Unfinished: Yakuza 6 02/07/2018

Sweet some more Yakuza!

helllll yea

I want to watch this but I also have been avoiding all preview coverage to avoid spoilers....

I thought Unfinished was just for EA games

I think anything that isn't necessarily the release build falls under the Unfinished banner, not just Early Access (e.g. the MGSurvive / Mario Odyssey preview events or the Destiny 2 / Monster Hunter betas).

I can't wait for people to experience how dumb the story in this game gets.

@stordoff:

They definitely shook things up for this one. Man, if this is really the last one with Kiryu as the MC I will be sad. Looking forward to it, though.

Fuuck I can't wait for this one, shame it got delayed further. Kind of a shame they trimmed down Kamurocho, I always liked the Champion district, but I heard this game had kind of a troubled production.

Cafe Nyan-nyan and Time Leaps? Where have I heard that one before....

Also, Film and 40s: The Girl Who Leapt Through Time could be fun (especially now Dan is an anime fan).

@puchiko: We avoid nearly all story-related spoilers in this. It's mostly just a few side stories and some tours around the two cities and various side games, including the clan creator.

I didn't think I would get Yakuza 6 before Kiwami 2 but now it's all I want.

I'm still waiting for Kiwami 2, want to play the series in order and I'm not in a rush to get through it. Looks great though!

@alex: Cool thanks for the heads up! Now I can watch without too much worry.

Giant bomb your one stop for Japan and anime 2018

Kiwami 2 localization and 3-5 remasters when

Nice little Spaceballs play there.

Dat moonwalking woman in the background tho

The translations are amazing...

"I shut him up later..
But now, I shut you up!"

I'm so excited for this! Was considering waiting for Kiwami 2 and playing through in order, but I've decided I can't wait until then so I'm checking out their Yakuza Experience to roughly catch me up (they've avoided many game-specific spoilers). I'll go back to the other games eventually but I definitely want to be in for this.

I'd super recommend checking out the Experience site - they kind of mention it at the start of this video, but it has a timeline for all the main characters in the series so you can get a sense of their rough movements and motivations without getting in too deep with story specifics. They also have a series of comics giving the perspective of some of the other characters in the series outside of the main protagonists.

I'm in love with everything I've seen so far, from the cat café to RAINMAKER! Watching Danika and Natalie stream some of the Live Chat stuff on Waypoint was an absolute blast, too.

Every time they do a Quick Look or Unfinished for a Yakuza game, I'm reminded that they haven't started doing a Beast In The East Kiwami and I get a little bit sadder

The new engine for Yakuza 6 seems to have enriched the environments in detail, yet the character models don't seem to fit in them. It's like the dissonances I feel when there's a juxtaposition of art-styles. I don't know how I feel about it here: It's not overtly bad or distracting... just kind of odd.

whoah, Virtua Fighter 5 is in this game?

..... is there online play?

@turboman: Yes but only through Share Play so competitive play is probably not going to happen.

@hassun said:

Still awesome that VF5 survives in this thing.

@meauntienora: Sorry, I edited my post to make it clearer how exactly it works.

if you were wondering about the karaoke song being sad.

it sucks that they stopped translating the karaoke songs after yakuza 3.

@hassun: Got it, edited my post to accurately reflect yours!

@alex: Did the hunger mechanic ever get annoying at all?

This game is so dumb and I need it in my veins.

@johnymyko said:

I'm with you.

The knowledge that I have this video to look forward to is going to gently marinate throughout my entire work day - until it sours into a heartburn-causing resentment that I still have hours to go before I can consume it.

That's Rad!

I'm going to guess it's in the pipeline for after Deadly Sims.

I really hope so! Sadly, I haven't been enjoying any new feature the East office did ever since they finished Beast In The East...

@turboman: Yes its fully supported. I read that when they announced it. As there is all the board games online, you can go to an arcade center and play VF 5 online.

Thanks for doing this Alex, btw if anyone is interested Danika, from waypoint, has also played through the beggining of Kamurocho.

