Yakuza 4 - Official Thread of Nagoshi the Gingerbread Man

[CrazyT]

I personally do not care about the voice acting. I mean of course it would be nice, but my main gripe is that they have the opurtunity to make the game better. Make the battle system better, make the visuals and animations better and yet they don't. I do have a feeling that they will fix all those things in yakuza 5, but if they don't.. i'll be kind of pissed.

While I was playing yakuza 3, I was actually thinking, "yakuza 4 might have improved on this, yakuza 4 might have improved on that. Oh that didn't look so well, yakuza 4 might do away with that issue. Oh this battle system hasn't really evolved from 2, yakuza 4 might feel alot better. Visuals look a bit dated, yakuza 4 might go all out in that department. Animations could be better in the future."

I think the only thing that doesn't need fix are the cutscenes. I also would love some background music in the cities (ala shenmue) for some atmosphere. I'd love that.

[Ben]

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.

It doesn't necessarily have to be all voice acted, but main  cutscenes certainly should be. Cutting back and forth between cutscene and text bubbles mid-scene is distracting and really (imo) breaks the immersion.

[cube_b3]

But you don't need every single conversation voice acted.

In Shenmue, I skipped them so I could read the subtitles quickly.

[Sega Uranus]

I think having every line of text be given a voice is pretty pointless. Less than half of the people who play through the games even start half of the substories - Some of which can take hours to complete. For the main game sure, but it is not that big of a deal. The clipping and minor control issues should be remedied before all else, and I think Yakuza 5 will attempt to combat a lot of that.

I entirely agree with the music though. I have no idea why they removed the overworld theme from Yakuza 3. It was brilliant, at least remix it!

[youtube:4b0whby9]eqCKTrAJ148[/youtube:4b0whby9]

[CrazyT]

Oh wait!!!! there WAS an overworld theme in the previous games. I totally forgot!!!!! What the hell were they thinking!!!!!!!!!!!!!!??? :shock:  :shock:  :shock:  :shock:

I knew something felt off when I started running through the overworld map, as if it was there before. But all I could think about was shenmue.

edit: just youtubed yakuza 4. the hell -_-

[Ben]

Nah that music only played occasionally. The past Yakuza games were mostly silent when walking around except during key times.

Which I actually don't mind as much as the VO. The voice acting in sidequests CAN remain silent (Though I think they could do *some* work in this area) but I really don't think there's any reason the main story cutscenes shouldn't be cutscene style. That is, afterall, the game's big feature, the story.

[CrazyT]

Oh really, like yakuza 3 than. Memories seem have faded away -_-.. Wouldn't be a bad idea if they did something similair to shenmue though.

[Sega Uranus]

I would prefer music at all times too, but Yakuza 1 and 2 had significantly more of it. I am pretty sure the overworld theme plays in the adventure mode of those games, too, but it has been awhile.

[youtube:3nmchgxm]A-4bru1Pico[/youtube:3nmchgxm]

Ignore the video editing weirdness, that is the intro. Kind of came out worse than I expected, but it is alright.

[max_cady]

A new review has popped-up...

It got an 8/10 from Eurogamer.net

A significant step up from Yakuza 3 in terms of visuals and story, Yakuza 4 still lags behind the genre's leaders, lacking the polish in interactions to make it a classic. But this is still a strong, mesmerising video game, an offer that none should refuse.

Hmmm... I'm guessing Greg Miller was just non-chalant about this game...

[Ben]

The game's averaging a 75 right now at Metacritic. Greg Miller's review is lower than the average but he's not the only one to rate the game in the 6s and he isn't even the lowest review posted.

There was really no reason to bash him. Not everyone will like every game. Yakuza 4 is getting "good" reviews but people shouldn't act like he gave a 6.5 to Uncharted 3 or something. It's a "good" game not a "BEST OF GENERATION" game.

By critic standards. Keep in mind that as a critic it's his job to rate the game as a whole package, not just the fun factor.

But really, enough about that. Is anyone playing this game yet? I'm still waiting for my copy to arrive.  :x

[max_cady]

No, no, no... Don't get me wrong, I got nothing against Greg Miller, I've ocassionally listened to his IGN podcast (Gamescoop) and he seems like an OK guy, regardless of the quality of his writing.

It's just well... Nevermind, it's counterproductive to argue about opinions.

The game's only out in the UK tomorrow, but I'm pretty sure that US pre-orders should be at doorsteps in the US soon.

[MadeManG74]

It comes out on the 24th In Australia, but I'll be at the Formula 1 until the 28th, that's when I'll be playing it!

[Ben]

Hm. Well....lol. I'm not sure how much I want to say here because I want everyone to experience the game for themselves and discover their own opinions. I just started the 3rd character, so I figure I'm slightly more than half way through the game at this point.

It's kinda tough to come up with my thoughts.....basically, though, at this point, I can probably say that even though it might end up being my least-favorite in the series, it's still a fun ride to take. Which is definitely worth something. But I'm interested in hearing people's thoughts on it, especially people who weren't as fond of Yakuza 3...Anyone else playing Yakuza 4?

[Suzuki Yu]

^^
this is my 2nd run after playing the JP ver and of course this is the best entry yet story & gameplay wise.
the new characters are just amazing specially Saejima & Akiyama

[Ben]

Hm. Well the game seems to be getting quite a bit better at the 3rd character, I guess I just hated playing as Saejima (2nd char)...which is too bad, because his character had a lot of potential. But his gameplay just kinda sucked.

I like playing as Tanimura, I even stopped (really, for the first time so far) to do some side missions as him. I like the fact that (since he's a cop) he gets radio feeds of crimes/crime scenes that you can go and investigate.

I still have to say though that the story, while intriguing, is the slowest Yakuza storyline yet, which I'm kind of bummed out by. Yakuzas 1 and 2 to me had this sense of urgency. This was less present in Yakuza 3, and now it feels practically gone. I'm sure this is building to a huge, epic ending (or I hope so, anyway) but yeah....involving, well-told, great characters, but sloooooow story.