Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
S2 Ep135: Yakuza: Like a Dragon
74 Plays5 years ago
Join Dave, Jake, and special guest Dan as they talk about the world's most accurate Japanese crime simulator in this week's episode!
Thoughts? Comments? Requests for new episodes? Feel free to email them in!
SoapstonePodcast@gmail.com
Like our podcast? Like our podcast! We'll post when new episodes are uploaded!
https://www.facebook.com/SoapstonePodcast/
Thoughts? Comments? Requests for new episodes? Feel free to email them in!
SoapstonePodcast@gmail.com
Like our podcast? Like our podcast! We'll post when new episodes are uploaded!
https://www.facebook.com/SoapstonePodcast/
Recommended
Transcript
Introductions and Casual Banter
00:00:32
Speaker
How's it going, everyone? Welcome to another episode of Soapstone. My name is Jake. I'm joined by my co-host, as always, Dave. How's it going today, Dave? It's going all right. How's it going today, Dan? It's going all right. How's it going today, Jake? Oh my gosh.
00:00:48
Speaker
I've never been in this situation before. Jake, you've got to pass it back to me. You've got to answer. It's going good. No, it's going pretty well. I've had a lot of time off recently. I play a lot of video games. Nice. Living the dream, you know.
00:01:09
Speaker
I can't remember if you guys actually answered. I think it was a pretty good pass. Pretty good pass. Here's my biography of the recent days and weeks. I feel like we should introduce or we can have, I don't know how introductions work.
Gaming Passions During the Pandemic
00:01:28
Speaker
Would you rather self introduce or be introduced? Right.
00:01:33
Speaker
I've along with my plethora of technical knowledge we talked about in the pre-roll I know how to self-promote if nothing else. Oh, that's true Believe you to it. Hello. My name is Daniel, of course. I am a former twitch streamer Yeah, a big fan of video games that's only been furthered by the 2020 Disaster we're all living through so being able to sit and play games is pretty much my Jimmy Jam
00:02:03
Speaker
Yeah. Well, we have that. We do have that in common. Oh, yeah. That we do. You could say it was a primary bonding apparatus. Yeah. So playing Dota two and. What the hell is that building called on campus? Whatever. Care. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
00:02:28
Speaker
I almost got out of trouble because I was too proud of my lich gameplay. Yeah. Sacrifice with the best of them. This isn't a Dota 2 podcast. It could be, but we're talking about something else. I mean, we're like three years overdue for another one. There's been a lot of changes, so. Maybe. Maybe in the works. If you guys want to have a two-hour discussion just about Aghanim shards, I'm down. Dave's tried.
00:02:55
Speaker
Dave has tried.
Balancing Gaming and Podcasting Content
00:02:56
Speaker
I have I have a new religion for you guys to join. It's the Church of Tidehunter Agonimshard and it's great, but.
00:03:04
Speaker
What was that later? Yeah, I know. Well, this is a this is our dedicated like off time. Basically, we make sure that if anyone clicked on the podcast because of the title of the game, they lose interest before we start talking about the game. So what is five to eight minutes consistently? Yeah. Yeah. What is tight? Honey is a shard do because I actually haven't played since this came out. Let me let me let me put it to you as written.
00:03:29
Speaker
Okay Anchor smash now does An additional 90 bonus damage on hit. Oh, that's a lot Yeah, he gets like at level four. He gets 90 bonus damage on top of whatever his regular attack damages So it basically doubles the bonus damage. It's pretty good Anchor smash now affects buildings. Oh for like the armor reduction it for the attack reduction
00:03:57
Speaker
Anchor Smash reduces the attack of the people that it hits. And also applies any on-hit effects that Tidehunter has built. Was I thinking of Riptide or was that a noggy thing? Maybe. I think that armor reduction at some point. Yeah, that's right. So you Anchor Smash a tower, you get the level 15 talent, which reduces damage by 20% even additional. Now towers do 80% less damage. That's not a lot of damage. For six seconds on a four-second cooldown.
00:04:28
Speaker
So enemies will fortify and your creeps are just like, it's fine. I'm taking like 10 damage. It's cool.
Exploring the Yakuza Series
00:04:36
Speaker
It starts a rapid fire split shot. Does nothing. Yeah, it's over magi buff the tower on the other side and it's just faster at doing nothing.
00:04:44
Speaker
Yeah, I'm experimenting with an on-hit build where I just like build Maelstrom. And I'm just like, I'm just going to anchor smash on cooldown. We're just going to be working out for me. That was kind of funny. I'm looking forward to see how much this shifts meta. I played Nature's Prophet the other day. Yeah. Girl is good.
00:05:02
Speaker
It does seem like... Dave, I feel like every Dota 2 store you have is like, so I was playing Nature's Prophet. I haven't played him in actually like two years. I've switched over to like Venomancer, Tree and Protector. Okay. Undying is always a staple too. Just aggressive people who I call P4 but then become P3 when somebody like TP's home. It's like someone TP's like, oh no, they're ganking mid, let me go help. And they're like, I'm gonna stay in farm though.
00:05:31
Speaker
I think it'd be more helpful with the next team fight when I have more experience and money. Don't worry, guys. I'll take care of split pushing. Just farms AFK for the next 20 minutes. Don't let me house it. I will take your dog from you. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if that's the way that Ice Frog wants people to play data much anymore based off the fact they kind of just destroyed the jungle as a solo start.
00:06:01
Speaker
Yeah, it's not really a thing. Yeah, but like so often safe safe lanes are just like
00:06:09
Speaker
So often off-lane heroes are just like, we're going to make the safe lane miserable. So usually the carry-ons of farming jungle at like 10 minutes anyway. Just because of like, oh, we're going to pick a bristle necrophos. Like, stand in the creep way. No. Now I'm going to leave. Yeah, that's pretty abysmal. Abistle. So anyway, the new blink tank.
00:06:36
Speaker
Overwhelming blink is my shit. Also great on Tidehunter, by the way, for the Church of the Anchor Smash. Yeah, that's pretty good. So anyways, Yakis is a video game. It is. It's also a crime organization. Yeah, named after the video game series, obviously. Right.
00:07:02
Speaker
back back in the 17 to 1800s when organized crime was becoming an official thing in Japan They're like they're gonna make a video game You know, what's funny I actually do have one tidbit sure go ahead for this which was like
00:07:18
Speaker
I at least read this somewhere. I don't know how you verify something like this, but like actual Yakuza, like real life members approved of the portrayal and like of Yakuza, like interpersonal relationships, things like that for Yakuza zero. You should you need to check out the I should I probably should have had this preloaded.
