Hey gang,

So, obviously, I've been playing Yakuza Zero lately, and for the most part, I've been all in, totally. The story is full of twists and turns, it's interesting, the characters are all spectacular (Shout-out to my boy Kuze), the music is good, the atmopshere encapsulates the 80's well, and for the most part, it's one of the best games I've played all year.

So why do I have a niggling feeling that the boss fights are a bit shit?

I'm pretty far in now. Infact, i'm in the last chapter, and I'm pretty sure I'm near the end of the game, I just had to take a break for today because I've been playing since Chapter 11 and that's a long session. For those of you that have played (or maybe watched Beast in the East), am I the only one who was kind of put off by the boss encounters?

At the start of a fight, it's almost too easy. Just spam the fast style for whatever character, and really whittle them down quickly. It's when they get down to the last bar or two that it gets pretty unfair. When they have that "fire" surround them (I can only assume it's enemy heat) it gets really stupid.

They gain armour for all of your attacks, and can counterattack for HUGE damage. You can't stun them anymore, and they seem to take zero knockback from any of your attacks, and can just bust out a huge combo out of nowhere, giving you little chance to block or dodge.

Surely I can't be the only one who's noticed this "Mechanic"? Is there a way around it that I just haven't looked up, or missed a tutorial for?

PS: The continous fights with Kuze turned out to be some of my favourite moments in the game. That dude just keeps on coming. Plus his hair is outstanding.

Some of the boss fights aren't particularly fun to play but I never found any of them cheap. (Amon aside but that's made to be the cheapest thing imaginable)

You've got enough abilities to where you can trivialize most of them with things like Rush's dodging and the ability where you regain your guard during a combo. With the Legend styles you can counter them to death in about 5 moves as well.

Nope, you just have to wait for when they're vulnerable, generally after a string of attacks. Sometimes weapons will knock them out of it though.

I actually loved the Amon fight with Kiryu, that last phase in Beast style was amazing. Majima's was a little disappointing.

I never got far enough in to be sure, but I got wrecked a bunch on the first boss. I might also just be bad at brawlers now.

I dunno, from what I saw of Beast in the East (even with Dan playing) it just seemed like a simple task of playing defensively until they do one of their big string attacks to which you get behind them and smack them in the back a few. Once you learn how many hits you can get in after each attack that has an opening they all seem pretty standard video game boss fair.

Judging from beast in the east and how far i have gotten in the series(yakuza 2) you just have to adjust and fight a bit smarter and its not too bad. I don't think any game in the series can be as frustrating as yakuza 1 boss fights lol.

I really enjoyed the boss fights. The only one I remember getting annoyed by was Sera, as he did seem to be able to parry most of what I had to offer, or had armour from the very first frame of his moves, making it impossible to counter him. I played on the hardest difficulty from the get-go, mind you, but still, I really appreciated the challenge. Good-ass game.

@do_the_manta_ray: Yeah, Sera was the only one where I had to pause for a second and reconsider what I was doing. I think that might just have been a symptom of me sucking hard ass with Majima, though.

The boss fights in the game were incredible. I agree with you that Kuze was an amazing recurring character, too. Smashing him time and again and having it become progressively easier was such a good milestone for Kiryu's growth as a character, especially since the first fight was a little on the tough side.

The boss fights definitely require much more style switching and sidestepping like a motherfucker. It's all about patience and getting behind them since that is the best way to get in multiple hits.

I actually found the boss fights to be the best fights in the game, as they really required proper timing and a more defensive play rather than the all out offense you can do with regular folks.

Also helps that the game did an absolutely amazing job characterizing their bosses to give the fights that extra impact.

Nah, these were fine even on Hard. If you want cheap go look at the Amon boss rush from Yakuza 5. Made it all the way to the last fight there after hours of beating the others down and just didn't have any way to get through it. Never touched that game again, as cool as levitating and firing exploding umbrellas is.

I'm playing it at the moment and it seems to be pretty good at warning you when a big fight is coming and if you are prepared. It gives you a prompt to ask if you are ready. So you go stock up on healing items and heal your way through it. I'm not as far as you yet though so maybe it gets more unfair.

I think the main problem is that the street fights don't prepare you for the boss fights at all. Other than that they seem pretty fair, with the exception of sera being kind of bullshit, and amon being all the way bullshit. But they game gives you plenty of weapons, items, and moves to deal with bullshit so eh, I have no problem with it.

The Yakuza series has always had a problem with cheap boss fights. Also the normal enemies are so easy to just button mash your way through without understanding the fight system it's very easy to find yourself utterly outclassed by the bosses.

Yeah, I've never seen it as a difficult series. You're usually looking for attacks to punish or combos to cheese out. At least they don't give the bosses guns any more.

Don't rely on using the same attacks, the boss will counter. You have plenty of counters yourself to use against bosses. The only boss fight I find to be cheap would be Jo Amon. So Amon is not so bad.