Personal opinion but I think Yokohama is kinda a dull and boring map

[Dreambox]

Ok so I played every Yakuza game since the first one back on ps2, I even played ♥♥♥♥♥♥ episode like Dead Souls, and so far my biggest complaint with this game is not the turn based combat but actually the new map of Yokohama which is absolutely terrible in my opinion (remember, in my opinion).

I really find it empty, dull, bland, flat, damn there's no vibe into it. Yes it's pretty large (more than what I imagined when I looked at the map last year in the ps4 japanese demo ) but it's large for nothing, it's not like there's more mini games than in Kamurocho or Sotenbori in previous game, and in the end the only difference is that the points of interest are more scattered (the two arcades would take you 20 seconds to go from one to the other, now you'll take a minute by running into empty street) in the end the scattered feeling makes you actually have the impression of having less stuff to do, there is a constant impression of emptiness, proof that bigger does not necessarily mean better, it does not help that 80% of the mini games are the same old copy pasted ones, like even giving new stuffed animals to the ufo catcher since Kiwami 2 seems to be too much work for RGG studio to care about.

the streets, scenery, the props, it's less detailed than Sotenbori and Kamurocho by quite a margin, and the fact that the game makes you start in Kamurocho makes the contrast even more obvious. Even taking into account that the Yokohama map is not located in a red light district (at least no all into it) it still feels seriously empty, the park in the north of the map is a real joke to watch, it feels like something running on a ps3 (and the worst part is that the framerate is tanking there)

Many streets are useless and offer nothing, and to fill the void, rather than adding activities or minigames RGG decided to put 400 restaurants (with half of them not even having interiors that you can visit) which are useless, I mean you have some streets with 3 or 4 places to get food, why so many ? besides you also have restaurants which are copied and pasted from those of Kamurocho with a new name slapped into it (even a Majhong place is copy pasted from one in Kamurocho) the only cool place in terms of design is Chinatown. In short, I do not feel any immersion or invitation to travel even though it was still one of the key points of the Yakuza franchise for westerners.

Am I the only one being quite dissapointed with this new map ?

[Redblaze27]

Yeah, if it could find more creative uses for the map's size, it'd help so much.

But I get it, this is a more proper view of a city than just a tiny district.

[Fast Pooper]

It looks pretty nice but falls into the same trap of upscaled open-world designs which is that it doesn't really add anything to the gameplay beyond what was already available without more interesting methods of traversal.

[Rocket_D_Madman]

I don't feel that way

[まあくん]

It's not my favorite map, I kinda of agree but at least this time we are not spending all the time in Kamurocho or Sotenbori and that's enough for me lol

[Redblaze27]

Originally posted by parent child bowl:

Originally posted by Redblaze27:

Yeah, if it could find more creative uses for the map's size, it'd help so much.

But I get it, this is a more proper view of a city than just a tiny district.

Ichinjo is just a tiny district too though. I agree with OP that it isn't as densly packed with content as Sotenbori and Kamurocho were in the past. You can really feel that since that density was one of the defining features of Yakuza's open world.

Yeah, but its large enough to be a city in its own right.

Kamurocho always was just an entertainment venue.

[December]

Sotenbori for life!