Can I skip 3, 4 and 5 and enjoy this?

[Rocket]

I tried 3 last year when I had Game Pass but it was too clunky and I didn't want to do escort missions with the girl.

Will 6 be enjoyable if I only played 0, 1 and 2? If not, I'll probably skip this and wishlist Judgement for when it goes down in price.

Thanks.

[16-0]

6 is a pretty self-contained story but it still has references to things that happened in those games, so I wouldn't recommend it.

Also, don't lump 3,4, and 5 all together. If 3 is really unbearable then just move on to 4 and 5; they're decent games by comparison and they don't have the terrible combat or the smarmy child-rearing drama.

[Z2k1]

I'd suggest at least playing 5 because the intro of 6 spoils the ending of 5. But if you don't care for that, go ahead and skip the rest.

[Rocket]

Messaggio originale di Z2k1:

I'd suggest at least playing 5 because the intro of 6 spoils the ending of 5. But if you don't care for that, go ahead and skip the rest.

I ended up getting Game Pass! Sure I don't get to keep them but I never replayed 0, 1 or 2 anyway. Plus now I have 4,5,6 and 7.

I figure this way if it takes me 2 months to beat them all I only paid $11 to do it.

And frankly, I'm kind of glad about this. I've been playing Y4 for 2 hours now and have only fought 3 times.

2 forced tutorial battles, and 1 easy boss battle, and I'm being forced through tons and tons of cut scenes. I hope at some point I get to just play the game.

[harken23]

I loved 0 and 2 (1 was aight). 3, 4, and 5, I found unbearable. Saejima is the worst character I've ever played in a video game. (Thrill as he runs around the prison yard, doing fetch quests! Giggle with delight as he gets his ass handed to him by Kiryu, who is at full strength, while you have like 2 skills!) and 5 has the cop (Akiyama?) who you spend the first half of the game getting his fighting style down, then you have to do a VERY long fetch quest where you are no longer able to use ANY of your skills or timing, bkz you have to swing a (very slow and weak) briefcase as your only attack.

I'm considering 6, bkz I like the series, but if they're anything like 3, 4, 5, then I'm not at all interested.

[Z2k1]

Messaggio originale di harken23:

I loved 0 and 2 (1 was aight). 3, 4, and 5, I found unbearable. Saejima is the worst character I've ever played in a video game. (Thrill as he runs around the prison yard, doing fetch quests! Giggle with delight as he gets his ass handed to him by Kiryu, who is at full strength, while you have like 2 skills!) and 5 has the cop (Akiyama?) who you spend the first half of the game getting his fighting style down, then you have to do a VERY long fetch quest where you are no longer able to use ANY of your skills or timing, bkz you have to swing a (very slow and weak) briefcase as your only attack.

I'm considering 6, bkz I like the series, but if they're anything like 3, 4, 5, then I'm not at all interested.

6 is very different from 3, 4, and 5. It's the first Dragon Engine game, for starters. It basically plays like the prototype of Kiwami 2 and has roughly the same content density as the original Judgment.

[harken23]

Messaggio originale di Z2k1:

6 is very different from 3, 4, and 5. It's the first Dragon Engine game, for starters. It basically plays like the prototype of Kiwami 2 and has roughly the same content density as the original Judgment.

Cool, bkz I just bought it! It's on sale for $8, so I'm taking a bit of a flyer on it.

[WZ]

It's what I did, and it's working out very well. I was on the fence to jump straight into 7, but am glad I went with this one first. I enjoyed K2, took a break & came back to 6 like a year later. Like K1 felt after 0, this feels like a K2 expansion. Same engine, same mechanics, same everything, just a different plot. I like this quite a bit more than K1 though.

Jumping into 6 without even looking up plot summaries for 3/4/5, I was surprised at how few questions this raised. One character vanished, one returned - both of which I totally expected - and a third one was introduced. That was it. I did end up watching plot summaries after the first few acts, but out of curiosity for the details, not out of any confusion.

It's impressive how they have such convoluted plots, yet you can skip them and miss next to nothing. Instalments are rather well self-contained.

[Gamer Wolf]

It is more better to play all the series , yes some of the series are lengthy,,but some of the characters are repetitive so ...playing the whole series in its sequence is what keeps these kinds of games interesting..you come to know what happens to each characters how they grow as the series progresses ..especially Haruka's story ...
I personally finished Yakuza 6...it gets pretty emotional when such story themed games end..
Always looking to play the next..
So definitely play all the stories ...

[Z2k1]

Here's what I think of the past games, for reference:

0: Easily the best balanced game. It has just the right amount of content without dragging. Don't skip this one.

K1: Majima Everywhere drags everything down to a crawl and the Kiwami system can mess with you early if you did not unlock your kiwami actions before you go to the Tojo HQ, but it is fundamentally the same game as 0.

K2: Arguably the best Dragon Engine entry in the mainstream series. Lost Judgment blows it out of the water, but that's a spinoff.

3: Tedious as heck. If you keep in mind that it was released in the same timeframe as Assassin's Creed 2, it actually isn't bad. But it's aged the least gracefully because the orphanage sections are a drag.

