Pro juggles by Ben on that last fight. You two are also getting much better about guard breaking! Ben in particular was killing it right from the start, and Jason was using it a lot more by the end.
On up-dodging, you don't really have to time it, just spam the hell out of it until you're clear. You're basically invulnerable while you're spamming it aside from a few moves like overhead attacks or AOEs. It can take some time to trust it rather than backflipping, but the up-button duck dodge really is your best defense most of the time.
You guys have GOTTA figure out to use the guard breaker, continuing to pound on guys that are blocking until they counter you is gonna get you wrecked pretty quick. Maybe re-map it to up+square since Ben keeps accidentally doing the launcher when he means to guard break. Also the duck dodge (right up on the right stick) makes you invulnerable to most attacks unless they are an overhead, when you screw something up and you're going to get hit, spam the hell out of that.
You can use the taunt to pull one guy out of a group to separate them.
Fun facts: 1. the KICK ME sign that she puts on your back in the second level flies off as soon as you use a roulette move or the God Hand. So it's there as a special challenge to run the whole game without using either.
2. The casino is called the Barely Regal. The bar in the third level was originally called Rord's Pub, and then when they realized the did the "L->R" accent joke twice, they renamed the bar to the "Beating a Dead Horse Pub" instead.
There's a video on some basic techniques here, but you guys should probably just muddle through for awhile on your own and then maybe check that if you feel like you need to up your game to get through it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SG3i28oZauE
Yakuza is damn good, there's so many varied pieces to it and the characterization of both Majima and Kiryu is endearing. You can put me on the list of folks who learned Mahjong because of it. And played the dumb Diner Dash cabaret club to completion. Glad to hear you're enjoying it and that recovery is going well.
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