00:07:43
Speaker
The guy who like is sort of like the creative like Sakurai-esque force behind the Yakuza series literally like dresses up and has his haircut and tries to appear as if he is himself like a Yakuza like strong guy thug. Oh my gosh. Oh, yeah. Like there was a 4 video
00:08:09
Speaker
about it like because you know sometimes they'll get like random grabs from like game creators for like they're just like random little shit posty two minute
00:08:18
Speaker
You know, whatever. And yeah, they actually they got a grab with this guy and he's just like if they're in a leather jacket, like, fuck, you want punk? Thanks, mister. You know, it's going to be very intimidating. The video game conferences. Oh, yeah. Who let this organized criminal in here? Wait, people who participate in organized crime, organized criminals or
00:08:45
Speaker
No, that's a different role within the organization. It's actually a non-criminal role within the organization to organize the criminals themselves. There's like a criminal office manager and they're the organized criminal.
00:09:00
Speaker
Okay, that makes sense. Organized crime is the overall thing, but there's an organizer at the company and the organized criminals are organized by the organizer within the organized crime organization. Right. Origami. They're crime counterfeit organs. The organizer. That's pretty good. That's like a shitty Spiderman one off.
00:09:27
Speaker
Like, oh no, it's Big Wheel, an organizer. Let me take this MIDI file and make it haunting. Oh, man. So, yeah, Yakuza, Yakuza is a video. I'm going to say it a different way every time I pronounce the word. Yakuza is a video game series. I've only played one of them. I've only played Yakuza Zero. Yeah.
00:09:53
Speaker
Anybody else familiar with the series? What have you guys played of it? I have played one Yakuza game as it turns out. Excellent Conveniently this one I played a little bit of zero a lot less than Jake. Mm-hmm. I Didn't use it the band but yeah
00:10:10
Speaker
I liked it though. It seems to have like a much slower pacing and actually cares about the world is building through the characters and the environment. Like it's not like obviously we've been recently playing cyberpunk. It's this huge landscape, but this is like, Hey, this is like your town. These are your streets. Like, you know, corners, you know, locations, you know, people. Hmm.
00:10:32
Speaker
Do they keep that kind of feel for Yakuza like a dragon? Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Now, granted, I don't have massive Yakuza experience to compare contrast to. Right. And for reasons we'll get into later, this is obviously a large departure for the series, just like structurally. OK.
00:10:53
Speaker
But yeah, you have, it's one of those games where like, you walk a block and you just like, there is a new person who has the problem that you're the apparent, you are the everyman of your town.
00:11:11
Speaker
The universal problem solving. Right. You know, like if I feel like and I can't I can't exactly quantify it, but I feel like if I were actually going to just do the Yakuza like a dragon main story that I could probably have it wrapped up in like a couple days of just dedicated play. I feel like if I tried to grab every side story as well and run down every minigame to its conclusion, I feel like I'd be on this game for like a month and a half.
00:11:41
Speaker
And that's that's that's kind of how it started. Like when I when I picked up the game, it was near release and I played it for like I didn't play anything else for like two or three weeks. And I still have a few chapters left. Like it sounds about right. It's nuts. There's so much.
00:11:57
Speaker
side everything. It feels like the main story is like, okay, this is a very down to earth crime story about, you know, organized crime and honor and like
Yakuza's Unique Storytelling and Gameplay
00:12:08
Speaker
how people outside like, and then the side story is like, okay, so
00:12:14
Speaker
I built a giant Roomba and it's gone berserk. Help me. What the fuck? Yeah. Look, how did how did these two forces come into balance? It sounds like they're maintaining tone. Yeah. Yeah, that's that was the same way in zero. Yeah. Does it kind of like a juxtaposition of like serious tones and like lightheartedness or does it feel to you like in any way that like they're padding the content or do you really actually enjoy the side content too?
00:12:44
Speaker
Oh, the side content is excellent.
00:12:46
Speaker
Yeah, so the main content takes itself very seriously and you may occasionally run into silly characters or your main character may You know be a little bit like silly in a given situation But if you follow the main story, it's a very boilerplate like this is the story of a criminal, you know You know you you spend some time in the pen when you come out things aren't the way they were You know, do you still fit in this crime organization like right?
00:13:16
Speaker
That is very on the earth. And it's almost a bit crushing in some moments. Like it gets very real very suddenly. You're like, hey, let's go see the guy over at the banana bit. And then he's just like, oh, this guy is fucking died off camera. And we just covered the corpse. It's like, oh, and then, yeah, you go ahead and you
00:13:38
Speaker
You do a fight scene against four Yakuza Tufts and diapers as a side story. This makes sense. This is all gelling correctly for me.
00:13:50
Speaker
I like that they maintain that, though, because like like Yakuza 0 had like a wandering pervert. It was just a guy in his underwear. Yes. There's plenty of interactions with them across a bunch of different cut scenes. And like like you're saying, massive tonal shifts. It's just like crime overarching plot underline. I really like the way it's portrayed. Sure. And those games where it's just like
00:14:19
Speaker
You get invested in the serious parts of it, and the non-serious parts don't necessarily detract from that, I feel. Because it actually manages to balance this toggle, where at one point there is like, there's two protagonists in Zero. And you're just like, oh, they're like having a mini car racing game thing, like little RC car microcontroller things.
00:14:43
Speaker
as a little miniature thing, and then they'll just go off and beat people up. I think one of the interesting things, and one of the ways they manage tone between a very serious main plot and untethered from logic, side plots, is that the people in the side plots
00:15:08
Speaker
conduct themselves very earnestly. It's not like this is weird for everyone involved. It's like you're visiting a very strange person's life where this is just a normal day for them. But to you, it's like the, what the fuck?
00:15:25
Speaker
I love that so much. The characters in these silly plots are like, yeah, no, this is normal. Yeah, of course. They play straight. I don't feel pain anymore, so of course I need to bang my head against a tree. And you're like, what the fuck? What? Yeah. I love stuff like that. It's a good series for that, then. Based off of the one game I've played and would have heard of this, of like a dragon. Well, from what I've gathered about the previous game, this is a departure.
00:15:54
Speaker
Yeah, not in tone and story necessarily, but the departure from the sort of third person action fighting game with RPG elements on there.
00:16:06
Speaker
Like you like you like level up and like gain like skills and moves and stuff, right? Yeah, you'd get like some fighting styles, stances, I think. Right. And it's great. It's really cool to swap between them. And the music changes when you switch stances. There's like beast mode where like the base comes in and things kind of like slow down. It's great. I love it. Royal Guard. Yeah, it's it's very similar to that. I just had to.