The mini games sure look great. I can't wait

Holy shit I heard some iffy things about this but after seeing Kiryu's photo expressions I'm 1000% in!

Having played every Yakuza game up to 6 I really have my doubts that no matter how much SEGA says or tries to get people up to date on the characters and plot that its somewhat of a lie. Remember when EA was saying Mass Effect 3 could be your first Mass Effect game? Yeah kinda like that, by this point there are so many important events, characters, rival groups, etc in previous games that I just can not believe a refresher would ever get anyone up to speed, or that reading a quick synopsis would stick in their memory.

I am not saying people can't just be somewhat lost at times and still enjoy the game, I just am not buying the idea that it is a great idea to jump in here for people who have only played Yakuza 0 and maybe Kiwami.

@kid_gloves: I mean in no way would I suggest that this is the best way for people to jump into 6. What I was saying is that the recap stuff they put in the menu and at the top of the game is functional enough to where I felt like I understood what was going on. There are definitely characters that crop up that you'll have no context for if you haven't played the other games, but you won't be completely lost. I'd still recommend playing the other games first, but 6 at least tries to make its history accessible.

@alex: Oh for sure. To be clear I was more talking in general than about anything you said. Yakuza 2,3, and 4 had actual like 40 minute movie versions of the previous games in them and having actually played those games I still watched them because shit man the story is complicated! I kinda wish they still did that.

@alex (I haven't gotten a chance to watch the video yet, so maybe you address this there) There's a quest line that opens up a "live chat" side activity. If you haven't already done so, do that and do the "Anri" live chat. Danika did that part on a Waypoint stream yesterday and it was not only one of the funniest things I've seen in a long time, it was probably the greatest example of localization I've ever seen.

I'm not even kidding.

Alternatively, you could just watch that segment from the stream. Be sure to watch until at least 40:00 (the section starts at about 21:40) https://www.twitch.tv/videos/226640653?t=00h21m36s

Did I just see no loading screen between going into shops?! SON! MY BOY!

Did I miss something about Alex's Karaoke? He crushed it! Didn't miss a note (?)

@kid_gloves: I mean, they succeeded doing that with Yakuza 4. Even though it happens well into the timeline, it felt much more like a soft reboot for the series than any other game in the series, making it an easy mid-series jumping on point. (0 is the better starting point now, obviously.)

Yakuza 6 definitely does not seem to be that though. The game basically opens with the ending of 5 and spends little time setting up characters you're expected to know.

Pretty sure it's more of a "full" mechanic than "hunger". Once your stomach is full you can't eat more for awhile.

@bbalpert: I did the opening bit for the live chat side game but haven't dug deeper than that yet. There's some great comedy in this one. The Onomichi mascot side story is exceptionally good.

@alex the Girl who leapt through time is great. Not quite as recognised overseas as ghibli stuff but it got pretty close.

@zeik: At times 4 seemed like an easier entry point, but at other times it seemed to throw that out the window with major plot points calling all the way back to the first Yakuza game... and important character arcs reliant on having played Yakuza 3. In the end I think it feels that way mostly because its plot is just less important on the grand scale of the series than the other games and is more important for introducing Akiyama and Saejima. Starting with Akiyama's story which seems like a completely new thread then slowly growing into something that is all about events in yakuza 1 and 3.

Previously I would have said 2 is the least important game in the series to have played except for the introduction of Daigo, but watching another Yakuza 6 stream on Waypoint I heard a character reference events from that game....

@kid_gloves: I mean, it does, but I feel like by that point they've spent enough time easing you into the world through the new characters that it's easy enough to understand what is going on. I say that as someone who got into, and fell in love with the series with 4.

The only time I remember being completely lost is during some of Kiryu's side quests, which are just super blatant callbacks that they don't even pretend to set up or explain.

Alex has been playing Kiwami on his own and Dan has talked about wanting to do so too, so I don't think they're gonna do anymore BitE.