@redhotchilimist: I would say it`s kinda like starting at Mass Effect 3. You will figure out who`s who and what`s what after a little while (it will be more confusing in Yakuza 5 though), but a lot of the story beats and moments are going to lose their impact because you don`t have the history and the relationship with the characters.
Is the fifth game in a series easy to jump into? I'm kinda into what I've seen, but I don't want to have to look up 4 games worth of characters.
I jumped in with the 4th game and had no problem, but that game was also kind of a half reboot for the franchise. The 5th one is more heavily referential of earlier games.
It's showing up in the UK as full price, was it some sort of error? Oh wait, I just remembered the PS4 doesn't have backwards comparability like the Xbox does so it doesn't matter to me anyway.
@redhotchilimist: Short answer is yes and no. Each yakuza game has its own unique story. Yakuza 5 has you playing as multiple protagonists, the overarching narrative unfolds as you play through each of their stories. As far as the story in Yakuza 5 goes, you don't need to have knowledge of the previous games.
Yakuza does however bring back characters pretty often. You might miss some things, but it's not that big a deal. I'll give you a quick rundown of the main protagonists.
Kazuma Kiryu - The franchise's main protag. Legendary yakuza. Tries to get out, always pulled back in
Taiga Saejima - former hitman who was framed, debuted in Yakuza 4
Haruna Sawamura - Kiryu's adopted child, became an emerging pop idol
@redhotchilimist: Short answer is yes and no. Each yakuza game has its own unique story. Yakuza 5 has you playing as multiple protagonists, the overarching narrative unfolds as you play through each of their stories. As far as the story in Yakuza 5 goes, you don't need to have knowledge of the previous games.
Yakuza does however bring back characters pretty often. You might miss some things, but it's not that big a deal. I'll give you a quick rundown of the main protagonists.
Kazuma Kiryu - The franchise's main protag. Legendary yakuza. Tries to get out, always pulled back in
Taiga Saejima - former hitman who was framed, debuted in Yakuza 4
Haruna Sawamura - Kiryu's adopted child, became an emerging pop idol
Tatsuo Shinada - former baseball player. A completely new character
Other notable recurring yakuza characters
Daigo Dojima - chairman of the Tojo clan, has a lot of respect for Kiryu
Goro Majima - Taiga Saejima's brother (not literal, but like super tight bros)
There you have it. You should be good to go.
Just to add to this, the Yakuza games also throw a lot of references and nods to previous events in the series (some out in the open, others snuck in), so there's extra impact/laughs in the story if you've played the others, but you can start with any. What I did I originally played 4, then played the others to see everything myself (it also helps that 4 has an "everything that's happened so far" thing there). Also, to clarify: each character has their own plotline, but it all comes together at the end.
5 is a "soft reboot" of sorts as well, so there's a bit of a time skip in the series. With that in mind, the character intros kind of indicate what each character's been up to that you can grab and run without playing the others.
This game took me about 35 hours to go through (I skipped a lot of side stuff), so you'll get your worth outta it.
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