00:16:36
Speaker
We haven't had Devil May Cry 5 soon. If you ever want to, you know, Devil May Cry 5 just had their special edition come out with Virgil. So like, if you guys want to meet again in like a month, I will absolutely go in on some Devil May Cry 5. Best game in that series, by the way. Bar none. That's a hot take. Yeah.
00:17:01
Speaker
So what made you pick up Yakuza? You said it's different. Like in what ways is it different than the previous in the series? And what was like, this is the one I want to pick up because it's a pretty, it's a pretty recent release, but it's not like the old ones that have been like, I don't know if they're recreates like remasters or whatever, but they're definitely kind of making them available in the Western audience where that wasn't done so before. Right. What made you pick this one up?
00:17:29
Speaker
So if you were to go on a
00:17:34
Speaker
like a gaming forum, like launchofgamefaqs.com and go over to some Yakuza forum and you were to ask the question like, hey, what order should I play these games in? You will get about like 10 or 11 different answers, right? Something will say, oh, you play Yakuza one, two, three, four, five, six judgment. And it's like, OK, no, you play three, then you play one, you play zero, you play two, four, five, six.
00:18:01
Speaker
Like coming into a series that's this long running Is intimidating right and I thought that way about monster hunter games for a long time too, right like I like monster hunter three generations ultimate. It's like I like how many It's like you're facing a monolith it's it's like when someone
00:18:24
Speaker
Asks, hey, I want to play final fantasy 15. Do I have to play the other 14 first? You know, the answer is yes. So I've always felt more comfortable when a game series sort of establishes itself like establishes an entry separate from the rest of the series. Right. So we have Yakuza
00:18:45
Speaker
I should say one through six, but it's actually zero through six with a couple of inmates in there But now they're saying okay, this is Yakuza like a dragon and sure it's marketed as Yakuza seven in Japan But they're saying like hey, this is a separate entry. This is a this is a new main character We don't have you know stone face Kiryu On the front cover and they're like hey, we're trying to the different new character similar settings similar ideas but like new combat system like
00:19:12
Speaker
I felt comfortable enough that I could jump in here and not be like, oh, I didn't see the Goro Majima storyline from 4, so I don't have context for this scene. There's much less of that. Majima is amazing though. Go back and check his stuff. Yeah. He's so good. Once you start getting into the
00:19:32
Speaker
Deep parts of this main story though, like it's obvious that they are playing on some of those previous entries. Like you start to get into the more individual stories of the higher ups of like the different crime families. You have like, you know, the Arakawa's and the Tojo Clan and the Omi Alliance and like all that starts to like, you feel like you're hooking into something that's already existed. Right, yeah.
00:19:58
Speaker
playing the other games might help with that, but it still presented itself in an earnest enough way that I'm like, you know what? I think I can jump in here. I think if I'm going to enter the series, why not try to enter in at this sort of fresh point? Right. And yeah, I think it's been really fun, though.
00:20:20
Speaker
That's maybe buy it at least and then in playing it I discovered that I really enjoyed the way it played too Which I could talk about now if you want to read Joe, I know
00:20:29
Speaker
want to steal the thunder of you asking questions or anything. It's an interview. I think the next question was going to be like mechanically, how is it different? Like, how does it play out for like your day to day missions? Let me give you a really quick synopsis of your main character. He is he is the the the mirror image of Kiryu.
00:20:54
Speaker
In a sort of like fun house mirror, right? Like there are a lot of things they share in common There are a lot of things that they have different they're both like very focused on You know the sort of crime family and honor and like keeping of tradition like they're all they're all very honor based where but curio is sort of like a like stoic I I'm going to go beat the man Yes, each upon is like
00:21:22
Speaker
big of heart, dumb of ass. It's just a really zany main character. And his story is that he grew up in a brothel, and he didn't like to be among brothel people, so he stayed in his room all day and played Dragon Quest. So he sees himself as a JRPG hero.
00:21:47
Speaker
Is it actually Dragon Quest? He specifically says Dragon Quest. I don't want to get too much into theory. I don't want to get in the weeds of why the game plays out. In the weeds of weeds?
00:22:04
Speaker
The first like five minutes of gameplay your character takes some blunt force trauma to his head Like a guy a guy with like brass knuckles like uh-huh locks him from that point forward the game is a JRPG now I'm not She got he got head trauma and it made him visualize the world as an RPG Kind of what happened? I think he's kind of he has brain damage. No one's addressed it. It's like I
00:22:31
Speaker
That's a great take on it and introduction too. Yeah.
00:22:36
Speaker
And his friends, like, he has a friend, because, you know, you always have, like, the side character, like, I'm going to narrate your personality at you because you're a new character. He even has a friend that's like, I know you could just beat this guy's ass. Like, you have this guy outmatched. Why do you wait for him to punch you back? Like, why do you buy the animation? And your character's like, I think he should get in his shots, too. I think we should take... I think we should just, like, keep trying to hit each other and, like, try to...
00:23:05
Speaker
He's so stupid. He's just holding back and not actually fighting these guys. These other people are attacking as much as they can. He's just, you know, leaving shots in the middle. For some reason when they fight him, they also respect JRPG rules. I don't know why. It's an honor thing. It's Japan. Yeah. So I've danced around it for a little bit. It's a JRPG. It's not a third person action game.
00:23:30
Speaker
straight up. There's really no nuance to it. There are very minor things that might be callbacks to the way the game used to play. Sometimes if you go to attack somebody and they happen to be next to an object, your character could pick up. Sometimes they'll attack with that instead. They'll modify their own auto attack to include the environment. But
00:23:52
Speaker
That was a full mode. Yeah, that was beast mode. Oh, that was zero is you would kind of like crouch down like you're like half sumo wrestler stance. And then if there was like a motorcycle or a bicycle or literally anything near you and you made an attack, you would pick it up and hit them with it. Right. And it was fun.
00:24:15
Speaker
Not fun for the stroller you picked up though. Yeah, that kid will never be the same. How do you feel about it from a JRPG position? Because I haven't played a ton of JRPGs specifically. What was our one exception, Dave, that we were saying was what we covered?
00:24:33
Speaker
as a JRPG here. We're just like, here's the first JR... It was like a joke. This. This is the first JRPG joke. This is the joke. All right,
Yakuza's Combat System and Strategic Depth
00:24:41
Speaker
it's all forever. Oh, my episode's a joke. Cool, guys. Thanks for having me. I'm really fucked. There's been, like, where we talk of Persona 5, but I'm... I never got into JRPGs as a whole, but everyone says it's really good. I know you guys have both played through it and love it. So here's the thing. You should start with this game. Yeah. As a JRPG entry?
