Beast in the East: Yakuza 0 - Part 01

YES! Now I have something to watch while driving my Taxi to shitty Eurobeat music in 5. :D

@dan There's many Heat Actions that are done outside of just grappling a guy next to a wall! For example, try doing a Heat Action (press triangle) next to an enemy lying on the ground. It's bruuuutal.

Dan buddy, I love ya; I do, but you've gotta cut it out with the onslaught of questions. One here or there isn't all that distracting, but the constant questions are getting super annoying.

Alex tells Dan to go through the dialog a little slower but it's still a bit too fast. It probably wouldn't hurt to slow down some of the talking over story, either. Loving the feature, though!

I rarely comment, but I felt the need to comment on this. I am thrilled it exists. My Yakuza hype is VERY high at this point.

Super pumped they're going with Brawler style so far. I think they'll find the most enjoyment from picking up all the different stuff and HEAT MOVEing people like crazy. Can't wait until they start getting into the weird sub item HEATs and such.

Also, while Dan actually reads at the same speed I do, I totally understand letting the characters talk it out. It'll probably help the crew keep the storyline together too. Stuff gets complicated in the Yakuza world.

New favorite feature!

Can't wait for next week.

Ryo has really grown since we last saw him.

I hope they begin to listen to the voice over more carefully. The story is the major reason to play yakuza. Eh, I just care about the series and want it shown in the best possible light.

But with that said, it seems like they are enjoying it and that's exciting to me. I'm really glad they are doing this let's play.

EDIT: they did stop talking over most of the dialogue later on in the video. It felt like they got more into the story.

I've never cared about the Yakuza series and I'm so happy to see this.

We need to get them to do lots of side content or this will all be for naught.

This is as awesome as i wanted it to be!

Minor complaint,Dan skips the dialogue way too fast.

@sankis: Don't worry. The plan is to explore as much as possible and see as much side content as we can. We're not gonna use a guide or anything, but we'll try to be thorough.

Let get sweaty!

Just FYI, food and drink is health, and if it tells you you can't eat more it means you are at full health. Anyway it might be smart to stock up on a few healing items before you do the next bit. Some alcohol wouldn't hurt either, as it boosts heat gain.

DAN SLOW DOWN

@danryckert Please do heat attacks with as many different objects as possible. They're way more interesting to look at than regular combat!

@dan Be sure to keep an eye out for the little blue flame on the top right. If it every appears you can press Triangle to do a Heat action! For instance, try standing next to an enemy that's lying on the ground and press Triangle. It's bruuutal.

@alex: This ones not as strict as earlier games so you'll find plenty of weird shit just walking around.

The sun may rise on the Beast in the East, but at least it settled in the final location. Excited to see what high jinks ensue.

I love the Beast crew!

Nice, bought the game and played it all weekend so i'd be able to watch this without spoilers. Hope we will see the crew trying to figure out how to play Mahjong.

Good faces.

This has been something I have been looking forward to.

I'm glad Alex kept Dan in check as he was skipping far too many voice & text lines. The game needs the story there to give the action scenes that extra impact, or so I feel.

That said, awesome video! Can't wait til next week.

Dana-Bi

This is great and it makes me happy.

So conflicted about this. I'm so excited to watch it! But I also want to play it myself since it's so new. AHHHHHHH

This is so good that I really wish we got more than one part a week.

Fantastic start.

EDIT: Also I recommend you guys stock up on health items whenever possible. They really come in handy since you can use them during fights.
And as Vinny mentioned, you can only eat food when you don't have full health.

Game audio could be higher, I found you guys sort of loud and kind of yelling compared to the audio of the game.

This is going to be an incredibly long series, even for just Yakuza 0. Everything moves at a snails pace and if you're looking for the side quests its 3x as long. I think I've played for 6-8 hours and I've only gotten 4 or 5 chapters done.

Also, great job on this :D

@efesell eh, I would say average length for games these day is around 6-8 hours. Yakuza is definitely more in the 15-20 hour range and even then I would say that's if you have a guide of some sort to know where to go for certain items and ignore all side quests.

@alex: Super glad to hear that! I'm so excited for this god damn series and to see you all react to some of it.

Looking forward to this.

Also, here's a general tip for Yakuza games: Try to stay stocked with healing items. There's a drugstore where you can buy them at any time.

@alex You didn't butcher it too bad. Japanese has hiragana which is used for many words and particles (grammar points), katakana is identical in pronunciation to hiragana but looks different, it's used for loan words/foreign product names or just for style.

There's around 47 hiragana characters to learn and another 47 katakana characters.

Kanji is in simple terms used to shorten words, e.g. a word in hiragana might be 6 characters but only 2 characters if you use its kanji form (if it has one). Being able to use very few characters for words is also the reason Japanese speakers can convey more info on Twitter lol.

In order of usage it's a mix of hiragana/kanji and then katakana is the least used but still extremely common, you gotta know all three.

There's thousands and thousands of kanji but the Japanese government has a recommend list of 2100 to learn, but it's not as simple as knowing just the kanji by themselves as you need to also know what other words kanji form when they are combined together!

@alex try dragging somebody near a sidewalk post when you're on heat mode and then press triangle. Feel the pain.

+1 for telling Dan to stop thumbing the X button like a madman during dialogue.

Beastin' makes me feel gooood.

I like Kiryu being a smart protag. The Bruno segment was great

And then he started doing it again.

Thanks GB east. Really really looking forward to this

I'm excited to see Dan actually reading the directions and trying to learn the mechanics. I wish more people at Giant Bomb did that.

Oh man, once a week? This'll probably last at least four months and I'm quite okay with that...well, as long as it doesn't eat away from Playdate or so.

@danryckert, slooooooowwwww doooowwwwn. Just let the characters finish the dialogue at their normal talking speed.

Weekly and this is going to take all year unless the episodes get significantly longer. Maybe they'll bump it to twice a week at least?

I'm very much looking forward to this series, this was an excellent first episode. Glad you guys seem to be into the game. Props to Alex for trying to get Dan to slow down with the dialogue. There's a LOT of story / cutscenes / dialogue, but it is all worthwhile. The main story is very intriguing and enjoyable, in my opinion - both protagonists have worthwhile character arcs.

The funniest line from this episode was Vinny referring to Kiryu's fists as "Coffee 1" and "Coffee 2", that made me laugh so hard for some reason.

Yeah, this game is pretty long, especially if you are doing side quests and happen to get engrossed in the side activities (I'm sorta addicted to the cabaret management game). I just started Chapter 15 last night (which I THINK is near the end of the game, at least looking at the trophies), and my game clock is at 58 hours.

Loved this first episode. Dan's reading speed is a lot faster than mine, but he was quite inconsistent in when he skipped the text. Hopefully they'll figure out a good pace together.

Yeah, I'd say just let it run it's course, the dialogue moves on when they've said their line anyway.

@monkeyman04:: @grog: To be fair, Jeff and Vinny kind of did the same with the Persona 4 playthrough to save time. And since Yakuza games also have so much dialogue, that might be for the best.

@sammo21: I just feel like a casual playthrough for this video series and just doing what you find naturally is not going to take as long as people seem to think.

Yakuza games are DENSE with content but can also be very expedient if you are not carefully combing through it.