Yakuza 4 - Official Thread of Nagoshi the Gingerbread Man

[Team Andromeda]

Let me check the release calendar for March...

Oh, yeah, Crysis 2, Dragon Age 2 and Homefront are out this month.

Now I understand...

WTF has those games got to do with anything ?

Didn't IGN give Yakuza 1,2 and 3 good reviews though

yes they did to be fair

Entirely because "SEGA" is on the box, I am sure

That age old excuse :roll:  . How do you explain the likes of Yakuza III reviewing well, Bayonetta getting one of the highest marks ever, even the likes of SEGA All Star Racing reviewing well.

IGN reviews are bullshit, but lets not play this Everyone hates SEGA card.

[max_cady]

@Team Andromeda

I get this nagging feeling that whenever a potentially good Sega game gets released in a time when other high-profile games are to be released in the same month, said Sega game is very much downplayed.

Hopefully, I'm wrong.

[Ben]

You guys should really read the review before hating or making assumptions. I also always have to kind of chuckle when I see people assuming IGN is out to get SEGA...as if IGN has anything personally to gain by tearing down SEGA.

Sega Uranus: He says good things about the game because he's genuinely a Yakuza fan who was disappointed with this installment.

Yes, this guy did favorably review Yakuza 3 last year, 8.5...he states that the strong narrative last time helped him get past Yakuza 3's dated presentation and flaws. Yakuza 4, he claims, splits its narrative up into 4 different characters, resulting in, he says, not nearly as fleshed out or strong a story, while having to level up each character from scratch is a pain. He gave the game a 6.5 score, which is simply fair. He says most of the combat finishers are re-used from Yakuza 3 (which I'm kinda bummed out by) and that the game has little improvement visually.

[CrazyT]

Copy pasted from comment section.

"I kinda see where the reviewer is comign from. The yakuza series is far from perfect which is why it can fix so much from game to game. From what I read, it’s more of a lazy sequal with a different story, cutscenes, more characters.

I reserve my judgeement too, but I will be dissapointed if they haven’t even tried to push the game even further. It sorta feels like a cashcow this way."

Anyway I wanna try it out first. You cannot doubt that the game has ALOT of potential to become a much great experience than it is. The game hasn't changed much even compared to the first game.

edit: I read the whole review now. I think what he is saying is that he really loves the franchise but he just wants more from the "sequal . I agree with him. 6,5 is a good score. Yakuza 3 came out with around ps3's launch and indeed the game allready felt a bit dated. As the first HD game you could still forgive and imagine that it might've just been to quickly get the series to an HD console. Were far ahead now. The talented team can do much more than this.

I'm gonna finish the game with joy, no doubt about it, but i'd love to see some upgrades in the future. Better visuals, better animations, some twists to the mechanics etcetera. Things that affect the gameplay and actually make them better and more satisfying. I still cannot wait to play the game. Gonna buy it straight after I finish 3

[MadeManG74]

Fair enough then, but I'm surprised considering Aki-at was telling me that Yakuza 4 is the best game of the series, and he's probably the biggest Yakuza fan on this site.

In any event, I know I'm going to love the shit out of this game regardless. It could be Yakuza 3 with a new story and 2 new weapons and I would still play it through with a smile on my face.

[Team Andromeda]

@Team Andromeda

I get this nagging feeling that whenever a potentially good Sega game gets released in a time when other high-profile games are to be released in the same month, said Sega game is very much downplayed.

For a start one can blame SEGA's PR Dept for picking a month to release a limited game in a month of the likes of Bullet Storm, Killzone III ECT.  Not that have changed reviews; Killzone III review in IGN wasn't exactly favourable to the title,and Homefront & Dragon Age 2 had a bit of kicking in EDGE while Yakuza IV got a 7- with the biggest complaint , being the same (its the same old game).

That seems to me to be fair and Yakuza going very much the same way of Tomb Raider. Good games but little new with each update,  as the team struggle to make a game every year.

[max_cady]

You can also blame Activision and the Call of Duty franchise for essentially pushing out all viable bussiness during the X-mas season to the first quarter of the following year.

As far as Yakuza 4, thought, yes, the gameplay mechanics were dated since since the third installment, but it's kinda like saying Shenmue 2 is dated because it's roughly the same game as the first one which had been released exactly a year before.

But perhaps this might explain the huge shift from Yakuza 4 to Of the End.