00:25:03
Speaker
Yes. So if you like, if you have any any curiosity about the Yakuza setting, but JRPGs are a little too like unhinged as a concept, like this is the place to start. I agree that they are. So it's funny that you brought a persona because I was going to make a lot of comparisons to persona for this. OK, so. Dave, did you touch Final Fantasy 14 at all?
00:25:31
Speaker
I think there was a time when everyone was getting into it where I did like the two week trial. Yeah. To see you went like Archer or something, right? Yeah, it was full like stealth Archer, just kind of like hang back, right? Click some stuff. Don't have too many actives. Right. OK, so this is a good parallel, then a lot of old school JRPGs would have it so that your character could switch their job.
00:26:01
Speaker
Right. And this was a limitation of the earlier games. You're just like, oh, I want to have different classes, but I don't want to introduce all these different characters for all the different. Just have that have the ability for them to just switch class if they meet requirements or maybe even not. Right. Right. You always have a healer or whatever you can fill. Right. Yeah. And they're kind of stuck doing that. And when the Persona series came out and became popular,
00:26:26
Speaker
You would often have the protagonist be able to switch their persona, right? The protagonist was like the full arcana and could just be like, I can capture a persona like Pokemon, and then each persona would have like different stat breaks, the personas themselves would have levels, and then they would sort of
00:26:46
Speaker
give those abilities to the character, right? Because that was the Pokémon you had out, right? It's kind of an excuse to have more depth on the protagonist, too, and you didn't have to worry about other characters. Right, right. And it lets people not feel pigeonholed by their character, their main character, their protagonist, like, oh, this is your character, and they play this way, no other way.
00:27:08
Speaker
Yeah, I picked Bulbasaur as my starter persona. I never caught another persona. Yakuza plays like that.
00:27:20
Speaker
And it's very odd to say that Yakuza is Persona 6, but... That would be odd to say. That would be odd to say, I'm not gonna say it. Yeah, so there are two levels, leveling systems in the game. You have your character level, which is just...
00:27:39
Speaker
your character gaining base stats. Some characters gain more stats in one direction. Some people are just more natural magic casters or whatever, and they'll get more int and MP rather than like HP strength armor, right? So characters have a sort of natural predilection towards different stat builds, right? Sort of like neutral stat gain and like Dota or something.
00:28:05
Speaker
Right. But then you also have. Oh, I should I should say characters also get abilities based on themselves. Right. Like so if if you're if you have a character with a specific background, they might have abilities or passives or something related to who they are as a person, not necessarily what they do. Like they're. Interesting. There's a character non.
00:28:31
Speaker
And you're introduced to him, and he is a guy who's been living on the streets for a while. Like, he is homeless. He does not have any set residence or job. He just makes enough money to feed himself and keep going, essentially. And he has abilities related to that background, you know? So, yeah, your character can level up in that way. But they also have a job system, not too different from Persona, not too different from Final Fantasy XIV, where you can, like, level up different jobs.
00:29:01
Speaker
But this job system is so on the nose, it's actually almost irritating, but it's actually endearing. In order to change your job, you have to go to the unemployment office. And they're like, I think we have a job opening for a chef. And you're like, chef, it is. And then you get into the next combat.
00:29:22
Speaker
Oh, going back to the character has brain damage theory. So random encounters are you just see people on the street who are like in a like in a posse and they're like looking threatening and like if you get too close to them, it starts a battle like Dragon Quest, like Dragon exactly like Dragon Quest.
00:29:41
Speaker
So as you approach them, they seem like relatively normal people. They might have like gang merch on or whatever, but they're people on the street. They're normal people. But when the battle starts. Your character almost imagines that they almost like transform into more threatening versions of themselves.
00:30:09
Speaker
Like they'll get like red eyes and like their outfit will change. And I got it was like maybe like two 30 pounds, five 11 turns into like a seven foot, like 400 pound bruiser with like a sledgehammer. Like they start from reality, but also your characters transform themselves as well so that they have a full outfit corresponding with their current job.
00:30:37
Speaker
So like, if your character's like, okay, you should pick up a job as a chef.
00:30:43
Speaker
Battle starts and suddenly he's got the tall hat on, he's fighting of dual spatulas, like completely unhinged. And then the combat ends and it's just like, I guess we'll just, you know, have our regular clothes on, I guess. This is basically what I'm deriving from this is like how much importance Japan puts on career. Like for personal development, personal identity, right?
00:31:08
Speaker
You're just like, oh, PQ, that's just you at work. You are your resume out there on the streets. Even if you're homeless, you can contribute to society. Yeah, I was thinking of making that joke since you were opening this job system and your description was like,
00:31:28
Speaker
You have this guy who's a homeless guy, right? And he has no skills, except from this. He's a throwaway party. So the funny thing is, like. His job when you start off is homeless man. That's his profession. I don't know how that is, but, you know, low income job for sure. Right. So I was going to go ahead, go ahead.
00:31:55
Speaker
So somewhere along the way, you mentioned that certain people have different scaling for stats, whether that's like the typical breakdown strength, Aji magic. Yeah. How does magic look in this game as far as like MP or whatever that meter is for usage? Okay. Let's use the example of Nanba, the homeless dude. Okay.
00:32:17
Speaker
Now in my game, I noticed that he had high ish and he had like slightly more MP. Is it even called MP? It might be SP Japanese games. I don't know. He had slightly more magic resource than the other people in my party. And I was reading job descriptions for him over at the unemployment bureau, which is never not going to be funny to me. And
00:32:42
Speaker
There was a there was a job description for a chef and it's like, you know attacks with magic flame based attacks and later on gains access to like cutting Attacks like with like cutlery and knives and stuff So I picked it up and he had an ability called like like flame roast or like flambé or something And i'm like, oh, let's see what this magic spell looks like. So I click my character. I select flambé. I select a target
00:33:09
Speaker
He like runs up, he pulls out a creme brulee torture goes. The homeless guy job has a pyro belch, where he'll like, he'll like take a swig of gasoline, have the lighter and just like, like sprays a stream of fire out his mouth. It's magic attacks done in an extremely mundane fashion. It doesn't
00:33:36
Speaker
There are a couple exceptions where it breaks the complete frame of plausibility, but they try to narrow it down to be almost normal. For example, lightning as an element is normally like, oh, you have a taser or a cattle prod or something.
00:33:54
Speaker
Yeah. You know what's
Personal Experiences and the Series' Charm
00:33:56
Speaker
funny about this is this actually reminds me in a lot of ways, as you're describing this, of South Park's Stick of Truth. OK. Which is not a comparison I was expecting to make. But it's the same sort of setup where there's like the fantasy elements. Right. That you expect and it's all implemented in an immune way. That's an app description. That's actually pretty that's pretty that's pretty smart. Yeah.
