So I haven't played any of the Yakuza games though I am watching Beast in the East. Obviously it's tricky to say exactly what this game will be like because it hasn't come out yet, but do you think this would be a decent starting point for these games given that it is, in essence, the first game?

I have little interest in Yakuza 0 because I've been watching the playthrough and I'm not too fussed on re-seeing most of that content.

It's a faithful remake of the first game with some added Majima fun because he's a fan-favourite now. It's actually been out in Japan for a while and got positive reception from what I know, and that original PS2 game is clunky as heck, so it's probably the best starting point you could possibly hope for.

I would say Yakuza 0 is the best starting point right now since it`s really great and sets up stuff that I think improve on the story of the original game, but since you`re watching BITE you`ll see all that stuff anyway. Otherwise Kiwami is an improved in pretty much all aspects version of the game that was meant to introduce people to the series, so I think it will be a great starting point for the series.

0 or Kiwami will be a great start.

You will miss out on mark hamills majima, which is a main reason i am thinking of going through the original ps2 version finally lol.

From what I've read of the game's description, it almost seems like Majima shows up as a type of Mr Shakedown just to try and bash you up sometimes

Both Yakuza 0 and Kiwami are great starts as they are the prequel and first game of the series, if I would recommend this to a fresh Yakuzie initiate, I would say play Yakuza 0 first because you get more out of Kiwami if you do in my opinion.

You really should play 0 first if you're thinking of starting with Kiwami. It sort of expects that you have played it, both story and gameplay-wise. I could see someone being overwhelmed starting with 4 styles and there is definitely a flow to the combat that you need to pick up.

If you must start with Kiwami just expect to do some learning / losing to Majima.

0 is probably your best bet. Kiwami is a remake/remaster and carries over a lot of the more serious tone of the original game. They do add some whimsy and new features, but 0 will be more representative of a modern Yakuza game.

I've bought Yakuza Kiwami, but have been watching through Beast in the East - I'm about halfway through Beast - once I finish viewing it, I'll get into playing Kiwami

Definitely feels a lot shorter with only one playable character and if you've love all the shenanigans, I personally feel it was toned back. I remember hearing that Yakuza 1 was a straight beat-em-up without exploration originally though so the added open world is nice. Can someone confirm that?

If you intend to play 3, 4 and 5 this is a poor starting point because it's a much better playing game than those. and will hurt that experience quite a bit. Same for Yakuza 0.

I just came off of beating Kiwami (like literally ten minutes ago), and I can't say I give it a very hearty recommendation as the first experience with a series. There are some serious pacing issues that come not only from it being an older game but also from some of the new content they've added in (particularly, Majima's character is sort of all over the map and it doesn't flow very well at all with the original intent). If you've never played 0, you'll probably be okay with the three main styles but the fourth style is seriously gimped and I ended up burning out on the grind necessary to upgrade it long before it ever became useful again.

There's some great stuff in there, and to be able to experience some of those moments instead of just watching them is awesome, but it's a pretty hard step down coming from how excellently-produced Yakuza 0 was. This definitely feels more like a love letter to fans of the series than as a legitimate starting point, but maybe not having played Yakuza 0 will make some of those rough edges easier to deal with.

Kiwami is structurally pretty much the same as the PS2 version. The biggest difference is that the PS2 version had fixed camera angles and load times between sections of the map, making it feel much less open than Yakuza 3 and beyond.