[Team Andromeda]

You can also blame Activision and the Call of Duty franchise for essentially pushing out all viable bussiness during the X-mas season to the first quarter of the following year

We're in March mate, but did COD hurt sales of   Fallout: New Vega, Assassin creed brotherhood, Dead Rising II, Need for Speed HP, Fable III, MOH, GT 5

Any more excuses ?

but it's kinda like saying Shenmue 2 is dated because it's roughly the same game as the first one which had been released exactly a year before.

Shemnmue II is vastly improved over Shenmue in a whole manner of ways, not least the game engine: Which is having to handle double the characters on screen at nearly every stage, needing to draw and render the Heavily built up streets of Hong Kong and Parts of China (complete with vast fly overs on Disc III) unlike the confined  streets of Yokosuka, also the animation were improved so was the QTE (which have been copied ever since ).    

And no Shenmue II did not come a year after Shenmue, it was 2 years (well a couple of months  under).

[max_cady]

@TA

I'm not making excuses. I'm just pointing it out there(though most of the games you've mentioned were released prior to COD). Much was also made over the fact that Yakuza 3 was released in the same month as FF13 and GoW 3, plus the over-the-top reaction for Sega not including the Hostess Bars.

But when should Sega actually release their titles, then? Should they just wait till Summer comes around and then dump all their releases between June and August?

[CrazyT]

Fair enough then, but I'm surprised considering Aki-at was telling me that Yakuza 4 is the best game of the series, and he's probably the biggest Yakuza fan on this site.

In any event, I know I'm going to love the shit out of this game regardless. It could be Yakuza 3 with a new story and 2 new weapons and I would still play it through with a smile on my face.

Yeah, same! Look on the bright side though. They'll have a reason to upgrade the game if their not allready doing that. All the good to us.

[Ben]

I'm hoping Yakuza of the End is just happening to hold people over while Yakuza 5 brings a real revolution to the visuals/presentation/formula. I hope so, anyway.

Hearing about all the text dialogue (no voice acting) in Yakuza 4 really bothers me....we're on Blu-Ray disc, the game's $60, there's really no excuse.

[MadeManG74]

I'm hoping Yakuza of the End is just happening to hold people over while Yakuza 5 brings a real revolution to the visuals/presentation/formula. I hope so, anyway.

Hearing about all the text dialogue (no voice acting) in Yakuza 4 really bothers me....we're on Blu-Ray disc, the game's $60, there's really no excuse.

Time and money is a pretty valid excuse I would say.

[Ben]

I'm hoping Yakuza of the End is just happening to hold people over while Yakuza 5 brings a real revolution to the visuals/presentation/formula. I hope so, anyway.

Hearing about all the text dialogue (no voice acting) in Yakuza 4 really bothers me....we're on Blu-Ray disc, the game's $60, there's really no excuse.

Time and money is a pretty valid excuse I would say.

Well they had the whole year and are simply re-using the Yakuza 3 assets for the most part....so...I dunno.

To me all the text convos are inexcusable for a game that prides itself on its cinematic nature. Every Yakuza game I play I enjoy, but with each one the text convos bother me more and more.

[MadeManG74]

Would you rather have a game with half the story and no side-quests if it was all voice acted?

Re-using Yakuza 3 assets has nothing to do with voice acting by the way, they still need to record all that dialogue, which means paying the voice actors for their time (and doing good voice work would take a long, long time). Frankly I would rather have 100 side missions acted out with text dialogue rather than have 15 with full cutscenes.

[Team Andromeda]

I'm not making excuses. I'm just pointing it out there(though most of the games you've mentioned were released prior to COD)

It is an excuse and everyone knows COD ships every winter, so does Sonic, so does the likes of Fifa and so on. Yakuza have been completed ages ago in Japan, and so its up to the PR dept to pick a decent lauch window in the West, and no the likes of Need for Speed, Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood,  Fallout: New Vegas.

But when should Sega actually release their titles, then

Maybe SEGA should have gone for a September release date for Yakuza , but its always going to be a niche title , because SEGA West will never push it, its single platform and a game made very much for Japan. In this days and age that is a killer for a game.

I'm hoping Yakuza of the End is just happening to hold people over while Yakuza 5 brings a real revolution to the visuals/presentation/formula. I hope so, anyway

Well unless the Team are given 2 to 3 years to develop a completely new engine, its not going to happen