00:34:25
Speaker
I mean, they're going for games or nothing. But they. Yeah, it's funny. It's like, OK, so if you get into like the minutia of just trying to like be an optimal player and you're trying to look at like like this does the most damage. This is an AOE attack. This has this element.
00:34:45
Speaker
Sometimes you like forget how silly the game is. And for me, I've just had moments of clarity where I would be in the middle of a boss fight or like fighting several dudes. And I'm like, oh, this lady has an AOE slicing attack. Let me try that. And it's really effective. But you look at the actual attack animation and she just like pulls out like a handful of thumbtacks and just like hand like shucks them at people.
00:35:14
Speaker
It's like it's if you just want to break it down to be mechanics, it's it's a fine game, but it presented in such a silly way that I can't help but like smile just thinking about some of the different characters. It seems like they took like a heightened extreme of over exaggerating the enemies you're facing into the fantasy setting and then taking the fantasy of like the special cool magic attacks for the RPG. And they're like, what do you got around the house? It's probably something like that.
00:35:43
Speaker
Yeah. There's a character who's sort of an optional character only if you max out a very specific minigame, because I get it. And her default job is clerk. She worked at a business as a manager-secretary type thing. And her attacks are just like, I have thumbtacks, I have this paper cutter I found in the office.
00:36:13
Speaker
Yeah, that's funny. It actually sounds it sounds like it's even more into the realm of absurdity than like Yaki's a zero because the closest thing there was just like a break dancing fighting style that Majima had. And that was about it. And that's kind of like a real thing, too. You know, like are you talking about? Are you talking about the breaker class? Yeah, it's basically that because there is a break dancing class in this game.
00:36:43
Speaker
Yeah, the thing is like okay, this isn't gonna do great for the audio podcasts, but I'm gonna I'm gonna send you guys some pictures real quick. So there is a character That you meet pretty early on he's sort of like the grizzled old detective
00:37:03
Speaker
And when you okay, so I don't I don't want to spoil too much But it's a yakuza game that starts with you going to prison because I think that's I think that's pretty standard much like elder scrolls Yes, yes, uh, definitely exactly like elder scrolls oblivion or sky or yeah, yeah, I mean as a prisoner is a standard thing in those criminal in those universes, huh? Yeah
00:37:31
Speaker
Thanks. It's a Reformation story. It's getting back on your feet. Skyrim. We have this very serious guy and you get out of prison and he's like, hey, you're going to help me. I don't want to have to force you, but I am a cop. I can just harass you and the next time you step out of line, you can go right back to the slammer or you can help me.
00:37:53
Speaker
He's a very serious guy trying to unravel a major criminal conspiracy based around the corruption of businesses and the police in Japan. And then you assign him the job breaker and he gets a silly hat and a jumpsuit and he starts fronting on people as combat starts. It might just be a Capcom game. It might be a Capcom game. Yeah.
00:38:17
Speaker
You might just slap into the unarmed... What are they called in Devil May Cry that I'm talking about again? The Fisticuffs one? Yeah, it wasn't Cerberus, was it?
00:38:33
Speaker
It's hard to take this game extremely seriously, but the main plot is very serious, and that's just very endearing to me. That was definitely the case with Yakuza 0 as well. Apparently, because this is from Majima's storyline, it depicts him like pre-psychosis.
00:38:59
Speaker
Crazy. Give me a sign. Yeah. Yeah. There's John. Yes. Yeah. And there's hilarious convolutions of that. But because of that, like the story is very. Incredibly serious, like life or death serious. Really cool arcs and things like that. And then all of the side quests were just like everything we're describing. Something that I like from.
00:39:28
Speaker
Japanese games, I guess, like in particular, is they seem to be like more comfortable in that space because they move like this is a fighting game, right? Like this is a fighting game series that has like some open world elements, but it's usually kind of smaller, you know, like district based inside of like a full city GTA or something.
00:39:50
Speaker
And they're like, all right, our whole fan base is in on this. They love fighting games. Like Call of Duty stays a first person shooter, right? Right. And this is like, oh no, we'll switch the style out to JRPG and just trust that, you know, there's still going to be a market for RIP. Right. So in perspective, that's actually insane. Like that doesn't make any sense, right? Yeah, it doesn't make sense.
00:40:14
Speaker
I mean, they can because it's again, it comes back to like it's the characters in the style. So if you can like transmute those specific implementation or mechanics, I feel like that stuff still kind of carries through because it sounds like for what Dan's saying and what Jake's saying. They haven't changed a whole lot as far as the things that you love about it. Like that that core piece seems to still be there. I
Yakuza's Evolution and Cultural Impact
00:40:38
Speaker
think that's accurate. Yeah, I think that's true.
00:40:41
Speaker
I mean, it's like for me, though, I really enjoyed the fighting styles and like there's like counters and like you built you built a heat meter and all that stuff and like Yaki's a zero. And I enjoyed getting good at the the fighting aspect, you know. So you got to the point where you're like stomping your way through fights because you just were better at the game, which I never reached, obviously. But naturally, you could get there. I forgot one of the RPGs I was going to compare this game to.
00:41:08
Speaker
Okay. You guys ever play any of the Paper Mario RPGs? Yeah, N64. So the Paper Mario RPGs, when you did special attacks, it would often come with a timed button press or a very short mini game. Yakuza does that for their special attacks.
00:41:31
Speaker
like okay like your character is winding up a punch and you're like mashing square to try to put more power into it before he like club or somebody right or like you know your character is doing like some like very specific like nice slashes need to like time the button presses your enemy goes to attack you and you can like time a guard like as they as they hit to like reduce the damage by half
00:41:55
Speaker
Right. It's got it's an RPG, but it still has active elements to it where like you can't be like, oh, it's their turn. I'm going to like, you know, you know, have a sip of coffee or whatever. Like you need to like, it's their turn. They're hitting you with five attacks. If they all land successfully, you might die. So you're like, guard, guard, please guard guard. And it's like it's like a five or six frame window. So you're like, you're trying to like read their frame data.
00:42:21
Speaker
And if you start to fight the same enemy type over and over again, you start to get used to their move set. Like, oh, he's going to do a slash slash and then a stab. I need to know how to guard that.
00:42:33
Speaker
I definitely like that exists as a, um, I feel like I don't, I don't know for Western games, maybe, maybe a little bit, but like for, for Japanese games, quick time events have never, they've always been trying to make them work for like forever in some capacity. Right. And sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't.
