Why did combat peak at Yakuza 0?

[melon]

This is a 100% genuine question and something which has sincerely baffled me for a while. I know that people don't play these games for pristine action combat. Traditionally the combat is mostly just a time waster in between heat moves, which are its strong point for being entertaining the first few times, though for some reason the heat generation and opportunity for variety are pretty low in this game too. I just don't understand why they improved it so much for 0 and then abandoned those improvements.

Yakuza 0 was my first Yakuza game and the combat was actually pretty good. It feels like you're in control, just about everything can be reasonably dodged, and the game is built around that by giving you bonuses for flawless defeats and super strong enemies that destroy you if they land even one or two hits. The combat styles were engaging and interesting to expand and master, which paid off because many enemies hit pretty hard outside of rare special attacks. Since then, I have played several more Yakuza games and none of that was there. The character does not want to turn to face the enemy or dodge on command, attacks are random and abrupt in a way that is not fun to try to counter or avoid, they ignore hits and end your combos whenever they feel like it and often immediately punish your successful grabs by breaking out of them instantly and tossing you on the ground, which like other knockdowns has an annoying slow animation.

Obviously, I didn't rely on games released before 0 having combat as good as its was, but then I tried 6, and Judgment, and now this, and they were all disappointing in comparison. Not only does it feel mindless relative to 0, but they took out entire whole features like the encounter grading bonuses and never put them back in. Is there any explanation? Did people hate 0's for some reason? Did it have low clear percentages because people found it too hard?

I still like most of what makes up the games in the series, but I wonder if I should keep getting my hopes up for good combat. Sincerely interested if there's any particular reason for this. Anybody know?

[Tim]

This thread was quite old before the recent post, so we're locking it to prevent confusion.