4: Better than 3, but the Saejima parts are tedious.

5: Stuffed to the gills with content, but it borders on overwhelming. I thoroughly enjoyed it but it is LONG.

6: Short but sweet. It spoils the ending of 5 (it's intro is literally 5's ending), but you can enjoy 5 while still knowing how it ends. I did.

7: It's a JRPG, and a really good one at that. But the difficulty curve isn't a curve, it's a spike. Chapter 12 is disproportionately hard.

If you have to skip games, K1, 3, 4, and 5 are easily the most skippable.

[Rocket]

Messaggio originale di Z2k1:

Here's what I think of the past games, for reference:

0: Easily the best balanced game. It has just the right amount of content without dragging. Don't skip this one.

K1: Majima Everywhere drags everything down to a crawl and the Kiwami system can mess with you early if you did not unlock your kiwami actions before you go to the Tojo HQ, but it is fundamentally the same game as 0.

K2: Arguably the best Dragon Engine entry in the mainstream series. Lost Judgment blows it out of the water, but that's a spinoff.

3: Tedious as heck. If you keep in mind that it was released in the same timeframe as Assassin's Creed 2, it actually isn't bad. But it's aged the least gracefully because the orphanage sections are a drag.

4: Better than 3, but the Saejima parts are tedious.

5: Stuffed to the gills with content, but it borders on overwhelming. I thoroughly enjoyed it but it is LONG.

6: Short but sweet. It spoils the ending of 5 (it's intro is literally 5's ending), but you can enjoy 5 while still knowing how it ends. I did.

7: It's a JRPG, and a really good one at that. But the difficulty curve isn't a curve, it's a spike. Chapter 12 is disproportionately hard.

If you have to skip games, K1, 3, 4, and 5 are easily the most skippable.

I only really enjoyed 0. The cutscenes in 1 and 2 and 4 are too long winded. I like the world Sega has created. I like the characters. I just wish the acting was faster and had less dialog. I couldn't play 4 or 3 :(

I kind of want to give 6 a shot since its also Dragon Engine. Dragon Engine isn't necessary but idk I'm not having fun anymore. I just can't sit through so many really long cut scenes. I just can't do it. It's painful.

I really liked 0. I wish they were all written like 0

[Z2k1]

Messaggio originale di RocketJump:

Messaggio originale di Z2k1:

Here's what I think of the past games, for reference:

0: Easily the best balanced game. It has just the right amount of content without dragging. Don't skip this one.

K1: Majima Everywhere drags everything down to a crawl and the Kiwami system can mess with you early if you did not unlock your kiwami actions before you go to the Tojo HQ, but it is fundamentally the same game as 0.

K2: Arguably the best Dragon Engine entry in the mainstream series. Lost Judgment blows it out of the water, but that's a spinoff.

3: Tedious as heck. If you keep in mind that it was released in the same timeframe as Assassin's Creed 2, it actually isn't bad. But it's aged the least gracefully because the orphanage sections are a drag.

4: Better than 3, but the Saejima parts are tedious.

5: Stuffed to the gills with content, but it borders on overwhelming. I thoroughly enjoyed it but it is LONG.

6: Short but sweet. It spoils the ending of 5 (it's intro is literally 5's ending), but you can enjoy 5 while still knowing how it ends. I did.

7: It's a JRPG, and a really good one at that. But the difficulty curve isn't a curve, it's a spike. Chapter 12 is disproportionately hard.

If you have to skip games, K1, 3, 4, and 5 are easily the most skippable.

I only really enjoyed 0. The cutscenes in 1 and 2 and 4 are too long winded. I like the world Sega has created. I like the characters. I just wish the acting was faster and had less dialog. I couldn't play 4 or 3 :(

I kind of want to give 6 a shot since its also Dragon Engine. Dragon Engine isn't necessary but idk I'm not having fun anymore. I just can't sit through so many really long cut scenes. I just can't do it. It's painful.

I really liked 0. I wish they were all written like 0

1 and 2 came out at the tail-end of the cutscene plague that really got bad in MGS2 and Xenosaga. Admittedly those scenes were super long, but at least K2 had enough fun side content that would outpace the cutscenes in length.

[13LACK ORDER]

They literally put story summary from Yakuza 1 to 5 in the main menu. so you can pretty much skip everything and jump to 6

[LArc7thHeaven]

You'll miss some character background and you'll mostly wonder what are they doing here

[lhapekl]

if you're skipping might as well skip 6 too.

[Kleyguerth]

Messaggio originale di lhapekl:

if you're skipping might as well skip 6 too.

This, might as well skip Kiryu and start fresh with Ichiban. Whole new story, no past baggage except for "hey this guy is a past legend!" moments, hasn't aged yet and a lot of the drag has been cut, even from side content. Unfortunately it involves some grinding if you want to beat the last bit of the extra content.

I wouldn't skip any of the games. Skipping any of 3, 4 or 5 means skipping the emotional rollercoaster that is "raising" Haruka. It's amazing how you connect to her even when she's just a minor character in 4 and an annoyance in 3 and k2. On 5 it hits hard.