00:42:51
Speaker
I think, like, FromSoft's first game was notorious for, like, quick time events. It was before Demon's Souls. Demon's Souls, right? Yeah, it was before they did that, but the... As you're, like, describing these, like... Like, you take a JRPG, which is kind of a slow-paced, usually, thank-you game, and you're like, yeah, now there's, like, gunblade prompts where you're like, okay, I made the attack and I hit the button at the same time. All this other stuff.
00:43:20
Speaker
Are you trying, are you trying to like sweet talk me by bringing up final fantasy? What's going on? I was just saying it's also a Japanese game. It is a Japanese game. That's accurate. They've been incorporating quick time like things. That could read Yakuza is a Japanese game, right? So the, I don't want to pivot too hard here, but obviously the counterpart to the series is Mafia, which is the American version of the game. Yeah.
00:43:49
Speaker
A lot a lot more a lot more shooting the man with the gun in mafia tommy gun. Yeah, yeah I don't have a lot to say about mafia. I have no to say about mafia. Yeah, it's i'm not gonna go there I remember being old and it's rooty tooty shooty and there's some like italian guys. I think That was true. There was a lot of italian guys You just described like an entire genre of movies Ask me if i'm a fan. Um godfather
00:44:19
Speaker
So I don't know. It's weird for me to think of. I like JRPGs. They are immensely time consuming. I don't play a whole lot of them. It's usually an occasional thing. So Persona 5 was the last one I really played. Sure. And maybe the first one. I don't know. It's not that many, right? But it sounds like, since I already like Yakuza and the universe, this would be a good game for that.
00:44:47
Speaker
I still have like some trepidation. Yeah, like trepidation or something. I like the fighting. Yeah. Like I like having counter options and going through being a bunch of people up. And I wonder if like it's basically where I'm getting at. I spent a lot of time in Yakuza Zero. Sure.
00:45:08
Speaker
It was a real-time game where the reason it was taking me a long time was just because I was having trouble beating people up as quickly as I wanted to. I'm concerned that if they slowed that down even more, like a turn-based thing, if it would actually just take a lifetime to finish the game. It could. It depends on your definition of finish. Like, are you trying to do every side quest? Are you trying to level up everyone's character level to max? How about every character's job level to max? Like,
00:45:38
Speaker
Yeah, it's isn't a JRPG that if you want to make it your no-life I play this game and nothing but this game this year Go for it. Knock it out But I honestly think like if you were to just focus on like I want to beat this game I don't think it'll be any longer than any other yakuza game. Yeah, it's just going to be This is not the yakuza games you're necessarily used to you know that there are going to be these new elements that uh,
00:46:05
Speaker
that, you know, differentiate it. And you just need to you need to sort of adapt to the idea that like, yes, this is the setting. Yes, this is the tone that I love from this game. But it's not it's not those games like it stands to load as its own thing. And yeah.
00:46:26
Speaker
That's why I like it, though, because it's it's it's like you said earlier, it's insane from a marketing perspective to be like, we are this third person action game for the last eight entries. Oh, now we have an RPG, though. Yeah, my first entry, I was like, all right, I'm getting used to the combat. I'm getting better at the game. This is a skill set that will carry me through the rest of my experiences in this series. OK, now we're. Yeah, thanks, guys. Yeah.
00:46:58
Speaker
I want to heart back to something that Dave said earlier. Dave, you mentioned how it sounded like they were turning
00:47:08
Speaker
They basically played with the mundane and the magical and the magical into the mundane. Yeah. So a lot of JRPGs have the concept of summons, right? Like you find the magic crystal that sinks you with Shiva and then like you can cast it in combat for massive damage for a big MP cost or something like that, right? Never upspeed a boss fight from that point on. Yeah. There are summons in Yakuza like a dragon. You call them.
00:47:36
Speaker
You ring up up on your phone. You're like, I need you here. And then a guy shows up or a legion of crawfish or a man in a diaper or a giant Roomba. You just you have him on speed dial. Oh, my gosh. And there. Look, if you were to just let me sit down in a room
00:47:59
Speaker
and let me space out for a few hours. There's a lot to talk about with Yakuza like a dragon, but I can't possibly think about them all. I can't remember everything I've experienced because there are so many side quests that each have their own little flavor and feeling. And yeah, there are like seven, eight mini games that are all fleshed out and have their own progression.
00:48:20
Speaker
There's a cart racer in this game. And there are characters that are very passionate about their cart racing. They hold grudges and they're like, they challenge you to special matches in the cart racer. And there's a progression system for your cart. Buy new carts! Upgrade your carts!
00:48:43
Speaker
And Yakuza doesn't have to do that, but it fucking does. I say they always. I like when games add in little things you can do. So maybe you're playing with somebody, or maybe you're like, this overall genre is not my entire thing, but it's recommended I'm enjoying it. And then they pepper in a little bit of something else that you do know and love, whether it is cart raising or a fighting thing, or maybe it's just fucking pachinko.
00:49:11
Speaker
Maybe it's chopping wood in Shenmue. Just kidding. But like when they add little other hooks to get you in, it just because you find one you love. It doesn't feel like I have to go to the side stuff. You're like, where's the next one on the map? Yeah, there was in Yakuza zero, there is an optional entire optional system, which was managing a cabaret club.
00:49:38
Speaker
it was literally just like you like have hostesses and they'd come out and like talk with the customers and you'd be matching them to tables and be like oh this person there was like different hand signs for like the person wants a towel or like a new glass or something and they would just show you the hand sign and you had to like real time to like catch it and then send the proper service to that table and I'm like this is a fighting game right like I spent a lot of time in the cabaret club management
00:50:07
Speaker
Um, it was, it was dumb. All right. So what's the split for you guys? Do you enjoy more so the active mechanics aspect or is the story, which one feels like the real game for you? Which one is the
00:50:22
Speaker
I mean, I have I have an answer. Well, Dan thinks for me that like defining aspect seems to be the story. Like that's the the central core that runs through Yakuza and the reason they could split off into who knows what next genre. It'll be like a visual first person shooter. Yeah, first person shooter. Yakuza and Supergiant are going into first person shooters, calling it now. But I don't know, mechanically is all over the place.
