The thread we all needed.

I'm currently slowly playing through Judgment at the minute and loving it. Plan to play through Yakuza 0-6 next so I'm not going to be bored for the next 18 months at least going off how long the few I've played have taken.

I've stalled a bit on Yakuza 5, got to Act 2 and the hunting stuff is so dull. Hoping I can skip most of it. Tbf I've parked the game for a bit but will return to it soon, really want to pile through this and 6 to finish Kiryu's story and then either do both Judgement games or straight onto Like A Fuckin' Dragon.

I'm currently on chapter 7 of LAD. It's weird that it's both such a departure and yet so familiar. I'm enjoying it so far but I think I prefer the original style now apparently offered only by Judgment.

Of the original series I think it really went out on a high point with 6. They got rid of all the extraneous dross and it being more focused helped it. 5 I thought was just way too bloated with less fun stuff than any other Yakuza. That said, the taxi stuff was amazing.

Waiting patiently for Lost Judgment next month as I have finished the rest (bar Dead Souls, Kenzan and Ishin)...

Trying to work up the energy to start 0. I really liked Like A Dragon, which was my first Yakuza game, but fuck me the cutscene density for the first 10 hours or so is punishing.

Yeah I'm thinking I might cane through some of them on easy just to experience the main story, otherwise I'll still be playing this series in 2030. Happy to skip most of the mini games. From my experience with 0 some of the best moments are found in the side quests though...

My completion of the games usually involves doing all side stories (sometime failing the regular bonus one for doing all of the rest which can be hard) and the 'main' mini games for each entry/city (for example the hostess clubs running in 0 or the gangs in Kiwami). I don't think I quite managed them lol in my original PS2 Y1/2 playthroughs but from 3 onwards I have tended to do so. Never get anywhere near Platinum trophies (my closest oddly being LaD where I only missed the NG+ stuff I think). 5 I flagged around Sapporo and didn't do all the hostesses but still fully did taxis, hunting etc (I managed to get quite into the hunting in the end which surprised me, shades of D2 on Dreamcast...)

Akayama is the fucking best.

I didn't realise there was no auto-save when I started 0. Lost about two and a half hours of progress, but by skipping cutscenes I managed to get back to the same point in about 20 minutes.

What format? I didn't have this problem with any of them on PS4 and always ran out of saves and had to reuse the older saves.

Played 0 as my first, absolutely loved it.
Kiwami felt a little bare-bones afterward, but I did appreciate the it was a little less bloated and had a bit more pace.
6 was brilliant, might be my favourite of the bunch.
Stalled a few chapters into Kiwami 2 - the plot bored me senseless.
Stalled around halfway through Judgement - decent enough plot, but I was just tired of the formula by then.
Got LAD on the shelf, hoping the switch to turn-based reinvigorated things a little and looking forward to the kart racing minigame.

I've beaten the Management mini-game in LAD and money is basically no object to me now. I can't believe how much I got sucked in by it, I played it in its entirety almost non-stop.

I delayed the first 4 a few years but generally had a bit of a gap between them then just played each new one on launch so didn't end up with the Kiwamis being too close to 0. I haven't played my remastered 3-5 though. Looking forward to Lost Judgment then maybe go back and do Dead Souls or finish Kenzan (which will probably be when a Kiwami version gets announced . Finished the FOTNS:Yakuza Edition too.

xbox series x, I had to delete the local data, then reload a previous save from the cloud last time.