I beat Yakuza 2. Boy, what an experience that was!
To be honest, at first I thought the game was pretty slow and some of the first things I noticed were things I did not like. I miss how in the first game you could press square then triangle to knock most weaker enemies down and one of the first things I tried out was the YF6 arcade game... Ugh...
But that all changed pretty soon, and especially the last few hours were just so incredible. Seriously. Every tweak to the world and art, every scene with Majima, every reference to games like Streets of Rage [spoiler:3hb2mbyr](Seriously, the second to last boss was totally Mr X)[/spoiler:3hb2mbyr], Shinobi and Virtua Fighter kept me smiling throughout... Not to mention that the game is just such a massive improvement to everything in the first game. The side missions are all such a blast, like I already decided to play through the unlockable Adventure Mode and I am going to see if I can get anything else unlocked after that, but if not, oh well it is still just tons of fun anyway! I also am certain I will play through the main game a bunch of times in the future, which is so...so...so rare for RPGs.
Something I really need to bring up is that the game is probably the best game on the console graphically. I have played over 200 PlayStation 2 games (used to have to test games for it) and have never seen one game come to the level of detail this game pulls off. It is seriously mind blowing as to what they were able to pull off in such a short amount of time and how Sony themselves could not do as good.
Such an incredible experience. One of the best RPGs I have ever played. Now I am just sad that I will not get to fully play through Yakuza 3 for potentially... Years. Not only does the console have like barely anything I want on it at all, but it is just way out of my price range.