00:50:55
Speaker
I don't know if
00:51:06
Speaker
At least for like a dragon there are just two forces that are just this is the seriousness of the story and the and the Wade down parts of the game and the human experiences and then there's The other side of the battlefield which is unhinged nonsense and you live in that middle and I really don't feel like One makes sense about the other. I think I think I can't choose
00:51:32
Speaker
It's a peanut butter and jelly. It's tasty. It is nice to dip back and forth. You spend a lot on the serious stuff and you're like, I just saved this person. Her life was in danger. We had this whole
00:51:49
Speaker
One thing I was talking about is I love how slow Yakuza can get like during cut scenes and stuff, because like in Japan in particular, they're less in a rush to just next flash, next flash, next flash. You have to be cutting every two seconds. Right. And that slow burn, I love. And then once you're done with that, you can be like, wow, that was really impactful. I'm going to manage my cabaret. Well, the thing is, the game
00:52:17
Speaker
knows how to use that against you. It's not entirely obvious when you enter a given scene, like, is this going to be a serious scene or is this going to be a blip blip blip blip scene? And there's a point where you're on the street and there's just a really distressed looking guy
00:52:41
Speaker
In front of a building like looking up at it like it's almost on fire or something And you're like, hey, uh, what what the hell's up? Is this everything? Okay. It's like I heard somebody screaming in there. I I What if it's what if it's a killer? What if it's a robber?
00:52:56
Speaker
It's like, oh, wow, that sounds pretty serious. I'll go check it out. I'll take care of this. I'm going to I'm going to maintain the peace on our streets. And you like you kicked down a door and it's it's it's a lot of naked naked guy. He was a guys and diapers again. Like, I don't know. There was just it was like it was a like a forty seven year old guy covered in tattoos on his back like.
00:53:25
Speaker
It's the Rick Roll of Yakuza. It really is. This guy's favorite. You know, you meet a character who's like, you can call me Mr. Masochist. And you're like, oh, you're a silly character. But really, it's like, I can't feel anything anymore. I wish I could feel pain. I wish you could hurt me. But yeah, I don't feel anything. It's like, holy shit. What? Damn.
00:53:55
Speaker
But it's OK, because that storyline ends with you hooking him up with the dominatrix that can finally make him feel it's a happy ending. You know, what's funny about this is I think this may be a recurring subplot because this also happens in Yakuza zero. Yeah, apparently matching masochists to like dominatrix is just maybe it's the maybe it's the core theme. I don't know. Yeah.
00:54:21
Speaker
There's one side-quest producer that's like, this is my storyline. What are you going to do if you're a guy who can't feel like it's beat up by prostitutes? Okay, great. Good. Everyone's named Hideo and Takashi and stuff like that. And then there's one guy on the dev team, a writer named Clark. And he's making the S&M plot work. Clark does really good work. We should give him this. Yeah.
00:54:49
Speaker
I'm going to make a fun comparison here. Sure. Undertale. So it's because this game or the game series seems to balance the serious and the lighthearted. So when you're starting on Undertale, it's it's all kind of spooky. You meet flowy. You're like, what the fuck?
00:55:09
Speaker
And then you meet Toriel and you're like, OK, things are light and easy peasy. And then she dies and I get serious again. And it keeps going back and forth between like, hey, here's the zany character. And hey, people have died. Somebody wants to take your soul to like free an entire species. Right. You go. That's some pretty fucking heavy shit.
00:55:31
Speaker
And then it gets light again. It just kind of has this up and down that like keeps you invested for either parts. By the way, spoilage people who haven't played Undertale yet. We'll throw it in the description. OK, spoiler warning. It's December 2020. If you haven't played Undertale, look, we do actually have we put it in the description at the beginning. Whatever games are going to major spoil or minor spoil. OK, so we'll just put it there.
00:55:58
Speaker
Whoa. Well, I mean all men do. Harry Potter, I guess. Let me type this out. Yeah. In the notes. HP dead. Undertale. Ironically, we have as well. Yakuza actually. I'll spoil anything you want me to. I will get into the guts of the story if you want to. No, I don't think we have time. We're at like a.
00:56:24
Speaker
probably four minutes will start like wrapping stuff. So jumping into the story of a series that's been going on for like a decade at this point might be a bit much. That's fair. But Dan, you said that this was like introducing a new character, but does it actually tie back to main stuff as far as you know? Like, is it in universe still? Yes. I'll say yes. OK. This game definitely takes place after Yakuza 6. The game starts in like 2002.
00:56:55
Speaker
But your character goes to jail for 18 years. And then he gets out and he is in a culture shock. He's like, what the fuck is a smartphone like 2020? That's pretty bad. Well, like 2019, like whatever. But like he comes out in modern era and he's like, I don't know how this stuff work now. Yeah. But there are tie ins and especially as you get later in the game. You know what? You said I could spoil, right?
00:57:25
Speaker
Yeah, you could do minor stuff. Stick with like minor spoilers that they want. My play through was halted by a boss fight against a returning series character. Oh, OK. Yeah, thanks. I actually know, but I can assume. I hope it is. I hope it is. I don't actually know. So that you want me to.
00:57:51
Speaker
No, no, that's fine. We'll leave it. We have some of Die Hard Yakuza fans amongst the four people that listen to the podcast. You have some Die Hard Yakuza out in the audience. Guys, a full dragon tattoos on their back. By the way, your main character does not have a dragon tattoo on his back. He has a dragon fish tattoo on his back. So so is the title like a dragon because it's like it's not
00:58:17
Speaker
He's a dragon. It's like like a dragon. I know. I know you're comparing him to a dragon. I know you're bringing out this like Jerry Seinfeld stand up skit voice when you're right. Yeah, I mean, the advertisement for the game.
00:58:34
Speaker
at least in the West. Again, I think it's just Yakuza 7 in Japan or like Yakuza 7 Dragon or something. It's Mother of Four, I think. Yeah, it's homebound. When this game was advertised,
00:58:49
Speaker
It would sort of flip through like a dragon, like a chef, and it showed a guy with a spatula attacking. Like an enforcer, it has a guy with a riot shield. Yeah, your characters like a lot of things, but not quite.
00:59:05
Speaker
That's just a job, okay? I haven't unlocked a dragon job yet, but I'm working on it. I'll get there. That's definitely a prestige. That's some of the in-game stuff. New game plus. You can become a dragon. Rawr. You've earned it. Here is your Zippo. Yeah, it was Zippo or something. I was imagining just the guy with the flamethrower. You're just like, oh yeah, dragon-like.
00:59:26
Speaker
I feel like the game would have been received a little bit differently, or first impressions would have been a little bit different if it was Yakuza, like a homeless person. Yeah, that would probably be different. But your character is not the cool guy in the family, great high standing Kiryu. He is a guy who was like a shitty con artist on the street that invoked the name of a mafia boss when he was getting beat up by other mafia to try to save his own hide.
00:59:56
Speaker
And the other mafia boss came by and bailed you out, basically ensuring that you served the guy for the rest of your life, right? Like, oh, I work for the Arikawas. And the guy's like, are you serious? And he calls up Arikawa on the phone. He's like, I caught one of your jabronis here saying that you're the reason he did this terrible thing.
01:00:17
Speaker
The guy comes over and bails you out and you're like, okay, I'm a street rat, but like, I'm gonna rep you. Nobody thinks you're particularly good. You're not great at being a Yakuza. You have the tendency of in the very early game before you go to prison of being like,
01:00:32
Speaker
Hey, this guy was ripping off kids. Let's take his money and then redistribute it to the children. And it's like, you're a yakuza. You keep that money. You bring home that money. You put it on the boss's desk. But he's like, we must redistribute it to the people who were ripped off. We must ensure justice. And done this day, I played Dragon Quest as a kid. Like it's pure of heart, dumb of ass. That is your main character. I will say it over and over again, Ichiban Kazuga. I love him. I don't trust him.
01:01:03
Speaker
I think when you, when you introduced him and he was like, Oh, the cops just like strong arm him right out of prison. I was like, Oh yeah. Currie, like Currie, you would have just like gotten the crap beaten, beaten out of him and like not given an inch because that's literally the character. Yeah. Your character would have gotten out of prison earlier, but someone bad mouthed his boss. So we like beat three people near to death. Like your character's like curious, kind of cool and collected, but when provoked will strike out.
01:01:29
Speaker
Yvonne is hot all the time and once insulted, he's like, we're going to fix this. We're going to put him up before we start wrapping anything up, though. Jake, you brought up the cabaret management. Yeah, there is a business management minigame that I spent 10 hours on.
01:01:48
Speaker
Like in the middle of my playthrough, it unlocked and I'm like, oh, let me check this out. And like 10 hours later, I was managing five different business fronts. And I was really looking forward to the next shareholders meeting so that I could show off my new characters that I use. Oh, by the way, the characters that you get to like as your employees in this mini game, they're done by a pseudo gotcha system where characters are marked like N, R, S, R, S, S, R, you are
01:02:17
Speaker
That's funny. I loved it, though. I'll be honest, I didn't really ever play Blitzball. That sounds like something that's not on my alley. But like 10 minutes in, I did add it to my Steam wish list because this game does sound good. It sounds like something I would really like. It's really good. It's got depth in places that you wouldn't expect it. You know, and I think I feel like if you're a fan of.
01:02:43
Speaker
Like if you if you play a game and you buy a game and you're like look I spent x dollars on this game I'm gonna get my money out of worth out of this game. I think yakuza will get you there You know, and I think if you really fall in love with the systems you can try out Completely different party comps. Maybe you just want to have a party of break dancers. I
01:03:01
Speaker
Like you won't have some utility, but maybe that's what you want to do Maybe maybe you have everyone play as the role that they start off as maybe maybe non-budget stays the homeless dude, maybe the detective is just a you know private investigator or You know the clerk stays a clerk. Sometimes that's their best class, you know Yeah, I feel like if you
01:03:26
Speaker
It's a value buy if you put the time into it. Some games you play for 10 hours and you're like, that was fun. I'll probably play it again in two years or whatever. Now, this game, I feel like I could play over and over again. Nice. That's JPGs, though, at their core. If they're good, then as far as like I found as I grow older, I evaluate games a little bit less on the like
01:03:53
Speaker
dollars per hour, but I used to, I used to consider games over that JRPGs have very good doubt value per dollar. Oh yeah. And then I play like a blip and not played runner. What was I gonna, what was I gonna play? The recent, the one right before cyberpunk, it was something to run a ghost runner.
01:04:16
Speaker
Ghost Runner, yeah, Ghost Runner. It's not a super long game. Had a lot of fun with it. Sure. It was worth the money. But yeah, no, it's a...
01:04:26
Speaker
It sounds like it sounds like a good JRPG entry and a worthy first JRPG episode over in the podcast. Hopefully this tights people off for the next over for the next three years. Well, you know, when another JRPG comes out that you guys have a modicum of interest in, let me know and we can look at schedule. Yeah, three years. Yeah.
01:04:51
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's just how long they are. And it feels like there's so much to talk about within JRPGs. It's really tough to be holistic in the coverage, I think, sometimes. We don't try. Oh, OK. OK, yeah.
01:05:13
Speaker
Um, but yeah, any other, any, any final thoughts, uh, people life advice, life, uh, Wu-Tang financial, um, no, uh, invest in Tesla. Is it too late? I don't know. Yeah. Uh, get all your investing advice from our wall street bets. That's the path to a solid financial future. Dave is shaking his head in the background. Um,
01:05:43
Speaker
I feel like Yakuza Like a Dragon has a solid core and that's fine and good, but I think that the small interactions and the shorter storylines and just the in-the-moment gameplay is why I regard this game so highly. And I could talk on and on about individual plot lines or individual character interactions or side quests, but
01:06:12
Speaker
It wouldn't do it justice. I think that a large part of the reason I like this game is because it has those little moments. And if that sounds like the kind of thing that you would like, then, yeah, I'd recommend it fullheartedly. Nice. Is that enough for you, Dave? Are you all aboard? Are you going to play JRPGs? I'm at least curious in checking this out. Yeah.
01:06:36
Speaker
And as a parting thought, I was thinking, I've heard it said that if you want somebody to pay attention to what you have to say, you don't scream it through a mic. You just speak at your normal decibel. Let people come to you because they're going to be invested in what you're actually having to say because they have to exert the effort to listen. And if you listen to something like Yakuza, you can hear a really great storyline across the series, or you can hear a Japanese man crying like a baby in a diaper.
01:07:05
Speaker
You don't know until you put your ear to the street though. Exactly. It's crying baby man or, or plot line across the years. Yeah. Sounds good.
01:07:16
Speaker
Well, thank you. Thank you, Dan, for coming on the episode. Yeah, we've had you on the list. We kind of like talking about covering different games for a while and stuff like that. I'm glad we could finally get you on here. Sure. It's it feels like we have very good coverage of this game, despite like Dave and I not knowing too much about it, like going into it. So thank you again. Yeah, my pleasure. It's good to be here.
01:07:47
Speaker
Well, I think, is there, I think that's about it. I already asked if there's anything else. So you can't do that again or anything, anything else. It's like, if you'll put enough closing sound bit, like it was really good, actually. So, so, so my concern sometimes is we have an outro that's like too good. It's like, Oh, that was too good of a transition. And much like the intro, I like things to not flow that well. Right. And as always, we'll see you in the next one. Yeah. Have a good night.
01:08:17
Speaker
and good luck.